Chapter 063: Eternal Joy (Part 2)
When Zhang Jing's head fell to the ground, heavy snow covered the city of Yunjing.
Emperor Zhengyuan woke up the next day and let Concubine Wu support him and stand by the window for a while. The snow on the green tiles had not melted yet, and the whole place was covered with white frost.
Emperor Zhengyuan immediately spat out blood.
"Your Majesty!" Concubine Wu was in a panic. She immediately ordered Liang Shenfu to call someone to the Imperial Medical Bureau, and she and the palace maids helped Emperor Zhengyuan back to lie on the couch.
"Call Zheng Jian ..."
Emperor Zhengyuan's chest heaved.
Liang Shenfu immediately bowed and responded, "Sir, I will send someone to invite them now!"
The chief physician of the Imperial Medical Bureau was the first to arrive at the Qinghe Hall. He knelt beside the dragon couch and took the pulse of Emperor Zhengyuan. It was at this time that Zheng Jian, a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, was brought in by Liang Shenfu.
"Your Highness, I am Zheng Jian. I pay my respects to your Majesty."
Zheng Jian bowed outside the curtain.
"It was you who submitted the memorial about Zhang Jing secretly accepting Liang Tian Qianqing's favor," Emperor Zhengyuan said, lying on the couch with his eyes half open, not even looking at the person behind the curtain. "Mr. Zheng, have you ever thought that this memorial of yours would put Zhang Jing to death?"
Zheng Jian's heart tightened. Today's situation was indeed beyond his expectations. When he submitted this memorial, he never thought that it would lead to Zhang Jing being sentenced to death.
"I am... terrified."
Zheng Jian's lips trembled slightly.
"You should be terrified."
Emperor Zhengyuan sneered from behind the curtain, and then coughed violently. "Meng Yunxian still has feelings for him, and his student He Tong has always respected him as a teacher. Those young men who cried for him at the bottom of the execution platform yesterday, they should all want to eat your flesh, drink your blood, and bite you to pieces now."
"Officials!"
Zheng Jian trembled all over and knelt down.
Emperor Zhengyuan ignored him and just raised his hand. Concubine Wu and the chief physician immediately came out from behind the curtain and walked out of the hall.
Only Liang Shenfu was still by Emperor Zhengyuan's side in the hall, serving him a pill to relieve his headache.
"Zhang Jing wanted to die, and your memorial gave him the opportunity. He contradicted me and hurt my heart, all for the word 'death'. You thought you were scheming against him, but you didn't know that you had already been his pawn. Now it is said outside that Zhang Jing died unjustly, and that snow is the best proof."
There was a kind of tiredness and turbidity in Emperor Zhengyuan's voice. "Someone must have remembered his dying words. He wanted to use his life to make those who believed in him also believe in his student who defected to the enemy and betrayed the country."
"Your Majesty, there is irrefutable evidence that Xu Hexue surrendered to the enemy with 30,000 Jing'an troops. When Censor Jiang executed Xu Hexue in Yongzhou, all the subjects of Great Qi applauded. Now, based on Zhang Jing's few words before his death without any evidence, it is really unbelievable!"
Zheng Jian fell to his knees and kowtowed, "I think there are some doubts about the Daizhou grain bill!"
The hall suddenly became quiet.
Zheng Jian was sweating profusely and felt worried, as if the time was long and unbearable.
Liang Shenfu carefully wiped the emperor's beard and stepped aside. Emperor Zhengyuan just raised his eyelids and looked at Zheng Jian who was kneeling outside the curtain. His gloomy expression finally eased a little, and he added a bit of satisfaction. "Then retry Qian Weiyin, you and the Court of Criminal Justice will do it."
The emperor's tone was calm, but there was an indescribable intimidation. Zheng Jian's back was covered with cold sweat. His forehead rested on the cold ground, and his beard trembled: "Your Majesty... obeys your order."
The snow hasn't melted yet, and today is too cold to be a spring day in late March.
Zheng Jian walked out of the Qinghe Hall, feeling almost exhausted. Ding Jin, the Imperial Censor who had been seeking to see Emperor Zhengyuan outside but was denied entry, helped him up and walked down the stairs with him.
