frightfiction Chapter 367: The King of Zhenxi's Wolfish Ambitions
Chapter 367: The King of Zhenxi's Wolfish Ambitions
An Yonghou lowered his head and continued, "I didn't expect that he would become even worse. For so many years, he didn't let my An An go. Although he is old now, his son and grandson are still repeating this thing. He has a deep obsession with... that position. Maybe he felt from the beginning that he was the one who should sit on this chair."
Hearing this, the emperor was furious, "Marquis An Yong, do you know what you are talking about? You are talking about my uncle. You are talking nonsense about my own uncle."
Marquis An Yong knelt on the ground, not even looking up at the emperor's expression. "Of course I know. If there was no hard evidence, I would not and would not dare to kneel here today. I finally found my little daughter, why would I get involved in this mess? But I see that this Kyoto Prefecture is getting more and more terrifying day by day, so I kneel here."
As he spoke, he took out a tiger talisman from his pocket. "Your Majesty, this is what someone used to win me over when you were still the crown prince. It was late at night. They gave me a letter hanging on a silk thread. They told me that if I followed them, they could help me find my little daughter, and after that, they could give me a position as prime minister. After I sternly refused, they fished out the tiger talisman with the silk thread. I wanted to keep the tiger talisman and give it to Your Majesty.
But I was probably drugged, and I felt weak all over that night, and I couldn't use any strength. When I woke up the next day, I didn't even know if I was dreaming or if it really happened. I spent several months looking for evidence, but found nothing. They cleaned up all the traces, and no one even saw someone squatting on my roof. I even suspected that I wanted to find An An so much that I had such hallucinations.
It was not until I found An An that the spies I sent out told me that someone was still looking for my daughter's whereabouts, and they were looking for her every year.
A few days ago, the spy came back to report. The other groups started looking for An An's whereabouts the year she entered the palace. The rest only looked for her the year she went missing.
I then clearly understood why they could only find me outside the mountain every time, because I rejected their invitation and did not want to commit treason with them, so they drugged me to attract my attention and used their power to attract me.
But they didn't expect that I had no interest in this, so while I was drowsy after taking the medicine, they rummaged through a lot of things in my study and room, and found the news that I had been looking for my daughter.
I found it too. Where is the trace I found?
So they found something new to threaten me, and every year they would look for An An's whereabouts."
Soon, the tiger talisman was presented by Eunuch Wei. This time, the emperor was not in a hurry to reprimand Marquis An Yong, but looked at the tiger talisman in shock.
It was the tiger talisman that had been lost for nearly fifteen years. Because of this lost tiger talisman, he almost died before he ascended the throne.
"Then this tiger talisman, according to what you said, you didn't get it either, so why is it here today?"
This time, An Yonghou stopped lying down and sat up, staring straight at the emperor, speaking in a gentle and calm tone, "I don't know what big move they made, but they came to me again last night. Probably because I had announced to the public that I had found my daughter, they found that this method was useless. So they sent someone to deliver this thing to my room, which is why I was anxious to come to the emperor today.
Your Majesty can take a look at the stack of memorials in front of you. There must be something in them that falsely accuses me of treason.
If it wasn't for Gu Qing Pei's big fuss last night, and I saw the tiger talisman again when I got home, I wonder if I would have been exiled today as well?"
The emperor flipped through the memorial uncertainly. He would have never known what was happening if he hadn't flipped through it. He was shocked to find that not only one of the memorials was a false accusation against Marquis An Yong, but almost half of them were.
The emperor was frightened at this moment. He originally thought that if he stopped doing business with these noble families and did not marry into their marriage alliances, he would be able to quickly regain power in his own hands.
I didn't expect that there are so many people in the court.
"Then how do you prove that you have no intention of treason? What if you just realized that they were going to expose you today, so you came to report it?"
The emperor is suspicious. Every generation of emperors is suspicious.
An Yonghou smiled again, "I really have no interest in these things. These are the evidence of the King of Zhenxi's crime that I left behind, and what I found out in the following years. Although there is no direct connection, there are many indirect connections. Including what Gu Qingyun found out, many things, when connected together, form a huge spider web.
Moreover, I have solid evidence.”
As he spoke, An Yonghou took out another stack of letter paper from his pocket. "This is what Gu Qingyun gave me before he left. Everything in it is a problem he discovered over the years, but due to various human relationships, he was unable to investigate further. He was afraid that he would not be able to come back this time, so he gave all these things to me, hoping that one day he can redress his grievances, including the position of the Minister of the Secretariat, which most people may think is insignificant."
The emperor took the stack of papers again. It was clearly marked which officials might have had an affair with the King of Zhenxi, and which matters were related to the King of Zhenxi, including all the major cases in the past two years, almost all of which were related to the Nanzhou Hua Family and the King of Zhenxi.
For example, most of the names on the list left by Prince Luochuan are from the noble families who abandoned the King of Zhenxi and surrendered.
An Yonghou took out another piece of paper and said, "The Zheng family army that the emperor and Gu Qingyun destroyed before was the first place where soldiers were raised. In addition, there are these places, large and small, which were also sorted out and discovered by Gu Qingyun and I these days.
After the incident, the King of Zhenxi knelt for a few days and then escaped. From then on, he seemed to be doing nothing but a lot of things in secret. "
Then, An Yonghou took out the land, manors, and mountains that the King of Zhenxi had bought over the years...
Everything was clearly written out, showing how much space there was in it for raising troops, training soldiers, and smelting iron.
He even brought out how much silver was underpaid in taxes in the King of Zhenxi's territory every year, and why the gold, silver and copper that should have been handed over suffered losses every year, etc.
"Your Majesty, I'm afraid they have some new movements, so I reported everything to Your Majesty. I can't investigate it alone. Now I just want to repair my house and go to my daughter's restaurant to eat and drink every day. I have no regrets in this life, but I know that if the truth is revealed, the people will be miserable, and I can't live such an idle life anymore."
Marquis An Yong seemed to have used up all his strength and kowtowed heavily.