The matter of establishing a reserve fund was the venture capital product with the highest return rate in any feudal dynasty.
Lu Buwei's rare thing is essentially a bet on the crown prince, and if he wins the bet, he can win himself the status of Prime Minister of Qin, King Yafu of Qin, and Marquis Wenxin.
Of course, he also made some other efforts, which I won’t go into details.
It is definitely nonsense to say that Li Si has no idea about participating in the establishment of a reserve bank.
In the officialdom, everyone has an extreme desire for power and feels that the power in their hands is not strong enough.
A person like Li Si who wants to be a mouse in a hamster is naturally eager for it.
No minister likes an emperor who is too strong, and Li Si is no exception.
But high returns also mean high risks.
By participating in the matter of establishing a heir apparent, Lu Buwei, who was a rare commodity, could rise to the top in one fell swoop.
Li Si was already a highly respected minister, and even though he was a little dissatisfied with Ying Zheng's autocratic power, he did not dare to take risks at will.
At present, in his opinion, the matter of establishing the crown prince is still very confusing and has no clue. He cannot interfere at will, at least not to let Ying Zheng know that he has any intention to interfere.
Ying Zheng didn't react at all to Li Si's response, and Mian Qi's eyes stared at him calmly.
Li Si did not dare to make any unnecessary moves, and lowered his head, waiting for Ying Zheng to speak.
After a while, Ying Zheng finally spoke again and said calmly, "I am deeply gratified that the Prime Minister is loyal to the country."
"However, you are the prime minister and have served as a court captain. You are most familiar with the laws and regulations of the imperial court. Can you tell me, do the requests in these reports comply with the regulations?"
"This..." Li Si pondered for a moment, then roughly understood what the emperor meant, and gave a definite answer in a calm voice, "Of course it is inconsistent with the court's laws."
"For a great victory in the Northland, both General Mengtian as the commander-in-chief and Master Fusu as the supervisor of the army will have their own rewards. Other than that, there are no other rules."
"It is neither suitable for reason nor law."
"Since it is illegal, as the prime minister, why don't you take action?" Ying Zheng's tone suddenly became serious and he asked Li Sidao.
It's not easy for your foreign ministers to interfere in the private affairs of the royal family, no problem.
But since it is a report that does not comply with the court's laws, as the Prime Minister, you should deal with it directly. Why does it have to be piled up on my desk?
"This is my fault, and I am guilty." Li Si could not argue, or rather he did not dare to argue, so he could only bow to apologize again.
Ying Zheng still didn't care whether he was guilty or not, he just calmly admonished, "Since you have already made a mistake, the Prime Minister knows how to correct it, right?"
"I understand." Li Si bowed his head and responded.
The emperor's attitude was already obvious - he did not intend to transfer Fusu back to the central court because of the great victory in Beidi.
Now that the emperor had made up his mind, Li Si naturally followed his orders.
"Go down." Ying Zheng said no more, turned his attention back to his desk, and gave a simple order.
Li Si didn't say anything. After bowing politely, he quietly exited the carriage.
………………
While Yingzheng, Li Si, and his ministers were discussing the turmoil caused by the great victory in the North, Zhao Gao, the leader of the Shadow Guards, also received an urgent and secret letter from Zhanri.
It records Tian Yan's actions and attitude.
When Zhao Gao saw these contents, his expression became somewhat uncertain.
He was used to being domineering towards his subordinates, and could never tolerate the slightest offense or opposition from those below him.
In his opinion, what Tian Yan did when he became the Queen of Heroes was a direct provocation to him. Now that he dared to act so recklessly on important matters related to the emperor, it was simply excreting on his head.
If it had been someone else, Zhao Gao would have issued a killing order to the entire network.
But Tian Yan is different after all.
He needs her and the farmhouse, especially now that the farmhouse is almost completely integrated by Tian Yan.
In order to deal with Zhao Gao, Tian Yan deliberately temporarily put aside the vacant positions of hall masters in various halls, so as to strengthen his direct control over the farmers.
Currently, there are only three actual heads of the Sixth Hall of the Nongjia - Tian Hu, Situ Wanli, and the Zhu family.
Tian Hu has no brains, and he will definitely side with Tian Yan.
The Zhu family will not cooperate with Luo Wang under any circumstances.
Only Situ Wanli was a man with a lively mind and a firm stance, but he alone could not make waves. If he made the slightest move, he would probably be dealt with by Tian Hu and the Zhu family.
Zhao Gao was unable to stir up unrest within the farm family again, so he could only tolerate Tian Yan again and again.
Now, Zhao Gao will not take action against Tian Yan.
