Chapter 1332 Grand Court Meeting!
April 15th, Daqian Palace
At 1:00 pm, hundreds of Daqian court officials filed into the Haotian Hall in the imperial palace, preparing to start the fifth Daqian Dynasty court meeting.
Whether in the past Fengwu Army period or the later Yijing court period, Ye Mingsheng did not like the model of large court meetings. He preferred the model of cabinet meetings with a few senior officials and small-scale meetings.

After all, the grand court meetings had too much red tape and the procedures were too cumbersome, and Ye Mingsheng had never liked these processes.

However, when he became emperor, he also realized some of the benefits of the grand court meeting. This would give those middle-level officials in the court an opportunity to meet with the emperor and express their ideas, so Ye Mingsheng also set a rule to hold a grand court meeting once a month.

Today's grand court meeting was a temporary court meeting convened by Ye Mingsheng this month. In this court meeting, Ye Mingsheng wanted to make a summary of the various events that had occurred in the Daqian court over the past period of time, in order to calm people's hearts and allow civil and military officials to better devote themselves to their work.

When all the civil and military officials stood in order of status, with a shout of "Your Majesty has arrived!" Ye Mingsheng, dressed in a dragon robe, appeared in everyone's sight.

"Long live your Majesty! Long live! Long live!"

Under the worship of hundreds of officials, Ye Mingsheng, with a serious expression, sat on the dragon throne that symbolized supreme power, then waved to the crowd and said lightly:
"Everyone loves you!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty! Long live His Majesty! Long, long live His Majesty!"

After the routine work was completed, Li Jian, the Minister of Justice, was the first to step forward and report the results of their Ministry of Justice's investigation into the assassination of Liu Xinjie to Ye Mingsheng and all the civil and military officials present.

Li Jian's report was basically the same as the one he made to Ye Mingsheng a few days ago, with no major changes.

After Li Jian finished his report, several censors from the Censorate stood up one after another and impeached Chu Zhiyi for nepotism, disregarding the law, and committing corruption for personal gain.

After listening to these people's impeachment expressionlessly, Ye Mingsheng also glanced at Ye Cheng who was standing beside him. As an attendant, Ye Cheng immediately took out the imperial edict that he had prepared long ago and announced:

"By the providence of Heaven, the Emperor proclaims that Ye Dong embezzled a huge amount of money and failed to discipline his subordinates, which led to his subordinate Zhao Bao hiring a killer to kill the censor Liu Xinjie. He should have been sentenced to death for multiple crimes, but Heaven has mercy on life and spared his life in consideration of his many years of military exploits!"

"But the death penalty can be avoided, but the punishment for living cannot be avoided. The title of Marquis Yedong is removed, his post as general is dismissed, his property is confiscated, and he is exiled to Liaoyang for life imprisonment!"

"Zhao Bao, the mastermind behind the assassination of Imperial Censor Liu Xinjie, and his eleven companions will all be executed at Caishikou, Yijing three days later. Their entire family will be confiscated and exiled to Yongliang!"

As soon as Ye Cheng finished speaking, the civil and military officials in the Haotian Hall had different expressions. Everyone knew that Ye Mingsheng had convened this extra grand court meeting today, to a large extent, to resolve this matter. The Liu Xinjie case had been fermenting for a long time, and had already spread from the temple to the people. Many ordinary people were also talking about this matter.

Therefore, this matter can no longer be delayed, it should be resolved as soon as possible to give everyone an explanation············

When the Ministry of Justice was investigating the matter, it did not deliberately keep it confidential, so everyone knew about some of Ye Dong's crimes.

So everyone is looking forward to how Ye Mingsheng will punish Ye Dong. Will he shed tears and execute Ma Su? Will he start with this relative of the Daqian Emperor?

If anyone else had committed the crimes that Ye Dong committed, there would be absolutely no chance of survival. However, Ye Dong has a special status after all, and has a very close relationship with His Majesty and the Queen Mother. He has also made many contributions to the Daqian Dynasty, so everyone is looking forward to it!
And now the mystery is revealed!
In the end, Ye Mingsheng didn't have the heart to kill his little brother Ye Dong!

Although he didn't kill anyone, Ye Mingsheng did deprive Ye Dong of his life completely, reducing all the achievements of his first half of life to zero, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, completely depriving him of his freedom for the rest of his life, and forcing him to live out the rest of his life in a small space.

