Chapter 355 354 Muddy Waters

Li San followed the young chamberlain into Prince Yu's Mansion, and saw Gao Gong within two doors.

Gao Gong had also met Li San. After all, Wei Guangde's carriage was mostly driven by Li San.

"Where is Guangde now?"

Seeing Li San put his hands into his arms after saluting, Gao Gong asked first.

"The master is offering condolences at the Lu Mansion. He asked me to bring a letter over."

With that said, he handed the letter in his hand to Gao Gong with both hands.

Gao Gong took the letter and took it out to look at it for a few times, his expression slightly changing.

The content of the letter mentioned those concerns. In fact, Gao Gong had thought of them last night, but the Lu family was just that in his eyes, and he didn't take the Lu family's safety into consideration at all.

As for Emperor Jiajing, Gao Gong didn't care.

If the emperor really cared about the two kings wooing the ministers, King Jing and Yan Song would have been dealt with long ago.

As for what Wei Guangde mentioned in the letter, King Yu went to the Lu Mansion to express his condolences in his private capacity. In fact, there was no difference between going to the Lu Mansion and leaving the palace guard of honor. After all, King Yu came in person.

However, Wei Guangde's proposal did not conflict with what he wanted to achieve, so Gao Gong planned to follow Wei Guangde's wishes.

At the very least, doing so would be beneficial to King Yu.

As far as Gao Gong knew, there was not much contact between Lu Bing and King Yu, and they were not close.

At least according to Gao Gong's observation, Lu Bing seemed to treat both King Yu and King Jing equally, and there was no distinction between them.

Because of this, Gao Gongcai had never thought of winning over Lu Bing, and he knew that Lu Bing would never make a choice.

"You wait here."

He signaled the chamberlain to bring people in and took Li San aside for tea. He took Wei Guangde's letter and went to see King Yu.

He had just told King Yu about today's arrangements, but unexpectedly there were some changes.

Prince Yu was very happy that Gao Gong suddenly returned to Prince Yu's Mansion today, but Gao Gong told him when he arrived that he was going to Lu Bing's Mansion to express his condolences today.

King Yu had naturally known Lu Bing for a long time, when he was still in the palace.

Since moving out of the Forbidden City, I rarely see him.

In fact, King Yu felt a little sad when he heard that Lu Bing died because of testing the medicine.

Perhaps people like him are soft at heart, and may seem a bit weak to others.

King Yu only hesitated slightly before agreeing to Gao Gong's proposal.

When the palace officials were sent to express condolences, it was just a matter of routine. His status determined that he could not go, or it was inconvenient for him to personally participate in anything unless there was a decree from the palace.

Even King Jing, who was good at dancing and had long sleeves, did not go to the Lu Mansion in person to express his condolences. He only sent officials from the palace to express condolences.

In fact, among the two kings, King Jing frequently visited the palaces of officials in the capital, while King Yu seemed to live more at home and stayed in his own palace most of the time.

King Yu readily agreed to Gao Gong's request mainly because of his unconditional trust in Gao Gong.

King Yu waited in the room for a while and saw Gao Gong coming back with a letter in his hand. He quickly stood up and went to greet him.

Many times, King Yu really didn't have the airs of a prince in front of Gao Gong. In fact, in King Yu's mind, he always regarded Gao Gong as an elder.

"What news is coming from Guangde?"

King Yu thought that Wei Guangde had gotten some news in advance this time, so he sent his family to deliver the news, but Gao Gong shook his head and handed the letter in his hand to King Yu.

"Your Highness, please take a look."

This is also Gao Gong's statement to King Yu that he and others have no intention of doing anything behind his back, and everything is based on King Yu's interests.

King Yu took the letter from Gao Gong and looked at it. Gao Gong saw that King Yu tilted his head as if he was remembering, and it took him a long time to say: "If I hadn't seen this letter, I would have forgotten about that incident. "

"Your Highness, do you still know about what was mentioned in the letter?"

Gao Gong asked in surprise.

Wei Guangde expressed his thoughts in his letter, and also mentioned the news that he was preparing to release, that is, it was Lu Bing who carried King Yu to the imperial court when he was one month old.

After listening to Gao Gong's words, King Yu smiled and shook his head, "How is that possible? I was only that old at that time.

I remember hearing my mother and concubine talk about this. Master Gao, you also know that I was not favored in the palace. My father’s attention was all on my second brother. Even my fourth brother’s situation was only slightly worse than mine. Better. "

"Since this matter is indeed true, it is best. Guangde's proposal is more complete, and it also makes up for the issue I ignored before, um, about the safety of the Lu family."