He still doesn't know that the Mohist Blue Dragon Plan is another assassination of Ying Zheng, but just as Zhang Liang expected, this does not prevent him from using the Blue Dragon Plan to attack the power of the imperial court.
Because he didn't know, he decided to make a simpler decision.
If he had known that this plan directly affected Ying Zheng's life, he might have reconsidered it.
Zhao Gao was happy to harm the interests of the empire, but he certainly couldn't let Ying Zheng know that he had done it.
Hiding the emperor's secret is a technical job, and you have to choose different plans according to different situations.
Like the last Daze Mountain incident, since it did not directly harm the interests of the empire, Zhao Gao only needed to ensure that what Zhang Han, the only witness, said would not be fully accepted by the emperor, then he could avoid responsibility.
But this time, the Blue Dragon Project must be directly aimed at the imperial court, so it is not appropriate to be vague. It must be completely clear of the trap and not get the slightest bit of blame.
In this case, he must have a white glove that is suitable enough and will never expose himself - that is, the farmer, or Tian Yan.
This kind of charlatan is not qualified to be taken seriously by Ying Zheng, and naturally he will not have a chance to defend himself.
However, before putting on this white glove, Zhao Gao had to plan carefully to ensure that he could not be found.
By the way, he also had to continue to test Tian Yan's thoughts to avoid being tricked by the other party.
Therefore, he will not go to see Tian Yan in person in the short term.
……………………
Things in the imperial court did not affect Gu Xun in the slightest.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! He said those things without any hesitation, and Zhang Han didn't say another word to him.
However, good news from the North came frequently, and Zhang Han informed Gu Xun of everything.
From Liusha's intelligence network, Gu Xun learned that not only Mengtian's troops were victorious, but the Yuezhi Kingdom was also starting to get on the right track.
Chen Ping finally began to exert his strength, and united many nobles of the Yuezhi Kingdom to support the new king, suppressed other nobles in the country, and temporarily unified the power of the Yuezhi Kingdom to start a counterattack against the Wolf Clan.
It also happened that Mao Dun was being beaten on Meng Tian's side and could not care about the west. The war went smoothly for them for a while.
Of course, for the Wolf Clan who had eaten away at the Donghu Tribe, the Yuezhi Kingdom's attack could only be regarded as a scabies disease, and the total exchanges between the two sides were only about 30,000 to 20,000 people.
Meng Tian's side was his main force. Not counting the rebellious Macedonian legions, there were about 100,000 troops.
If Meng Tian were to be defeated, not only would his own rule be shaken, but the pace of devouring Donghu would also have to slow down for many years, and the two combined together would probably take another ten years to slow down.
Meng Tian's goal is to completely defeat the main force of the wolf clan, but it seems unlikely at the moment.
The wolf army is too mobile. It is easy to defeat the opponent, but it is impossible to annihilate them.
This time, even if all the land in Henan is taken back, the wolf clan will only suffer some insignificant losses at most, and they will be able to recover after a few years of rest.
Gu Xun didn't care much about this.
There will be chaos in the Central Plains area soon, and he cannot let the Wolf Clan take advantage of it, so after Meng Tian drives the Wolf Clan army out of Henan, he will take action himself.
This time, he won't commit too many murders - it's not that he has any taboos, it's just that he doesn't think it's useful.
The wolves, or those nomads who live in pursuit of water and grass, are too tenacious. No matter how much they kill, they can still bring the population level back in a few years.
It cannot be said that it is completely meaningless, but it is indeed not directly proportional to the effort and benefit.
His target is only Maodun, Shanyu of the wolf clan... and probably his descendants.
Last time he only killed Touman, but let go of the more difficult to deal with Maodun. He didn't want to happen again.
As for a few heads, he could just go and pick them up when the time came, but he was too lazy to worry about it now.
Gu Xun's attention these days has been mainly focused on an incident that happened not long ago, or it may be related to that incident - the assassination of Yishan.
In that assassination, the Tian Qi clan seemed to have used two hidden stakes buried within the empire, but in fact they were used by Luo Yun in turn.
At that time, Gu Xun knew that Luo Wang had done it, but he didn't know how Luo Wang did it, so he asked someone to check it out.
After a period of investigation, combined with the intelligence channels of Shadow Guard and Liusha, the truth was finally found out.
Hmm... there's quite a lot involved, so it's a bit of an unexpected gain.
"So, is it a trick within a trick?" Gu Xun asked Zhang Han with a smile.
Zhang Han nodded and replied with the same smile, "Back then, Lord Changping planted many hidden stakes in the trap, and one of them even became the Tianzi killer. That person should know."
Gu Xun nodded, "I know, of course I know."
