Covering the sky: Starting with the holy body, the immortal Taoist comes to attack

Chapter 175: Conspiracy?

The massacre committed by the Chang family is clearly just one of many dark crimes.

Following this, two more major cases that shocked the entire nation broke out, both of which were closely related to powerful clans.

The first case was the murder of the imperial envoy.

The case took place in Onma Prefecture, located in the south.

The southern region of the Great Zhou Dynasty has always been the stronghold of powerful clans and aristocratic families, with countless large landowners and high-ranking officials.

Even powerful families like the Sima clan, who were once powerful ministers, had to form marriage alliances with these families and cede a great deal of benefits in order to finally gain control of the government and almost succeed in usurping the throne.

Although the Sima clan has been destroyed.

However, the lingering effects they left behind remain, meaning that the power of the aristocratic families in the south is even more prosperous than before.

Wenjian Prefecture was the stronghold of these powerful families, and often even the local government dared not easily offend them.

The murder of the imperial envoy occurred against this backdrop.

Ten years ago, a flood occurred in Wenjian Prefecture. The central government ordered disaster relief and distributed a considerable amount of relief funds.

And right after that is...

Zhang Zhengqing, a candidate censor in the capital, was also selected as an imperial commissioner to go to Wenjian Prefecture to supervise and investigate the implementation of disaster relief funds.

At a time when the powerful Sima family was fiercely vying for power, Zhang Zhengqing, who had repeatedly impeached the Sima family, was already seen as a thorn in their side.

Therefore, he was driven far away to the south, which can almost certainly be attributed to the machinations of the Sima clan.

Although Zhang Zhengqing came from a minor aristocratic family, he was always upright, honest, and hated evil.

Upon arriving at the location, he discovered that Zhao Deyuan, the prefect of Wenjian, had conspired with two prominent local families—the Li and Yan families—to embezzle more than 80,000 taels of disaster relief funds.

Zhao Deyuan and his accomplices offered him a large sum of money as a bribe, but were refused.

So they secretly bribed Zhang Zhengqing's followers.

Three days later, Zhang Zhengqing was ambushed and killed by a poisoned arrow during his inspection tour. He then staged the attack scene.

Zhao Deyuan reported that he had died suddenly and hastily prepared the body for burial.

Zhang Zhengqing's younger brother, who came to handle the funeral arrangements, noticed something amiss. He searched through his brother's belongings and found a half-page blood-written note in the lining of his brother's boot, which read "There are ghosts in the disaster relief efforts."

He also noticed black blood seeping from the coffin, so he paid a large sum of money to hire a coroner from a neighboring county, who dissected the coffin and found it was poisoned with pigeon.

This was a clear case of murdering the imperial envoy!

however.

At this critical juncture, the Sima family successfully seized power and deposed the then-King of Zhou.

In the following year, the Sima family purged dissidents, causing turmoil in the court and among the people, and even the Ministry of Justice had to replace one or two batches of officials.

This was during a chaotic period when those in power were too preoccupied with local affairs.

Zhao Deyuan, the prefect of Wenjian, and his accomplices, namely the powerful Li and Yan families, bribed Sima Shang's uncle, who was then a Pillar of State General, with a large sum of money.

Ultimately, the murder was suppressed.

On the other hand, Zhang Zhengqing's family, who were victims, were silenced or threatened, and ultimately dared not speak out anymore, otherwise they would have faced the calamity of being wiped out.

but.

Zhang Zhengqing's youngest son has never forgotten the fact that his father was murdered, and has secretly kept the blood-written letter, the coroner's autopsy results, and other evidence of the crime.

Before his mother passed away, she always told him to seek justice for his father and family.

This time, the massacre of the Chang family in Hanoi County was exposed after His Majesty King Gu Xuan uprooted them and revealed them in the official gazette.

Zhang Zhengqing's youngest son finally saw a glimmer of hope.

He risked his life to secretly come to the capital and knelt down to beg for mercy in front of the Imperial Guard camp.

Obviously.

He may have received guidance from a master and learned that the current Imperial Guard system is a direct force of His Majesty the King of Zhou.

Soon, Zhang Zhengqing's young son was placed under strict protection by the Southern Garden Imperial Guards, preventing him from being silenced by the assassins sent by Zhao Deyuan and his accomplices.

With Gu Xuan's personal intervention, elite soldiers from the Imperial Guards were dispatched to supervise the investigation, and the Ministry of Justice was ordered to conduct a thorough investigation.

Finally, the truth behind this sensational case came to light!
An investigation revealed that Zhang Zhengqing's entourage's testimonies were contradictory and full of loopholes, and the so-called "mountain bandits" were actually assassins sent by Zhao Deyuan, the then prefect of Wenjian Prefecture, and his accomplices.

