Tang Dynasty: Taking the Empress Dowager to a brothel, Father Emperor, what a coincidence!

The civil and military officials in the main hall looked at each other, still reeling from the shock of the news.

Changsun Wuji then came out.

"Your Majesty, what Lord Wang said is absolutely right."

While His Highness the Crown Prince has indeed made great contributions in battle, his actions of killing surrendered soldiers and massacring entire cities are truly contrary to the ways of the sages.

The crown prince is the foundation of the nation and should govern the country with benevolence and filial piety.

Now that His Highness the Crown Prince is tyrannical and willful, he may lose the hearts of the people. How can we entrust the fate of the Tang Dynasty to him...?

Changsun Wuji deliberately paused there, but even a fool could tell what he was going to say next.

At this moment, the officials from powerful families all knelt down.

"We second that proposal!"

"The Crown Prince is morally deficient; we humbly request Your Majesty to issue an edict for severe punishment."

"I humbly request Your Majesty to depose the Crown Prince and appoint a virtuous and capable successor."

Li Shimin sat there, his face grim, without uttering a word.

We didn't even get the battle report from Liaodong ourselves, how did these bastards know?

Even if he thinks Li Chengqian is handsome, he doesn't dare to speak up for him.

The Tang Dynasty valued its reputation and the prestige of having all nations pay tribute.

Li Chengqian has now completely disgraced the Tang Dynasty.

Yuchi Jingde, his face flushed with anger, jumped out and shouted:

"Bullshit! His Highness the Crown Prince is leading his soldiers in a desperate fight, killing Goguryeo bastards."

How come he became a tyrant in your mouths?

Wang Gui sneered:

"Yuchi Jingde, what do you, a mere warrior, know about righteousness?"

Heaven cherishes life, killing prisoners is inauspicious, and massacring an entire city is even more intolerable.

The Zuo Zhuan states...

Wang Gui would launch into a long string of quotations from classical texts.

Yuchi Jingde was completely bewildered by the string of classical Chinese phrases.

For a moment, I didn't know how to refute it.

Fortunately, Niu Jinda also stepped forward.

"If we don't kill people in a war, are we supposed to invite them to dinner?"

Changsun Wuji glanced at Niu Jinda and said lightly:

"General Niu, is fighting on the battlefield the same as unilaterally slaughtering unarmed surrendered soldiers?"

You military generals only care about killing, yet you expect His Majesty and the entire Tang Dynasty to bear the infamy for you throughout the ages.

The military officers fell silent.

Letting them fight with real weapons is fine.

Why should we let them waste their breath arguing with these pedantic scholars?

Even if you tied them all together, they probably couldn't out-argue Wang Gui alone.

Changsun Wuji curled his lip in disdain.

Just when he thought the situation was settled.

"Bullshit!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the shouting.

Kong Yingda walked out.

And it was walking towards Wang Gui.

Before Wang Gui could react, something dark hit him in the face.

Wang Gui was knocked backward by the impact and almost fell to the ground.

"Old man Kong, have you gone mad?"

Wang Gui covered his face and roared angrily.

Kong Yingda pointed at his nose and started spewing insults.

"What drives me crazy is you bunch of ungrateful bastards who have forgotten your ancestors."

They spout platitudes about benevolence, righteousness, and morality, and about the common people and all living beings.

"I'd like to ask you, Lord Wang, did you bring back to life the millions of wronged souls on the Plain of White Bones through your benevolence and righteousness?"

The entire process was completely silent.

Everyone stared at Kong Yingda in disbelief.

White Bone Plains?

Millions of innocent souls?

What's going on here?

Wang Gui quickly bent down and picked up the thing that had just hit his face.

When he saw the words written on it.

Especially when you see those three big characters in the very center: Two-legged Sheep.

Wang Gui dared not utter a sound.

Changsun Wuji leaned over for a look, and his face instantly turned pale.

Kong Yingda continued to shout:

"In the eighth year of the Daye era, hundreds of thousands of men from Guanzhong went on a distant expedition to Liaodong, only to be massacred by the Goguryeo barbarians."

They cut off the heads of us Central Plains people and piled them up into mounds of heads as high as mountains.

They carved words on the stone tablet, cursing us Central Plains people as two-legged sheep, pigs and dogs.

They threatened to use those bones to suppress the dragon veins of the Central Plains, forcing us to be their slaves for generations to come.

Kong Yingda grabbed Wang Gui by the collar.

"Tell me! What kind of benevolence and righteousness do you talk to these beasts who eat people without spitting out the bones?"

"Do you dare go to the Plain of Bones and recite your sacred scriptures to those millions of corpses?"

Wang Gui was being strangled and desperately tried to pry open Kong Yingda's arm.

After hearing Kong Yingda's angry roar, all the civil and military officials had tears in their eyes.

Changsun Wuji panicked.

How did the situation get out of control so quickly?

He subtly kicked Wang Gui's foot.

Wang Gui loudly argued:

"Old man Kong, this is just a record from the previous dynasty."

The previous dynasty was the previous dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty was the Tang Dynasty. The previous dynasty was incompetent, defeated and humiliated; that was due to the foolishness of Emperor Yang Guang.

