Ning Dao Covered with Snow

Chapter 422 A clever plan
After Li Xuanhe was placed under house arrest, the people in the court were in turmoil, and everyone was speculating whether the emperor had any intention of deposing the crown prince.

At that time, Prince Wu Cheng, Li Mingguang, took the opportunity to win over the hearts of the people. Among those who had originally pledged allegiance to the Crown Prince, a group of people were moved by the generous conditions offered by Li Mingguang and secretly pledged allegiance to him.

At this moment, Li Baizhou quietly approached Chao Yuanzhi and reminded him, "The opportunity you've been waiting for has arrived."

Chao Yuanzhi said with conviction, "I know that many people have turned against me and sided with King Wucheng. At this critical juncture, I must stand firm. I want the Crown Prince to know that my loyalty to him will never waver!"

To everyone's surprise, Li Baizhou said, "No, I think you should take this opportunity to pledge allegiance to King Wu Cheng."

Chao Yuanzhi was shocked: "Are you trying to make me a treacherous and wicked person?!"

"Your treachery is just a facade. I'm sending you to infiltrate King Wu Cheng's inner circle and gather intelligence for the Crown Prince. Now that the Crown Prince has been accused of assassinating the Emperor, it's very likely that King Wu Cheng and the Xie family are behind this. If you can find evidence of their framing of the Crown Prince, you can save him from this predicament."

Chao Yuanzhi's eyes lit up when he heard this; it was indeed a brilliant plan!
But he still hesitated: "If I can't find any evidence in the end, wouldn't I be guilty of treachery?"

"Don't worry, I'll stand up and testify for you when the time comes," Li Baizhou promised.

After much deliberation, Chao Yuanzhi finally agreed to Li Baizhou's proposal. He publicly stated that he would leave the Crown Prince's residence and formally pledge allegiance to King Wucheng.

However, things did not go as smoothly as he had expected. Although King Wu Cheng accepted his surrender, he remained wary of him and did not allow him to get involved in anything concerning the Crown Prince.

Chao Yuanzhi was a little anxious, so he secretly went to Li Baizhou to discuss countermeasures.

Li Baizhou suggested, "You're unlikely to get anything by just passively waiting like this. Why not try taking the initiative?"

Chao Yuanzhi humbly asked for advice: "How can we take the initiative?"

"It's very simple. You need to find a way to help King Wu Cheng deal with the Crown Prince, and then preserve the evidence of this crime. When King Wu Cheng lowers his guard, you can catch him off guard."

Chao Yuanzhi looked thoughtful.

Three days later, he proposed a plan to King Wucheng: to hide witchcraft in the Crown Prince's residence and then have people investigate, thereby confirming the Crown Prince's treachery and intention to harm the Emperor. King Wucheng adopted this plan and immediately ordered people to carry it out.

Chao Yuanzhi secretly contacted Li Baizhou, asking him to quickly inform the Crown Prince that as long as the Crown Prince changed the birth date and time on the witchcraft to his own, he could transform from a sinner who plotted against the Emperor into an innocent victim. In this way, the Crown Prince could not only escape from the vortex but also turn the tables on Li Mingguang.

Li Baizhou praised his plan as ingenious and promised to convey it to the Crown Prince.

However, in reality, Li Baizhou not only did not tell the Crown Prince about Chao Yuanzhi's plan, but also secretly hid about a hundred sets of soldiers' armor in the Crown Prince's stable.

When King Wu Cheng led the Imperial Guards to storm into the Crown Prince's residence to search, they not only found witchcraft dolls with the Emperor's birth date and time written on them, but also many soldiers' armors.

As soon as Li Jinggang returned to Chang'an, King Wucheng, together with Xie Chen and other court officials, launched a powerful accusation against the Crown Prince for plotting a rebellion.

Faced with irrefutable evidence, even Li Jing began to waver.

He locked himself in his bedchamber and sat quietly in front of Empress Liang's portrait all night. In the end, he decided to trust Li Xuanhe.

