In the lobby of the palace, Zhang Yangquan sat silently behind the case, immersed in processing official documents.
On the carpet in the hall, officials were kneeling on the floor, and all the officials spoke out to criticize Liu Bowen's crimes.
For example, in the thirteenth year of Zhizheng period, Liu Bowen led officers and soldiers in Chuzhou and killed more than 2,000 rebel soldiers!
Another example is that when Liu Bowen left the Yuan Dynasty, he judged all the rebel leaders and compared the Jiangdu Army to an army of bandits.
Zhang Yangquan listened silently without saying a word.
A quarter of an hour later, a personal guard came in and reported. Zhang Yangquan then raised his head and said, "Please invite him in."
The guard agreed and left the hall.
After a while, Liu Bowen followed the bodyguard and walked in.
"Your Majesty, Liu Bowen, pays homage to your Majesty!"
Zhang Yangquan slowly stood up and said with a smile: "Mr. Liu, these people are here to impeach you, I will hand them over to you!"
After finishing speaking, he left the main hall directly through the ear door.
Those officials began to panic. When they came over just now, Zhang Yangquan said: "If you have anything to say, just say it without any worries."
They thought that the king was finally going to punish Liu Bowen, so they happily denounced Liu Bowen's crimes.
Who knew this would be the result?
"Your Majesty! Liu Bowen is a cruel official. If you appoint this person, you will lose the support of the people and harm the country and the people!" An official shouted sternly towards Zhang Yangquan's leaving back.
Zhang Yangquan did not stay and quickly disappeared into the hall.
"Isn't this Yu Peng and Yu Yuanwailang from the Ministry of Industry? I heard that your brother recently opened a workshop and took over a lot of construction work for the Ministry of Industry and made a lot of money, right?"
A person walked in from outside the palace, looked at the official with a sneer on his face, it was Yang Xian, the censor Zhongcheng.
Yu Peng said sternly: "Yang Zhongcheng, my brother's opening of the workshop is in compliance with the policies of the Zhongshu Province. Is there anything wrong with him?"
Yang Xian said calmly: "Your brother's workshop has less than twenty people, but he actually took on two fortifications in three months. The quality of one of the stone bridges he built was not up to standard at all. Do you think there is anything wrong?"
Yu Peng turned pale and stopped talking.
Another official said angrily: "Yang Xian, you are a treacherous and hypocritical person who specializes in evil tactics. You will definitely leave a bad name in history in the future!"
Yang Xian glanced at the man: "Yan Zhengzhong, although I don't know how I will be judged by future generations, I know how you will be judged by future generations!"
The man held his head high and said, "I have a clear conscience, and future generations will be able to judge for themselves!"
Yang Xian sneered and said: "In the future, history books will definitely record this: When you were responsible for supervising local charity warehouses, you accepted local bribes and turned a blind eye to the food shortage of some charity warehouses!"
Yan Zhengzhong's expression changed drastically, and he said in shock: "You..."
Yang Xian intercepted and said: "My surname Yan, have you ever thought about how many people will starve to death because of your greed during disaster relief in the future? You also brazenly accuse others of being treacherous. Among the officials present, you are the most evil.
!"
After everyone heard this, their expressions looking at Yan Zhengzhong also changed.
Yan Zhengzhong said anxiously: "You, you are talking nonsense!"
Yang Xian snorted and said: "In order to investigate your matter, we sent three supervisory censors to visit. Do you think that if you take care of the officials and subordinates, the matter will not be exposed?"
Yan Zhengzhong trembled all over, his lips trembled, but no sound came out.
Yang Xian wanted to say more, but Liu Bowen raised his hand and said: "No need to say more, take them all back to the Yushitai for interrogation and handle them according to law!"
Yang Xian accepted the promise, called for the accompanying officials to come in, and escorted the officials to the Yushitai.
After leaving the palace, seeing all the officials being escorted into the carriage, Yang Xian opened the curtain, and after Liu Bowen got on the carriage, he got in.
After a while, the motorcade left the palace.
As the motorcade disappeared down the street, two men leaned out from behind a tree.
One of them looked solemn and whispered in a Mongolian voice: "Brother, did you see clearly? There are more than 40 officials in total, all of whom were taken away by Yushitai!"
Another person sighed and cursed: "Damn it, it's really hard for Han people to be an official. What should we do?"
The first man said: "What else can I do? I can only hand over the money and get away with it! Anyway, I don't want to be put in jail anymore!"
The bell rang, and Yushitai's carriage drove on the street, attracting a crowd of passers-by to look sideways.
Many of them were spies sent to find out the news. They hid in the dark. After seeing the convoy, they immediately turned around and left to report the news back.
In the last carriage, Yang Xian saw all this and looked very happy.
