Back to the Warring States Period as Zhao Kuo

Page 522

Zhao Kuo lost no time in directing the fire to Zhou Shaofen and Zhou Shaoliang.

Frankly speaking, Zhao Kuo is actually not very clear about what kind of roles the two brothers Zhou Shaofen and Zhou Shaoliang played in this matter.

But Zhao Kuo didn't need to worry about these things. After all, when Zhou Shaofen and Zhou Shaoliang were targeting Zhao Kuo, didn't they just want to punish Zhao Kuo?

Since your Zhou Brothers can do the first grade of junior high school, of course I, Zhao Kuo, can also do the fifteenth grade.

What's more, what Zhao Kuo said is actually very close to the facts, and it can be said to be half right.

Zhou Shaoliang did know about this, but Zhou Shaofen, the Patriarch of the Zhou family, did not know about it.

After listening to Zhao Kuo's words, King Zhao frowned more and more.

Because what Zhao Kuo said is indeed very reasonable.

If this matter is not the self-assessment of Mr. Zhou, but the secret behavior of the Zhou family, then the whole matter will become a big deal.

This means that the Zhou family is secretly obeying King Zhao's reform order!If you think about it, if Pingkangfang ends up being completely controlled by nobles such as the Zhou family, then the reform of Pingkangfang can also be declared a failure.

The reform of Pingkangfang itself is the will of King Zhao, so the failure of the reform will inevitably implicate King Zhao and make King Zhao lose face.

Doesn't this mean that the Zhou family is trying to find a way to slap King Zhao in the face!Thinking of this, Zhao Wang's face completely darkened.

"What a Zhou Shaofen, what a Zhou family!"

Zhao Wang was angry.

As a king who thinks he is "young and promising", what King Zhao hates the most is someone embarrassing him!Now, Zhou is clearly doing just that.

And the most critical problem is that the Zhou family has the motivation to do so, and that is because King Zhao abolished Queen Zhou not long ago.

Since King Zhao abolished Queen Zhou, it sounds completely reasonable for the Zhou family to take revenge on King Zhao in such a subtle way, and it can be said that there is no problem at all.

Zhao Kuo looked at Zhao Wang's angry look, and secretly applauded in his heart.

Yes, that's it, the more angry the better, it's best to just get angry and remove all the positions of the Zhou brothers.

It's just that in this matter, Zhao Wang still disappointed Zhao Kuo.

After a while, King Zhao seemed to have regained some calm, and said to Zhao Kuo, "Mr. Wu Xin, this matter will come here first, and after the Handan Order comes back with a more detailed investigation, I will naturally discuss this matter with you." .”

Zhao Kuo also knew that the Zhou Brothers were after all the candidates that King Zhao had cultivated over the years to check and balance Zhao Kuo, so it was impossible to directly bring down the Zhou Brothers just by relying on Zhao Kuo's one-sided words, so Zhao Kuo also He retired very calmly.

After Zhao Kuo resigned, Zhao Wang sat quietly in the palace alone, sometimes gnashing his teeth, sometimes sneering, not knowing what he was thinking.

Suddenly, a pair of soft and boneless jade arms hugged King Zhao quietly from behind: "What is your lord thinking about?

The concubines have been waiting for you for a long time. "

Naturally, Queen Li has arrived.

The arrival of Queen Li immediately made King Zhao's anger lessened a lot. He hugged Queen Li in his arms backhandedly and sighed.

"These damned ministers are real, and they don't make the widow worry at all."

When Queen Li heard this, she became a little curious: "Did Your Majesty quarrel with Mr. Wu Xin?"

King Zhao couldn't help laughing: "Mr. Wu Xin is more and more aware of how to be a courtier now. I really don't have the need to quarrel with him. This time it was the Zhou brothers who had the accident."

King Zhao didn't talk nonsense, he just told Queen Li exactly what happened.

When Queen Li heard this, her heart suddenly moved.

For Queen Li, she actually cared more about the Zhou brothers, because the Zhou brothers were Queen Zhou's natal family.

