Chapter 349: Pardon and Conferring the Title of King
"I know my own body!" At this point the emperor covered his chest with his hands, and then coughed violently: "Cough cough~ cough cough cough~!"

"Your Majesty~!" The eunuch hurriedly brought a bowl of medicine soup and fed it to the emperor.

The emperor frowned and took a sip, then he relaxed a little and felt a little better, but he still looked a little listless.

Then the emperor waved his hand and asked the eunuch to leave.

Perhaps because of the blow from this rebellion, the emperor at this time did not trust anyone except Lin Hao.

Of course, the emperor's trust in Lin Hao was not groundless. It was Lin Hao who gave him a pill that could temporarily restore youth, which allowed him to become a prince again.

And this time, as soon as he discovered the rebellion of Prince Yan and Prince Yong, he came back from afar to rescue the emperor!

Thinking of this, the emperor made up his mind and no longer hesitated:

"My dear minister, the rebellion of Prince Yan and Prince Yong has far-reaching implications. Even the Western Suburbs Camp and the Imperial Guards Palace Front Division have been implicated. Even my Imperial City Division failed to discover the two princes' plot in the first place!"

"This time, I appoint you to serve as the Imperial City Envoy (the top leader) again. You have two tasks to do next."

The emperor paused for a moment, then said in a cold voice:

"First, reorganize the Imperial City Department and strictly monitor the civil and military officials to prevent any accidents!"

"Second, thoroughly investigate all of Prince Yan and Prince Yong's accomplices!"

Lin Hao immediately bowed and said with a loyal look on his face
"I will obey your orders and live up to your trust. I will never let any of the Second King's accomplices go!"

Then the emperor nodded slightly, and then said in a weak voice:
"You are my most trusted minister. I trust you. I will leave these two matters to you. However, the matter of the remnants of the two kings should not be involved too widely, nor should it be delayed for too long. We need to make a quick decision, otherwise it will cause fear in the court!"

"I understand!" Lin Hao replied.

After the emperor gave his instructions, he said tiredly:

"Go!"

However, Lin Hao did not leave, but said:

"Your Majesty, when I led those soldiers to suppress the rebellion yesterday, I promised them a generous reward. I dare not take the initiative to give them rewards. Please, Your Majesty, issue an order to reward them!"

"I got it. After the second prince's rebellion is over, I will confer rewards uniformly! By then, you will definitely be a prince!" The emperor waved his hand tiredly!
"Your Majesty, I'm leaving!" Then Lin Hao left the palace with a happy face!

However, before leaving the palace, Lin Hao had already used his skills to investigate the emperor's thoughts and confirmed his physical condition before leaving with peace of mind!

After Lin Hao left, an old eunuch who had been standing behind the screen quickly came to the emperor, knelt down and said:

"This time, I was negligent and failed to monitor the rebellion of Prince Yan and Prince Yong. Please punish me, Your Majesty!"

The emperor lay on the dragon bed and said:
"You are demoted to the deputy of Duke Rong this time. Are you convinced?"

"I accept it. Thank you for your forgiveness, Your Majesty!" At this point, the old eunuch said, "But Your Majesty, Duke Rong is an outsider after all, I am afraid~!"

"From now on, you will monitor all his actions. If he has any abnormal behavior, you can report to me~!" said the emperor sickly.

"Your Majesty, I obey your order!" The old eunuch finally breathed a sigh of relief!
The old eunuch knew that the emperor no longer trusted anyone at this time, so he could only obey orders!
However, neither the emperor nor the old eunuch had expected that sending Lin Haoche to investigate the rebellion of Prince Yan and Prince Yong would have an impact far beyond their expectations.

Later, Lin Hao took over the Imperial City Bureau again, and immediately carried out a reorganization, dismissing some people from important positions.

Then he sent some of them to the undercover insiders in the Imperial City Bureau to take over these people's positions from covert to open. In this way, Lin Hao easily seized the power of the Imperial City Bureau!

Of course, in the eyes of outsiders, although Lin Hao reorganized the Imperial City Bureau, he did not place his own people there, but instead adjusted the positions of the internal personnel of the Imperial City Bureau.

Therefore, they did not know that the people Lin Hao arranged to take positions were all his own people!

After the Imperial City Division was reorganized, Lin Hao sent people to search the palaces of Prince Yan and Prince Yong, and imprisoned all of Prince Yan and Prince Yong's family members in the Imperial City Division's prison!
How could Lin Hao be satisfied with just reorganizing the Imperial City Bureau? He then took action against the ministers in the court and screened them.

It is not about whether they are related to the two kings' rebellion, but whether they are members of the Zhang family or people close to the Zhang family!

However, Lin Hao's direct civil service forces in the court only consisted of a dozen students who had just passed the imperial examination, so he could only arrange for people from the Zhang family to take over!
Just like that, in just one month, the entire court welcomed a thorough purge. There were more than thirty court officials who were dismissed, including eight first and second rank officials!

