My Chinese ancestors

Chapter 444 Backstab

What is the most lively thing in the Yue Kingdom nowadays is, of course, the fight between the five princes.

The second prince, Meng Zhaolin, could have sat firmly on the throne, but the other four brothers refused, and the fight was fierce. The third prince, Meng Ximao, joined forces with the fourth prince, Meng Jintai, to confront the second brother. The fifth prince, Meng Youyuan, and the sixth prince, Meng Ling, Today, I am at odds with my third and fourth sons, and I have no feelings for my second brother.

However, the sixth prince Meng Lingjin was seriously injured by an assassin. It was rumored that the fourth prince Meng Jintai sent someone to do it. The sixth prince's concubine's family reported it to Emperor Meng Dong, and the fourth prince had to come to the capital to explain to his father.

Judging from this behavior, the fourth prince basically has no chance of being crowned prince. If he acts like this, even if he gets the crown prince in the future, the other brothers will not accept it unless they are all killed.

At the moment, Meng Tong's scalp was almost broken because he was dealing with the affairs of his five sons. All the documents submitted from their fiefdom were complaints.

It was said that these princes preyed on the common people and imposed taxes, which caused lamentations everywhere.

At this moment, Wen and Wu are fully committed to the fight for the position of the prince. After all, they have sacrificed so much, and it is already difficult to turn back in time. Everyone who should be offended has been offended. Only the prince who keeps his side will return in the future. .

At court this morning, Meng Tong was dressed in gray-black imperial clothes, embroidered with cloud patterns and golden dragons, and wore a crown on his head. He looked majestically at the quarrels among the officials below.

He knocked on the armrest of the dragon chair in disappointment. The eunuch below the imperial steps understood and immediately shouted: "Quiet!"

The buzzing noise suddenly quieted down.

"Are you noisy and treating this place as a market? This is the court! This is where I handle state affairs, not where you fight for power and greed for power!"

On the Dragon Throne, the usually calm Emperor of the Yue Kingdom suddenly became furious. The sound resounded through the hall and made the ears of the ministers ring. It lingered for a long time.

"My five princes are young, energetic, and ambitious, so I just turned a blind eye and let them fight, but what about you? Each and every one of you has half your body buried in the ground, and you even sharpen your head to dig in. Look at these things—"

Meng Tong threw the complaint papers piled up on the dragon case down the imperial steps, "They are all submitted by the governors from various states. Although our country, Yue, is not a powerful country, it is not so chaotic!"

Everyone was stripped of their fig leaf by the emperor, their old faces turned red and they didn't dare to answer.

"I know what you are thinking, but the mess that the Yue Kingdom has made is what you imagined?"

"Call the Fourth Prince in!"

After saying this in one breath, Meng Tong sat back on the throne a little tiredly. He was already over fifty, and organizing government affairs on weekdays had exhausted all his energy. Now he was coordinating his five sons and the civil and military officials who were jumping up and down in the court. He felt My deadline is coming soon.

"How's the situation in the Central Plains?" Before the fourth prince came over, he asked first.

"Your Majesty, according to reports from spies, the Emperor of Xia State has sent the Qingzhou Army to station in Huizhou."

Meng Tong frowned slightly, settled in Huizhou?

He put down his posture and invited the emperor to come forward to mediate. Although it was meant to be a test, it didn't mean that he would use troops, right? Since the first one is impossible, it must be done for him, or rather for his five sons.

After being quiet for a while, Meng Tong closed his eyes. He could no longer count on the ministers below. A moment later, a burly figure wearing armor came in, strode into the palace, and half-knelt down: "My lord, I pay homage to my father." !”

"Get up!" Meng Tong closed his eyes and raised his hand slightly.

"Thank you, Father!"

Meng Jintai picked up a piece of beetle and made a rustling sound, stood up, and stood upright without squinting. Except for his deceased eldest brother Meng Zhuowen, he was the tallest and burliest among the remaining five princes. It's rare to be this tall, but unfortunately he has a narrow vision and does things a little haphazardly.

Meng Tong had never thought of him as a candidate for the crown prince.

"Jintai, my father asked you, was it you who sent someone to assassinate the youngest?"

"Father, no!"

"Do you really think I don't know?"

"Father, even if the kid sent someone to do it, he should be punished. Who told him to insult me ​​behind my back?"

"Between brothers, just fight. If you kill someone, you will break the bottom line of being a father!"

Meng Tong had watched his son grow up little by little, and he knew exactly what his temper was. Even if the other party denied it just now, he would not believe it. Sure enough, when he pressed again, he immediately admitted it, and then found another excuse. If it was something else, Meng Tong He turned a blind eye and passed it by, but the assassination of another son was all his flesh and blood, how could he not be angry!