This result can be said to be the most cruel way of dealing with the problem besides killing Ye Dong!
From this solution, we can also get a glimpse of Ye Mingsheng's maintenance of the court laws and court order!
After Ye Cheng announced an imperial edict, he immediately took out another imperial edict and announced:

"By the providence of Heaven, the Emperor proclaims that, although the Left Censor-in-Chief Chu Zhiyi had made contributions in solving the TF case, he acted rashly and arbitrarily without seeking permission, which was extremely inappropriate and caused a bad influence. He is demoted to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, and the former Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites Su Yi is promoted to the position of Minister of Rites!"

If everyone had different expressions when they heard about Ye Mingsheng's handling of Ye Dong just now, then everyone could be said to be a little agitated when they heard Ye Cheng's announcement of the handling of Chu Zhiyi. After all, during this period of time, a total of 51 big and small G officials in the court impeached Chu Zhiyi...

These people accused Chu Zhiyi of many crimes and listed eight major sins for him, as if they wanted to put Chu Zhiyi to death!
But now Chu Zhiyi not only survived, but was only demoted to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites!
Although there is a gap in rank between the Right Vice Minister of Rites and the previous Left Censor-in-Chief, and he has also left the cabinet, the highest power structure of Daqian, but in general, the Right Vice Minister of Rites is still one of the high-ranking officials of the court, and Chu Zhiyi has not fallen behind!
Therefore, after hearing Ye Mingsheng's decision, those censors of the Censorate who had just impeached Chu Zhiyi stood up again. Led by censor Liu Zhen, they accused Chu Zhiyi in tears. In these people's mouths, Chu Zhiyi seemed to have become a villain who had committed unforgivable crimes and whose deeds were too numerous to mention!
If Chu Zhiyi is not killed, it will not be enough to appease the public anger! The Daqian Empire will be in jeopardy!
Instead of stopping them from speaking, Ye Mingsheng gave them enough time to finish what they wanted to say.

After all these people had expressed their opinions, Wang Huaiyi, the Right Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, stood up and reported to Ye Mingsheng:

"Your Majesty, I want to remove the bad apples from the Censorate. Liu Zhen and the other 17 censors have been corrupt, accepted bribes, and formed alliances for personal gain over the past few years. They have become protectors of others and have seriously damaged the reputation of the Censorate!" After saying this, Wang Huaiyi had someone bring in a box full of files and documents, and then continued to bow and report to Ye Mingsheng:

"The case files involving Liu Zhen and others are all here. Your Majesty, please take a closer look..."

As soon as Wang Huaiyi's voice fell, everyone in the court, except for a few people, looked at each other in surprise. They had not expected that Wang Huaiyi, the Right Censor-in-Chief, who was always very low-key in the court and even had little presence, would actually open fire at this time, and the target of this cannon was not someone else, but their own people in the Censorate!
This happened without any signs beforehand and was beyond everyone's expectations!
Even though the incident happened suddenly, the one who could ascend to this golden throne must be the smartest of the smart, right?
Everyone knew Wang Huaiyi's background, so some people had already reacted and understood Wang Huaiyi's intention. They immediately looked at Liu Zhen and others with pity. Everyone understood that they were finished!
At this time, Liu Zhen and his D Yu were already dumbfounded. They were just immersed in the passion of slandering Chu Zhiyi and others.

Ever since Chu Zhiyi was promoted to Left Censor-in-Chief, their good days in the Censorate were over. Chu Zhiyi's harsh requirements made them miserable. Not only did all the tributes in addition to their salaries disappear, they were completely marginalized in the Censorate and reduced to dispensable roles.

Therefore, Liu Zhen and others had long hated Chu Zhiyi, who had harmed their interests, and wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood. In order to retaliate against Chu Zhiyi, they also thought of many ways to overthrow the new Left Censor-in-Chief of the Great Zhou.

But unfortunately, Chu Zhiyi has always been a clean person and has always been innocent in terms of money. These people simply cannot find any handle to attack him...
So Liu Zhen and others had to choose to lie dormant and wait for the right opportunity to appear!
Chu Zhiyi's uprightness and radicalism did not make them wait too long. When they heard that Chu Zhiyi had led the patrol battalion to Ye Dong's residence without any orders and wanted to capture this general of the Daqian royal family, Liu Zhen and others were overjoyed!
As the imperial censors of Daqian, they knew very well that Ye Dong was the most trusted of Ye Mingsheng’s trusted confidants, and that the Ye family, as a member of the Daqian royal family, had great influence in the court!

