novelSusiti Chapter 14: Trust
Chapter 14: Trust
Two days have passed since the coup occurred. Although the time is short, the whole thing has spread like wildfire throughout the city, sparking heated discussions among officials, the public, and the people.
The court officials were filled with anxiety, and the Shence Army continued to search the inner palace. Various rumors and speculations were rampant, but Li Ang remained silent as always.
He only made a brief appearance at the morning court session before returning to his inner palace to rest.
Li Ang was naturally aware of the chaos outside.
However, he was not in a hurry to deal with it.
On the day of the coup, he was forced into the situation and had to make a decision immediately due to the urgency of the situation.
Now that the life-or-death crisis has been resolved, it is naturally not advisable to continue acting rashly.
Li Ang's previous understanding of the late Tang Dynasty was limited to various novels and short videos, which were not only difficult to verify but also fragmented and unsystematic.
The original owner of the body left him with many memories, but even an emperor's knowledge and experience are not comprehensive.
Especially since the original owner grew up in the feudal era, her focus on many things was different from Li Ang's, and there weren't as many things for him to refer to as he had imagined.
So, in the past two days, Li Ang did nothing but one thing.
He had people send him the memorials and archives from recent years, as well as the backgrounds and transfer records of important figures both inside and outside the court, so that he could review them one by one.
It must be said that this is not a simple matter.
Although Li Ang had tried his best to simplify things and only read what he thought was most important, it was still a huge amount of work.
For the past two days, aside from eating and sleeping, he devoted all his energy to the documents in front of him.
As night fell, the inner palace of Zichen remained brightly lit. Li Ang casually put down a document, mentally reviewed the resume of the official named Yang Sifu, and then raised his hand to rub his slightly sore temples.
Being an emperor is really not an easy job!
This wasn't the first time Li Ang had uttered such a sigh.
In the past, when I read history books, I always felt that those people and events were nothing special, and I thought I could do the same.
But when he was actually there, Li Ang realized just how amazing those who could make the right choices at the crossroads of history truly were.
When future generations look back on history, everything has already settled, so they can easily tell who the treacherous ministers were and who the loyal ministers were.
But for the emperor, achieving this was extremely difficult.
Throughout the Tang Dynasty, there were more than 20,000 officials with official ranks. Even if we only count the officials in the two provinces, there would still be several hundred.
With such a large number, let alone assessing their character, the emperor couldn't even remember the names of most of them.
All he could see were the names of people hidden in the reports of political achievements.
To put it bluntly, the emperor can't actually see people; he can only see events.
To judge a person, one can only observe their actions.
Take Li Xun for example. Li Ang understood the history of the late Tang Dynasty, so he knew that this man was cunning, treacherous, and fickle, and that he had risen to power through bribery and flattery.
However, the original owner of this body had no way of knowing these things.
What he could see was that Li Xun was resourceful and wise. Although his official rank was low, every suggestion he made was to the point and helped him solve problems.
What reason is there not to give such a person an important position?
Ultimately, the few concise comments in historical records encapsulate a person's decades of achievements and reputation.
The words "knowing how to recognize and employ talent" sound easy, but those who truly mastered them were invariably those who were hailed as wise and virtuous rulers throughout history.
"Everyone, Lieutenant Liu requests an audience."
A waiter came forward to report, and Li Ang then perked up.
Judging by the time, Liu Hongyi should be arriving around now.
"Summon."
Li Ang narrowed his eyes slightly, his tone unusually serious.
The coup d'état of the day before yesterday has been settled, but the danger he faces is not over yet.
In Li Ang's view, this so-called Ganlu Incident was, in fact, a harmful and useless act for the emperor.
The reason is also very simple.
For the original owner, even if Qiu Shiliang were killed, there would be no more suitable candidate to take over the Shence Army.
On the contrary, no matter how much power Qiu Shiliang wielded or how many hidden threats he posed to the imperial authority, at least before the coup was launched, Qiu Shiliang was still quite respectful to the original owner of this body.
Under such circumstances, the original owner's sudden attack would only put the already fragile trust between the emperor and the eunuch to a severe test once again.
A Shence lieutenant who had just made a great contribution was killed without warning, without having done anything wrong.
Therefore, any Shence Lieutenant who succeeds him will inevitably have to consider whether he himself will one day be suddenly killed by an ambush.
This collapse of trust is extremely terrifying.
Because when danger does exist but cannot be predicted, people will instinctively eliminate all factors that may cause danger.
If you can kill, people can kill you.
However, given the current situation in the Tang Dynasty, even if the emperor was wary of eunuchs, the only people he could choose to rely on were still the eunuchs.
Li Ang did not want to live in constant fear every day from now on, so he chose to take the initiative to explain the pros and cons to Liu Hongyi and the others.
Since trust is on the verge of collapse, let's bind the two sides together again with mutual interests.
This is not easy.
If Li Ang is too assertive, the other party will feel coerced; if he is too weak, the other party will easily see him as someone who can be bullied.
Maintaining the emperor's authority without inciting rebellion among Liu Hongyi and others is a delicate balance that requires careful consideration.
To be honest, Li Ang was also a little unsure.
But in any case, Liu Hongyi's visit this time should reveal some clues.
If he wins this gamble, he'll finally have a real guarantee of survival in the inner palace; but if he loses...
"This old servant, Liu Hongyi, greets everyone."
A moment later, Liu Hongyi, dressed in a brocade robe, approached and respectfully bowed not far from the imperial desk.
"Rise, come forward." Li Ang nodded slightly, his expression seemingly relaxed and casual, but out of the corner of his eye, he kept a close eye on the actions of the person opposite him.
Liu Hongyi stood up, bowed, walked to the imperial desk, handed a document to the desk, and then said.
"I would like to inform you all that yesterday, this old servant and Lieutenant Xue and I were ordered to discuss the revenge and release the list of Yu and his associates. Please take a look."
As former Privy Councilors, Liu Hongyi and Xue Jiling were used to handling secrets, so this kind of trivial matter was naturally a piece of cake for them.
Li Ang glanced at them briefly and found that, as he had expected, Liu Hongyi and his companion had no goodwill towards these former confidants of Qiu Shiliang and had basically sent them all to remote places.
Of course, this list being personally delivered by Liu Hongyi couldn't be that simple.
As he continued looking around, sure enough, Li Ang soon found something unusual.
"Didn't I cross Wang Yuanyou off the list? Why is he still on the list of those to be sent out to other places?"
Previously, Li Ang had issued orders to arrest Qiu and Yu's henchmen.
But such incidents have always involved settling personal scores, and this time is no exception.
The final list presented by Liu Hongyi and Xue Jiling included not only Qiu and Yu's cronies, but also many eunuchs with whom they had personal grudges in the palace.
Later, Li Ang crossed out all of these names.
Liu Hongyi wasn't stupid; he definitely knew why Li Ang was doing this, especially now that everyone else on the new list had been removed except for Wang Yuanyou. There must be more to it than meets the eye.
Unsurprisingly, upon hearing this, Liu Hongyi bowed slightly and quickly replied.
"In response to everyone's question, although Wang Yuanyou has no connection with Qiu Shiliang, I have discovered that he is a former member of Wang Shoucheng's faction and is related to the Song Shenxi case from back then."
"Therefore, after discussing with Lieutenant Xue, this old servant believed that it was not appropriate for this person to continue serving in the palace, so we added him to the staff."
The Song Shenxi case?
Li Ang frowned slightly, and his gaze towards Liu Hongyi suddenly became more scrutinizing...