Rebirth of the High Gate Mistress

Chapter 412 Integrity

After the eldest princess forced Empress Cao and Concubine Meng to take out the money, she said to the other concubines: "You all have your own tasks according to your rank. You just need to take out the corresponding money."

As she spoke, the eldest princess waved to the female official beside her. The female official took out a piece of paper from her sleeve pocket and read out in public the amount of silver that each concubine needed to donate according to their rank. Even Empress Cao and Concubine Meng were incapable of doing so. The other concubines did not have the courage and ability to disobey the eldest princess. The eldest princess raised more than 20 million taels of silver from the harem in one night.

Emperor Ming also ordered all wealthy noble families to donate silver to defend against enemies. Only when there is a country can there be a family. If the family and the country are in trouble, not to mention these extraneous things, even the lives of the whole family may not be safe. There are many wealthy families in the capital. After the emperor's order was issued, another 20 million taels of silver were raised in less than a few days.

Among them, the Zhenguo Government donated the most. The old lady, Xu Wanning and Ping Yang all gave almost half of their own net worth, while Jing Shu gave all of her and Li Ling's private property.

The town government alone donated ten million taels of silver.

Relying on the money raised by the eldest princess, Emperor Ming finally had the strength to fight against the powerful enemy. In the autumn of this year, Li Ling, who had just defeated the powerful enemy of the Gaoshan Kingdom in Beijing for less than half a year, was ordered to go to the north to fight against the Xiongnu.

The war in the north had just begun to take shape. Not long after Li Linggang led his army out of Beijing, bad news came from the south. The massive river dam built to control floods suddenly burst and floods poured out, covering all the villages, towns and cities in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It was destroyed and more than 30,000 people died in the flood.

The Yellow River has been flooding for years, and the imperial court has been reluctant to fund a cure. Now it has emptied its treasury for this project. Such a flaw should appear in such a costly project. Emperor Ming was furious and ordered Zhou Qun, an important minister in the cabinet, to go and review it.

Such a big accident happened, and all the officials, big and small, who were sent to the south to provide disaster relief this time, were all panic-stricken.

Li Xian was the left minister of the Ministry of Industry and was ordered to supervise the construction of water control projects. Naturally, he could not escape his involvement.

 After the accident occurred, Li Xian visited the site in person. After carefully exploring the site for several days and nights without sleep, he realized that the accident was caused by substandard construction materials.

Li Xian returned to the post house and found Feng Sheng, the right minister of the Ministry of Industry who was specifically responsible for this matter. He said angrily: "When this dam was built, I clearly remembered that stones and green bricks were to be used in the drawings, but when I was there, the damaged dam was damaged." But I found a lot of thunderwood at the end, tell me, what is going on?"

Feng Sheng closed the door, pulled Li Xian and said quietly: "It's a waste of time that you have been hanging around in the officialdom for so many years. Are you really unable to understand what's going on here?"

Li Xian's eyes moved slightly, he looked at Feng Sheng and asked, "Is this done on purpose?"

 Feng Sheng nodded secretly.

Li Xian frowned and expressed his suspicion: "Is it the King of Jin?"

Feng Sheng nodded secretly again and said quietly to Li Xian: "To be honest, I am a member of the King of Jin. If something like this happens, the prince will surely fall this time. As the saying goes, 'He who knows the current affairs is a hero.' Brother Zidu, I don’t need to say more about what to do.”

The Yellow River overflows every year during the rainy season, and disasters continue to occur in the south. After repeated reports from officials, Emperor Ming did not hesitate to spend all his treasury to build water conservancy projects in order to completely solve the problem of the Yellow River.

If this project is completed, the problems of the Yellow River will be completely eliminated.

This is an engineering measure that benefits the country and the people, and it is also a major event that can best accumulate reputation, so the prince and the king of Jin would not hesitate to squeeze their heads to take over this job. Emperor Ming originally wanted to give this opportunity to his favored King Jin, but Empress Cao took great pains to use a bitter trick to make the soft-hearted Emperor change his mind and give the job to the prince.

How could the insidious and cunning King Jin give up? He tried every means to insert his own people among the officials responsible for the construction project. This big move was exactly done by King Jin, with the purpose of taking down the prince.

After listening to Feng Sheng's words, Li Xian was so angry that he slammed the table and said angrily: "This is a big project that the country has spent huge sums of money to build, how can it be trivial? There are more than 30,000 people who died in vain."

Li Xian angrily pointed at Feng Sheng with his hand, gritted his teeth and said, "You are really bringing disaster to the country and the people!"

Feng Sheng sneered twice and said disdainfully: "Brother Zidu is so ignorant of current affairs. Haha, this world belongs to the Zhao family. Brothers are jealous. How can we worry about these royal affairs?" Really? I advise you to be smarter."

Li Xian glared at Feng Sheng and said, "Sooner or later, Da Qi will be destroyed in the hands of you little people."

When Feng Sheng saw that Li Xian was not getting enough, he also turned cold and asked Li Xian: "Then what do you want? To be honest, since His Highness King Jin dares to make this plan, he has already made it. It's a perfect idea. If you can understand the current situation and stand on the side of the King of Jin, and join us in pouring dirty water on the prince, we are of the same opinion and insist that you were ordered by the prince to use substandard materials in order to get money for the construction. Well, that’s what led to this accident.”

Li Xian snorted coldly: "That's it. Brother Feng, do you think we can get away with it and escape the blame? His Majesty has already ordered the cabinet to thoroughly investigate this matter, hum! I'm afraid this matter is not that easy to fool around with." .”

Feng Sheng laughed after hearing Li Xian's words and replied: "You, you! You are so naive. King Jin has the courage to do such a big thing, so he naturally has the ability to do it without fail."

As he said that, he patted Li Xian on the shoulder and replied: "Don't worry, the cabinet minister who came to mediate this matter is also a member of His Royal Highness the King of Jin. Let us insist that he was coerced by the prince. Jin The king will also deal with it, even if he is punished, it will only be a small salary fine. After the prince is removed and the king of Jin gains power, we will all follow the dragon's merits, so there is no need to worry about having no future."

Upon hearing this, Li Xian, who had been in high officialdom for many years, was greatly shocked. He looked sad, shook his head and murmured: "I didn't expect that the party struggle between North Korea and China has penetrated into the cabinet. What hope do we have in Da Qi? "

Feng Sheng echoed him and said: "Your Majesty is well aware of this matter. Even Your Majesty turns a blind eye and turns a blind eye. Why should we ministers worry about this?"

After that, he advised Li Xiandao: "Your government has been indecisive between the Crown Prince and the King of Jin. I advise you to follow the King of Jin to ensure that you are right. You haven't understood it yet. Your Majesty is determined." In order to support King Jin, I have been helping King Jin to suppress the prince secretly. Although Empress Cao has used tricks to ease the relationship with His Majesty, this is just a flash in the pan. His Majesty still prefers King Jin in his heart. "

"What happens now is a great opportunity to surrender to the King of Jin. I advise you to think twice."

Anger boiled in Li Xian's chest. He stared at Feng Sheng and asked: "You want me to surrender to the King of Jin? Use the more than 30,000 innocent lives as a pledge of surrender?"

He pointed at Feng Sheng and said loudly: "I can't do it! I, Li Xian, risk my life to seek justice for those souls who died tragically in the flood."

 (End of this chapter)