So now that Queen Li has found an opportunity to attack the Zhou brothers, she will naturally not miss it.

Queen Li immediately said: "Your Majesty, the Zhou brothers have always complained about His Majesty. This time, maybe they took the opportunity to make trouble behind His Majesty's back. If Your Majesty continues to indulge them , there may be some unpredictable consequences in the future.”

After Zhao Wang heard Queen Li's words, his brows frowned again.

In fact, Zhao Kuo also said something with the same meaning just now, but the same thing, said by different people, of course has different effects.

When Zhao Kuo said it, King Zhao would subconsciously think that it was showing no envy to the Zhou brothers, but if it was said from Queen Li's mouth, King Zhao would tend to think it was the truth.

This is why many ministers are very afraid of pillow wind, because this pillow wind can really change the will of kings.

Zhao Wang thought for a while, and said to Queen Li: "I have sent people to investigate this matter, and I believe there will be a result soon. If Mrs. Zhou really dares to do something small behind the widow's back, Then this time, the widow will definitely not spare them lightly."

For King Zhao, his promise to Zhao Kuo may not necessarily work, but his promise to Queen Li must be fulfilled.

Queen Li was overjoyed when she heard that, and said directly to King Zhao, "My concubine knows that the king must be a man who will do what he says, and Zhao Guo has a monarch like the king, so why worry about not being able to unify the world in the future?

The concubine is also lucky in three lives to be able to obtain the qualification to serve the king. "

When Queen Li brought up this high hat, she immediately praised Zhao Wang dizzily, showing a naive smile.

"Queen, stop talking, let's go, let's go to the back and talk about life and ideals!"

After speaking, King Zhao directly picked up Queen Li, and impatiently walked towards the bed behind the screen.

Zhao Kuo returned to the mansion and summoned many political allies.

"Have all the memorials I asked you to send today have been sent up?"

Zhao Kuo asked questions to the people in front of him.

Everyone nodded, saying that the wrinkled stamps to impeach the Zhou brothers had now been sent up.

Zhao Kuo smiled slightly, and said very calmly: "This should be enough to make the Zhou brothers be in a hurry for a while. The king has just issued an order to let the eunuch order to send someone to watch over the Handan government office, even if it is the Zhou family. It should be impossible for brothers to use that side to do something."

After hearing this, everyone present also had relaxed expressions on their faces. Xu Li couldn't help laughing and said, "This Zhou Shaoliang is also the same. If he can't manage himself well, he can't even manage his own son. Now that something like this has happened, it may even cause him to lose his official position."

Zhao Kuo said with a chuckle: "It's really hard to say whether we can lose our official position, but the Zhou family is definitely disgraced this time, and the king's evaluation of them must have continued to decline."

For the Zhou clan, their greatest reliance now is King Zhao's trust in them, and King Zhao's trust in them is not unconditional. If one day King Zhao feels that the Zhou brothers are really bad, then King Zhao The Zhou Brothers will be removed directly, and some officials who can play games with Zhao Kuo will be selected.

After all, there are not many things in this world, but there are many people who want to be officials. If you line up, you can definitely go from Handan to Lingnan.

After laughing, Xu Li continued to ask: "I don't know how the lord wants to solve the matter at Pingkangfang?"

Zhao Kuo had already made up his mind about this, and said with a smile: "It's too easy to solve the things in Pingkangfang."

For Zhao Kuo, the matter in Pingkangfang can actually be resolved with just a few words.

To put it bluntly, the reason why Pingkangfang is overshadowed by these nobles is because the houses in Pingkangfang are limited, so the shops are also limited.

When a thing is limited, it has scarcity, but what if the thing is no longer limited?

Therefore, if you want to solve the situation in Pingkangfang, the answer is actually very simple, that is, immediately roll out the policy of Pingkangfang in the whole of Handan, so that all people with houses in the whole Handan city can open the door and do it at home. Business, that's it.

When the resources that can supply shops have directly changed from Pingkangfang to the entire Handan City, then of course the shops in Pingkangfang will no longer be as popular as before.