However, no one was executed!
It’s not that they don’t want to, but the Song Dynasty has a tradition of not killing scholars and officials, otherwise the court would have been filled with people dying.

It is ridiculous that for such a serious crime as treason, the official who committed the crime was only dismissed from his post, and even his property could not be taken away during the search of his house.

It can be seen how powerful the scholar-official class in the Song Dynasty had become at that time!
But Lin Hao didn't care. After completing the purge of the court, Lin Hao set his sights on places outside the court, because that was where Lin Hao was interested.

Later, Lin Hao used his intelligence network to obtain information about the local officials who were colluding with the two kings and rebelling.

It’s not that Lin Hao doesn’t want to use the Imperial City Bureau’s intelligence network, but the Imperial City Bureau’s main activities are limited to Bianjing City and its surrounding areas.

The strength of the Imperial City Departments in other large cities is also extremely weak, and can only be said to be better than nothing, while in smaller cities it is almost equivalent to nothing!
Afterwards, Lin Hao reported all the evidence of these local officials colluding with the two kings to the emperor.

When the emperor saw that most of these local officials were court officials who had been driven out of Bianliang before, he became furious!

The emperor was then furious and dismissed all these local officials.

Among the students that Lin Hao had trained before, most of the more than ten new scholars who passed the imperial examinations were sent to these places to serve during this purge.

After nearly two months, because the rebellions of Prince Yan and Prince Yong were suppressed, those who supported the two princes in various places became like trees without roots.

In addition to the nails that Lin Hao had driven in earlier, the rebellions in various parts of the Song Dynasty were quickly put down by the local authorities and the imperial guards sent by Lin Hao, and the rebellion of the two kings came to an end.

······
"Duke Rong, please accept the title!" The eunuch shouted while holding the imperial edict, "Song grants Duke Rong, Zhang Haolin, the title of Prince of Yan. The edict says that when Duke Rong hears that the two princes are plotting rebellion, he should return to the capital as soon as possible after a thousand miles to put down the rebellion of the two princes of Yan and Yong. His title will be promoted to Prince of Yan..."

After the rebellion was quelled, the emperor began to reward Lin Hao and the other heroes who saved him. As the greatest hero, Lin Hao would naturally be rewarded heavily. However, the emperor actually promoted Lin Hao's title from the Duke of Rongguo to the Prince of Yan. Afterwards, the entire court was buzzing, but no one in the court objected.

Don’t they want to? Of course not. They were really dealt with too harshly by Lin Hao before, especially after they had just experienced the rebellion of the two kings. Everyone was very cautious and no one wanted to be the first to be rotten!
Just when Lin Hao thought that even the powerful scholar-official class did not dare to touch his tiger's whiskers, just when he thought he could successfully obtain the title of king, someone stood up!

"Your Highness, I am the Imperial Censor of the Censorate. Yao Yan has something to report!"

At this time, the emperor half-opened his eyes and said, "Speak!"

"I, Duke Rong, abused his power and framed loyal officials when investigating the rebellion of the two princes..."

At this time, Lin Hao's face was as gloomy as water, knowing that this was a countermeasure from the scholar-official class against him. If he guessed correctly, there would be countless ministers from the Censorate immediately~!

"Your servant, Kuang Yan, is investigating the rebellion of the Second Prince and insulting the wives of the officials..."

"Your servant Wang Yu, I am investigating the rebellion of the Second Prince and have amassed a huge amount of wealth..."

"Your servant Kong Hua, Duke of Rong, is unworthy of your position..."

"Your Highness Jia Hua, here to present your report to the Duke of Rong..."

Lin Hao looked at the emperor at this time. He didn't seem surprised by the civil servant's report on him. At the same time, Lin Hao found that his attitude towards him seemed a little strange.

"Ah!" Lin Hao sighed helplessly. The emperor is the emperor, suspicion is his true nature!
It seems that because Lin Hao did not monitor the emperor's words and deeds during this period, the treacherous villain slandered the emperor.

However, there is another possibility. The emperor wants himself to check and balance the scholar-official class, and it is not ruled out that he wants the scholar-officials in the court to check and balance himself!

Ah! It turns out that I have become so powerful!

Lin Hao knew that it was because he had been working too hard during this period that the emperor became wary of him, but this also made Lin Hao feel fed up!

If you don't want to give it to me, you shouldn't have made blind promises in the first place. If you really don't want to give it to me or regret it, you can talk to me about it and it's not impossible for me to give you some other compensation or something.

But the fact that the emperor used civil servants in this way, or allowed civil servants to prevent him from obtaining the title of king, really made Lin Hao unhappy!

However, Lin Hao did not speak for the time being. After all, this was just his guess, and he had to continue observing this group of people.