When the King of Qi visited Qin and was assassinated, the Tianzi assassin sent by Luo Wang turned his back on the enemy. He still remembered this incident quite clearly.
Zhang Han then continued, "Luowang therefore launched an internal investigation and found many problematic people, but Zhao Gao deliberately retained most of them and prepared to use them at the right time."
"Later, the Kingdom of Chu fell, and Lord Changping died. The hidden stakes he planted in the trap later fell into the hands of different forces, and Zhao Gao planted some spies within those forces."
"In the Yishan incident, he used his own personnel within the Chu faction to interfere with their orders to the hidden stakes."
In other words, the people who took action at that time had the identity of a snare person, but they did not think that their actions at that time were ordered by the snare. They thought that they were accepting orders from the real people on the line.
Because they were separated by a layer, the Tianchen clan didn't know what specific orders the two men received. They only knew that the other party would cooperate with them.
This trick makes the snare very worthwhile.
First of all, if Ying Zheng arranges a detailed investigation, he will definitely be found in the net, and Zhao Gao will be involved.
But at the same time, it will also be found out that the trap was just an oversight and the wrong person was used.
Although this is a crime, for Zhao Gao it is a harmless crime.
The network has tens of thousands of people, from killers to intelligence officers. Unless Zhao Gao has an entire computer room, it would be impossible for him to thoroughly investigate the origins of these thousands of people.
Negligence is inevitable.
Zhao Gao would be reprimanded for this, but at most he would only receive a few mild scoldings.
And because the snare has already made a mistake, it will naturally be temporarily excluded from it - if it is a drama arranged by him, he cannot bring himself into it.
Zhao Gao gave Confucianism a huge blame, but he only had to bear the responsibility of a little negligence.
Even if the Tianchen clan and other anti-Qin forces who were exploited noticed something was wrong, they couldn't say anything because the two backstabbers did try their best to cooperate with them, and even seemed to almost kill Ying Zheng.
The only ones who can find out the truth are the Chu forces that cooperate with the Tianchen clan, or to be precise, the spies who snare them.
But these people have all been silenced.
You can't expect an anti-Qin force to shout to the emperor, "There is a traitor in his family and he was silenced. It must be the result of the trap."
Even if they clamor, the emperor may not believe them.
Even if Gu Xun was able to find out the whole truth, it was because of Liusha's intelligence network. The deepest problems could not be found at all by relying solely on the Shadow Guard investigation.
Of course, Gu Xun admitted that this truth was quite interesting, and he had to admit that Zhao Gao's conspiracy methods were indeed pervasive.
But these past events and hidden secrets are of little value to Gu Xun.
He didn't intend to use this to cause trouble with Luo Yu. He didn't intend to cause trouble with Zhao Gao. It didn't matter whether he could find out the truth or not.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! What he wants is to use this to figure out what may happen next.
"How much do you think Luo Wang knows about the Qinglong Project now?" Gu Xun changed the subject and asked Zhang Han about other matters.
Zhang Han thought for a while and replied, "I'm afraid they know about seven or eight, and as the plan gradually advances, they will know everything sooner or later."
According to the current intelligence of the Shadow Secret Guard, Luo Wang has a high-status spy within the Mo family.
Before the Qinglong Project was implemented, it was under strict confidentiality. They might not be able to learn the details, but as the plan was launched, sooner or later all the contents would be passed on to the trap by the insider.
And it most likely won’t take long.
Gu Xun looked at Zhang Han and asked meaningfully, "Do you think Luo Wang will stop Qinglong's plan?"
Zhang Han did not answer directly, but said with a wry smile, "I'm afraid it depends on the specific content of the Qinglong Project."
"The content is very simple, it is to assassinate the emperor." Gu Xun directly told Zhang Han the news he got from Zhang Liang.
Zhang Han was also stunned after hearing this.
Another assassination? It’s not over, right?
"Sir, are you saying that they will take advantage of the Emperor's visit to Songhai to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor?"
Gu Xun gave a very vague response, "Maybe."
After receiving a certain degree of confirmation, Zhang Han ignored the trap and tentatively suggested, "Should we make preparations for this matter in advance, strengthen protection, and alert the Eastern Patrol Team at the same time?"
Gu Xun rolled his eyes and glanced at him, then asked, "How can we strengthen the protection specifications of the East Patrol convoy? Should we bury the convoy?"
Zhang Han was speechless for a moment.
Indeed, after the Yishan assassination, the Eastern Patrol Team was always on the highest alert.
If it were strengthened, we would really have to have tens of thousands of troops surround the entire convoy at all times, and then a team of tens of thousands of people would slowly move towards Songhai.