Of course, the problem brought about by this is that it is impossible for Pingkangfang to continue to be as prosperous as before. After all, people can open the door to do business everywhere in Handan, which will have a big impact on Pingkangfang. shunt.

However, this is also the reform goal that Zhao Kuo hopes to achieve. After all, your reform cannot be said to only benefit the people in one place in Pingkangfang, but should benefit all in Handan City and even Zhao Guo. common people.

Therefore, it is the last word for everyone to do business together and find a way to make a fortune together, and Pingkangfang, as the pilot area for reform, will have a halo effect for a long time, and the people here will also because of Get rich first by reforming first.

It's not that they didn't get benefits, on the contrary, the benefits they got were ahead of this era, other ordinary people of Zhao State.

Zhao Kuo withdrew his thoughts, and said to the confidants and allies in front of him: "If I'm not wrong, the king will hold a court meeting to discuss this matter in two or three days at most.

At that time, everyone will follow me and launch an attack on the Zhou Brothers. As for how far we can go, let's try our best. "

In fact, Zhao Kuo didn't care much about winning or losing this time. If the Zhou Brothers could be brought down, one of them would be the best, even if they couldn't be brought down, it didn't matter.

Because this time, Zhao Kuo had severely damaged the reputation of the Zhou brothers, especially putting a big question mark on King Zhao's trust in the Zhou brothers. This is actually the most important thing.

Doubt is like a seed, as long as it is given a certain amount of time, it will slowly take root in people's hearts and thrive.

When Zhao Kuo impeached the Zhou brothers in the past, Zhao Wang would feel that the Zhou brothers were impeached because they disagreed with Zhao Kuo's political views, and he would often choose to keep the Zhou brothers.

Ok.

But from now on, when Zhao Kuo impeaches the Zhou brothers again, it is very likely that King Zhao will no longer doubt the motive of the account, but instead doubt the loyalty of the Zhou brothers.

So Zhao Kuo knew that the time for the decisive blow to the Zhou Brothers was also close at hand!

Chapter 1006

At the same time, in Zhou's mansion, the Zhou brothers also met once, and began to discuss the current situation.

Zhou Shaoliang said worriedly: "Brother's situation is very bad now. Zhao Kuo has impeached us against his subordinates, and all the public opinion outside is attacking us."

At this moment, Zhou Shaoliang really didn't expect that what he thought was just a decision to let his illegitimate son vent his depression a little, turned into such a big trouble now.

Zhou Shaofen also looked at his brother speechlessly. At this moment, he wished he could kick this careless brother into the stinky ditch. It was really deceitful.

Zhou Shaofen snorted, and said coldly: "Now there is even worse news. Originally, the old man had sent someone to protect your son, but today the king suddenly asked the eunuch order to send someone to the Handan government office. Name your son who is to be arraigned.

Now that your son has fallen into the hands of the eunuch Ling, as for whether he will confess or not, it depends entirely on the eunuch order. "

After hearing Zhou Shaofen's words, Zhou Shaoliang panicked completely, and hurriedly said: "Then we have to go to the eunuch Ling to see if he can help us accommodate this matter."

Zhou Shaofen gave Zhou Shaoliang a hard look, and said, "Do you think eunuch Ling is an idiot?

This matter was called by the big network to ask him to do it. If he dared to mess with his son at this time, then he would not want to continue to mess around in the court.

Besides, based on the conflict between us and eunuch Ling about that matter, do you really think that if we go to him, he will be able to help us? "

When Zhou Shaoliang heard it, he had nothing to say.

You must know that in the case of Queen Zhou's attack on Queen Li before, the Zhou brothers directly had people detain eunuch Ling's relatives in order to force eunuch Ling to submit.

The current situation is that if the eunuch Ling can remain neutral, then the Zhou brothers should burn incense. As for whether the eunuch Ling can turn to the Zhou brothers, at least for now, it is absolutely impossible .