"Teacher, Your Majesty personally helped us gather these officials and handed them over to you personally. Sure enough, no one dared to intercede for them anymore and they made things difficult for us!"
Liu Bowen glanced at him and said: "It is very valuable that you can understand the king's intention!"
Yang Xian's eyes flashed and he whispered: "Teacher, many southern officials attacked you because of Lu Liangzuo. They have no reason to blame. How should we deal with it?"
Liu Bowen said: "After investigation, if there is really no charge, we will be acquitted."
Yang Xian said anxiously: "But they will definitely keep an eye on you in the future, and they will take revenge when they find an opportunity! Why don't you charge me with defamation, and the king won't say anything more? What do you think?"
Liu Bowen said solemnly: "The things they impeached me are all true, so why slander me?" There was a stern look in his eyes.
Yang Xian hurriedly lowered his head and said: "Student understands."
After a while, Yang Xian sighed with regret and said: "Oh, it's a pity that there is no Li Shanchang among these officials!"
Liu Bowen glanced at him and asked curiously: "Why do you always stare at Li Shanchang? Has he ever offended you?"
Yang Xiandao: "I have been in contact with this person. He and Hu Weiyong are both good at maneuvering. It will not be a good thing if they are allowed to rise to power!"
Liu Bowen shook his head and said: "We are censors, so we just have to do our jobs well, and we can't do bad things! If they really break the law in the future, it won't be too late to deal with them."
Yang Xian only responded, but he didn't think so.
At this moment, there was a burst of noise outside the carriage.
"Let us go over, we have important things to report to Mr. Liu!"
Yang Xian stuck his head out of the car window and shouted: "What happened?"
A civil servant approached and said: "Yang Zhongcheng, two officials from Honglu Temple stopped the carriage and said that they had important matters to report to the Prime Minister!"
"Let them come over." Liu Bowen said.
After a while, two men, one fat and one strong, were brought over.
Liu Bowen got off the carriage and asked the two of them: "Why did you two stop the carriage to see me?"
The fat man said: "I am the Prime Minister of Honglu Temple, and I want to report to the Prime Minister of the Imperial College, Zhou Fu!"
Yang Xian also got off the carriage. When he heard this, his eyes lit up and he said, "Why are you reporting Zhou Fu?"
Polo Buhua was filled with righteous indignation and said: "Zhou continued to use his power for personal gain and used the recruitment hall to accept bribes. He was simply ruining the king's reputation for respecting talents!"
Liu Bowen frowned and said: "How did he use the talent recruitment agency to accept bribes?"
Boluo Buhua said: "Mr. Liu doesn't know something. The recruitment hall is now managed by Zhou Fu. Since everyone is taking the imperial examination, fewer and fewer people are entering the recruitment hall!"
Liu Bowen nodded.
During the recent meeting of the prime ministers, Ma Yulin mentioned this matter, saying that the recruitment hall was no longer in existence and it was better to cancel the recruitment hall and transform it into something else.
At that time, Liu Bowen didn't know about the situation in the Talent Recruitment Hall, so he didn't say much.
The Imperial Academy was in charge of the Recruitment Hall. Taigong He only said to think about it and report to the king, but there was no further information.
Polo Buhua continued: "Zhou Fu took advantage of his opportunity to manage the Talent Recruitment Hall and secretly set a price. As long as he bribed him fifty taels, he could live in the Talent Recruitment Hall for a year in the name of a wise man!" p>
Yang Xian's eyes flickered and he said, "Do you have any evidence?"
Polo Buhua took out a money bag from his sleeve.
"After we found out about this matter, we had no evidence, so we did not report it to Yushitai. However, Zhou Fu found out that we were investigating him, so he came to us privately and gave each of our brothers 100 taels of hush money. We think this is evidence.
That’s why I accepted it!”
Yang Xian took the money bag and said with a faint smile: "Thank you both for providing the evidence. Is there any other evidence?"
Boluo Buhua hesitated for a moment and said: "When we followed Zhou Fu, we found that he often went to Jingmiao Zhai. I wonder if this is evidence?"
Yang Xian shook his head and said: "Of course not."
Polo Buhua whispered: "Then there will be no more."
Liu Bowen suddenly said: "Xiwu, Boluo Sicheng and I will go to the recruitment hall, and you can go to the Imperial College and keep an eye on it."
Yang Xian and Liu Bowen had a tacit understanding. They knew that Liu Bowen wanted to alert the enemy and judge whether there was a problem with him through repeated reactions.
He immediately agreed and rode away.
Liu Bowen ordered another censor under his command to bring all the officials back to the censor's platform, and then took a few followers with him and headed towards the recruitment hall with Polo Buhua.