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Princess and the General - Chapter 227

Published at 4th of August 2021 08:41:07 AM


Chapter 227

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Have You Ever Told His Majesty? (Part Four)
“This would not be difficult.”

Gu HuaiJiang thought for a bit then said: “Your Majesty, this military report was sent out five days ago and will arrive at the border in a few days. Your Majesty can send a fast rider to investigate. When they arrive, the Gu family army should already be in the middle of carrying out the order. At that time, just see if they move or not. Won’t that make it all perfectly clear?”

Imperial censor Dong said: “What if His Majesty dispatches someone to go and investigate, and Lord Marquis Gu also secretly sends a new report to change the order? Would that not make it impossible to find the truth?”

Emperor Ning slammed his desk, his biases already clearly formed, “Nonsense, even if Marquis Gu sent someone out at the same time as Us, how could the troops that have already started moving return to their original positions that quickly? As civil officials, you don’t understand military affairs, yet you brought out a fake military report without proper context and tried to ruin Marquis Gu’s reputation?”

The two imperial censors dropped to their knees at the same time, a cold sweat appearing on their brows. They did not know what else they could say.

Indeed, they had not thought that Gu HuaiJiang would change the way in which he delivered his reports. The one who had given them this report did not tell them that this was fake!

The two glanced up toward the top and hoped that person would quickly step forward to speak on their behalf. If he did not, Emperor Ning might not let them off lightly.

The atmosphere became tense, and time seemed to slow to a crawl…

“Your Majesty, please calm down.”

The one to step forward was not the person that they thought it would be. Instead, it was Gu HuaiJiang.

“It’s exactly as Your Majesty said. The two imperial censors do not understand military affairs, so they don’t know what is a real military report and what is a fake military report. They only know that they found military orders that go against the rule of law. That’s why they wanted to impeach this subject. At its core, there’s nothing wrong with this.”

Gu HuaiJiang glanced at the two imperial censors, “If civil officials were to be blamed by Your Majesty for not understanding military affairs, who will watch over the military officials? This subject hopes that Your Majesty will keep their punishment light to keep the civil officials from becoming too terrified to impeach military officials in the future. That would definitely cause the military officials to become unrestrained!”

Once these words came out, even the eldest prince and the second prince looked at him in shock. They were in complete shock over his serene expression.

He himself was a military official, yet he said that he was worried about the military officials losing oversight from the civil officials. It could be seen just how broad-minded he was to not try and avoid being investigated.

Emperor Ning had wanted to severely punish the two imperial censors, but now, he could no longer punish them heavily. He felt quite unhappy, “Since Marquis Gu is willing to plead your case, We will give him face and accept it. It’s just that you two will need to act more prudently in the future. When it involves a standard first rank official, even if you did not interrogate Marquis Gu directly, you should at least report it to your superior first!”

If Ji DaoGong had known about this matter, he could not possibly have allowed these two imperial censors to do such a thing.

The two imperial censors were incredibly ashamed and blindly agreed.

Gu HuaiJiang said: “Although this subject believes that the blame does not lie with the two imperial censors, this subject is still interested in how they got their hands on the fake military report. If it was not stolen by someone with ulterior motives, they would not have been put in this position.”

The second prince closed his eyes in frustration.

Yin Shuo, oh Yin Shuo, I naively thought that you were smart. Who knew that not only would he fail, but he would also lose some important pieces.

Gu HuaiJiang has been part of the court for many decades, and even your father was unable to do anything about him, yet you wanted to try with your skills?

Emperor Ning came to a slow realization and was finally able to react, “That’s right. With you sending military reports along five different routes, each report will surely be guarded, so how did someone get their hands on this report? Imperial censor Yu, imperial censor Dong, why have you not revealed this yet!”

The two imperial censors exchanged a glance. It seemed that they had decided beforehand on what they would say in such a situation.

“There… there was an anonymous person who delivered it to the imperial censorate. We did not know who stole the military report!”

Gu HuaiJiang cleared his throat, “Since it was a secret report sent to the imperial censorate, may I ask if Lord Ji knew about this?”

Ji DaoGong had been brought up and stepped forward to answer: “Replying to Your Majesty and Lord Marquis, this old subject did not know about this at all. That anonymous person must have thought that imperial censor Yu and imperial censor Dong are more impartial, thus they gave the report to them and not this old subject.”

The two people kneeling on the ground lowered their heads even further.

Ji DaoGong was a long-time official who commanded respect in court. When compared to him, even Emperor Ning and Lord Marquis Gu would be considered part of the younger generation.

When it came to impartiality, was there anyone more impartial than him?

The Ji family had a literary background. Just one look at Ji DaoGong’s name made this perfectly clear.*

Emperor Ning could hear the joking tone of Ji DaoGong’s voice mixed with a faint trace of mockery, “That’s impossible. Lord Ji’s impartiality is something that everyone knows about. If an anonymous person came to report it, how could they have ignored the head official of the Imperial Censorate and look for you two? There must be someone who is trying to cause harm to Marquis Gu and harm the loyal people of my Eastern Ling’s court. This is truly outrageous!”

Knowing that Ji DaoGong would be hard to fool, they chose people who did not understand military affairs. Their plan really was quite vicious.

The person who was behind this was very likely to be someone influential in Eastern Ling’s court.

Emperor Ning had a faint idea of who it could be, and he grew angrier the more he thought about it. He hated that he could not smash the report on his desk on that person’s head.

He was truly too disappointing!

It was precisely at this moment that Yin Shuo, who had remained silent this entire time, suddenly stepped forward.

With Gu HuaiJiang’s guidance, Emperor Ning’s suspicions were already cast on him, so his decision to step forward actually made Emperor Ning hesitant to make a decision.

“This subject believes that Your Majesty’s thinking is correct. But there is one thing that this subject does not understand. We are currently not at war, and there has been no word of any unrest at the border. Has Marquis Gu let His Majesty know about what orders were given to the Gu family’s army stationed at the border?”

*TN: His name is comprised of two proverbs from the same text. The Dao in his name is a commentary on how to attain the idealized world represented by the Gong in his name.





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