After thinking about this point clearly, Zhou Shaoliang suddenly felt a little desperate.

"Could it be that my poor child really has no hope?"

Zhou Shaofen also had a very headache, and gave Zhou Shaoliang a cold look: "Don't worry about whether your child has hope now, you have to care about yourself now, think about whether you have hope in the future, you have to know That woman in the palace will definitely not let go of this opportunity."

Of course the woman in the palace was talking about Queen Li.

After hearing Zhou Shaofen's words, Zhou Shaoliang's face turned extremely pale, and he seemed to be likely to collapse on the ground at any time.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn't say anything.

Perhaps this is the so-called joy of several families and sorrow of others.

King Zhao's decision came sooner than everyone expected. On the morning of the second day, King Zhao called all the important officials to the palace hall of Zhao State, and formally began to discuss this matter. .

King Zhao sat on the top, looked around at all the important ministers of Zhao Guo, and said calmly: "I am looking for you today, I think everyone knows what is going on, it is about the second child of the Zhou family.

Originally, an illegitimate child in the district did not need the widow to hold a special court meeting to discuss it.

But since the matter has already involved Pingkangfang, we still have to do it fairly and openly. Everyone should have no problem, right? "

After King Zhao finished speaking, everyone nodded in agreement.

King Zhao saw that no one had any objections, so he turned his head to eunuch Ling, and said to eunuch Ling, "Eunzhe Ling, now tell everyone about the interrogation at the Handan government office. "

After hearing Zhao Wang's words, eunuch Ling immediately took out a report that should have come from the Handan government, and read it.

The content of this report is still quite long, and it took about 20 minutes to finish reading it, but in summary, all the arrested guys have confessed, admitted that they belonged to Zhou's Chamber of Commerce, and that they were very serious about Zhou's Chamber of Commerce. He confessed to everything he did in Pingkangfang.

To put it bluntly, since the second son of the Zhu family is an illegitimate son, Zhou Shaofen puts around him are also some followers with relatively low status in the Zhou family.

These low-status entourages themselves are just for nothing, and they have no loyalty to the Zhou family at all, so once they are caught among the big bosses, they don't even need to take action, just a little intimidation and everything will be fine All ten of them were recruited.

Of course, King Zhao knew this in advance, but after hearing that the patient had finished the practice, his expression was still ugly, and he stared coldly at the father of Mr. Zhou, Zhou Shaoliang said: "Zhou Shaoliang, it seems that you are indeed born. You have such a good son, and you are so rich, I am afraid that your Zhou family will get rich in the future."

This sentence seems to be a compliment, but the irony in it can be detected by anyone who is not a fool.

Zhou Shaoliang's complexion changed immediately, and he hurriedly explained to King Zhao in fear: "Your Majesty misunderstood, I really don't know that this rebellious son did such a thing.

In fact, the old minister originally just wanted him to go to Pingkangfang to have a good experience and see what the reforms presided over by the king are like, so that he can find a way to keep up with the far-sighted footsteps of the king in the future.

But the old minister never expected that this rebellious son would be bewitched by some thieves around him, and finally did such a wrong thing.

Please rest assured, the old minister has sent people to find the original owners of those one-story houses, so all the houses will be returned to them. "

This is also the best way that the Zhou Brothers think they can take after thinking about it.

Returning all the houses to the original owners at least seems to have sincerely admitted their mistakes.

Sure enough, after hearing Zhou Shaoliang's words, King Zhao's expression softened a little.

But, of course, it is impossible for Zhao Kuo to let this matter pass in such a peaceful manner. In that case, wouldn't all the momentum Zhao Kuo made become useless?

So Zhao Kuo also said unhurriedly: "I have already inquired about this matter. Among the people whose houses were robbed, more than 20 people have died of starvation due to displacement.

There are also a large number of people who were forced to leave Handan and returned to their hometowns, and they cannot be contacted now.

So to put it bluntly, with your so-called compensation measures, you don’t even know if you will be able to return the house to the original owner. This kind of sincerity is too ridiculous, right? "