Ding Jin held up the hem of his clothes with one hand, "Master Zheng, are you panicking now?"
"The government wants me to work with the Court of Criminal Justice to try Qian Weiyin."
Zheng Jian's face turned pale. "What do you mean by this?"
Hearing this, Ding Jin turned his head to look at him, "Master Zheng, why do you have to ask so many questions? The government asked you to interrogate Qian Weiyin, so you went ahead and interrogated him. Don't you know where your way out is?"
Zheng Jian can be considered a close minister of the emperor. The emperor was plotted against by Zhang Jing for his life. Now that he has come to his senses, he is furious and has nowhere to vent his anger. Today, the emperor's words are meant to make Zheng Jian take the responsibility for this.
Zhang Jing's death and yesterday's snow caused rumors to spread throughout Yunjing. Now Zheng Jian had only one way to go, and that was to ask Qian Weiyin, who was currently imprisoned, to change his testimony.
As long as Qian Weiyin admitted that the Daizhou grain bill was fictitious, he could use it to overturn Zhang Jing's previous memorial.
"I hope Qian Weiyin can be more sensible."
Zheng Jian sighed.
At the end of March in the 20th year of Zhengyuan, the Imperial Academy's Attending Academician and the Court of Criminal Justice interrogated the criminal official Qian Weiyin of Fengzhou for ten days. However, what Zheng Jian and others did not expect was that no matter how severe the punishment was, Qian Weiyin gritted his teeth and refused to give in.
"Qian Weiyin! I'm here to interrogate you on the orders of the government, yet you still refuse to explain why you gave false testimony?" Inside the dark prison, Zheng Jian slammed the table and glared at the middle-aged prisoner who was tied to a wooden frame with almost no intact skin on his body.
He deliberately mentioned the government because he wanted to use the government to put pressure on this person.
"The crime I want to confess is not perjury, but reselling government grain and embezzling government silver..." Qian Weiyin's face was half covered by messy hair. He breathed hard and saw Zheng Jian's face behind the long case becoming increasingly livid. He suddenly laughed, and blood foam choked in his throat. He coughed for a while and spit it out. "Mr. Zhang died for his faith. His heart and virtue are the brightest! I have been a criminal official for more than ten years because of my momentary selfish desires. I have read the books of sages in vain and served as a parent official in vain! But now I don't want to make mistakes again, and I don't want Mr. Zhang's good name to be tarnished because of me after his death!"
"Every word in this confession is true! I, Qian Weiyin, admit this crime, but not the crime of perjury! I have no way to redeem myself in this life, and the only option is death!"
Qian Weiyin screamed, his eyes red.
If, he had not been carried away by a momentary thought, if, he had thought more about the "Four Sentences of Hengqu" which he had read repeatedly when he was studying hard.
Establish your mind for heaven and earth, and establish your destiny for the people.
To carry on the lost knowledge of the ancient sages and to bring peace to the world for all eternity.
These were the words of the ancient sages that made his blood boil whenever he read them. He thought that he would become a good official in the future, but later, when he was an official in Daizhou and dealt with money and his life, he forgot all these.
One wrong step, all wrong.
But at least, now that things have come to this, he dares not make any more mistakes, and he is no longer afraid of death.
Qian Weiyin refused to change his testimony until his death, and the interrogation by Zheng Jian and the Criminal Court ended in a hasty manner. Based on Qian Weiyin's confession and the evidence he handed over, Emperor Zhengyuan questioned more than a dozen officials involved in the Daizhou grain draft.
More than a dozen criminal officials were executed. Emperor Zhengyuan could no longer avoid the Daizhou grain bill. In early April, Emperor Zhengyuan issued an edict to blame himself and ordered Daizhou to rebuild the Taoist palace and resettle the hungry refugees, and then informed all the subjects in the world.
"I have issued an edict of apology. The emperor has not attended court for three days."
Pei Zhiyuan helped Meng Yunxian walk to the back hall of the Council of State. After Zhang Jing passed away, Meng Yunxian fell ill and only came to the palace today to discuss matters reluctantly.
