Chapter 11 Calm down the anger

After the two separated, they each went to look for their relatives and elders. After roughly explaining the situation, they gathered in front of the city gate and rode their horses out of the city. Among them were the Right General of the Guard Li An and the Imperial Court Assistant Minister Li Shao.

There are only two elders from the fifth branch of the Li family working in Beijing. They are Li Jiancheng's uncles, and Li An also inherited the title of Duke of Zhao.

The current Li family, in addition to the direct lineage that inherited the title of Duke of Tang, has five branches, but none of them are very satisfactory. The second ancestor's lineage has Li Shao serving as the governor of Zezhou, the fifth ancestor's lineage has the two brothers Li An, and the other three branches have no titles, and the highest official position is only sixth or seventh rank, let alone establishing a family.

Li An rode his horse slightly closer to Li Jiancheng and whispered, "Why didn't you discuss this with the clan? It's good to please the queen, but you can't offend His Majesty. What your fourth uncle did back then has caused the remaining troubles until now. Have you forgotten?"

Li Jiancheng's fourth great-uncle Li Zhang served in the Northern Zhou Dynasty as the governor of Liangzhou. He once joined forces with the Northern Zhou King of Zhao, Yuwen You, to try to kill the prime minister Yang Jian who controlled the government. However, the news was exposed and he was killed.

It sounds like a big deal, but in fact there were many families that were against Your Majesty. It can even be said that there were one or two families in each family. After Your Majesty ascended the throne and founded the country, he only killed them without punishing others.

The current situation of the Li family was not caused by this incident at all.

Li An said this simply because he felt that Li Jiancheng was a young boy who had taken the initiative to stand on the side of the family. He wanted to use the principles of seniority to force him to apologize to the emperor in order to preserve his loyalty.

Family is like this. When you can control it, it will be the best help. When you can't control it, it will become a hindrance.

But abandoning is not an option. The power of one person is too small in this era. Without a clan as a foundation, the basic base cannot be stabilized. People from other families hold too much military power, and there is not even a check and balance. Why should they listen to you?

There are not so many loyal people in this world. The Yuwen and Yang families, none of which fought for the previous dynasty, also received the high positions and generous salaries they deserved, but they had accumulated enough strength and were ruthless when they attempted to usurp the throne.

An individual may have absolute loyalty, but a family never will.

The people from the Dou family and the Dugu family looked over here, and although they wanted to say a few words for Li Jiancheng, they really couldn't interfere in the internal affairs of the Li family.

Li Jiancheng's expression remained unchanged: "Although Jiancheng is young, he knows how to respect his parents and elders. I dare not kill my relatives to serve the country."

Li An stared at Li Jiancheng with a cold expression, while Li Zhe on the other side had a sad expression. After a long sigh, he reined in his horse and turned away.

The affair between Li Zhang and Yuwen You was reported by Li An to Yang Jian, the Prime Minister at the time, which led to the failure of the affair and his killing. Since then, he has been highly trusted and promoted to higher positions.

"Uncle, the horse is under your crotch. It is up to you to decide whether to advance or retreat. Why bother to say more?"

"Humph, ignorant and fearless."

Li Jiancheng did not respond, but whipped his horse and galloped into Mount Li for more than 20 miles. Finally, they saw the emperor with disheveled hair and Dugu Kaiyuan and others who were surrounding the emperor.

Led by Yang Jishan's uncle Yang Yue, a large group of the emperor's old ministers dismounted and ran over. Some took off their clothes and put them on His Majesty, some took out cakes and biscuits from their arms, and some hugged His Majesty's thighs and started crying.

Li Jiancheng and Yang Jishan quietly dismounted and stood in the line of Qianniu Guards, watching their performance quietly, watching the drama of the emperor running away from home.

"Your Majesty, how can you easily abandon the people of the world? How can you gallop away on a horse when your body is worth millions of gold, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, how can you let the affairs of the harem shake the country? The emperor and the empress have been in love for many years. It must be that witch's seduction that caused the disaster. Your Majesty should cheer up!"