Li Xuanhe was the crown prince whom he had raised with all his heart and soul. He understood Li Xuanhe's temperament better than anyone else. Li Xuanhe had many minor flaws, such as being too kind-hearted and sometimes overly naive. But no matter what, Li Xuanhe was definitely not the kind of person who would murder his father and usurp the throne.

Someone must be behind this! Li Jing pretended to be furious and ordered that Crown Prince Li Xuanhe and Crown Princess Wan Chuying be imprisoned in Dali Temple, revealing his intention to depose the Crown Prince. He secretly instructed Xiao Wenyi to take care of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess and not let them be harmed by villains.

Crown Prince Li Xuanhe wrote a letter in blood in prison, stating his grievances. He asked Xiao Wenyi to deliver the letter to Li Jing. Every word was written with blood and tears, and every sentence was sincere. The whole letter was full of heartfelt words.

Upon seeing the blood-written letter, Li Jing was moved to tears, becoming even more convinced that the Crown Prince was innocent. He used the pretext of investigating the witchcraft case to begin a thorough investigation of the entire court.

At first, Xie Chen thought his plan had succeeded, but he gradually realized something was wrong, because the spies that the Xie family had planted in the court were being removed one by one.

In just over a month, nearly 10,000 officials and their families died, a scene of utter bloodshed.

With the Xie family's connections in the court almost completely wiped out, Xie Chen was extremely uneasy. If this trend continued, Li Jing would eventually turn the guillotine against him, and he could no longer sit idly by and wait for his doom.

Since he was going to get stabbed no matter what, Xie Chen decided to take the plunge!
He joined forces with Prince Wu Cheng, Li Mingguang, to launch a palace coup. Li Mingguang ordered someone to secretly poison Li Jing's food. After being poisoned, Li Jing fell into a coma. Li Mingguang took the opportunity to control all the imperial guards in the palace and, together with Xie Chen, forced Li Jing to sign the abdication edict.

Meanwhile, Xie Chen's younger brother, Xie Fu, led the Shence Army into the Dali Temple, intending to kill the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.

But the result was nothing.

Because Xie Tanyu secretly revealed the Xie family's movements to Zhou Nanxu, he, Zhou Nanxu, and Du Yunzhao broke into the Dali Temple first and took away the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.

At this time, the Crown Princess was already six months pregnant. She hadn't run far before she started sweating profusely, so they had no choice but to temporarily hide in Xu Hanshi's house.

Xu Hanshi's wife noticed that the Crown Princess was going into premature labor, and together with the household nanny, she helped deliver the baby.

At the same time, Xie Fu led the Shence Army to surround the Xu family.

In an attempt to delay the Shence Army's advance, Xu Hanshi was killed by Xie Fu, his blood splattering everywhere.

The Crown Princess gave birth to a baby boy, and Li Xuanhe wanted to take her and her son and run away, but the Crown Princess had just given birth and was too weak to run.

She told Li Xuanhe to take his son and run away quickly, but Li Xuanhe refused.

In order to make Li Xuanhe give up on her, the Crown Princess drew her sword and committed suicide on the spot.

Li Xuanhe was devastated by the loss of his wife, and the child in his arms cried loudly, making the atmosphere in the room extremely oppressive.

Zhou Nanxu suggested that he impersonate the Crown Prince to lure away the rebels, while Xie Tanyu and Du Yun would escort the Crown Prince and the eldest grandson of the Emperor away.

Xie Tanyu wanted to object, but Zhou Nanxu didn't give him the chance. He grabbed the crown prince's cloak, put it on himself, pushed open the door, and rushed out.

Xie Fu mistook Zhou Nanxu for the Crown Prince and ordered an arrow to be shot. Countless arrows rained down, and Zhou Nanxu was pierced through the heart by thousands of arrows before he could run far and fell into a pool of blood.

Xie Tanyu suppressed her grief and set the house on fire. Only by burning the Crown Princess's body beyond recognition could she cover up the fact that the Crown Princess had given birth to the eldest grandson of the Emperor.

They then took advantage of the chaos to escape from the Xu family through a small door.