So in their opinion, Chu Zhiyi actually dared to provoke Ye Dong and provoke the Ye family clan, which was absolutely a suicidal act!
They didn't understand why Ye Dong would seek his own death, and they didn't care about it at all. They only knew that this was a great opportunity to bring down Chu Zhiyi!
For this reason, Liu Zhen and others started to act without waiting for the Ye family to start colluding. They listed some specious evidences and wanted to put all kinds of unfounded accusations on Chu Zhiyi and put Chu Zhiyi to death!

In fact, in addition to wanting to kill Chu Zhiyi and take back everything that belongs to them in the Censorate, Liu Zhen, as the leader of these people, has another ambition in his heart, which is to enter His Majesty's vision through this incident, become the new Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, and thus step into the highest power institution in Daqian!

If things can develop in this way, Liu Zhen will feel supremely honored, this is also his ultimate dream in his official career!
With such a dream in mind, Liu Zhen and his D Yu have been running around actively impeaching the emperor. He is even more concerned about this matter than some members of the Ye family...

Originally in their plan, today's grand court meeting was the day they would launch a general attack on Chu Zhiyi!
They wanted to defeat Chu Zhiyi in one fell swoop and smash him into the dust, so that this hateful and cruel official in their eyes would never be able to stand up again!
They never imagined that while they were actively working to overthrow Chu Zhiyi, Wang Huaiyi, the Right Censor-in-Chief, was also secretly targeting them!

Compared to the way they had to forge evidence and slander Chu Zhiyi in order to bring him down, it was easy for Wang Huaiyi to find evidence of their crimes. He simply collected a lot of them.

Seeing the box of evidence right in front of him, Liu Zhen still planned to deny it to the death and completely deny the evidence. He then hoped that some of the people who had jointly impeached Chu Zhiyi before would lend them a hand out of their friendship in impeaching Chu Zhiyi together!
Liu Zhen had a good idea, but he didn't expect that although he wanted to be stubborn like a cooked duck, his D Yu were not on the same page with him.
Liu Zhen was about to deny it when the D Yu around him also realized the situation. They immediately scattered like birds and beasts, knelt down in the hall with a plop, kowtowed to Ye Mingsheng and said:

"Your Majesty! We were wrong!"

"We are blinded by greed, please punish us, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, Liu Zhen asked us to do this! He is guilty of a heinous crime!"

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Looking at the younger brothers who turned against him one by one and threw dirty water on him, Liu Zhen's expression was full of disbelief. He never expected that these younger brothers who treated him as brothers and wanted to share life and death, honor and disgrace, and wealth with him would betray him and abandon him so quickly!

Looking at the group of people kneeling on the ground, the extremely angry Liu Zhen's body trembled slightly. He pointed at these former brothers and wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't say a word and fell to the ground in anger.

Ye Mingsheng, who was sitting on the dragon throne, looked at Liu Zhen lying unconscious in the hall with a complicated expression. He knew this Liu Zhen, who was one of the old men who followed him to start the uprising in Liaoyang. He was also a wise county magistrate. When the war was in full swing, he had not slept for three days and three nights in order to raise military rations for the front line and fainted on the road!
I never thought that he would faint again, in such an occasion and under such circumstances!
Ye Mingsheng originally planned to say a few words to warn the ministers in the court to be impartial, abide by the law, and serve the public with self-discipline, otherwise Liu Zhen and others would suffer the same fate.

But at this moment, seeing Liu Zhen lying straight in the hall, Ye Mingsheng really lost interest in it, and immediately said in a deep voice:

"Take them away! Investigate this matter thoroughly!"

"Yes!"

With the previous experience of Liu Zhen and others, some other people who originally wanted to impeach Chu Zhiyi kept silent at this moment, fearing that Ye Mingsheng would deal with them next. Seeing that Ye Mingsheng was not interested, Ye Cheng also said at the right time:

"My Lords, if you have anything to report, please report it. If not, please leave the court!"

After this was said, no one was saying anything. Just when everyone thought that today's grand court meeting would end here, Zhu Xiaowen, the Minister of the Dali Temple, stood up and said:
"Your servant Zhu Xiaowen impeaches Hu Ming, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue..."