Our Great Tang Dynasty is a celestial empire, how can we stoop to the level of barbarians?

When will this cycle of revenge end? A great nation should have the magnanimity of a great nation. His Highness the Crown Prince ordered the massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians over a broken stone from the previous dynasty.

This is venting anger. This is indiscriminate killing. Such behavior is utterly degrading; how is it any different from that of those barbaric beasts?

Wang Gui's words angered Yuchi Jingde so much that he almost drew his sword on the spot, but fortunately Niu Jinda, who was standing nearby, held him back.

After hearing this, Kong Yingda was so angry that he laughed.

He rolled up the sleeves of his court robe:

"The demeanor of a great power? Today I'll teach you what the teachings of a sage are."

The sage said, "What do you think of repaying evil with good?"

Kong Yingda roared, startling Wang Gui.

Wang Gui recited it subconsciously:

Confucius said, "How should you repay kindness? Repay injustice with justice, and repay kindness with kindness..."

"Bullshit!"

Kong Yingda interrupted him directly.

All the civil and military officials looked at Kong Yingda in shock.

A great Confucian scholar hurling insults—this was unprecedented.

"His Highness the Crown Prince has taught us well. To repay evil with kindness means to take a big stick and punish them. We must beat these barbarians who betray their masters and ancestors and eat people without bones to a pulp, so that they will wet their pants at the mere mention of the name 'Tang Dynasty' in their next life. That is true virtue."

Wang Gui was completely stunned by the barrage of criticism.

Changsun Wuji couldn't stand it anymore; he thought Kong Yingda had gone mad.

"Kong Yingda! You are utterly disgraceful to scholars."

"You, as the leading scholar of the realm, have dared to distort the teachings of the sages in court and utter such vulgar words; this is utterly rebellious."

Kong Yingda turned his head and started criticizing Changsun Wuji directly.

"Lord Changsun, since you are educated, let me ask you: 'If distant people are not convinced, then cultivate virtue and culture to win them over.' What is your interpretation of this?"

Changsun Wuji snorted coldly:

"Naturally, since the barbarians do not submit to the king's rule, we must use the benevolence and morality of the Central Plains to influence them, so that they will be willing to submit and take the initiative to submit."

"He's talking nonsense again."

His Highness the Crown Prince said that the distant people are not convinced because they have not been defeated.

Once you beat them into submission and break their spines, they will naturally kneel down and worship you.

This is what is meant by cultivating virtue and attracting people.

Changsun Wuji was so speechless that he rolled his eyes.

Kong Yingda ignored Changsun Wuji and continued to spout Li Chengqian's remarks.

"The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits. The Crown Prince did speak of them, but that was because Confucius didn't want to talk about them and simply used supernatural force to knock those rebellious officials out of their minds."

"If I hear the Way in the morning, I can die content in the evening! If I find out where your Goguryeo capital is in the morning, your entire country will be wiped out by evening."

"Since they've come, let them be buried! Goguryeo dared to provoke the Tang Dynasty, so let's kill and bury them properly, and give their entire clan a proper burial."

When this bizarre theory was revealed, the entire court was dumbfounded.

The Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince, a descendant of Confucius, actually misinterpreted Confucian classics in public.

After venting his anger, Kong Yingda took out Wei Zheng's secret letter from his pocket.

"Didn't you want to impeach the Crown Prince? Didn't you say the Crown Prince was a tyrant? Today I'll let you hear what earth-shattering things the Crown Prince actually did in Liaodong."

Kong Yingda unfolded the letter and read it aloud.

He recalled the charges and battles outside Anshi City.

He recited the poem: "A rain of fire will turn the enemy city to ashes."

He remembered that the Crown Prince, for the sake of the million souls on the White Bone Plain, ordered the construction of a Jingguan (a mound of corpses) and the erection of the stone tablet that read "The murderer is Crown Prince Li Chengqian of the Great Tang Dynasty".

Every word was powerful and resounding.

As Kong Yingda read the announcement, the ranks of military officers erupted in cheers.

Yuchi Jingde was the first to roar:

"The Crown Prince is mighty!"

Niu Jinda followed closely behind: "The Crown Prince is mighty!"

"The Crown Prince is mighty!"

"Your Highness the Crown Prince!"

The entire ranks of generals, filled with ruthless warriors, raised their arms and shouted in unison.

They didn't care about eternal infamy; all they knew was that the Crown Prince had avenged his brothers who had died tragically in a foreign land.

Anyone who dares to lay a hand on the Crown Prince today will face a massacre in the Taiji Hall.

After hearing the angry roars of the military generals, Wang Gui...

He couldn't catch his breath and fainted.

"Lord Wang! Lord Wang, what's wrong?"

Several officials from prominent families rushed over in a panic, pinching his philtrum and squeezing his ears.

As Changsun Wuji watched this scene, he suddenly felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

He had planned everything perfectly, except for the fact that he had overlooked Li Chengqian's importance in Kong Yingda's heart.

Li Shimin watched the scene below without saying a word.

He was waiting to see how things would develop.

Just when Changsun Wuji was in despair...

Li Gang, who had been standing silently in the ranks of civil officials, stepped forward.