eurekapd Chapter 252 Irrefutable
Chapter 252 Irrefutable
When his name was called, Master Yuan immediately stepped forward and took it with both hands.
He turned his gaze to the court officials and said, "Thank you, Master Shi, for your trust! I suggest that in addition to me, the two royal family members, the King of Huai and the King of Han, also serve as witnesses."
The emperor shouted, "I won't allow it. I absolutely won't allow it. You traitors, shut up. Do you still have me in your eyes? I was appointed by heaven. I was appointed by the late emperor. The prince is the crown prince. Why did the late emperor bother to leave a secret will?"
It would have been fine if he hadn't said anything, but after trying so hard to stop it, someone spoke up: "Your Majesty, there's no harm in taking a look. As long as the edict is real, it should have seen the light of day one day! Why is Your Majesty worried?"
At this moment, few people took the emperor's shouting seriously, and Tutor Yuan unfolded the imperial edict.
Looking at the content above, his eyes widened in surprise.
Then his steady yet trembling voice rang out slowly, very loud and very excited, echoing throughout the court:
"The Emperor, in compliance with the Will of Heaven, proclaims: I, the Emperor, have ruled the Shang Dynasty, respected Heaven and followed the example of my ancestors, and have been able to protect the ancestral temples. I have entrusted my tiny body to the rulers of the world for more than thirty years... I have reached adulthood, but the Crown Prince Hengyan is still young and ignorant, and his health is not good enough to recover. I don't know how he will grow up... My eldest daughter, Zhaoyang, is both civil and military, and is granted the title of Princess Protector of the Nation, who will be in charge of all state affairs. When Hengyan grows up, Zhaoyang will return power to the court. Hengyan is weak and will not live long... If there is no heir, Zhaoyang's heir will change his surname and inherit the throne! You may announce this decree to the world, and support a new king. Those who see this decree will hear it as if I were here in person."
Shi Yunzhang knelt on the ground and said in a resounding voice: "Your servant Jing Yunzhang, I accept the order of the late emperor!"
The emperor didn't react, but Prince An reacted even more. He would never let the prince he had got fly away: "Even if the emperor has no heir, he can only be chosen from the royal family. Princess Zhaoyang is a woman, and her offspring are from another family. How can they inherit the throne?"
Someone reminded: "The will says that Princess Zhaoyang's descendants will change their surname to inherit the throne. If they change their surname, they will be eligible!"
Someone else said, "You forgot that when the eldest princess gave birth to a son, the emperor said that he and the eldest princess had a deep sisterly love and that there was no difference between the eldest princess's son and his son. When entering the imperial family jade book, the emperor had the child's name recorded so that the child would take his mother's surname Jing. So Shi Yunzhang is called Jing Yunzhang in the imperial family jade book!"
"How can such a thing happen in the world? It's absolutely impossible! This will is fake, it must be fake!"
Prince Huai shouted angrily: "How dare you! This is written by the late emperor himself!"
The moment the emperor recovered and Jing Yunzhang held the will in his hands, he became the new crown prince of Shang. Even the emperor could not stop this.
He also remembered that at that time, he had not yet taken power and everything depended on his elder sister. After his elder sister gave birth to a child, he did exactly what he said and did in order to win her heart. Now, was he actually shooting himself in the foot?
But then he thought, the will only said that he had no heir, so if he could make Princess Zhaoyang's son his heir, he would still be the emperor.
He suppressed his anger and dissatisfaction and said, "Jing Yunzhang, if you want to be the crown prince, then be the crown prince. After all, it is the will of the late emperor, and I will not question it. But I am still the emperor, and I still make the decisions on state affairs. Why don't you retreat?"
Jing Yunzhang turned around and said, "Your Majesty, do you still remember the ancestral teachings of the Jing royal family?"
The emperor's face was gloomy: "What ancestral teachings?"
