After leaving the British Duke's mansion, Luo Tong's face immediately darkened. He got on the sedan chair and gave instructions to the attendant beside him.
"Go to Ningyuan Hou Mansion."
The mansions of nobles and nobles were all located in this area. Luo Tong specially asked people to take a detour and passed through several inconspicuous paths before stopping outside the small side entrance of the Hou Mansion.
The boy guarding the door had already received the order. When he saw the invitation, he didn't dare to ask any more questions. He led Luo Tong into the mansion and waited.
After a stick of incense passed, Ren Li entered the mansion. After receiving his reward, he entered the hall dusty.
"Master Luo, you have been waiting for a long time. You left early. If I followed you, you might be suspicious. Therefore, I stayed at the British Palace for a while longer."
Luo Tong didn't react at all. It should be said that he was in a very bad mood now.
At that time, in the British palace, for a moment, he almost had the idea of going to the palace to explain everything to the emperor and turn against him.
But in just a moment, he killed this idea.
The group of people in the British government are plotting to bring back the Emperor. Up to now, this matter is no longer a particularly secretive matter. From the time Zhang Fu stepped forward to request a mission, their position of being pro-Emperor has already been revealed. Among the senior officials of the imperial court, it became well known.
But this is not a mistake. Reporting is useless. The matter of knocking Que is somewhat useful, but the problem is that he has no evidence!
After all, from beginning to end, the British government had no involvement in this matter.
Even in the meeting this morning, they did not express any opinions on the mutual market, and they looked completely aloof.
The emperor didn't trust him in the first place, and now he gradually had his own team. Under such circumstances, he rashly defected to him, with a red mouth and white teeth. Why should the emperor trust him?
All he could get was a list of a few officials, but what was the use of that.
When Luo Tong got the list, he realized that the reason why Wang Wen targeted the Metropolitan Procuratorate this time was most likely because he was targeting them.
Half of the censors who were demoted from the Metropolitan Procuratorate are on this list.
Luo Tong even suspected that the emperor had long known who were members of this group of relatives in the court, but there was no reason to clean them up.
They accused Wang Wen of abusing his power and purging dissidents at the court meeting. Now it seems that they may have been right even if they were wrong!
To take a step back, even if the emperor is willing to believe him, it is impossible for the emperor to convict several veteran relatives based on his words alone.
In the case of King Zhennan, the reason why Chen Mao and others were able to be imprisoned was not only Xue Xuan's report, but also the more important reason was that Chen Mao and others had offended the clan members too much.
There was collective pressure from the clan princes, and during the imperial trial, they were excessively biased towards King Guangtong, which aroused the suspicion of the courtiers. Finally, with the testimony of King Guangtong and others, and mutual corroboration, they were convicted. .
But if he does this, it is more likely that he will be beaten to death by the British government using old cases from that year.
You must know that the old case at that time was not a light sentence, but a concealment of the charges. It was the Dingxi Marquis Mansion that interceded with Wang Ji, so that Wang Ji concealed his charges of reselling weapons from the court, leaving only the charge of corruption to report to the court. The court, that’s why the punishment was not so severe.
This was the biggest reason for Luo Tong's hesitation.
In the hands of the Dingxi Houfu, there is detailed evidence about his reselling of weapons back then. If this case is revealed in the court, even if he surrenders to the emperor, it may be difficult to save him.
He had no idea that the emperor would blatantly interfere with a judicial trial for a person of little use like him.
Didn’t you see that today the whole court criticized Wang Wen, but the emperor didn’t even intervene?
Therefore, in Luo Tong's opinion, this road is only slightly less risky than the Kouque road.
The only thing that made him feel less desperate was that if the trouble really got bigger, the Dingxihou Mansion, which was involved in favoritism and fraud, would definitely not have an easy time.
Although it is not enough to cause Dingxi Houfu to lose his title, it is quite possible for him to withdraw from the political center of the court just like Ning Yang Bo.
Therefore, in the British government at that time, compared with the risk of Kouque at this time, he still tended to bet that the British government would not really fight him to the death.
This was also the reason why he was so embarrassed and wanted to walk away.
However, Ren Li's last words made him see a turning point.
So, he couldn't wait to come to Ningyuan Houfu and wanted to ask for an explanation.
Now that the matter was over, Luo Tong was not in the mood for small talk, so he asked directly.
"What do you mean by the Marquis? In this case, if you force the case, there is no need to dig out the old case. Luo will also be sent to prison. If so, Luo might as well do nothing and wait for the officials. If Luo is sent to Nanjing, he might be able to settle down safely."
Hearing Luo Tong's questioning tone, Ren Li smiled bitterly, raised his hand and pressed it down, saying.
"Lord Luo, please be patient. Since I have asked you to agree, I will naturally have a way to ensure that you can safely pass the Kouque test."
With that said, Ren Li took a slow sip of tea, and Fang spoke under Luo Tong's slightly impatient gaze.
"The risk of knocking on the que at this time is indeed not small, but what Zhang Xi and others said is right. The exchange of trade and the emperor's statement early in the morning will indeed pose a threat to the safety of the mission, so the knocking on the que is still necessary. This is to protect the mission. The group has to do it.”
Seeing Luo Tong's face darken, as if he was about to walk away, Ren Li quickly continued.
"However, although we are going to knock on the door, it does not necessarily require Mr. Luo to come forward in person. Didn't we already decide on Mr. Luo's escape strategy last time? Just do it like this!"
As early as when he planned to knock on the que, Luo Tong had no intention of doing it in person. He and Ren Li made a plan.
When it comes time to actually knock on the palace, on the way to Miyagi City, he will find a reason to break away from the main force and let the bunch of stupid young men go to "rendezvous" first.
Then he found a deserted place, pretended to be attacked, passed out on the spot, and successfully escaped the attack.
Simple and straightforward, but effective!
Luo Tong even became cruel and planned to have someone give him a hard stick to make the fake become real.
But this strategy obviously doesn't work now.
Seeing Ren Li's confident look, Luo Tong not only did not feel relieved, but became even more impatient. He couldn't help but stand up and pace back and forth in the hall, saying.
"Master Hou, it can't be that simple! At that time, we made the most optimistic plan, letting Chen Yi and Gao Gu, or at least one of them, be the leader, so that Luo could take advantage of the chaos and escape."
"But now, Chen Yi is protecting himself and has made it clear that he is not willing to get involved in this muddy water. Gao Gu also wants to retreat. If no one organizes things like knocking on the que, it will just be a bunch of rabble. If they can't get to the Meridian Gate, they will have to do it. If you are driven away by the Jin Yiwei, your efforts will really be in vain!"
"and……"
Luo Tong stopped, his brows furrowed tightly, his expression a little more worried, and he turned to look at Ren Lidao.
"I was in the British government just now. I had some things that I couldn't say clearly. At that time, Luo went to persuade Chen Yi to come forward and knock on the door. Although he flatly refused, he didn't think much about it."
"After all, he has always been at odds with Wang Wen, the Metropolitan Procuratorate has recently had tense relations with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and Chen Yi himself is opposed to mutual trading."
"But his performance in the morning court today had to make Luo doubt whether Chen Yi had revealed the matter to the emperor. Otherwise, there is no way to explain why his attitude towards Wang Wen changed so quickly."
"If Luo's speculation is true, I'm afraid that the emperor is waiting for us to knock on the que at this moment, so that we can take the opportunity to establish his power!"
