noffsinger Chapter 368 The Prince's Mystery: The Cannon Fodder Bride Forced into a Substitute Marquis'
Chapter 368 The Prince's Mystery: The Cannon Fodder Bride Forced into a Substitute Marquis'
Chapter 368 The Prince's Mystery: The Cannon Fodder Bride Forced into a Substitute Marquis's Marquisate VS The Frail and Early-Dying Eldest Son of the Marquis's Family (43)
However, with his master's plan urgently needed to be implemented, Song Ming was genuinely getting anxious because he couldn't seem to secure Shen Huaizhi's help.
If Shen Huaizhi is not chosen as a pawn, the final act will be difficult to perform.
After thinking for a long time, Song Ming finally realized that whether Shen Huaizhi did it or not made no difference.
Shen Huaizhi already knew his identity as a prince. He was now powerless and had no one to rely on but the Song family.
Once his plan was complete, he would slip the evidence to Shen Huaizhi through Xi Yan. Then, when the matter was exposed, Shen Huaizhi would be left speechless...
After tracking Song Ming for the past few days, Shen Huaizhi and Su Jinyue have gained a general understanding of the Song family's strongholds in the capital.
Based on the urban landscape of the capital, where the west was rich and the east noble, and the south poor and the north lowly, the Song family's strongholds were mostly located in the south and north of the city.
In the southern city stronghold, Song Ming had recruited people from the lower classes of the capital, and even the job of delivering night soil was under their control!
The stronghold in the north of the city mainly consisted of brothels and a human trafficking agency. Su Jinyue discovered that the Song family was also involved in human trafficking. Although human trafficking was legal in ancient times, many people were not bought through legitimate channels.
Most of the girls trafficked by human traffickers are seven or eight years old, or even ten years old and pretty. After they are abducted, they are sent to brothels for "training." The purpose of these girls is self-evident.
Human slave traders mostly provided servants to low-ranking officials in the capital.
These officials generally lacked power and were mostly from other places who had entered officialdom through the imperial examinations.
Song Ming had developed a certain routine for controlling these people in the capital. First, he would have his servants inquire about the master's preferences, and then he would send well-trained beauties to their door, thereby gaining leverage over these people.
Although these officials are currently in relatively low positions, there are always those who are good at currying favor or have good political achievements, and they will eventually be promoted.
There are still quite a few low-level officials in the capital, and the Song family has been operating in the capital for many years. It is unknown how many officials they have won over, or how many people they have dirt on!
Su Jinyue saw from the surveillance footage that Song Ming had a study in a secluded residence, which was filled with books. Song Ming had recorded some things and searched for some things in the study.
Su Jinyue saw from the book he opened that it contained incriminating evidence against certain officials. The study was full of records. Just how many people in the capital did they control?
There were many places that Shen Huaizhi's men couldn't enter, but Su Jinyue's little bees didn't get in the way.
Song Ming contacted many people these days, and Su Jinyue, through analysis, understood their purpose.
They wanted to assassinate the eldest prince, Tang Ruibin, at Emperor Xinghe's fiftieth birthday banquet!
Their men have already disguised themselves and infiltrated the First Prince's residence; some have even become his close associates.
Song Ming planned to stage an assassination attempt on Emperor Xinghe during the Crown Prince's gift-giving ceremony, and then have the guards lurking around the Crown Prince persuade him to protect Emperor Xinghe, thus gaining the merit of saving the emperor.
But the eldest prince, Tang Ruibin, would never know that this plan was designed specifically for him. He had succeeded in saving the emperor, but he would also die in this plan.
Tang Ruibin was born to the Empress, and being both the eldest son and the legitimate heir, he was considered by most civil officials who followed the Confucian school of thought to be the most suitable candidate for Crown Prince.
In ordinary families, the eldest son carries significant weight and is the most likely candidate to inherit the family business.
But in the royal family, this status is both important and unimportant.
The Empress was not favored by Emperor Xinghe, and her family was of low status. After Emperor Xinghe ascended the throne, the Empress and her family became arrogant and domineering in the capital.
Emperor Xinghe disliked the Empress and her family, but because the eldest prince, Tang Ruibin, was good at getting along with the emperor, he turned a blind eye.
Emperor Xinghe had reached the age of fifty, and since last winter, he had fallen ill several times.
Sure enough, at the beginning of this year, Emperor Xinghe sent all three princes to study in various ministries, with the eldest prince, Tang Ruibin, going to the most important Ministry of Revenue.
Officials in the court were speculating whether this meant that Emperor Xinghe valued the eldest prince the most and wanted to make him the crown prince.
But Su Jinyue found it strange that the Song family had set their sights on the eldest prince, Tang Ruibin.
They had already planned to assassinate Emperor Xinghe at his birthday banquet, so why didn't they just assassinate the emperor directly?
The culprit who caused the execution of the entire Song family was Emperor Xinghe, yet they made things so complicated. Why is that?
Moreover, they had thought things through very thoroughly, even preparing a scapegoat for the failed assassination attempt: Shen Huaizhi.
As expected, the Song family harbored no good intentions towards Shen Huaizhi. Song Ming's visit at this time was intentional!
Su Jinyue angrily recounted what she had overheard to Shen Huaizhi.
After hearing this, Shen Huaizhi fell into deep thought.
In front of Shen Huaizhi was a piece of paper with a drawing. The drawing was taken from the waist tag that Song Ming had accidentally revealed, and then drawn by the person who was following him.
Song Ming valued this waist tag highly and rarely let others see it, clearly indicating that it was something very important to him.
Su Jinyue leaned closer and also saw the pattern. She had seen the pattern on the surveillance footage, but she hadn't paid much attention to it. She thought it was probably just a totem or clan emblem of the Song family, nothing special.
Is there something wrong with this pattern?
Shen Huaizhi shook his head and said, "I just feel that this pattern is somewhat familiar, as if I have seen it somewhere before, but I can't remember where I saw it now."
As Shen Huaizhi looked at the pattern, he recalled the history of the Song family that he had been researching during this period.
The Song family has existed for over a hundred years in the Great Xia Dynasty. When the Great Xia Dynasty was founded, the Song family was just an ordinary family.
After the establishment of the Great Xia Dynasty, the ancestors of the Song family began to take the imperial examinations to enter officialdom. However, the intelligence of the Song family may not have been developed for the imperial examinations. After several generations of hard work, the best result they achieved was only a Jinshi degree. After that, they were sent to serve as county magistrates and could not enter the capital court at all.
After that, the Song family became wiser and abandoned their literary pursuits for military ones. In the early years of the Great Xia Dynasty, the borders were not very stable, and there were many opportunities to make meritorious contributions.
The Song family seized the opportunity and truly rose through the ranks step by step based on their military achievements. After decades of hard work, they finally became the Marquis of Wu'an during the reign of the late emperor, and were also the emperor's confidants.
However, not long after Emperor Xinghe ascended the throne, Marquis Wu'an was dismissed from office due to charges of treason.
Shen Huaizhi thought about the Song family's history. The earliest recorded ancestor of the Song family seemed to have only one daughter, and her husband was an adopted son-in-law.
The Song family had previously struggled to produce offspring, and it seems that the family only began to prosper after this son-in-law married into the family.
As for the son-in-law who married into the family, Shen Huaizhi remembered that his surname was Mu.
Mu? Shen Huaizhi remembered!