Gao Gong said with a smile on his face: "Since the Governor of Lu took care of His Highness, His Highness should make this trip. What's more, according to Guangde, some of the news he passed before were all from Lu. The family sent someone to deliver it.”

"Li Fang, please let me know. We will drive Jian Cong to the Lu Mansion to express our condolences."

"yes."

The eunuch Li Fang on the side bowed and agreed, then walked to the door, waved to the waiter beside the door, and then whispered a few words.

As agreed here, Gao Gong also took the time to go out to meet Li San and asked him to return to the Lu Mansion to report to Wei Guangde.

Not long after Li San left Prince Yu's Mansion on horseback, two sedans came out of the side door of Prince Yu's Mansion. There were more than a dozen strong men guarding the sedan outside, and the group moved forward in the direction Li San left.

Although King Yu is a simple and easy-going person, his whereabouts cannot be hidden from the people who care about him.

After Prince Yu left the palace in a sedan chair, several forces in the capital that were concerned about Prince Yu received the news one after another, but many people did not know the destination of Prince Yu's trip.

However, as the team continued to move forward and got closer to the destination, when the team approached the street near Lu Mansion, the destination of Prince Yu's trip was about to be revealed.

Not only the Jinyiwei, but also the people from Prince Jing's Mansion and the servants sent by officials with higher ambitions in the capital watched Prince Yu's every move.

Yan Shifan was also one of the first people to know about Prince Yu's actions. Of course, the people he sent out were not targeting Prince Yu, but the Lu family.

At this time, Yan Shifan was still helping Yan Song handle official business in the cabinet. He usually worked in the cabinet in the morning, and went out in the afternoon to enjoy the gentle countryside until he returned to the mansion at night. Sometimes he would not return all night if he had a good time.

At this moment, he stood outside Yan Song's public house and listened to a servant reporting the news that had just been received in a low voice.

"You said that Prince Yu's sedan chair went straight to Lu's house?"

Yan Shifan's fat face had a pair of eyebrows slightly wrinkled, which made him look very funny, but his expression was very unfriendly at this time.

"Yes, young master, early this morning, Wei Guangde went to Lu's house to pay his respects again, and then he did not leave. However, his family took the horses from Lu's house for a while, and just returned to Lu's house not long ago. Then we found that Prince Yu's sedan chair was coming here, and the news came from there."

The servant reported in a low voice.

Lu Bing died, and Yan Song was very surprised when he heard the news again. He even went to visit Lu Bing in person when he was still in Xiyuan.

But when he returned home at night, he immediately found Yan Shifan in the study and questioned him about this matter.

Yan Shifan would naturally not admit it. Even if the plan had been successful, and even if they had known the news of Lu Bing's death, Yan Shifan still did not admit in front of Yan Song that this matter had anything to do with him.

Although Yan Song intuitively believed that Yan Shifan and King Jing were responsible for Yan Shifan's death, he could do nothing about it.

He knew very well that poisoning a political enemy set a very bad precedent.

In political struggles, people can do anything to win, even framing and deceiving the emperor. As long as they can get the political enemy out of office or even put him in prison, he has killed his political enemy before, but they did not use assassination methods, but won the struggle in an upright manner.

As for taking the other party's life later, it was also in prison.

In a place like a prison, anything can happen, and that was when the winner was already decided.

Yan Song stared at Yan Shifan for a long time that night, and he could only sigh helplessly and ordered everyone in the mansion to be careful about food in the future.

They can use such a mean method as poisoning their political enemies, and there is no guarantee that others will not do the same to them.

This is also the reason why Yan Song was unwilling to use these shameful tricks from beginning to end. If you can use them, others can also copy them, and in the end you will suffer losses.

Yan Shifan really didn't expect this. In his impression, since his father Yan Song became the prime minister, who in the capital dared not give face to the Yan family?

There are such people, but most of them were either demoted to barren lands or had their heads and bodies separated. Who dared to harm the Yan family?

Well, maybe he was used to smooth sailing, and Yan Shifan didn't have the idea of ​​being bullied in his heart.

But when he heard Yan Song's order to strengthen the food safety in the mansion, Yan Shifan felt a chill on his back.

In the days after Lu Bing was poisoned, he also consciously reduced the number of times he ate and drank outside, and most of the time he went back to the mansion or had fun in the other courtyard.

Of course, he did not delay his business, such as observing the situation in the palace and monitoring the reaction of the Lu family.

