Joy of Life: I, a man, became the Queen of Northern Qi?

Chapter 102 Li An wants to carry out the assassination.

Yong'an Palace.

The sky was bright and when Li An woke up again, it was almost noon.

I don't know what the Queen Mother ate yesterday, but not only was her physical strength able to keep up, her fighting enthusiasm was also not diminished, which made Li An feel very comfortable. Ahem, I mean a hard fight.

It was also the five old men from the Hanlin Academy who started the game. After playing Gobang, Li An had lunch before he saw Zhao Gao slowly approaching.

"My lady, there is news coming from the Prime Minister's Mansion."

"Tell me more about it."

"Yes." Zhao Gao recalled the information sent back and said concisely: "After Zhou Jing went to the Prime Minister's residence last night, he entered the study. During this time, the beautiful maid I sent was taken as a concubine by the Prime Minister. She also brought tea to the study and was not rejected by the Prime Minister."

"stop!"

Li An washed his hands with clean water, wiped them with a towel, then waved his hand to let the maid go, and then fell into thought.

After a moment, he raised his head and looked at Zhao Gao, who was standing in the middle of the field in a proper manner, and asked doubtfully, "Prime Minister, didn't you take precautions against those two beautiful maids?"

"Yes, not only was there no defense, but the two were also given the power to enter and leave the mansion freely."

"Go on."

"Although the prime minister was not on guard, the tea service was too short. One of the women only heard the words 'outskirts' and 'grand princess' while serving tea, and then she did not dare to stay for too long and left the study." It seemed that nothing was missed. Zhao Gao recalled some details and added, "After the maid entered, Zhou Jing stopped talking. After our people left, he started chatting with the prime minister again."

"From the time Zhou Jing entered the Prime Minister's residence to the time he left, how long did he stay there? What did he do when he left?"

Zhao Gao had his own thoughts on this matter and had inquired about it clearly, so he answered quickly:
"When he left more than an hour later, he looked upset, as if he hadn't reached an agreement."

"Haha, this is really interesting."

Li An laughed, nodded, and said in a seemingly appreciative tone: "Not guarding against the people sent by me, it seems that he is open-minded and has no grudges, but in fact it is a manifestation of his great ambition! If the two of them had not reached an agreement, how could they have talked for more than an hour? He acted indignant before leaving, and I don't know who he was doing it for. This prime minister is far inferior to the prime minister surnamed Lin in Nanqing."

"Miss!"

Zhao Gao was shocked. The queen said that the prime minister was very ambitious, but he was already the head of all officials, "second only to the emperor and above everyone else". What kind of ambition could he have?
Is it possible to undermine the imperial court?
Li An's heart sank slightly. Combining the two words Zhou Jing said, "suburbs" and "grand princess", he was very sure:

Zhou Jing did want to take revenge.

Fortunately, I sent the Jinyiwei to the village first, otherwise, the situation would be irreversible!
Li An also speculated on the prime minister's previous plot:

He wanted to counter himself within the rules, and the first step was to send beautiful girls into the palace, so that His Majesty could expand the harem under the pretext of multiplying the royal bloodline;
The second step was to drug herself, and after the banquet, she would use a fire to remove herself from the position of Consort De;

The third step, which is what is happening now, is to exchange interests with the ministers in the court, reach an alliance, send a designated candidate to become the princess's consort, and win the princess.
In the meantime, perhaps the Junshan Meeting was used as a bond to gather the strength of all the ministers.

The fourth step was to target the Queen Mother and have her take action against him. Zhou Jing had already given her the reason.

In this way, the royal family, the court, and the harem were all under his control.

Taking the eldest princess’ birthday party as an opportunity can be said to kill three birds with one stone!
By then, pressure will come from all sides and I will be in a passive position!
However, Li An also had doubts. That night, martial law was imposed inside and outside the palace, and Jin Weixian was unable to obtain accurate information, so he made a wrong judgment and had a wrong reaction.

But it is not so easy to completely overthrow himself, the East and West Factories, and the Embroidered Uniform Guards under his command!
He still had to take one last step, which was to make Li An's power dissipate. At the very least, he had to make Yu Huatian and the others turn away from him.
With a thought in his mind, Li An said coldly: "Xiao Gaozi~"

"The slave is here."

"Have you paid any attention to your 'godfather' recently?"

"This servant has no contact with Eunuch Gao anymore, just to be able to do the work for the queen wholeheartedly!"

This was a life-threatening question, but Zhao Gao knew the answer and answered it righteously.

Li An shook his head and gave instructions: "After today, we have to get closer to each other."

Zhao Gao was not really a fool. He knew the meaning of the string music. He asked uncertainly, "Your Majesty, are you saying that the Prime Minister might be with Eunuch Gao?"

"This is just my guess."

Li An stood up and paced slowly from side to side. He said whatever he thought of. "The Prime Minister's previous arrangements are useless, but now his top priority is to remove the power in my hands. Even if I have the support of His Majesty, it will take time to find manpower and rebuild my power."