"Your Majesty, why do you despise the world for a woman?"

Everyone was talking about this at once. Yang Jian stood under the tree for a long time and sighed, "I am the emperor, but I have no freedom. I am no better than a common man." "Your Majesty..."

Without waiting for others to persuade him, Yang Jian mounted his horse and said, "Let's go back to the palace."

Everyone was speechless. Since you were fine, why did you run out of the palace to scare us?

The group returned to the palace in a grand procession, causing the people in the capital to watch from afar and whisper to each other, wondering what rumors they were making up.

The emperor was in no mood to pay attention to anyone. He returned to Renshou Palace in a sad mood, while Li Jiancheng and others stayed at the Yongxiang city gate.

Several people looked a little sad. Yang Jishan said to Dou Dan and Yuan Shibin, "Okay, the three of us just followed orders. It can't be said that we did anything wrong. There is no need to be like this."

Then he said to Dugu Kaiyuan, "Don't go to the Empress's house to apologize. Wait for some time and let the elders of the family go to pay a visit and explain."

"Jiancheng, I never realized you're so brave!" Yang Jishan stepped forward to help him take off his armor. "Today I admire you. How dare you? His Majesty is not a good-tempered person. To be disrespectful, he has become more and more irritable in recent years."

Dou Dan also said with a worried look on his face: "What should we do? Why not ask the queen to resign from the position of Qianniu Guard."

Before Li Jiancheng could say anything, an eunuch came outside and delivered an imperial decree: "Li Jiancheng, the Qianniu Guard, has just been appointed by the emperor, but he disobeyed the emperor's order and is demoted to a guard and punished with ten lashes!"

Li Jiancheng accepted the order calmly. He had expected that the current emperor had an extreme personality. Although he was frugal himself, he was never stingy in rewarding meritorious officials, with high positions, generous salaries, gold, silver, and beauties as rewards.

But he also had a tyrannical side. In his early years, he would beat people in the palace, sometimes four times a day. In total, he beat no less than a dozen officials to death with his own stick in the court.

Until every court official felt insecure, the empress and prime ministers Gao Ying and Liu Yu wrote to the emperor, "Your Majesty, the stick is as big as a finger, and you can hit someone thirty times. The ordinary ones can be beaten hundreds of times, so many people die. The court is not a place to kill people, and the palace is not a place to sentence people."

He then removed the stick placed next to the imperial desk, but later Li Juncai, a military officer from Chuzhou, wrote a letter to the emperor, accusing the emperor and empress of favoring Gao Ying too much. Yang Jian was so angry that he looked for a court stick to beat him to death, but when he couldn't find one, he found a horsewhip and beat Li Juncai to death in front of all the civil and military officials in the court.

Of course, most of those people were scholars from the south, and the Guanlong nobles were not so poor.

Dugu Kaiyuan stood up and was about to ask the queen to come and save him, but the eunuch stopped him: "Your Majesty has ordered you to do the execution yourself."

Dugu Kaiyuan's eyes widened in anger, while Yang Jishan and Yuan Shibin held him down. Dou Dan said to the eunuch, "Mr. Li is a noble relative with distinguished bloodline. He is the eldest son of the Duke of Sui and Tang. How can you punish him? Please ask the eunuch to take me to see His Majesty."

"Your Majesty will not see anyone now, Lord Dou, please do not embarrass me."

Yang Jishan whispered to Li Jiancheng, "Eight Discussions."

The Eight Discussions were a special amnesty for the nobles. Due to their status, they could also have their sentences reduced, their sentences redeemed by money, or their sentences compensated by holding official positions.

But these are methods that can be used when the emperor is trying to reason. Now the emperor doesn't want to reason anymore. He is arguing with the queen and showing his anger to her. As for the law and reason, they are no longer important.

…………

(End of this chapter)