"The ancestral precepts of the Jing family: 'The emperor guards the country's gates, and the king dies for the country! We would rather fight with 100,000 soldiers than give up an inch of land! If our descendants disobey this, they are not worthy of being descendants of the Jing family!' This is the ancestral precept that the Jing family's great ancestor ordered to be engraved in the Imperial Ancestral Temple after founding the country. Has Your Majesty forgotten it? You actually want to easily give the territory of Shang to Qi?"
The emperor stammered, filled with anger: "Even if I remember, so what? Besides, some of those counties originally belonged to Qi State..."
Jing Yunzhang said in a solemn and tragic tone: "Eighteen years ago, Qi invaded. Princess Zhaoyang led her elite troops to the border for thousands of miles. It took three years to defeat the enemy. Qi was defeated, and the princess could have pursued the victory and defeated Qi without any chance to fight back. But you believed the slander and were afraid that the princess would have her own army, so you withheld food and fodder, used old weapons as inferior ones, and issued three imperial edicts to recall the princess. In the end, Qi ceded seventeen counties and the matter was over!"
"You, don't spit bloody slander, these are just your speculations, absolutely, there is no such thing!"
Jing Yunzhang sneered and made a gesture, and the elite soldiers outside brought someone in.
When the emperor saw that man, his eyes almost popped out.
This person was the one who helped him do those things eighteen years ago. He had clearly sent someone to deal with him, so how come he is still alive?
That person was not only a witness, he also presented physical evidence, among which was even the emperor’s handwritten edict!
With the ready-made evidence before him, the emperor had no way to refute it.
Jing Yunzhang's voice sounded again: "After the princess returned to the court, she had clearly handed over the military power and returned the government to you, but you colluded with Wen Shirong, Fan Liangyu, Kuang Limin and others to frame her, fabricate a false case, and put her to death, and executed her entire family! You cut off the backbone of our Shang State, and made the Qi State, which had already been beaten into a turtle, start to move again. You did not think about making progress, nor did you think about resisting the enemy. Instead, you played your imperial power in the court, suppressed military generals, listened to one side and believed, favored treacherous people, and made the court a mess. The loyal ministers and generals who were killed by you are not just the princess."
He shouted in a deep voice: "Come here, arrest Wen Shirong, Fan Liangyu, and Kuang Limin!"
Several well-trained elite soldiers acted quickly and tied up the four men and threw them to the ground.
Even though these four people were eloquent and good at debate, they were unable to react to this sudden development for a while.
At this moment, Zhou Qiting was truly regretting his decision.
If he had signed the peace talks early on, he should be on his way back now.
But the human heart is not enough for a snake to swallow an elephant.
He saw clearly that the Emperor of Shang was a coward, stupid and incompetent, so in order to get more and to gain more benefits for Qi State, he changed the conditions.
His vision was not wrong, the Emperor of Shang really agreed.
But he never expected that the Ghost-faced General was not dead and still had such an identity, and even dared to rebel in court.
More importantly, he actually had some secret decree in his hand.
Looking at the appearance of this cowardly emperor, it is still unclear whether he can become the emperor.
Therefore, this peace negotiation condition is completely impossible.
Even the previous ones are impossible.
He was really stupid. Why didn't he listen to Pei Hongmiao? How would he explain himself when he returned?
He was enveloped in great despair. He was forced to watch a drama of power transition here. He felt extremely sad. God did not bless the Qi Kingdom!
Jing Yunzhang directly presented the evidence, and the evidence was passed among the court officials.
There is solid evidence of how they plotted against the princess, how they fabricated false charges, and how they persecuted loyal officials.
Wen Shirong and other three had only the third rank as their highest official rank more than a decade ago. However, because they helped the emperor frame the eldest princess, they were highly valued by the emperor and became high-ranking officials one by one.
But their greed never stopped, and they committed many shocking crimes one after another.
Jing Yunzhang forced them to confess their crimes in court, and then took them out and beheaded them.
They were originally the favorites of the four emperors, but a moment later, four bloody heads were brought in on a tray.
The emperor rolled his eyes and fainted, perhaps out of shock, fear, or anger.