Traveling the Heavens in Thunderbolt

Chapter 190

The death of Changping Jun meant that the "Qinglong Plan" had failed, but the remaining troubles were enough to shake the entire Qin State.

Not long after, Qin Shi Huang, who unified the six kingdoms and built an unprecedentedly magnificent empire, still had to deal with the affairs of the empire after ascending the mirage. He inspected the conquered Baiyue and other places from the sea, and dealt with the follow-up policies towards the Xiongnu and Baiyue.

But with the death of Yun Zhongjun, the elixir he had made was consumed, and Ying Zheng's brain disease relapsed again, and it was more severe than the previous attack.

Even so, he did not change his attitude of diligence in government. Instead, this move made it even more so. In just one month, the originally strong and healthy Ying Zheng seemed to be exhausted.

He had to end his eastern tour early and return to Xianyang, but unexpectedly when he reached Shaqiu Palace halfway, his illness worsened that night. He hurriedly ordered Prime Minister Li Si and the Minister of the Central Chariots Zhao Gao to draft an edict, ordering Prince Fusu to inherit the throne, Meng Tian to take charge of the military power, and summoned King Chengqiao of Han to return to the court to serve as the chief of the imperial clan, and to assist Fusu together with the two brothers Meng Tian and Meng Yi.

Not long after I finished writing the edict,

Prime Minister Li Si thought that the emperor had died in another place, and was afraid that the princes and other places would take the opportunity to create trouble, so he kept the matter strictly secret and did not release the funeral news. The coffin was placed in a chariot (an ancient chariot that could be used for sleeping, with windows, which would keep warm when closed and cool when opened, and was later used as a funeral vehicle). Wherever the team passed, food was offered and officials reported to the emperor as usual. Therefore, except for Hu Hai, Zhao Gao and five or six favored ministers who knew that the first emperor had passed away, the rest of the people were kept in the dark.

Unexpectedly, this action gave Zhao Gao ample time to plan.

Zhao Gao saw through Li Si's desire for power and advised him to let Cheng Qiao, Meng Tian and Meng Yi come back to assist in government affairs. Cheng Qiao would be the chief of clan affairs, Meng Tian would be the general, and Meng Yi would be the prime minister. Then, there would be a place for him in the Qin court.

These words hit Li Si's sore spot. After some ideological struggle, Li Si finally decided to cooperate with Zhao Gao.

Together, the two falsely claimed to have accepted the Emperor's will and appointed Hu Hai as the crown prince. They also tampered with the Emperor's edict to Fusu, accusing him of failing to expand territory and establish achievements over the years, but causing a large number of casualties among the soldiers. They also wrote several letters to the Emperor, directly slandering their father, complaining day and night that they could not be relieved of their military supervisory duties and return to Xianyang to be the crown prince; and that General Meng Tian did not correct Fusu's mistakes, and participated in and understood Fusu's plot. Therefore, they ordered them to commit suicide and handed over the military power to the deputy general Wang Li.

After Fusu received the imperial edict, he went into the inner room crying and planned to commit suicide. Meng Tian said: "Your Majesty is away and has not confirmed who is the crown prince. He sent me to lead 300,000 troops to guard the border and ordered you to be the military supervisor, which is the heavy responsibility of the world. Now there is only one messenger coming to deliver the letter, and we commit suicide. How can we know that there is no fraud?! Let us ask for confirmation again, and then it will not be too late to die." However, the messenger urged them to end their lives many times, so Fusu said to Meng Tian: "My father ordered his son to die, why do I need to ask for confirmation again!" Then he committed suicide.

Meng Tian refused to die, so the messenger handed him over to the officials for punishment and imprisoned him in Yang Zhou. He replaced Li Si's servants as guards and then reported to Li Si and Zhao Gao. Hu Hai had heard that Fusu had died, so he wanted to release Meng Tian. It happened that Meng Yi returned from praying to the gods of mountains and rivers on behalf of the First Emperor. Zhao Gao said to Hu Hai: "The late emperor wanted to recommend you as the crown prince for a long time, but Meng Yi kept persuading him that this should not be done. Now it is better to kill Meng Yi!" So Meng Yi was arrested and imprisoned in Dai County.

As for Cheng Qiao, the King of Han, he was naturally included in the kill list and received an edict that also ordered him to commit suicide. After reading the entire content of the edict, he laughed at the stupidity of Zhao Gao and Li Si, and directly used his Gold and Silver Palms to turn the messenger into a golden statue, and asked the accompanying deputy envoy to send the golden statue back to Xianyang.