"And the war between the two countries is not far away!"

"I don't have that much time to waste."

"If it were you, what would you do? Just speak up!"

Zhao Gao lowered his body, thinking quickly. After a moment's consideration, he responded based on the queen's suspicion of Gao Zhongxian: "Bribe the people in the palace and plant people outside during the construction of the East and West Factories. It would be best if they were on a mission to create a false case, frame them, and throw dirty water on the queen?"

Suddenly, he thought of Zhou Jing and came to a terrible conclusion:
"Could it be that the other party will kill you this time?"

Before he finished speaking, his intention was revealed: this was no small matter, the Prime Minister might be planning to assassinate the Empress with himself as the leader!
But why would the other party be like this?

Could it be that he was aware of his own danger, or that the Queen had discovered something, forcing Jin Weixian to use his trump card in such a hurry?

These days, he has been working for the Empress.

He was the one who carried out all the instructions. Logically speaking, if the Empress could notice anything unusual, he should be able to know it too.

"You said exactly what I was thinking."

Li An slowly stood still and explained to Zhao Gao, as if he was sorting out his own thoughts, "Don't tell others these words. This palace speculates that the Prime Minister is involved with Junshan, the eldest princess of Qing. Over the years, he has been helping to control Guo Heng behind the scenes. He used Prince Gong as a puppet and acted under the guise of a cover. I think the Chen family of Donghai County has also been taken into his pocket."

With such a person being so bold, it is hard to say that he does not want to become the real master of Northern Qi.

As for the threat from Grand Master Ku He, wouldn't it be enough as long as the emperor's surname is Zhan?

The previous young emperor was indeed a suitable candidate. He was tolerant and peaceful, and easy to control. When Jin Weixian controlled the economy of Northern Qi and led all officials in the court, he could reach the peak of a truly powerful official without the need for a Prince Gong!

But now the situation has changed drastically. Under the suppression of the Queen Mother, he suddenly emerged, making the young emperor more and more powerful, which has made Jin Weixian feel threatened. Moreover, the connection between him and Prince Gong has become more and more difficult to hide with the passage of time. He wants to force the emperor to abdicate before everything comes to light.

This move is very risky! The biggest danger is to make Ku He acquiesce and not kill the other party. To do this, you have to grasp the timing accurately.

Naturally, it is the war pressure from the outside world, the Qing Kingdom.

Li An even suspected that there was a connection between Jin Weixian and Chen Pingping of Qing State. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the various circumstances when Sean was abducted!

All the state troops seemed to be blind, and the news that Sean returned home to attend the wedding was leaked. It was impossible to hide these actions from the prime minister.

"Jin Weixian has to be eliminated. Apart from other things, the fact that he didn't guard against the beautiful maid you sent over is a sure way to his death!"

Ang Lee gave the final conclusion.

Zhao Gao suddenly realized what was going on. He took a step forward and asked in a deep voice, "What does Your Majesty want to do? If there is anything that I can do for you, please just tell me!"

"Well, first, contact Yu Huatian and check whether there have been any natural disasters in the past few years in the various regions of Da Qi that have been reported to the court and then allocated funds?"

"Your Majesty, before you deal with Jin Weixian, do you want to deal with Zhou Jing first?"

Zhao Gao looked puzzled. These two seemed to be in collusion, but if Zhou Jing was defeated, what effect would it have on Jin Weixian? It would just be another person coming up.
In feudal dynasties, natural disasters occurred from time to time. Even though no major disasters had occurred in Da Qi in recent years, some minor troubles still continued.

Naturally, as the parents of the disaster area, it is impossible for them to watch the people starve to death, and they must immediately report the disaster to the court. In the disaster report, it is common to make up the disaster and make a small matter out of it. What's worse, some people even fabricate the disaster to defraud the disaster relief funds and line their own pockets.

This had become the norm in the Northern Qi Dynasty.

The Northern Qi Dynasty would also set aside a portion of its annual fiscal budget to deal with this situation.

As we all know, disasters vary in severity.

The more serious the disaster, the more generous the relief issued by the court, and the more room local officials have to make money. However, in today's underdeveloped communication conditions, once a natural disaster occurs, it is extremely difficult to transmit information. The disaster can only be reported step by step through people sent by local officials. The opacity of information between the upper and lower levels is also the key to their success.

Of course, many people are aware of these operations, and naturally, it is also necessary to establish a good relationship with the Ministry of Households.

for example.

When the imperial court learned that a disaster had occurred in a certain place, it would not completely believe the disaster documents reported by local officials.

While distributing relief funds, they also sent imperial envoys to investigate, and the local officials' response was simple. They led the imperial envoys to the worst-hit areas, wasting their patience and time, while trapping them there. In the end, they would only get a conclusion that the disaster was serious and report it back to the court.
These methods are crude, but very effective.

Do you think you can hide it from the people in power? Of course you can't, but what does the emperor value most?

Aren’t your subordinates corrupt?

no.

