Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 732 - 607: Deciding a Winner (Great Climax - , Requesting Monthly Tickets)_1

Chapter 732: Chapter 607: Deciding a Winner (Great Climax Chapter, Requesting Monthly Tickets)_1

Li Xuan had originally thought that the Golden Knife Case in his hands could suppress Prince Xiang and the court officials for two to three months.

However, the reality was that in less than a month, the court had already been in uproar, with countless impeachments accusing Li Xuan of incompetence in handling the case.

Those eunuchs from the Neiguan Bureau, at this point, were like a pack of mad dogs, savagely attacking Li Xuan’s supporters.

After Li Xuan forced the Fusou people to submit, he no longer interfered with the ’inspection and trade’, but his struggle with the Neiguan Bureau continued and was escalating.

These eunuchs were already heavily injured. For the past two months, the Jiancheng of the Neiguan Bureau, Shaojian, and several heads of records were successively toppled by the joint efforts of Li Xuan and Zuo Daoxing.

The remaining ones were deeply affected, living in fear. Not only did they try to poison the emperor’s ears against them, but they also used their external connections to attack Li Xuan and any court officials close to him.

In Li Xuan’s eyes, these eunuchs were not a serious threat.

Over the past two months alone, Zuo Daoxing had confiscated and returned 6.5 million teal to the palace’s internal treasury by seizing their property.

The Jingtai Emperor was already upset about the court’s decision to establish Prince Xiang, and hearing about the corruption within the Neiguan Bureau made him feel even worse.

The purchasing price for an egg had soared to ten wen of patterned silver, and the price for a pound of ordinary Longxu noodles had reached eighty teal - only the people of the Neiguan Bureau could pull off such acts.

Even if the Jingtai Emperor was disconnected from the struggles of common men, he knew that he was being fleeced.

This infuriated the Jingtai Emperor. Since the time of Emperor Taizong, these Neiguan officials had become increasingly rampant, showing no restraint, and at least 30 million wen of patterned silver had fallen into private hands from the inner treasury.

Not to mention, the illegal income the Neiguan Bureau obtained from the inspection and trade, and their exploitation of the imperial merchants.

According to Zuo Daoxing, these eunuchs had lost the Emperor’s trust and were only waiting for the auditing to be completed before they were sentenced to death.

Under normal circumstances, even with the backing of Qian Long, a eunuch from the Sili Bureau, and even if they gave it their all, the people of the Neiguan Bureau would hardly be able to harm him or Zuo Daoxing.

They wanted to shake the Jingtai Emperor’s trust in Zuo Daoxing, which was even more difficult.

Although Emperor Jingtai was kind-hearted like a woman, he was not easily swayed.

As for Li Xuan, his standing in the court was never based on the emperor’s favour.

But with the involvement of Prince Xiang’s power, the situation changed dramatically.

The offensive they launched was like a turbulent wave, one wave after another, relentless.

By the 27th of December, twenty-nine civil and military officials had been attacked and impeached.

Only six of them were directly arrested and put in prison, but of them, three resigned, six claimed illness and stayed home, and submitted documents to defend themselves.

These Qingliu scholars had a huge problem, they valued their reputation too much.

Most of the content of the accusations from Prince Xiang’s people was based on mere rumours, with no solid evidence.

Nevertheless, these people felt that their character had been questioned, which they saw as a great humiliation, so they just quit, wanting to wait for the court to prove their innocence.

Luckily, Li Xuan and his allies responded effectively, keeping the losses to a minimum.

Quan Dingtian held the position in the Tongzheng Division, and all the impeachment documents in the court had to pass through him.

Quan Dingtian adopted a policy of ’dragging’, to delay or withhold all impeachment documents attacking Li Xuan’s party as much as he could.

He would find faults in the wording of the documents and send them back to their original sender.

As a gentleman, he originally disdained such bureaucratic tactics.

But Yu Zhanshi, Prince Xiang’s confidant, infuriated Quan Dingtian to the point that after mid-December, he used all sorts of measures, virtually sidelining his two deputy officials.

Especially Xu Yuanxian, the ’right Canyi’ from the Tongzheng Division who was Prince Xiang’s trusted follower, couldn’t touch the impeachment documents for half a month.

Quan Dingtian, citing a busy year-end workload, reassigned the duties of the two deputy officials, making Xu Yuanxian temporarily responsible for the accounts and greetings from various places. They were tedious and busy tasks, but were not important.

Weizhen, the Left Qiandu Yushi of the Inspectorate, on the other hand, was making efforts to help his several colleagues who were jailed.

He also adopted a ’dragging’ strategy, doing his utmost to delay the process of handling cases.

All that was needed was to delay the trial of these people for a month or two, and the outcome would definitely be different.

Li Xuan didn’t intend to shield wrongdoing, but he was unwilling to see his colleagues ruined by factional strife.

Luckily, the Dali Temple, the highest judicial organ of the Jin Dynasty, had just been purged last year, and currently, the Emperor’s party still held the upper hand.

Furthermore, the Minister of the Ministry of Punishments, Yu Shiyue, was a stable pillar in the Emperor’s party and a senior leader.

At the moment, the influence of Li Xuan and Wei Zhen was still strong, and they could manage to get what they wanted.

Xue Bai, who held the position of the Official of the Central Government in the Ministry of Works, led the counterattack.

He targeted the current Zongdu of the rivers. On December 27th, during the First Hope Dachao held in advance, he accused the Ministry of Works and the River Yamen of being perfunctory in the construction of embankments on multiple sections of the Han River, the Yellow River and others, even skimping on work, thereby wasting the country’s resources.

This was akin to stirring up a hornet’s nest. On that day, the court had a heated debate over the case for a full six hours, but in the end, it was fruitless.

After the court was dismissed, the Tongzheng Division received dozens of impeachment documents against Xue Bai in just half a day.

Xue Bai’s actions were a direct hit on the vital point. Nearly single-handedly, he attracted all the firepower of Prince Xiang’s party, greatly reducing the pressure on others and even creating a counter-offensive.

Meanwhile, Gao Gu, Xiao Ci, and others were extremely wary of Prince Xiang and also worried that Li Xuan would be forced to abandon the Golden Knife Case. They were helping Li Xuan pull some strings in the court.