"Look how powerful Chongzhi is. He wants the emperor to issue an edict to confess his sins. Even if the emperor is unwilling, he has to do so." Meng Yunxian found a folding-back chair and sat down, but saw a person curled up on the chair next to him. He was startled and looked closely, only to see that it was Hanlin scholar He Tong.
"Mr. He, why did you fall asleep here?" Pei Zhiyuan reached out and patted He Tong's shoulder. "Mr. Meng is here. Wake up."
When He Tong heard the words "Mr. Meng", he opened his eyes and turned around to see Meng Yunxian sitting next to him. He immediately stood up and bowed to Meng Yunxian, but his current appearance was not decent because he was sleeping in the chair and his official uniform was a little wrinkled.
Meng Yunxian looked at his messy beard and asked, "Why don't you shave it?"
"In addition to being busy with the teacher's funeral these days, I was also organizing the poems my teacher gave me , so I forgot about these things." He Tong's voice sounded hoarse as if he had been staying up all night.
"No matter how young you are, you can't endure this. Chongzhi doesn't want to see you not cherishing yourself." Meng Yunxian said.
Hearing Meng Yunxian mention his teacher, He Tong's eyes became sore. His throat moved and he looked up at Meng Yunxian, "Mr. Meng..."
"Do you know whose poems the teacher asked me to organize are from?"
Meng Yun paused, "Isn't it his own?"
He Tong shook his head, "No."
"It's Xu Hexue's."
This name was once written by him in his own articles, and he relegated it to the dust stroke by stroke. He Tong looked at Meng Yunxian in confusion, "Mr. Meng, I hated him. If he hadn't betrayed the country, my teacher wouldn't have been exiled, and my teacher's wife and brothers wouldn't have died on the road to exile... But, the poems that my teacher asked me to sort out before he died were all the poems of Xu Hexue, and they were all memorized by my teacher himself."
"I would like to ask Mr. Meng, what the teacher said..."
He Tong thought of the execution platform that day, and the words his teacher said in front of the guillotine that he had heard from others. His throat became dry and he suddenly became hoarse.
"You should know your teacher. He would not have made such an assertion without solid evidence," Meng Yunxian took over the conversation and was silent for a moment. The bright light from the window fell on the armrest of the chair. He stared at it with his eyes lowered. "He Tong, your teacher was indeed exiled because of his involvement, but before that, it was your teacher and I who harmed him first."
As soon as these words came out, He Tong's heart was shocked.
"When Chongzhi and I implemented the New Deal, we not only made countless enemies in the court, but also were hated by the royal family. Chongzhi and I promoted the power of military officers, which was made a big deal by Wu Dai and his ilk at the time, causing Xu Hexue at the border to be constrained in many ways. Although we still don't know who caused him and the 30,000 Jing'an Army to suffer injustice, it's hard to say that Chongzhi and I were not involved."
Meng Yunxian's grief almost broke his heart and lungs, for Zhang Jing, and also for the young general who had gone to the border and never returned: "He Tong, listen to your teacher and preserve the last trace of Xu Hexue in this world..."
…
Ni Su had previously cured Miss Zhang's mother's illness. In the past two days, Miss Zhang talked about her with a neighbor who lived in the same alley, so the woman came to ask Ni Su to treat her illness.
Ni Su went to the woman's home to see the patient for several days in a row. She put the light in a small wicker medicine basket that she carried with her. Even in the daytime, she would carry a lamp with her when she went out, regardless of the strange looks from others.
"It's broad daylight, why are you holding a lantern, young lady?"
The woman's daughter-in-law saw her off from home, but couldn't help but ask.
"Waiting for someone."
Ni Su answered briefly, and without caring how strange her daughter-in-law's expression was, she turned and walked towards the entrance of the alley, holding the medicine box in one hand and the glass lamp in the other.
The medicine basket was very small and she carried it cross-body. From time to time, she would glance at the light inside. It had not yet gone out, but it was very dim. She lit many candles every day, but could not make it any brighter.
Xu Hexue.
She remembered his name.
The year when the 19-year-old young general pleaded guilty and died in Yongzhou, Ni Su was only one or two years old. She had actually heard of this name in her childhood. According to storytellers, he had a green face and fangs, looked ferocious and evil, and had surrendered to the enemy and betrayed his country.
