inspire-indiana Chapter 566: A Little Selfishness
Chapter 566: A Little Selfishness
Zhou Chang grasped his own thoughts and continued: "Yes, if Prince Duan didn't know, he wouldn't have sent Ma Feihu to steal." "And in fact, until now, we can't be sure that it was Prince Duan who rescued Ma Feihu from the prison, and we still don't know what the real mastermind sent Ma Feihu to steal."
Zhong Yu's thoughts have gone a step further: "Does the prince suspect Prince Xian?"
Zhou Chang was afraid that his train of thought would be interrupted, so he still did not answer: "Sir, what I originally wanted to do was to send the evidence of Prince Duan's bribery to Prince Xian, so as to expose Prince Duan's actions. Previously, there were also censors in the court who reported that Prince Duan colluded with the former Minister of Revenue Min Hang for corruption..."
Zhong Yu nodded as he was taking out the account books, letters and other evidence from the wooden box again. He said, "Indeed, if these are given to Prince Xian, they should be a favorable evidence if he wants to bring down Prince Duan."
"But most of these evidences were collected by Yaoyuefang. Once they are taken out, anyone can infer that it was the Yuan family's doing. Wouldn't that expose the Yuan family?" Zhou Chang's head was filled with too much information at once.
Zhong Yusi then thought of the Yuan family, but he also agreed: "That's true."
"Therefore, I would like to trouble you to help carefully identify these evidences, burn those that can obviously point to the Yuan family, and then divide them into two parts. The most powerful ones that can indict Prince Duan will be given to Prince Xian, and the ones that are not so serious will be returned to Prince Duan, which can also be regarded as a reminder to him." Zhou Chang just suddenly thought of such a better idea.
Zhong Yu was surprised: "Why do you need to remind Prince Duan?"
"Of course I'll send you 'peace of mind'," Zhou Chang was even a little excited about this new idea. "If I report the news about the 'Sixth Eunuch' to Prince Duan alone, it would be too abrupt. If I don't give it to him, it's hard to convince him with just these pieces of paper from the Yuan family. I think that this time when I went to Beiji, no one from Prince Duan's party stood up to stop me, and no one even made trouble behind my back. So, I should thank this brother Prince Duan openly, right?"
Zhong Yu frowned and said nothing.
Zhou Chang also asked and answered himself: "What exactly did I do when I went to Beiji? Anyone with a keen eye cannot fail to know. Where did Sixth Eunuch get the information from? If we say that the Yuan family has been operating for many years and has no ability to obtain information, no one will believe it. But what if we trace it back to someone who went to investigate on purpose? In short, we should return the information to the person concerned. Of course, we cannot return all of it, only part of it, and the rest... hehe..."
Zhong Yu also understood and nodded: "In this way, Your Highness can be regarded as showing goodwill to Prince Duan without leaving any trace. This is indeed a more wise idea. But Your Highness, the incident in which you were pushed into the water by the kidnappers and nearly died was not caused by Prince Duan?"
Zhou Chang had thought about Prince Duan for such a long time, but he basically denied it: "The leader of the kidnappers was a man wearing a white mask. He really wanted to kill me, but he didn't dare to do it in the end. According to Prince Duan's party's current plan for me and their style of doing things, if they wanted to kill me, they would have done it directly. It's not that they suddenly had an idea in the middle of the kidnapping and were timid, unless it was Yi... I mean, I don't know when I offended someone and I didn't know it."
"Even if the prince had offended someone in the past, would anyone dare to do such a thing?" Zhong Yu couldn't guess.
"Oh, right, not only is it hard to judge the matter of pushing me into this, but it's also hard to conclude that the Yaoyuefang mask is definitely related to Prince Duan. After all, the clue is too obvious..." Zhou Chang thought of another clue provided by Liu E, "Yaoyuefang already belongs to Prince Duan, and everyone knows it. He wouldn't be stupid enough to use his own things to do bad things."
Zhong Yu had also looked into the matter of the masks before, and he showed disdain on his face: "It's a pity that although those masks are rare, they are not rare things. I have already said in my previous letter that the masks are the craftsmanship from the Mirage Country. When the Yuan family was running the Yaoyuefang in the past, they brought some over, but they didn't deliberately manage it. It was later that the people from Prince Duan took over and started to deal in those messy things..."
"So we have to find Sun Xiang first." Zhou Chang couldn't continue with this topic and went back to the main point. "Since Prince Duan is like this, Prince Xian should also be treated equally."
While Zhong Yuze was talking, he had already roughly classified the letters and account books in the wooden box: "However, Your Majesty, if we only look at these evidences and pick them out before giving them to Prince Xian, I'm afraid there won't be much to use, and it won't pose a substantial threat to Prince Duan."
"Don't we have this?" Zhou Chang pointed to the pieces of paper that Beiji had brought back. "The most powerful argument should be that Prince Duan embezzled the money for building the imperial mausoleum. We don't have evidence, but could Prince Xian have none? Since Prince Duan's leg was broken, Prince Xian has taken over the finishing work of the imperial mausoleum. I believe we don't need to bother with it, as he should have the materials in his hands a long time ago. I can't guarantee anything else. If His Majesty knew that Prince Duan embezzled so much money for building the imperial mausoleum, he would be furious and definitely would not let Prince Duan off easily."
Zhong Yu also agreed: "In this case, the evidence from Yaoyuefang can only be regarded as the icing on the cake for King Xian."
"That's exactly what I mean." Zhou Chang has begun to feel that he has some intelligence for palace fighting.
Zhong Yuze flipped through the wooden box again and seemed to have a further inspiration: "Well, there are several records of Prince Duan bribing people related to the Ministry of Works, as well as transaction records. Filling in the gaps for Prince Xian should also come in handy."
"That's right, sir. You understand me best. Just sort these things out and let someone like Yidanxing throw them to King Xian in the middle of the night." Zhou Chang felt that having such a capable person like Zhong Yu by his side was a great help.
Zhong Yu seemed to be still thinking about something.
Zhou Chang drummed his fingers on the table, as if he had seen Prince Duan and Prince Xian fighting each other to the point of a black-eyed chicken. He smiled like a fox: "Haha, give Prince Xian the evidence of Prince Duan's corruption, and give Prince Duan the witness of Prince Xian's failure to save someone in need. Let them compete with each other. What a lively show it would be."
Zhong Yu did not forget to remind him: "Your Highness, among the news given by the Yuan family, you are not going to tell Prince Duan about Prince Xian's self-reliance of troops and privately manufacturing weapons?"
"Ah, that... that needs further investigation, and both witnesses and evidence must be available, and reported to Prince Duan. If Prince Duan can't find anything, or if he uses it for his own selfish purposes... that won't be good. Let's wait and make other plans. Besides, even if we have evidence now, it's not the right time yet." Zhou Chang said this, but he actually had another selfish motive.