The square in front of Daqing Hall was already full of officials who attended court. The officials were whispering about today's court meeting. According to the customs of the court meeting, the supervision report of the military prison was officially issued yesterday. Although it was only a streamlined part, the contents inside still shocked all officials.

The serious lack of preparation for war made the officials worried, and many officials who originally supported the Northern Expedition also changed their minds. If the Song army was defeated by the Liao army due to insufficient preparation for war, it would be a great humiliation for the Song Dynasty.

Although there are still many officials supporting the Northern Expedition, they no longer have the upper hand. Especially after Cai Jing publicly opposed the Northern Expedition, officials of the Cai Jing group turned unanimously and criticized the aggressive policy of the Northern Expedition.

Li Yanqing was called by Fan Zhixu as soon as he arrived in the square. There were about seven or eight people around Fan Zhixu, all of whom were core members who opposed the Northern Expedition.

"Yanqing, let me introduce you to you. These two are Grand Secretary Sun and Grand Secretary Yang, and both have common ambitions with us."

Li Yanqing hurriedly bowed, "Yanqing meets the two seniors!"

Grand Secretary Sun is named Sun Li, a middle-aged man with a goatee. He stroked his beard and smiled and said, "Young people are so terrifying!"

Fan Zhixu waved his hand and said to Li Yanqing: "The time for court is coming soon, so I will tell you a long story short. Today's first agenda is to discuss the supervision report of the military prison, which will be chaired by me. I want you to be responsible for explaining. After all, 80% of the contents of the report are the supervision situation of Zhendingfu, so you have no problem!"

Li Yanqing nodded, "I am ready."

"That's good. In addition, you can also participate in the debate on the Northern Expedition, but it is best to be practical, persuasive, and intense. However, you should pay attention to etiquette and grasp the right position, especially not attacking the emperor or the late emperor, so as not to be impeached by the imperial censor in the palace. If you are really not sure, try to watch."

"I understand!"

At this moment, the Jingyang bell that was about to enter the hall rang. Fan Zhixu patted Li Yanqing on the shoulder and whispered: "Anyone putting national affairs and the country first, don't care about your honor, disgrace, gains and losses."

Li Yanqing was a little nervous. The calls for opposing the Northern Expedition in history were also fierce, but the opposition failed in the end. Can this time change history?

The two teams of officials have already formed a long line. With the cheers of the censor in the hall, the team entered the hall one after another. Li Yanqing did not rank at the end today, but stood at the first place in the military prison. Behind were Li Hui and Jiang Ying. The three of them represented the military prison to attend the court meeting, and the location was relatively close to the front. Today, they will discuss their report.

Fan Zhixu stood in the third place in the prime minister, with Bai Shizhong and Wang Fu in front of him, and Zhang Bangchang as deputy prime ministers, and Zhao Kai, the prince of Yun, also attended. He stood in the first place of military generals, and below him were Tong Guan, Gao Qiu, Cao Ping, Gao Shen, Zong Shidao and others.

At this time, Li Yanqing saw the prince Zhao Huan. He looked bad, his face was pale, his eyes were very gloomy, and he had lost a lot of weight compared to last time. It was obvious that his life was not easy. His position was below His Majesty Dan, lower than the emperor, but higher than that of the court officials.

"His Majesty the Emperor is here!"

The guard shouted loudly, and sixteen palace maids surrounded the emperor Zhao Ji and walked in from the side with long handles. All the officials bowed and saluted, "See Your Majesty the Emperor, I wish you long live your Majesty!"

Zhao Ji sat down on the dragon chaise, waved his hand and said, "Dear all of you to be calm!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

All the ministers stood up straight. Zhao Ji flipped over the supervision report on the imperial case and said slowly: "Today, I convened a temporary dynasty. The main reason is that I want to discuss the preparations for the Northern Expedition with all my dear friends, and then discuss the general direction of the Northern Expedition. I hope the court can reach a consensus as soon as possible. Please ask Fan Prime Minister to come up and preside over it!"

Generally speaking, the court meeting is a place for ministers to debate fiercely. The emperor will not participate in the debate or speak easily. Therefore, Zhao Ji remained silent after saying the opening remarks. The following is a brief explanation of the preparations for the war in Hebei.

Fan Zhixu walked out of the court, bowed to Emperor Zhao Ji, and said to everyone: "According to the emperor's entrustment, the military prison station was divided into three teams to Hebei last month to monitor the military capital inventory status. The results of the supervision were shocking. In particular, the major warehouses in Zhending Prefecture are severely affected areas, with food shortages and military use, and many heavy siege weapons are corrupt. There are both dereliction of duty, fraud, reselling materials, and embezzlement and stolen goods. Now I ask the Censor Li Yanqing to report the supervision situation of Zhending Prefecture to you in detail."

Fan Zhixu waved his hand, Li Yanqing walked out of the queue with a scroll in his hand, stepped forward to salute the emperor Zhao Ji, and bowed to all officials. Then he opened the scroll and said slowly: "I am the first of the three-way supervisor, responsible for the supervision of Zhending Mansion. This time we stayed in Zhending Mansion for a total of twenty days. We supervised twenty-nine warehouses in Zhending Mansion. The facts we investigated all come from the actual warehouse, and there are signs and seals of the inspector and the warehouse manager. I can be responsible for this. Now I will use the five warehouses in Xingtang County to explain it in detail."