Ten years later.

Zhao Deyuan had long since retired from officialdom and returned to his hometown of Linfu, where he smoothly became the patriarch of the Zhao clan.

Meanwhile, the powerful Li and Yan families, who conspired with him, have flourished in recent years, with their tenant farmers and servants now surpassing their former strength.

however.

The evidence is irrefutable and cannot be denied!
And that's not all.

The other crimes committed by the Zhao, Li, and Yan families were also exposed one by one.

Besides plotting against the imperial envoy, their numerous evil deeds, such as murder, violent monopoly, and abduction of women, are a veritable collection of all the sins of aristocratic families!
Enraged, Gu Xuan dispatched elite imperial guards, divided into three groups of three hundred soldiers each, to accompany and protect the investigators.

Although each imperial guard unit consisted of only three hundred soldiers, they were all fully armed and each one was capable of taking on ten men.

Under such absolute military suppression, the so-called servants of the Zhao, Li, and Yan families were utterly helpless, which only increased the evidence against them.

finally.

These three families were executed according to the law, their property confiscated, and their clans exterminated!
Among them, there may be some who did not personally commit evil, but still enjoyed the benefits brought by their vicious clansmen, so they cannot be said to be particularly wronged.

……

The second major case was the case of the young businessman's treason.

This case was actually one that Gu Xuan had been keeping an eye on since he returned from the northern border.

Qingzhou was a large prefecture within the Great Zhou Dynasty, located near the northwestern border.

The so-called Qing merchants are short for the Qingzhou merchant group.

Specifically, it refers to the merchant groups within Qingzhou, represented by the eight major families, including the He, Wang, Ma, and Gu families.

For decades, the Great Zhou Dynasty had suffered defeats in battles against the Jie tribe in the north for various reasons, and thus sought to weaken the Jie tribe through blockade.

however.

Blockades naturally bring huge profits.

It was under the lure of such exorbitant profits that the eight major merchant families of Qinghai bribed border soldiers to smuggle grain, salt, iron, and other goods into the Jie tribe.

Naturally, they made a fortune!
In this process, some short-sighted border troops also reaped considerable benefits.

In their view, making money is nothing shameful, and what is there to value in a small tribe like the Jie with tens of thousands of servants?

Over the years, the Great Zhou Dynasty has pacified countless small tribes and has always been the dominant power on this land, so there is no need to worry.

However, the blockade strategy failed because of the traitorous acts of these people.

It was through this "accommodation" that the Jie tribe obtained extremely precious and scarce materials, which enabled them to grow stronger and eventually become a terrifying behemoth!

In a different future, if the Jie tribe eventually invaded the Central Plains and seized power, the Qing merchants might very well be made imperial merchants and enjoy unimaginable privileges. It's fair to say that in the eyes of these families, only their own family's interests matter!
For their own benefit, they can betray their fellow human beings and their motherland, just to gain their own wealth and prosperity and lasting glory!

At first.

After Gu Xuan personally went to the northern border and pacified the Jie tribe, he naturally noticed something amiss.

However, at that time, he had been away from the capital for too long and it was very necessary for him to return as soon as possible.

That's why they didn't stay to thoroughly investigate the matter.

However, Gu Xuan still left himself a backup plan, ordering several trusted confidants to secretly investigate the matter.

Moreover, the eight prominent families of Qingshang were indeed no ordinary people.

From the moment Gu Xuan took over the northern border army, they astutely chose to back down and heavily bribed some influential generals in the border army to cover up their past crimes.

Because of this.

For these reasons, most of the evidence of crimes committed by the eight major Qing merchants was eventually collected by Gu Xuan's confidants.

During this period, they experienced countless perilous struggles, battles, and even assassinations!

Of the six trusted men left behind by Gu Xuan, two were brutally murdered and another was seriously injured.

But they eventually brought the evidence they had collected back to the capital. Despite facing death at every turn, they ultimately accomplished their mission in large part!

Upon receiving the news, Gu Xuan not only highly praised and compensated these meritorious officials, but also immediately launched a swift and decisive attack!
To prevent corrupt soldiers in the northern border army from leaking information.

Gu Xuan, under the pretext of the royal family worshipping Mount Taishi in Qingzhou, sent a sacrificial procession of more than a thousand people, among whom were actually five hundred imperial guards in plain clothes.

Furthermore, a staff officer from the Imperial Guard, well-versed in law and of humble origins, was appointed as the imperial envoy to investigate the case.

After the imperial envoy arrived, he used Gu Xuan's gold medal and secret edict as a signal to request another 500 personal guards from the governor of the northern border, and finally wiped out the eight major families of Qing merchants.