It depends on who is the mastermind behind the scenes, and also on the emperor's attitude, which determines Lin Hao's attitude towards the situation in the Song Dynasty court!

So when Lin Hao kept silent, the ministers waited for a reply, and the emperor remained silent, the entire court was silent.

Lin Hao, on the other hand, sat calmly in his position, playing the game of 1, 2, 3, statue with himself!

"We are all wooden people. We are not allowed to talk, move, walk or laugh!" Lin Hao found it quite interesting!

After a long while, the court was still so quiet that one could hear a pin drop, and the scholars and officials began to lose their patience.

At this moment, the emperor, who was running out of energy, finally spoke:
"Zhang Aiqing, do you have anything to say?"

In one sentence, Lin Hao understood the emperor's attitude. In that case, don't blame me for being a powerful official.

At this time, most of the military honors in the court looked at Lin Hao silently, but Lin Hao raised his hands and saluted the emperor.

When he raised his hand, he made an incomprehensible gesture, and then those military honors who originally wanted to speak withdrew their gazes!
After Lin Hao bowed, he said:
"Your Majesty, the clear will be clear, and the turbid will be turbid. I have nothing to say!"

Then Lin Hao kept silent and continued playing the statue game!
But since the literati reported Lin Hao's affairs, someone must be held responsible for it. Either Lin Hao, the civil servants, or the emperor!
At this moment, all the scholars and officials were overjoyed and began to whisper to each other. The long-winged hats on their heads kept hitting their colleagues in the face!
Seeing this situation, the real boss finally came to the fore. This person was Mr. Shi. Mr. Shi said:
"Your Majesty, Duke Rong has committed so many evil things, so his virtue is naturally unworthy of his position. The matter of conferring the title of Duke should be dropped. At the same time, Your Majesty is requested to thoroughly investigate Duke Rong..."

However, not everyone was happy. Han Zhang, Fu Bi and other senior officials looked at Lin Hao, who was as tense as a wooden stake, with concern.

The emperor was also at a loss at this time. The current situation was not what he had intended. He originally thought that Lin Hao would stand up and produce evidence to refute the censor. This was also Lin Hao's usual method!
When the time comes, he will just need to scold her a few words and the matter will be over!

However, Lin Hao just gave up and kept silent, as if he was saying that you can do whatever you want to him. No matter how the civil servants slander him, I will remain unmoved!

The emperor didn't know how to end the situation at this moment. If he was in a good condition, he would still have the energy to think about such a complicated problem, but he was already exhausted and felt quite regretful at this moment!

"Ah~!" The emperor sighed and was about to speak, but suddenly he saw Wu Xun who was as motionless as Lin Hao.

Suddenly, the emperor's heart tightened, and he thought of a terrible guess. You know, most of the military honors in the court, or military honors with real power, are inextricably linked to the Zhang family!
This is bad. We cannot let the situation continue to develop. Otherwise, it will turn into a disaster. So the emperor immediately said anxiously:

"Well, the Duke of Rong was made a king as a reward for saving me from danger. As for the crimes you have accused the Duke of Rong of, if they are true, then show us the real evidence and stop making groundless guesses!"

However, those imperial censors would not give up and immediately said:
"Your Majesty, the Song Dynasty hasn't had anyone from another family be crowned a king for nearly a hundred years. I hope Your Majesty will be cautious!"

"Moreover, Duke Rong's virtue is unworthy of his position. Your Majesty, please revoke your order!"

Lin Hao was somewhat surprised by the sudden change in the emperor's attitude, but once a choice is made, it cannot be taken back with just a few words!
At this time, the emperor said impatiently: "I am tired, let's discuss this later!"

As he said this, he glanced at Lin Hao, only to see that Lin Hao was still like a wooden stake, and he couldn't help feeling a little angry!

He, an emperor, has done so much. Does that mean he, as an emperor, should apologize to these ministers?

"Your Majesty! You must be very careful when it comes to making someone a king!"

"Your Majesty~, Your Majesty~! I have something to say~!"

"Your Majesty, Duke Rong behaved improperly and remained silent. He was so arrogant that he deserves to be punished. Don't encourage his evil ways!"

The emperor was at a loss as to what to do, but Lin Hao opened his eyes and looked at the guy who said he was Liao, and it turned out to be Mr. Shi.

For some reason, Mr. Shi suddenly felt his whole body tense up and he looked at Lin Hao unconsciously. Lin Hao looked at him as if he was looking at a dead person, which made Mr. Shi feel cold in his heart!
At this time, Lin Hao took out a document from the space and said:
"Your Majesty, I have reported that Shi Xianggong colluded with Prince Yong to plot a rebellion. This is the correspondence between Shi Xianggong and Prince Yong, as well as the time and place where they met. Your Majesty, please take a closer look!"

(End of this chapter)