In fact, sometimes it is very simple to threaten a politician, provided that you have his handle and the contact information of his political opponents.

Wang Miao is a person who is clever in observation, quick in debating, and has excellent restraint on his own behavior and ability to hide his behavior. However, this person has two major shortcomings.

First, he often breaks trust with others. Since he was promoted to Privy Councilor, there have been many people who fawned over him. He often made overly good promises to those who fawned over him, but then failed to follow them, which led to many problems.

Everyone hates him.

Second, there is his useless younger brother Wang Huai. He demands and accepts bribes, bullies the people, and does many bad things. Wang Miao often has to wipe his brother's butt.

The reason why Zhao Weiji targeted Wang Mian this time was because of his younger brother Wang Huai.

Zhao Weiji returned from the Northern Expedition and resigned from his post as a judge on Zhenzhou affairs. However, the court did not promote Zhao Weiji's then deputy Zhenzhou magistrate Kou Zhun, but transferred Wang Huai to Zhenzhou as a judge on Zhenzhou affairs.

In fact, it was nothing at first, just a normal appointment and dismissal of personnel. But what was so fatal was that this guy actually asked for bribes while in office.

The merchants, landowners, magistrates of the counties under the jurisdiction of the state and even his deputy Kou Zhun. With Kou Zhun's temper, how could he tolerate this? Even if he broke with Wang Huai, he even wrote a statement to the court to report Wang Huai

.

But when Zhezi arrived in Beijing, he disappeared like a cow in the sea. The reason is very simple. Of course, someone helped Wang Huai intercept Zhezi, and this person was Wang Huai's brother Wang Mian.

In this way, Wang Huai successfully suppressed Kou Zhun, who had no backing in the court.

Zhao Weiji didn't know about this when it happened, but Zhao Weiji's intelligence system soon came into play. Zhao Weiji learned about the difficulties Kou Zhun encountered from the intelligence interpreted from the daily newspaper articles.

After learning that Kou Zhun had encountered a problem, Zhao Weiji immediately learned the ins and outs of the entire incident through the Beggar Clan's information.

Whether it was out of loyalty as a friend or political investment, Zhao Weiji had to help Kou Zhun.

As the saying goes, you can't just treat the head when you have a headache, and you can't just treat the symptoms without treating the root cause. The root cause of this problem actually lies with Wang Mi, and anyone who wants to solve this problem must start with Wang Mi.

It is not easy to attack Wang Mi, and it requires some process. In the first step, Tie Zheng helped Zhao Weiji find a witness. A local landowner in Zhenzhou, a landowner who made his fortune by growing cotton.

Due to the rise of the cotton textile industry in recent years, the demand for cotton has surged, causing many places in the Central Plains to start growing cotton in addition to growing food.

Kou Zhun became famous by promoting cotton in Cheng'an County, and he naturally did not forget this industry when he arrived in Zhenzhou. So a group of landowners took the lead in planting cotton and tasted the benefits.

But what he didn't expect was that as soon as Wang Huai arrived in Zhenzhou, he demanded bribes from all the landowners who planted or wanted to plant cotton. The reason was simple. Although the country encouraged the planting of cotton, in order to avoid the problem that everyone would plant cotton and no one would produce it.

Food is in an embarrassing situation, so planting cotton is eligible.

Originally, when Kou Zhun was here, the principle of drawing lots was followed. Whether you could plant cotton or not depended on God's will, so it was still fair.

However, after Wang Huai took office, he took back all cotton planting rights and changed it to a "bidding" method. As for how to "bid", of course, whoever bribes him with a larger amount will be qualified.

As a result, the landowners who were unwilling to give up this golden mountain began to bribe him one after another.

In fact, Tie Zheng just randomly found one of the landowners to be a witness. The reason why any landowner can be a witness is also very simple.

Currently, the textile industry under the Nanyang Prince's Palace basically monopolizes the purchase of cotton. Although due to the intervention of the royal family, the textile industry cannot suppress prices when purchasing cotton, Zhao Weiji can still make the decision on which cotton to purchase.

If you offend Wang Huai, you won't be able to grow cotton at all. If you offend Zhao Weiji, if you plant cotton this year, it will basically be white. These landowners will naturally weigh the pros and cons.

It would be too simplistic to think of Wang Miao just because there are witnesses. But this would not be difficult for Zhao Weiji, who has knowledge that is a thousand years beyond this era.

The second step is to create pressure from public opinion. The existence of "Shilin Daily" allows Zhao Weiji to easily create a tide of public opinion.

Corruption and bribery are highly hated in any country at any time, and they often become the focus of public opinion.

Zhao Weiji found someone to write countless articles and submit them to Shilin Daily. Articles that were basically true will definitely attract the editor's attention. Coupled with the Northern Song Dynasty's policy of advocating smooth channels of speech, these articles reflecting Wang Huai's solicitation and acceptance of bribes were very popular.

It soon appeared on the front page of the newspaper.

Although newspapers often appear in articles exposing officials' bribery, this time it seems extremely real. The sufficient detailed description makes it difficult to suspect false accusations.