These eight families are all powerful, each employing hundreds or even thousands of skilled guards.

However, in the face of elite imperial guards and border troops, they were ultimately just a motley crew, unable to withstand even a few attacks from the enemy formations.

The imperial envoy already possessed evidence of these people profiting from the national crisis, and showed them no mercy whatsoever.

Whether they were members of the eight great families or their fierce guards, more than half of them were killed on the spot.

As for the remaining family patriarchs and core elders, they were taken in heavy shackles as evidence and escorted back to the capital.

And in this process.

Some border soldiers involved even tried to cover up their crimes and intended to kill the members of the eight major families along the way.

After a series of battles, both sides suffered losses, but the Imperial Guards, trained by Gu Xuan, were ultimately much more elite, while the border troops, with their guilty consciences, were less effective and failed to achieve their goal.

In the capital, the eight prominent Qing merchants were executed in accordance with the law.

His crimes of colluding with the enemy and betraying the country were also announced to the world in the form of official gazettes!
As for the subsequent handling of the northern border troops involved, Jiang Bushi and the governor of the northern border were to continue to deal with them in accordance with military law.

……

The extermination of the Chang clan, the murder of the imperial envoy by the Wen family, and the treasonous act of the eight prominent Qing merchant families—these three major cases, when combined, shocked the entire Great Zhou Dynasty!
Later generations referred to these three cases collectively as the "Three Great Cases of the Divine Martial King Zhou"!
In fact.

The reason these three cases had such a profound impact is not only because of the seriousness and sensational nature of their details, but also because of the disclosures made about them by the official gazette.

And that's not all.

Under the instruction of His Majesty King Gu Xuan, the official gazette provided a more in-depth explanation of the case, mainly to let more people know the true face of powerful aristocratic families.

"There are only individuals who betray interest groups, not groups that betray interest groups."

At the end of the article, a sentence was added to refute the defenses made by some people who cited certain philanthropists and intellectuals from aristocratic families.

no doubt.

These powerful articles published in the official gazette shocked the entire court and the public!
Throughout the Great Zhou Dynasty, almost all the powerful clans and aristocratic families were like ferocious beasts that had been provoked into a defensive posture.

Amid shock, hostility, and vigilance, they viewed these issues of the official gazette as a matter of life and death, devising various methods to prevent the common people from seeing them, and even destroying them, especially in some remote prefectures and counties.

However, these issues of the official gazette eventually circulated among the common people in the capital and several other major cities.

And as it circulated throughout the country, gradually, even some people in remote areas learned about the answers to these three episodes and vaguely heard about the related comments.

All of a sudden.

A discussion about powerful and aristocratic families has been sparked among the people throughout the country.

So this is what those high and mighty adults really are like!
They were so brazen as to wipe out entire families, so audacious as to openly murder the imperial envoy, and even, for their own selfish reasons, to fund foreigners who harmed their own people!
In fact.

Although the lower classes had limited education, not many of them were literate.

But they weren't stupid; they always saw things clearly and there were always uprisings against them.

Their resistance failed to develop into a large-scale movement.

Firstly, the powerful clans in this land are indeed formidable, and their organizational strength is significantly greater.

Secondly, because over the years, people at the grassroots level have lacked a clear and correct direction and have been unable to form a solid organizational group.

The various measures taken by Gu Xuan after his arrival were for the second reason.

The secret dissemination of the "Great Harmony Society" ideology among the Imperial Guards and martial arts practitioners was aimed at establishing a completely new and effective program.

The cleanup and comprehensive rectification of the Imperial Guard system meant not only providing military support but also forming a reliable team.

With the outbreak of three major cases and the disclosure of information in the official gazette, many powerful families within the dynasty finally became fully vigilant!

……

In the capital city.

In a secluded room, under the dim light, several figures were plotting something, or perhaps sighing.

"His Majesty's intentions are already quite clear..."

"We are at their mercy, like fish on a chopping board!"

"Are we just going to sit here and watch his butcher's knife fall?!"

"I agree. Hesitation only leads to trouble!"

"That makes sense... For the sake of our descendants, we have no choice but to risk everything!"

After meticulous planning, these people finally achieved an unprecedentedly bold plan.

This day marked the Empress Dowager's fiftieth birthday.

Although His Majesty the King of Zhou has been working diligently and advocating frugality since he overthrew the Sima clan, the Empress Dowager's birthday still needs to be celebrated.

Most importantly, His Majesty the King of Zhou must be present in person.

Therefore.

On this morning, His Majesty King Zhou finally returned to the palace from the Imperial Guard camp on the outskirts of the city.

And this ultimately gave those conspirators a rare opportunity!

(End of this chapter)