This was all Ni Su's impression of the name before, but from Meng Yunxian's miscellany, she read about his past before all the sins he had committed.
The Xu family of Qingya Prefecture is a prominent family. In the old dynasty, when there were many aristocratic families, they also had the glory of ruling the world together with the king. Even though the aristocratic families declined within the next hundred years, the Xu family has a strict family tradition, and all the children of the Xu family are proficient in both civil and military skills.
Xu Hexue's father, Xu Xian, was a famous calligrapher in the Great Qi Dynasty. However, when the Hu people set foot in Pingjiang, he was appointed as General Tiance and defended the front line for nearly ten years, which delayed the plan of the Danqiu Hu people to use Pingjiang to advance into the northern border for nearly ten years.
Xu Xian died of his injuries. After his death, Pingjiang was conquered by the Hu people. Xu Hexue, who was only seven years old, went to Beijing with his mother Zhou and his brother Xu Qingyu.
At that time, the late emperor was still in power and arranged a marriage between Xu Qingyu and Princess Wenduan, so Xu Hexue lived with his mother in the princess's mansion.
Xu Qingyu was the consort of Princess Wenduan and was also the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple at that time.
Xu Hexue became Zhang Jing's disciple at the age of seven. When he was thirteen, his mother died of illness. At that time, the Hu army was approaching Qingyazhou. Because his mother did not forget his father before her death, Xu Hexue returned to Qingyazhou alone with his mother's ashes and buried his mother and father together, and returned to Beijing safely in the melee.
At the age of fourteen, he passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi, and his reputation spread throughout the Great Qi. When he was a young man in the prime of his life, he heard that Qingyazhou was conquered by the Hu people.
My elder brother Xu Qingyu was born with many illnesses and had been troubled by the worries about his country and family for many years. He was already very sick and frail. When he heard that his homeland had fallen, he passed away soon after.
As he was about to enter the officialdom, Xu Hexue, after taking care of his brother's funeral with his sister-in-law, resolutely went to the border and joined General Miao Tianzhao's Huning Army.
At the age of fifteen, he led 700 cavalrymen in Danyuan, penetrated deep into the rear of the Hu people's hinterland, burned the Hu army tents, and killed 2,000 Hu people in the rear with his 700 men. He also captured alive Ze Rong, the son of the prince who was supervising the battle in the rear, and opened a gap in the elite of the Hu people for Miao Tianzhao who was fighting in the front.
This battle made Xu Hexue famous.
At the age of sixteen, he left the Huning Army and took command of the Jing'an Army. He killed the Hu people in Yinma Lake and utterly terrified them. He even killed the Hu prince Duoling with his own hands and recaptured Yanguan, a thousand miles away.
At the age of seventeen, he was stationed at Juhan Pass, making the city impregnable. After three battles, the Hu people were frightened and dared not to further seize the Han territory in the north.
At the age of nineteen, he was granted the title of General Yujie and commanded the three armies of Yongzhou. This year was the peak of his fame, but also the year when his sword-like and strong heart fell into the mire.
The young General Yujie was executed by slicing in Yongzhou City, and from then on, no one seemed to remember that he once rode a horse and held a gun with an innocent heart, earnestly guarding the Great Qi behind him.
When Ni Su read his life story on paper, she seemed to have witnessed his youthful vigor and subsequent failure.
The position he held was not what his teacher expected him to be.
"Ni Su, I really want your trust."
Ni Su pushed open the door of the clinic and suddenly remembered what he said that night. Her hand holding the glass lamp tightened, and it took her a while to remember to walk to the back corridor.
But there was a knock on the door and she paused.
Ni Su turned around and saw a young man standing outside the door. He was wearing a tattered cloak with the hood slightly covering his pale face, but the pupils of his eyes when he raised them were larger than those of ordinary people.
Black and cold.
He stepped into the threshold with stiff steps, and his hood loosened a little, allowing Ni Su to see his face more clearly.
He actually has no eyebrows.
"I'm looking for Xu Hexue."
He spoke slowly.
Ni Su was shocked. She looked at him and suddenly remembered one rainy day when a young man on the street tried to snatch the buns from her hand. At that time, Xu Hexue told her that a baby with no hair and strange pupils is a ghost baby.