As a result, Wang Huai's case created a storm in the entire civil society, and the center of the storm was Wang Mian.

These are not yet over. Following the second step, Zhao Weiji implemented the third step, which was to find Wang Mian's political opponents. Anyone who hangs out in the court does not have many political enemies in the officialdom. Ten thousand years

There are people who dislike even a good person, let alone someone like Wang Miao who often attracts hatred because of his breach of trust.

Through Zhang Gu's relationship, Zhao Weiji easily handed over the evidence at hand to Wang Mian's political opponents.

So a letter of impeachment memorial was delivered to Zhao Guangyi's Long Shu case.

Well, now, Wang Miao, who was also a remonstrating official, was constantly being impeached by others. Wang Miao, who originally didn't pay much attention to external public opinion, was on pins and needles. What bad things his brother had done, he was like this

Of course, the elder brother knew everything. At this time, he had to face a difficult choice, that is, give up the car to save the handsome man and abandon his younger brother, or be dragged into the water because of his younger brother's case.

Of course, Wang Miao did not think about using another core figure in the case to resolve the case, but it was almost impossible to give false testimony through Kou Zhun, and although Kou Zhun himself had no backers in the court, he was in Shilin

He still has a bit of fame, so if anything happens to Kou Zhun, the consequences can be imagined.

At the court meeting a few days later, Wang Miao was, as expected, severely questioned by Zhao Guangyi.

"I don't need to repeat to you what the memorials and newspapers these days mainly talk about. I have already investigated the bribes mentioned in the memorial to impeach your brother, as well as Zhenzhou Zhizhou Kou Zhun.

Kou Zhun did write a letter to impeach your brother, but I have never seen the memorial. Do you know all these things?" As he spoke, Zhao Guangyi's tone became increasingly cold.

At this time, Wang Miao was forced to a dead end. Zhao Weiji created a desperate situation for Wang Miao. No matter what choice he made, he would not end well.

The impeachment of the censor and the pressure of public opinion forced Zhao Guangyi to deal with this matter seriously. After careful investigation, Zhao Guangyi found that whether Wang Mian knew about this matter or not, he had violated Zhao Guangyi's bottom line.

One of the things that the emperor hates the most is one of the things that the emperor hates the most. The interception of Kou Zhun's memorial shows that there are Wang Mi's followers in the province responsible for correcting the officials' memorials, whether these people are under Wang Mi's instructions or acting spontaneously.

Of course, Wang Mian could have retreated and refused to admit it even if he was beaten to death. He could just say that his younger brother was acting like a fox and pretending to be a tiger, and his own banner was used, which led to the officials from the province under his command voluntarily helping his brother to cover up.

In this way, although Taizong could not do anything to him, all of Wang Miao's allies in the court would leave him because no one could form an alliance with such a person.

The fate that Wang Miao will face is nothing more than the difference between the death penalty and a reprieve. Maybe it would be better to just admit that the fate will be better. After all, the Song Dynasty did not kill scholar-bureaucrats. But if he betrays his allies, there will be no place for Wang Miao in a court full of political enemies.

As a result, the end may be even more miserable in the future.

"All the ministers knew about these matters, and it was the minister who coerced the provincial officials under him to keep the memorial at a discount. Everything is his fault." Wang Miansuo, who knew that there would be no good end for him, admitted all the culpability.

"Okay, since you admitted it, I don't want to say more." Seeing Wang Mian admitting all the guilt, Zhao Guangyi could only sigh. Considering his many years of hard work, he didn't plan to say more.

what.

"Wang Miao and his brother will have all their official positions removed, and they will be sent back to their hometowns together. They will not be allowed to be employed forever. As for helping you detain the person for impeachment, because they are under your coercion, they will be demoted to three levels. Let's just leave the court." After the punishment was announced.

Zhao Guangyi left the court directly.

This whole incident made Zhao Guangyi feel very strange. It was like there was an invisible pushing hand behind the incident, grasping the changes in the entire situation until Wang Mian was forced into a desperate situation.

But Zhao Guangyi did not get any benefits from this incident. First of all, Kou Zhun further gained his attention. Zhao Guangyi, who originally only thought that Kou Zhun was a pretty capable minister, discovered that Kou Zhun was upright and upright through this incident.

On the one hand, this made Zhao Guangyi start to like this person.

The second thing is that Zhao Guangyi noticed that these emerging industries may also breed [***] while promoting people's livelihood. This incident also sounded the alarm for local officials across the country who were preparing to pay attention to cotton or had already paid attention to cotton.

But what Zhao Guangyi didn't expect was that the biggest winner in this case was Zhao Weiji.

Kou Zhun, who was very smart, naturally knew who was helping him behind the scenes, and those who used to be part of Zhao Dezhao's group naturally also saw Zhao Weiji's power and methods.

Zhao Weiji, who has gained the gratitude of a future prime minister and the trust of a political faction, should naturally be the biggest winner behind the entire case.

And just after Zhao Weiji handled the matter, Jiang Yu also returned to the capital from Huating County.
Chapter completed!