Those eunuchs who came up were holding letters exchanged between Wang Jinghong and Huo Qixiao, as well as enemy generals, and other evidence proving Wang Jinghong's involvement.
The more Wang Lingfu listened, the more his heart sank. Especially when he saw the letters that the eunuchs deliberately lingered on in front of him, he knelt powerlessly in the great hall.
He had not seen those letters; all communication matters were handled by Wang Jinghong at the time. Wang Lingfu did not participate for his own reasons. Although Emperor Rui did not object at the time, he had not explicitly approved it on the surface.
Given the gravity of the matter, if they were lucky and succeeded, the credit would belong to the entire Wang family. If the matter was exposed, he had never been involved anyway.
Their Wang family had more than one son. For such a high-stakes gamble, winning meant high officials and an upward trajectory in career. Losing meant sacrificing a son, and he could still protect himself.
But now, the handwriting on the letters was clearly his son's, coupled with his unique seal with a missing corner. This was irrefutable evidence.
Lord Wang's face was ashen, and in his heart, he cursed his son to death. "This idiot, this unfilial son! Truly a useless fool who can ruin things but achieve nothing! So many years have passed, why didn't he destroy the letters? Why keep such fatal evidence? Now he has not only harmed himself but also implicated the entire family!"
Meanwhile, the protagonist Wang Jinghong, who was being cursed by his father, was still in the great camp on the outskirts of the capital. In order to cooperate better and to keep each other in check, they had written down other offenses committed by the other party in each letter.
Wang Jinghong had kept the exchanged letters without destroying them, in order to hold the other party's handle. As time went by, most of the people who obstructed them died, and they felt that their positions were secure.
Gradually, Wang Jinghong stopped paying attention to these letters, and later completely forgot about them. If Huo Qiyuan had not suddenly appeared today and found so much evidence, these letters might never have seen the light of day.
After another confession was read out, the chief eunuch proceeded to read the second, third, and fourth confessions...
He read for an hour straight, his lips cracked and his throat burning as if on fire. He felt that if he continued, his breathing would become difficult.
The Golden Grand Hall was deathly silent. Everyone present, except for Su Muqing and Huo Qiyuan, was covered in sweat.
They were all shocked and fearful. Their heavy official robes stuck to their backs, causing an unspeakable discomfort from the inside out.
The chief eunuch persisted for another half an hour. Fortunately, although there were quite a few remaining confessions, their content was not too extensive.
Matters related to Huo Qixiao and the King of Bijing's mansion were almost entirely read out by the chief eunuch. As for the events involving others, each person had a separate record.
To save time, Su Muqing "thoughtfully" selected one or two cases for each person, summarized the more serious ones, and then distributed their individual files so that they would be aware of their own situations.
Everything Huo Qixiao had done was beyond description, truly an unforgivable list of crimes. But even for others, reading just one or two matters was enough to shock them into submission.
Soon, in the hall, except for Huo Qiyuan standing with his hands behind his back, everyone else was kneeling and begging for forgiveness.
Even the old faction of officials who had been standing now had their most unwanted past deeds, which they had committed over the years, exposed completely today.
Looking at the kneeling crowd in their colorful official robes, Su Muqing's smile had vanished.
In such a large country, there were nearly two hundred officials who could stand in the Golden Hall.
From the first-rank powerful ministers to the end of the fourth rank, both civil and military officials were almost all corrupted.
As for the remaining small portion, they had not yet colluded with their superiors, simply because there were too many people above them. If they wanted to climb the ranks, unless they relied on connections, the price to pay would be too high.
Some officials with empty pockets could not afford it and were unwilling to spend the "filial silver."
Therefore, they were all assigned to those "clear water" government offices, where they only needed to slack off and rest daily.
Although they could not gain much illicit profit, the tasks were few and the risks were small. They were still officials, and their salaries were paid.
Feudal ancient times were like building a house. If the common people formed the dust that built the walls, then officials were the various pillars of the house.
If all the pillars of a house were hollowed out by termites, then the house would not be far from collapsing. This was the state of the Great Yu Dynasty now, and the situation was even worse.
Emperor Rui never expected that there were so many things he did not know. Many of the "loyal ministers" he had thought of had betrayed him long ago.
He once again experienced the fearsomeness of Huo Qiyuan and Su Muqing. These deeply hidden matters, perhaps even the perpetrators had forgotten them, so how did they find out?
After hearing how Huo Qixiao had orchestrated these matters step by step, Emperor Rui's belief in his ability to foresee the future was further solidified. Even though he had not succeeded again later, his consistent winning of the first move proved that he had indeed possessed such a supernatural ability.
Looking at Huo Qiyuan and Su Muqing now, Emperor Rui harbored a guess. With their capabilities, they were far superior to Huo Qixiao.
Thinking of this, Emperor Rui secretly rejoiced that he had been so frightened yesterday and had not persisted in resisting to the end.
These two were both people with extraordinary abilities, and confronting them would be like a moth flying into the flame.
The civil and military officials stayed in the palace for the entire day before the retrial of the cases was finalized.
The chief judges were all officials from the old faction: the Grand Tutor, the Left and Right Prime Ministers, and the Minister of Justice, who was the only one among the Six Ministries not involved in the King of Bijing's mansion case.
These four jointly heard the unjust case of the King of Bijing's mansion, as well as the subsequent treason case, and the series of related cases they had fabricated to eliminate dissenting factions.
As for the assisting officials, Su Muqing and Huo Qiyuan had already compiled a list and submitted it to Emperor Rui.
These officials were not part of Emperor Rui's new faction, and the offenses they had committed were relatively lighter compared to others.
Because each of them had other cases with solid evidence against them, Emperor Rui stated that if Huo Sizhun's retrial of the case satisfied him, he could grant each of them an opportunity for merit to offset their crimes.
An opportunity for merit to offset crimes was equivalent to a posthumous pardon. The officials selected to hear the case were already thinking that they could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Although their official careers might be ruined after the matter was settled, at least they could keep their lives and survive, right?