Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 870 Cutting Through the Gordian Knife (Part 1)
"Did he really say that?"

"Absolutely true!"

"Did you really say that in public?"

"Oh dear, Your Highness, at this point, do you think I would argue with you? So many people were watching; it must have been said in public!"

"Very well, you are very kind. I, Wang, will accept this kindness. Please accept this bag of gold and pearls and leave through the back door. I will surely repay you handsomely in the future."

"Alas...this...Your Highness, I am not here to covet these things, but rather to inform you that the Great Song Dynasty has always governed the country together with its scholar-officials."

Lord Lu has been in the north for a long time and has been influenced by the barbarian customs. He is prone to fighting and killing, which is not good.

But the prince must not be foolish; if he loses his temper and ruins a century-old family, that would be a grave sin.

"I know, I know, you go ahead..."

A moment later, Wang Hui returned to the main hall, where more than ten male members of the Wang family were already seated and whispering among themselves.

"What did the Yuwen family say?"

One of the young men stood up, looking troubled, and said, "They said they'll obey their ancestors. Since their ancestors haven't given the order, they have to let the officials do whatever they want. They also said..."

Seeing his nephew hesitate, Wang Hui frowned and snapped, "Speak up!"

The young man gritted his teeth and said, "The Yuwen family ancestor said that the family's rise and fall depends on the Song Dynasty. It is the blood that the literati have sucked from the Song Dynasty. At this critical moment, the Song Dynasty wants to take back this blood, which is of great use and is only natural."

Wang Hui snorted coldly, then said, "This old scoundrel has lived a life of wealth and luxury his whole life, and now that he's about to die, he thinks that his family's wealth and land are no longer important."

Why didn't he give away all his possessions during the Jingkang Incident?! Never mind him, what did Fan Wenchang say?

Another young man stood up: "Master Fan said he would stand with the Wang family through thick and thin. This Lu official is too outrageous. Although he keeps saying that he wants to prioritize national affairs, the men of Xichuan are fighting in Guanzhong, but he wants to disrupt Sichuan. Isn't that completely contrary to what he said before?"

Even if he's not a treacherous official, he must be a good-for-nothing who's all talk and no action, completely ignorant of worldly affairs!

Wang Hui finally calmed down a bit and snorted coldly again: "Fan Wenchang has been stupid his whole life, but he's finally become shrewd this time."

But the young man who had just spoken hesitated and said, "Uncle, are we really going to go against the governor? I heard... I heard that this governor crawled out of a pile of corpses..."

Wang Hui grabbed a teacup and slammed it to the ground, shouting amidst the shattering sound, "Is this my way of going against him?! It's clear he doesn't want to give us a way out."

They told us to give up our land, and we did; now they're doing land surveys and clearing out hidden households—they're trying to drive us to our deaths! And today he said that Prime Minister Qin is our relative by marriage, and that your aunt was probably involved in most of what he did…”

As he spoke, Wang Hui seemed both angry and guilty, and his expression became strange: "Can we be associated with the things that Prime Minister Qin did?"
If you really admit it, not only will you die without a burial place in the future, but you will also be infamous for ten thousand years!
But now he's trying to pin this blame on our family. What can I do? What can the clan do?

An elderly man in his fifties sighed, "Sixth Brother, I told you then that since your elder sister already had adopted children to support her, she shouldn't have been brought back. This whole mess is because you were too soft-hearted back then!"

Wang Hui flew into a rage, pointing at the other party and shouting, "Wang Cong! What kind of Monday morning quarterback are you playing? I ask you, weren't you envious of the connections left by Prime Minister Qin back then? Weren't you grateful for Prime Minister Qin's favor back then? How come it's all my fault now!"

Wang Cong was speechless.

Qin Hui was a complete bastard, and not only did everyone in the world know this, but even he himself knew it.

Therefore, Qin Hui continuously revised historical records and deleted historical materials during the latter half of his rule, so that in the eyes of later generations, Yue Fei, who defeated the Jin people and was feared by everyone, seemed to have only won two battles in his life.

Although Qin Hui was dead, the forces he left behind, or to put it more bluntly, the surrender faction and a portion of the pro-peace faction, still occupied key positions in the court at that time.

For example, Tang Situi, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty before Wanyan Liang's invasion of the south.

Therefore, Wang felt that bringing his elder sister back would be a way to connect with these political legacies.

Who would hold an old widow responsible?
But who would have thought that a furious governor would come from the north and keep pressing this matter?
"How about we send your older sister away now?"

Wang Hui was even more furious: "Stop dreaming! How could Lu You possibly let us go now? If we lose even our sister's support, that will be the most difficult thing of all!"

"We must not lose our composure now. Lu You only has the moral high ground of being the military governor; what else does he have?"

“In his early years, Lu You was a minor official, and later he spent his time in the north. In the court, only Minister Yu was deceived by him and protected him.”

"In Sichuan, we have a complete advantage, especially after we joined forces with the Fan family, which is enough to prevent Lu You's orders from leaving the government office."

"My meaning is simple: tomorrow we'll find a village, stir up some unrest, and say that Lu You is forcing the people to rebel! When the court joins in, I don't believe this guy can still hold onto his position as the military governor!"

