3997
Chapter 3997: Blood Letter
At the same time, a deputy commander of the Imperial Forest Guard rushed into the palace, bringing surprising news. The six bandits who had broken into the Liu family residence, setting fires and killing, had all turned themselves in.
Empress Liu's vision swam, and her face twisted as she said, "I will go and see what kind of brazen bandits dare to break into my Prime Minister's mansion and kill people!"
She was certain in her heart that this matter was connected to Duanyue. But for the murderous bandits to suddenly confess—what was going on?!
Empress Liu speculated, but was frustrated by the lack of evidence to accuse Duanyue. This affair was clearly premeditated. From the bandits entering their Liu mansion and slaughtering everyone inside, to the culprits coming forward to confess, the timing of everything was just perfect.
To throw the entire Imperial Capital into such chaos and then immediately try to smooth it over! Who gave them the audacity to toy with her like this?!
Empress Liu's sharp nails dug into her palms, her eyes revealing a keen, malevolent glint.
Because of the large number of displaced people surging at the city gates, the Cangzhou Emperor had no choice but to first dispatch Wu Yong to investigate. This incident was strange and bizarre in its outbreak. But the situation continued to develop in an increasingly peculiar direction, beyond the control of a mere empress.
By the time of the court assembly the next day, a flurry of impeachment memorials were submitted to the Cangzhou Emperor. All of them impeached Prime Minister Liu's family for encroaching on land and occupying forests in the suburbs of the capital, causing nearly ten thousand rural residents to become homeless and helpless.
Was this unusual? Of course not. Which high-ranking official or wealthy merchant in the capital didn't acquire some estates and farmlands near the capital's outskirts? However, Prime Minister Liu's family, due to their land acquisition and enclosure, had driven away a large number of residents.
Whether there were actually nearly ten thousand displaced people, that specific number, was clearly something no one wanted to investigate further. In fact, even if other officials had also committed such immoral acts, they now seized the opportunity to shift the blame for these nearly ten thousand displaced people directly onto the Liu family.
After all, there were no witnesses left, right? It's not as if Prime Minister Liu could crawl out from underground to cry injustice.
The impeachment memorials fell like snowflakes onto the Emperor's desk. Everyone was indignant, eloquently criticizing Prime Minister Liu's family for oppressing the people, forcing them to become bandits and robbers in the mountains, and compelling them to come and kill his entire family in the dead of night! This was entirely because the common people could no longer survive!
So, they could only resort to such an extreme method, selecting six loyal desperadoes to kill the entire Liu family.
Although this matter was full of suspicious points: for example, why did it erupt so suddenly? And how had these nearly ten thousand displaced people managed before, why choose this particular moment to bring the matter to light?
What truly made Empress Liu's vision swim was that the six confessing bandits had all written confessions and blood letters of petition the previous night, and then committed suicide in the prison en masse.
The blood letters were presented to the Emperor by a high official from the Ministry of Justice during the morning court.
The Emperor read through the blood letters, furiously denounced the entire Liu family, and after the assembly, rushed to the Empress's palace, where he thoroughly berated her.
Empress Liu had not slept a wink last night and was now so miserably scolded by His Majesty that she couldn't eat a single bite of food that evening.
"Noble Consort Qing has arrived."
The eunuch's announcement made Empress Liu, whose eyes were filled with tears, suddenly spring up from her couch.