"You wanted to kill your own brother this time. Fortunately, you failed. However, the youngest was also seriously injured and is still unconscious. This matter will not just go away!"

"Father..." Meng Jintai looked panicked and quickly knelt down with his hands in his hands.

When Meng Tong saw him kneeling down, he ignored him at all. With a flick of his dragon sleeves, he turned around and sat down in front of the dragon chair. He said loudly: "It is my decree that the fourth prince Meng Jintai was blinded by greed and did not care about brotherhood. As for brothers killing each other and pretending to be princes, starting today, they will immediately return to the fiefdom, and they will not leave the fiefdom without an edict!"

In an instant, the faces of the dozen or so civil and military men who stood in line, including the fourth prince, changed, and then became even paler. Meng Jintai was sent back to the fiefdom, which meant that he lost the opportunity to compete for the crown prince. Meng Jintai was also panicked. He had always been impulsive. If he did such a thing, he had thought about his father's punishment, but he did not expect it to be so severe. He immediately suppressed his idea of ​​fighting for the crown prince.

"...Father, my son had something to say, and the youngest made rude remarks involving his mother, so my son got angry and sent an assassin to kill him..."

"Your Majesty, something is wrong!"

Suddenly a panicked shout interrupted Meng Jintai's words. All the civil and military officials turned around and looked outside the hall. A eunuch hurried in, bypassed the rear of the civil and military officials on the right, and came to the side of the imperial steps with a panic look on his face. , said breathlessly.

"Your Majesty, people in two states have rebelled..."

"what?!"

The emperor stood up in shock, and in the main hall, the once eloquent civil servants and military generals fell silent for an instant.

For a long time, faint, thin sounds resounded in the crowd in the court hall. Meng Jintai also looked at the eunuch in surprise, and then turned his eyes to his father on the dragon throne.

On the imperial steps, Meng Tong swayed a little, and took a step forward while holding on to the corner of the table. Looking at the eunuch standing at an angle on the imperial steps, he managed to squeeze out a cry.

"How did you rebel?"

The eunuch quickly told the emperor and the civil and military officials in the court exactly what he had relayed from Kuai Ma. When they heard that many people could no longer survive, rebellion broke out, and everyone in the court immediately lowered their heads.

"How can this be……"

Looking at the eunuch, Meng Tong felt a little dazed.

"I……"

He clenched his fist and pressed it firmly on the corner of the table. He had just dealt with the matter of his fourth son. All that was left was to select a qualified prince among the other four princes. Unexpectedly, there was a rebellion. A dagger stabbed him hard in the back.

After a moment of silence, Meng Tong raised his hand and waved, "Fourth brother, return to your fief immediately. As for the rebellious people, immediately send people to investigate and find out the number of people, weapons and armor, and who instigated it!"

The emperor sat on the dragon chair, waved his hand in a low voice, and exited the hall looking at Zhong Wenwu in disbelief. Meng Jintai looked at his father who was leaving, then slowly stood up and walked out of the hall in despair.

Immediately afterwards, supportive civil and military personnel gathered around him.

"This is not the place to discuss countermeasures. Let's leave the imperial city first and go to my house in the city to discuss it."

After changing his panicked look, Meng Jintai looked back at the empty hall, turned around, and strode away. He was indifferent to the people's rebellion, but he was unwilling to be deprived of the opportunity to fight for the throne.

There are several people's rebellions in Linzhou and Longzhou that cannot be stopped at all. In less than one afternoon, the news has spread throughout the capital. Of course, there is one person who seems to have known about it in advance. At this moment, he is sitting on a street in the capital of Yue State. On the second floor of the restaurant, the old god was sipping tea and humming a little tune. Next to him stood two people from the embroidery department.

When the news of the rebellion came, he stopped singing, chuckled a few times, lazily got up from the stool, and stretched.

"I have done too many bad things in my life, but I did them all with trepidation, walking on thin ice, for fear of being discovered. Only this time I can do it openly..."

Qin Hui put away his old-god expression and looked outside with a smile on his face, "...to add insult to injury, haha!"

The two masters of the Embroidery Department looked at the old man walking in front of them, couldn't help but look at each other, followed Qin Hui, and murmured in a low voice.

'No matter how you look at him, he looks like the traitor in the novel. '

'Then the two of us have become the treacherous minister's lackeys? '

"Shit, no matter what, he should be His Majesty's bastard. It's the traitor's turn."

The muttering words of the two people could not be heard by Qin Hui in front of him. Soon after, he took a carriage and quietly drove through two streets and stopped in front of the mansion called Prince Chong's Mansion.

Qin Hui got out of the carriage, lifted his sleeves, and strode towards the door of the mansion.

"It's my turn to take action!"

(End of this chapter)