Li Yanqing paused for a moment, looked at Fan Zhixu, and Fan Zhixu signaled him to continue talking. Li Yanqing took a deep breath and continued: "Xingtang County is the focus of our supervision. There are more than 60% of various warehouses in Zhending Prefecture, and there are hundreds of warehouses. Let's first look at the supervision of the fifth warehouse of military rations. The warehouse should have 11,000 stones of military rations. The actual inspection is only 3,800 stones, less than 30%; let's look at the actual trading situation of the fourth warehouse of bows and crossbows."

Li Yanqing described one warehouse after another, and the court was talking louder and louder. Seeing that the situation was not good, Wang Fu paused for a moment, he immediately stood up and said, "We all understand these situations, but what is the cause of such a bad incident? I think this is the issue that more of us are concerned about!"

Wang Fu could no longer deny the fact that the facts were inconsistent with the facts. He could only make a fuss about the reasons and relieve Liang Fangping's guilt. Otherwise, Li Yanqing would end up with the statement and it would eventually turn into Liang Fangping's congress.

Fan Zhixu was very dissatisfied, and he said coldly: "Why is the Prime Minister so anxious that he can't let Censor Li finish the report?"

"We have seen the briefing yesterday that Censor Li said. We have a general understanding of what Censor Li said. We don't need to repeat it. We are more concerned about the causes of this phenomenon. We hope Censor Li can focus on explaining this aspect."

What Wang Fu caught was the weakness of the military prison supervision this time. They didn’t have so much time to check the reasons in detail, so they could only reveal the actual situation, but the real reason could not be implemented one by one.

Of course, Li Yanqing also knew that Wang Fu would start with the reasons. He had already had a solution to it. He simply said calmly: "The reasons here are very complicated. All the warehouse managers can tell a lot of reasons, such as historical reasons, which have been like this for decades. For example, the accounting is not timely, the food is rotten and damaged, the military weapon is corrupt and destroyed, etc., but they did not have the reasons for private stolen goods and embezzlement and stolen goods, they are all as innocent as snow. Does Wang Xiangguo agree with these reasons?"

Wang Fu smiled sinisterly, "Of course I don't believe it. Did Jingshi Li not check the reason in detail?"

Li Yanqing shook his head, "My group of six people spent twelve days to check 145 warehouses, and an average of 12 warehouses were counted every day. From dawn in the morning to late at night, we didn't have time to track down the real reasons for the inconsistency of the accounts. I think these should be left to the special supervisory and censors to investigate the reasons and clarify the responsibilities."

At this time, Tong Guan suddenly understood that if the reason was investigated in a comprehensive manner, it would take at least two or three years, and that would be a big deal to fight the Northern Expedition! He was very anxious. Now the most urgent task is to cut off the mess quickly, end the military investment supervision immediately, and turn the focus to the Northern Expedition.

Tong Guan couldn't help but curse Wang Fu as a fool, and fell into the trap of Liang Fangping for some benefit.

He immediately stepped out and said, "Your Majesty, please let me give you a word!"

Zhao Ji nodded, "Prince Tong, please tell me!"

Tong Guan walked out of the queue and said to everyone: "I have been a strategic envoy in Hebei and have a good understanding of the situation in Hebei. The supervision problem of military prisons this time is very serious. I am also deeply saddened. There are some historical reasons here, but they are definitely not that serious. There must be problems with self-stealing, but they are not so common. After all, the system of the court is still there. I think the real problem is still in false reports. I think it is Liang Fangping, the transfer commander of Hebei, who was eager to make contributions to the court and cheated, making the court mistakenly believe that Hebei has completed military preparations for military capital. The consequences are very serious and directly affected the court's Northern Expedition plan. This is an extremely serious act of dereliction of duty and dereliction of duty. If it is not severely punished, it is not enough to warn future generations. The minister suggested that instead of just talking about pursuing various reasons, it is better to punish Liang Fangping first."

Gao Qiu also took the lead and said: "Your Majesty, Taiwei Tong is right. No matter what the reason is found in the end, Liang Fangping's crimes of dereliction of duty and dereliction of duty are inevitable. I also beg Your Majesty to punish Liang Fangping severely."

All the ministers made a list of demands for severe punishment of Liang Fangping. Zhao Ji glanced at Wang Fu, "Where is the opinion of the Prime Minister?"

At this time, Wang Fu had already understood Tong Guan's intention and should not do too much claps on military capital issues. He had to cut off the mess and deal with this matter quickly so that the Northern Expedition issue could be discussed. Although Wang Fu had accepted Liang Fangping's heavy bribes, under heavy pressure, he had to express his opinion.

"I support Taiwei Tong, and should severely punish Liang Fangping!"

"Where is Fan Prime Minister's opinion?" Zhao Ji's eyes turned to Fan Zhixu again, and Fan Zhixu nodded and said, "Hebei suffered major losses, and Liang Fangping could not escape the blame, so he should be severely punished!"
Chapter completed!