“Uncle is right, I have another plan…”

The group continued to discuss countermeasures in the large mansion in Chengdu Prefecture, and before they knew it, the moon was already high in the sky.

"The moon rises above the willow branches, and lovers meet after dusk." Outside the Prince's mansion, a burly man wrapped in a black robe looked at the moonlight and murmured.

"Boss Cao, what are you muttering about?"

Cao Dache patted the back of the person beside him: "Zhao Jiu, the eldest son tells you to read more books, and Mr. Lu also tells you to read more books, but you just ignore all of these words, don't you?"

The young man who was slapped also had a heavy Shandong accent. Hearing this, he scratched his head and said, "Sigh, I'm just not cut out for studying. It's already good enough that I can read and write some words. Do you expect me to compose poems?"

Zhao Jiu complained, then touched the broad broadsword hidden under his robe and said, "Boss Cao, do you think what we did counts as merit? Can we get an extra two hundred mu of permanent farmland in Shandong?"

Cao Dache glared at Zhao Jiu before slowly saying, "Of course it counts as merit. When we went south, Prince Han personally guaranteed that we would protect Mr. Lu and obey his orders. Have you forgotten?"

Zhao Jiu shrank his neck, then hugged his Mo Dao again, looked up at the moon: "I just don't know when I'll be able to return to Shandong. It's really worrying me to death."

"homesick?"

"You do not want?"

"Of course I want to, but it's common for a man to travel thousands of miles to make a name for himself. What's so special about coming from Shandong to Sichuan?"
Let me tell you, when the King of Han unifies the world and enters Sichuan, we people will be of great use. Who knows, you, Zhao Jiu, might even become a general!

Zhao Jiu mumbled a few words, then perked up his ears.

A moment later, Zhao Jiu imitated the call of a cuckoo a few times. After hearing the sounds of birds rising all around, he said to Cao Dache, "Boss Cao, things are settled!"

Cao Dache spat the mint leaf he was chewing onto the ground, grinned maliciously, and said, "Then let's get to work!"

Having said that, Cao Dache tightened his robe, then covered his face with gauze, looked at the slowly opening side gate of the Prince's mansion, drew his sword and pointed forward: "Charge!"

The area around the Prince's mansion, which covered dozens of acres, was bustling with people. Nearly a hundred armored soldiers, gagged and with their mouths full, rushed into the mansion and immediately alerted the guards. The two sides then engaged in a bloody battle.

A few Sichuanese soldiers in the armored ranks shouted: "Kill the land-seizing traitors! Slaughter the Wang family traitors!"

Chaos spread from all directions to the center of the Prince's mansion.

Hearing the shouts of battle, Wang Hui staggered out of the house and saw flames all around. He collapsed to the ground, wailing, "That barbarian Lu You really wants to kill me! He really wants to kill me!"

The Wang clan members, who had just been strategizing and winning battles from afar, all turned ashen-faced.

Just as Lu You said before, this is a time of great contention. A difference of two years could mean the difference between national ruin and the continuation of the dynasty for a hundred years. He has no time to get entangled with a bunch of fools who can't see the situation clearly.

Seize the opportunity and wipe out all the male members of your main lineage, eliminating any possibility of retaliation from the root.

In political struggles at this level, it is simply impossible to expect outsiders to fight for you and seek justice.

Logically speaking, even if there were an inside accomplice, in the dark, the male members of the Wang family could have escaped the disaster by hiding in any corner of their large mansion, which covered dozens of acres.

However, that is not actually the case.

After Zhao Jiu rushed into the Prince's mansion, he originally traveled with a five-person team, killing members of the Wang clan along the way.

As the fighting intensified, Zhao Jiu became separated from his comrades and inexplicably ended up in a kitchen.

A middle-aged man dressed in thin clothes was tending a large pot of boiling water when he saw a soldier covered in blood arrive. He was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground.

Zhao Jiu didn't make things difficult for the man who was clearly a servant. He simply waved his hand and said in a deep voice, "It's none of your business. Where is the master? Point me in the right direction."

The middle-aged servant hurriedly pointed in a direction, then hesitated only slightly before whispering, "I'll lead the way for you, sir..."

Having said that, the middle-aged servant crossed his arms, left the stove, and moved forward, shivering slightly in the winter wind.

Zhao Jiu frowned: "Why do you only have three fingers on your right hand? Also, why aren't you wearing more clothes?"

Unexpectedly, after asking this question, the middle-aged servant burst into tears on the spot. After a moment, he replied, "In reply to your question, sir, my family is poor, so the whole family sold themselves into slavery and became your adopted sons. Naturally, we don't have any nice clothes."

My wife served in the inner courtyard. When winter came, she wanted to take two wads of cotton from the tattered clothes in the Nobleman's storeroom to make me a warm coat, but the Nobleman discovered her on the spot and beat her to death for theft.

I... I may escape death, but I can't escape punishment. Two of my fingers were chopped off... Waaah..."

At the end, the middle-aged servant broke down in tears again.

After standing there in the cold wind for a moment, Zhao Jiu remembered what was circulating in the army when the Jingnan army dealt with the powerful clans in the north.

These people are not subjects of the Han people, but rather the root cause of the Han dynasty's decline to this state!
"Don't follow me. Stay in the kitchen and let things be clear in a few days."

(End of this chapter)