Chapter 126: The knife is still sharp

"Emperor, the ministers are kneeling outside the palace gate and refuse to leave. Moreover, there are more and more people, and officials of all sizes from various yamen in the capital city are gathering toward the palace gate. How should this matter be dealt with, please decide!"

Qiu Defu hurried back to the Taiji Palace and reported the latest situation.

The petition of the ministers became more and more noisy, and the movement became bigger and bigger. By now, the gathered officials had exceeded two hundred. Qiu Defu faced the officials kneeling on the ground, only feeling his scalp tingling, with nowhere to start. For a while, he had no way to think.

This matter, he could not solve.

Only by asking the Emperor, let the Emperor take an idea.

Because of the Great Master's sensible acceptance of the errand, Taixing Emperor was finally happy for a while. Before he had time to relax his mood, he heard this news again, and his mood suddenly became extremely bad.

Seeing the movement outside the palace gate getting bigger, the Great Master very sensibly proposed to resign, hurried out of the Imperial Palace, and must extract himself.

"Absurd! After reading the sage books for many years, have they all been read into the dog's belly, and is there any monarch and father in the heart? How dare they, how can they force me like this? This is forcing the palace, must be strictly investigated, investigate to death! Someone must have accumulated great ambitions and secretly plotted. Investigate, must investigate, must investigate clearly for me, no matter who is investigated, don't let them go."

Taixing Emperor was furious.

Qiu Defu

Strength against strength will only result in mutual injury.

It would be better for one side to take a step back first to let the situation ease. As long as the court officials do not gather outside the palace gates, other matters are easy to handle.

Whether fighting or killing, it cannot be done in full view of everyone; only by defeating them one by one is the best strategy.

Qiu Defu's method can be called the words of an experienced statesman; it is absolutely a conscientious suggestion.

However, Emperor Taixing simply cannot listen to it.

His mind is currently filled with only one thought: to start a massacre.

Someone dares to collude to force the palace; even executing the nine clans is not enough to vent his anger. He waved his leather whip in mid-air, "I must kill a few of the ringleaders so these officials will know fear. Where is the Embroidered Uniform Guard? Why haven't they acted yet?"

"Your Majesty, please calm your anger!"

Qiu Defu felt very panicked; once killing starts, things will become even more uncontrollable. Wouldn't that be exactly what the person behind the scenes wants?

"Your Majesty, please calm your anger! The officials gathered outside the palace gates are mostly ignorant people who were coaxed by others with a few words and ran to the palace gates to cause trouble. Since others can coax them, Your Majesty can naturally coax the officials back. This servant believes Your Majesty can issue an edict to choose a day to hold a Grand Court Assembly, and whatever needs to be said can be said at the assembly. Even if you want to impeach Inspector Jiang, it should be done uprightly; how can you force Your Majesty? This is an act of rebellion!"

Qiu Defu's head was almost hanging to his chest; he was truly taking a huge risk to persuade the old Emperor.

Emperor Taixing's reason seemed to be gradually recovering; he had a gloomy face, "What movement is there in the Donggong?"

Hearing this, Qiu Defu felt a shock in his heart and answered honestly, "Reporting to Your Majesty, there is no movement in the Donggong."

"No movement?" Emperor Taixing seemed not to believe it, "Send someone to take a look. No, you go to the Donggong yourself and ask the Crown Prince what should be done about the court officials gathering outside the palace gates. Also, call all the Imperial Princes here; I have words to instruct them. Proclaim the two Prime Ministers, proclaim the Minister of War..."

The old Emperor, having recovered his reason, issued a series of orders in one breath. Since the officials refuse to let him peacefully cultivate the Dao and seek immortality, he will fulfill their wishes and handle the court affairs. It is just that he does not know if the court officials can bear the consequences of forcing the palace.

Hmph!

Qiu Defu sighed secretly; he does not know how many people will lose their heads this time.

The officials seem to have forgotten how cruel the Emperor's methods are and how decisive he is in his actions. Such a large-scale forcing of the palace is equivalent to a slap directly on the Emperor's face.

The Emperor is not a person who can endure being wronged; he will definitely retaliate ten or a hundred times over.

"Crazy! Everyone is crazy!"

The Eldest Master returned to the Hou Fu and began to shout. To actually play a scene of forcing the palace is clearly gambling with one's head; it is playing too wildly.

The old Emperor is old, that is correct.

But, he is not yet so old and muddled that he can be wantonly deceived.

Playing at forcing the palace, be careful of paying with your own head.

"A group of madmen, do they really think the Emperor's blade is not sharp enough? Pass the order down: from today on, the Hou Fu will close its doors to guests; no matter who asks to see me, they will not be seen. This Marquis is going to the military camp to inspect military affairs. If anyone dares to disobey this Marquis's order, this Marquis will definitely not be lenient."

The Eldest Master gave the order to the steward, and it soon spread throughout the entire mansion.

The Second Master had some objections, but upon hearing that there was a commotion outside about forcing the palace, his forehead jumped, and he acquiesced to the order to close the doors to guests. As for the Eldest Master taking command to go to Jinzhou to quell the rebels, he did not take it to heart.

A mere few rebels, aren't they easy to capture? The border army lost before because the generals were incompetent, the city defense officials were incompetent, and they were greedy for life and afraid of death.

Once the imperial army arrives, in the blink of an eye, they will definitely be able to beat the Jinzhou rebels until they are scurrying and turned to ashes.

The Second Master has a kind of honeyed confidence in the imperial army. There are quite a few people in the capital who think like him. Because of this, when the news came that the Jinzhou rebels had captured five cities in one month, the world was shaken, but only the people of the capital remained calm and unmoved. The capital camp hadn't even moved, yet they dared to say the sky of the Great Ming had been poked with a hole; it is simply a huge joke.

Others can treat it as a joke, but the Eldest Master absolutely dares not underestimate the Jinzhou rebels.

Having left the military camp for many years, the Eldest Master knows clearly what the situation in the capital camp is, even if others do not.

Can the capital camp fight a war? Yes!

Can they fight a hard war? The answer to this question must be marked with a big question mark.

Corruption in the capital camp is hard to avoid. Rushing into battle, the Eldest Master truly has no confidence. Therefore, he could not care about the chaos in the capital or the subsequent progress of the palace-forcing incident. The next day, after requesting an edict, he hurriedly took his retainers and guards to the capital camp to reorganize and prepare for battle, striving to pull out a team of five thousand men to head to Jinzhou to hold the line.

He will never go to Jinzhou alone.

A group of military heads—if he does not have trusted troops by his side, he simply cannot suppress that gang of lawless military heads. This is also one of the reasons why the commander before him was unsuccessful everywhere; the team just couldn't be led!

The palace-forcing incident had almost no impact on the Heavenly Prison; the prison guards continued to perform their duties as usual, slacking off when they should and gambling when they should.

Chen Guanlou patrolled the Heavenly Prison once a day as usual.

He even specially went to visit Li Shaoqing in Cell 27 and told him, "The court officials gathered at the palace gates, requesting the Emperor to hold court and demanding the Emperor execute Jiang Tu. The Emperor seems to have compromised and agreed to the Grand Court Assembly the day after tomorrow."

Li Shaoqing was flipping through the book in his hand and didn't even give Chen Guanlou a straight look, "Let them make trouble, let them make trouble."

"Master Li doesn't seem surprised."

Hearing this, Li Shaoqing was finally willing to move his gaze away from the book and stare at Chen Guanlou, "Chen Tou seems very concerned about court politics?"

"I want to know which officials are about to be thrown into the big prison so I can see how much money I can make." Chen Guanlou appeared very mercenary.