Afterwards, he ordered the entire Qin army, which had been gathered and stationed in Baiyue, and the 100,000 troops in his own fiefdom, to capture the infiltrated Bashu area in one fell swoop. He announced to the outside world that he wanted to go there to see the new emperor ascend the throne, and his troops headed straight for Xianyang.

Zhao Gao and Li Si were so frightened that they hurriedly issued an edict to appease Hu Hai, who had already ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, also known as Qin II. After talking with the envoy sent by Cheng Qiao, they immediately issued an edict to grant the entire Bashu and Baiyue to Cheng Qiao as a fiefdom, and let his son Ziying, who stayed in Xianyang City, take over the position of Zongzheng in his place as a appeasement.

After getting what he wanted, Cheng Qiao returned with his troops, and a civil war that was about to break out ended immediately.

Because of the double suppression including Han Wang Chengqiao and Zongzheng Ziying, Hu Hai dared not harm his brothers again, so dozens of Qin Shihuang's children were spared.

But the ministers were not so lucky. Hu Hai first sent messengers to force Meng Yi to commit suicide, and then sent people to Yang Zhou's prison to force Meng Tian to commit suicide. Meng Tian refused at first and argued that he wanted to see Hu Hai and ask him to withdraw the imperial edict. The messenger refused. Seeing that there was no hope of survival, Meng Tian had to commit suicide by taking poison. Later, at the instigation of Zhao Gao, he also started a killing spree. Right Prime Minister Feng Quji and General Feng Jie chose to commit suicide to avoid humiliation.

Zhao Gao also took this opportunity to place his cronies in the positions one by one. His brother Zhao Cheng became the Minister of the Imperial Chariots, and his son-in-law became the county magistrate of the capital Xianyang, both important positions. Other important positions in the court were also filled with Zhao Gao's cronies.

In the end, Li Si, the former ally, was not spared and was falsely accused of treason, and his three clans were exterminated.

Just when the Qin State was too busy with court struggles to manage the former territories of the six states in Shandong, the remnants of the "Qinglong Plan" emerged.

Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang, who pretended to surrender to the Qin State, gathered some farmers' children who were unwilling to submit to the Qin State and started an uprising in Daze Township. With the help of Zhang Liang, the third-in-command of Confucianism who escaped the disaster, countless remnants of the six countries hidden in the dark responded.

Originally, the Mohist school also wanted to respond, but on the night of the uprising, the former Mohist leader Tianming showed up with a rhinoceros horn to cleanse sins on his back to stop them. He single-handedly defeated the four most powerful leaders in the Mohist school, Gao Jianli, Xue Nu, Da Tiechui, Dao Zhi, as well as Dongjun Yanfei, the two swordsmen Gai Nie and Wei Zhuang, Taoist Xiaoyaozi and other masters.

After a long night of talks, the Mohists announced to all parties that they would stick to their non-aggression stance and would not interfere in the world.

The powerful Mohist school announced its withdrawal, but still could not stop the anti-Qin wave.

After a period of fighting, Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang developed the most rapidly. After conquering Chen County, they made it their capital and named themselves Zhang Chu.

At the peak of their military might, they even broke through the Hangu Pass and reached Xidi, which was only a hundred miles away from the Qin capital, Xianyang.

This forced Qin II to follow the advice of Shaofu Zhang Han, pardon hundreds of thousands of prisoners serving in the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, appoint Zhang Han as a general, and temporarily organize an army to block the rebels.

Under Zhang Han's command, they not only repelled Chen Sheng's attacking troops, but also chased them all the way and completely wiped out this large number of troops.

However, the Zhang Chu regime began to split internally. For example, Wu Chen, who led the northern expedition, proclaimed himself King of Zhao and transformed himself into a separatist leader. His subordinate Han Guang also proclaimed himself King of Yan after conquering Yan. Although Zhou Shi, who conquered the old territory of Wei, did not proclaim himself king, he made Wei Jiu, a descendant of Wei, the Lord of Ningling, king, and appointed himself as the prime minister of Wei, ceding territory to protect himself.

At the same time, heroes from all over the country who responded to the movement no longer listened to Chen Sheng's command and directly isolated Chen Sheng's "Zhang Chu" regime, which was the main force against Qin.

After Zhang Han lifted the siege of Xingyang by the rebels, he immediately focused all his efforts on attacking Chen County. Although Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang personally led the troops to resist, the situation was already hopeless. In the end, they died for their country along with a group of peasant disciples who had followed the uprising.

At this point, the Zhang Chu regime, which had been established for less than half a year, came to an end.

I’ve been watching dramas a little late recently and almost forgot to upload them.



(End of this chapter)