But there is no civil unrest in the local area!
Anyone who has served as a local official cannot be unaware of these methods of corruption, let alone the emperor who is in charge of the government?
You know, those who can enter the core, except for some people who are born with strong backgrounds, all have to go through baptism in the local areas before they can enter the court.
In any case, as long as some old corruption cases are uncovered, the Minister of Finance Zhou Jing will not be able to escape. (There are also some fabricated cases of people eating salaries, which I will not elaborate on one by one.)
"Zhou Jing is the Minister of Revenue after all, so we can't be too rough in dealing with him." Li An laughed, but there was some helplessness in his laughter. "Jin Weixian has a lot of wealth in his hands, but if he doesn't cash it out through the Ministry of Revenue, he won't be able to spend it. If he doesn't deal with Zhou Jing, it will be like cutting off one of his arms!"

"Moreover"

"When did I ever say that I would use normal means to deal with Jin Weixian?"

Zhao Gao did not reply, but listened more attentively.

As expected, Li An's voice continued, "Second, find out Jin Weixian's movements and keep him under surveillance! It would be best if we could find out who he has met. At the very least, we should know the situation of the guards around him. If we use ordinary methods to deal with Jin Weixian, it will be difficult to bring him down in a short period of time. After that, arrange an opportunity for me to leave the palace!"

Naturally, no one could know about this opportunity to leave the palace.

It's no wonder that Li An wanted to break the rules and directly assassinate the ministers to cause panic, but there was not enough time. Jin Weixian was insidious and had too much power in his hands. When the war came, Li An had no mood to continue playing with him in order to fulfill the wish of the emperor's wife.

"Ah?" Zhao Gao exclaimed.

Madam, what are you doing? Are you trying to kill me?
From what you said, you are planning to go on stage yourself to seek excitement?
"Why? What's your objection?"

Li An raised his eyelids and glanced at Zhao Gao. He would definitely understand such a simple truth.

“Although all the subordinates are in the open and the Saint’s whereabouts are difficult to hide, we cannot let Her Majesty take action personally!” Zhao Gao knew that Her Majesty had a very high level of martial arts skills, but no matter how high his imagination went, he would never dare to think that Her Majesty Defei was a master of the ninth rank.

I am of the seventh rank, and the queen is better than me. Maybe she is similar to the female official of the empress dowager, and has just entered the eighth rank?
Considering the Empress' age, she is already considered a genius!

"It's all my fault that I'm incompetent and can't help you! But this... this... is too dangerous." If His Majesty knew about this, no matter whether it succeeded or not, I would be dead.
"Haha, don't worry, I also have methods and preparations."

Ang Lee was not telling the truth.

It is true that he was looking for excitement, but he also wanted to increase his experience in fighting the enemy. Although the man with a strange face beside Zhou Jing was hiding in the crowd yesterday, Li An, who has countless characteristics, also noticed the abnormality of this person!
Whether it was his heartbeat, breathing or steps, this person was hiding himself while also "explaining" to Li An the extraordinary level of his cultivation!

In Li An's estimation, this person might have already entered the ninth level of martial arts master.

As a minister of a country, Zhou Jing has a high status and is in a truly powerful department. Li An does not find it strange to have such a master around him. By comparison, it can be seen that Prime Minister Jin Weixian must have masters of the same weight guarding him.
Since his debut, Li Ang has never really fought with anyone, and can be said to have no experience in personally facing an enemy. This is his shortcoming, and it would be better to make up for it as early as possible!

However, although this move was reckless, Ang Lee was also considerate.

He had copied the Qi of the Saint and Lang Tao, and with the addition of other masters, he should have reached three times the amount of ninth-grade Qi, but he didn't feel like he had broken through to the Grandmaster level! It was expected that it wouldn't be so easy to break through to the Grandmaster level, maybe he was still missing something.

Although he had not yet reached the Grandmaster level, Li An's energy and martial arts skills at this time had already crushed all the ninth-grade warriors. What he lacked was only the ability to master the skills and see blood.
Even if he was defeated in the end, it would be very easy for him to escape. The opponent wanted to keep him, but it was impossible.

In addition, the experience value of the "Advanced Copy" entry has reached 90 points. When the experience value is full and fixed, there will be a system reward. There is less than a week left before the third entry is updated.
These are Ang Lee’s confidence!

"If the Prime Minister has experts to protect him, it will be difficult for me to achieve any results without sending the Saintess or Wolf Peach. But if he doesn't have experts to protect him, why do you need to worry about my safety?"

Li An's words shocked Zhao Gao again.

Your Majesty is comparing yourself to the Saint and the Wolf Peach. If so, then Your Majesty is...
Not daring to guess any more, Zhao Gao thought he should go down and find a piece of soft armor in the palace treasury for the queen to wear.
Seeing that Zhao Gao had accepted the order, Li An then said the third point, "Tell Cao Zhengchun and the others to control their subordinates during these days. Any abnormalities must be reported to me. Do you understand?"

"Slave understands!"

"Go down and do your work"

(End of this chapter)