Lu Bing took over the Jinyiwei for more than ten years and had already cultivated a reliable team.

Although with the death of Lu Bing, some of these people inevitably played both sides, and even took the opportunity to betray the Lu family and join Zhu Xizhong, but there were still many people who were loyal to the Lu family.

Moreover, during this period, Zhu Xizhong did not take over the Jinyiwei completely, after all, his foundation was in the Beijing camp.

But no matter what, after being reprimanded by Yan Song, Yan Shifan still sent people to keep an eye on the Lu family and the Jinyiwei. He was still a little worried that the Lu family would rely on the Jinyiwei to find out something.

For this group of soldiers, sometimes there is no need to talk about evidence. As long as there is sufficient reason to suspect, they can take action to retaliate, and the means are also hard to guard against.

Thinking about Zhao Wenhua's death, although Yan Shifan did not see it with his own eyes, it was also creepy to hear people talk about it.

As for the retribution that is circulated among the people, Yan Shifan will never believe it.

If there is retribution, why don't you suffer retribution when you do evil?

Today, the news sent by the people who are keeping an eye on the Lu family made Yan Shifan a little worried.

In fact, at the beginning, Prince Jing proposed what to do if the attempt to poison Lu Bing failed or was investigated by the inner court afterwards.

Yan Shifan had naturally considered this. Now many people in the inner court have heard the rumors they released, and I believe it will soon spread to the outer court.

Muddy the waters, just as Gao Gong guessed, this is also Yan Shifan's plan.

The rumors did not say which prince went out to serve as a vassal, so Prince Yu and Prince Jing naturally had doubts.

Although according to the system established by Taizu, Prince Yu had the greatest chance of ascending to the throne, but Taizu himself destroyed the inheritance system he established, and the current emperor is not a conservative person.

All we can say is that everything is possible, not to mention that Prince Jing still has his mother as a supporter in the palace. It is hard to say what will happen before the final step.

For the Yan family, they really don't have many ways out.

When Prince Jing comes to power, their Yan family can still continue their current life, but once Prince Yu comes to power, Yan Shifan believes that he has no other way to go except to retire, and it will be rare to be able to retreat unscathed at that time.

This is also the worst case scenario he considered, admit defeat, and I will leave the court.

Since it is the worst case scenario, Yan Shifan will naturally be unwilling. After knowing that the two eunuchs in Xiyuan are missing, they started the back hand.

The purpose is naturally to throw dirty water on Prince Yu.

As everyone knows, the Yan family and the Lu family have party disputes, but dragging the two princes into it, the water is muddy enough.

When the Yan family fights with others, no matter whether they win or lose, they will talk about it with relish outside, because they almost always win the final victory, and they can laugh at the loser with the attitude of the winner.

This time, the Yan family, including Yan Shifan, kept silent, which actually gave the outside world the impression that they didn't know about this matter, because this performance was very different from the past.

In fact, except for Yan Shifan, no one else in the Yan family really knew about this matter and was not afraid of investigation at all.

On the surface, this matter had nothing to do with the Yan family, so only the rumored two kings might be involved.

Did King Jing do it for the Yan family, or for himself?

For most of the Qingliu, if someone would harm Lu Bing, most people would probably point to Yan Song first, and then King Jing.

Since the suspicion is so great, would they be stupid enough to harm others?

This is the impression that Yan Shifan considered when he made this plan. According to the plan, he would find officials to impeach King Jing, and then King Jing would look like a bullied baby and portray himself as a victim of the incident.

Either this or that, Prince Yu would naturally be suspected.

Honest people are sometimes sinister.

Now the news has not been spread to the outer court, why did Prince Yu go to the Lu family?

Yan Shifan was a little surprised and doubtful, but he was even more full of hatred for Wei Guangde, who was mentioned by the servant before.

There is no doubt that Wei Guangde did not go earlier or later, but he went to the Lu Mansion to pay condolences today, and Prince Yu also went to the Lu Mansion at this time. It takes some people to believe that it was a coincidence.

The people of the Yan family secretly recorded the guests who went to the Lu Mansion to pay condolences. Wei Guangde's previous visit was still a normal behavior. Many Beijing officials who did not know Lu Bing also went to the Lu Mansion. That was to give face to the emperor.

Today is not a special time, Wei Guangde will naturally not go to the Lu Mansion for no reason, especially which servant.

"Ask about the news from Prince Yu's Mansion, and whether Prince Yu really entered the Lu family, and find out what he did at the Lu family."

Yan Shifan closed his eyes and looked up at the sky, and spoke after a long time.