Chapter 463: Slow Life
A lot happened in the past few days after the embroidery competition in the Wind Kingdom. A couple of nights after the investigation was launched, the Lei family tried to escape the city as their corruption was getting revealed. But the moment they crossed the city gates, they were attacked by "bandits" and none of the Lei family member survived.
The attack was the talk of the city as everyone knew who these "bandits" were. There were almost no bandits in their kingdom and certainly there was none near the capital city since the government had enforced law everywhere that curbed the bandits. Most of them were reformed and they are doing decent jobs now.
Also if those were actually bandits who attacked the Lei Family, they wouldn’t have just killed the family, leaving the servants and even the valuables of the Lei family weren’t taken by those "bandits".
Of course it was a message by Prince Jin since he would be meticulous if he wanted to hide his retaliation. The retaliation of a father after his son was almost killed by that family member, was terrible and could be considered going overboard when the perpetrator actually was dead and the child was in no way harmed. Yet it served as a stern warning for anyone who wished to even touch the most respected family in the city.
This reaction from Prince Jin sparked some outrage in certain circles but no one dared to say anything out loud. They expected the Emperor to launch an investigation of the deaths of the Lei family to keep Prince Jin at bay but the Emperor’s reaction was lukewarm. In fact he even asked Prince Jin not to attend court and sent him on vacation when he obviously was needed in the city for dealing with the pissed off Prime Minister who is hell bent on investigating everyone who tried to attend the competition.
The Emperor also has signed an order for drafting young men over sixteen years old for the upcoming war the first to be drafted were members from the noble families pp.
Although, Those who were against Prince Jin could have created a big outrage but they were all busy trying to get their sons not to get drafting letters from the Defence Ministry and some even knelt in front of the Zhong Manor for Lord Zhong to change his mind.
Lord Zhong had a meeting with the Emperor and even then, he didn’t have changed his mind, apparently. Many tried to pacify Prince Jin and coax him to talk to Lord Zhong to let his army participate in the war but Prince Jin’s family have left for their other Manor in the west and could not be reached. The West has always been a stronghold of Lord Tang a.k.a Princess Consort Jin and they couldn’t even reach Prince Jin for comments even and it seemed like they had severed all ties with the city before they left. It’s been three months and they haven’t returned yet.
Will Prince Jin announce the Western Province as a sovereign state and rule it, rebelling against the Wind Emperor? Or will he join Water kingdom and attack Wind Kingdom from the North and West while they are already defending their Southern Borders? In that case it won’t be hard for him to get the entire Wind Kingdom. Won’t the Ouyang Navy support the Princess Consort too?
Some of the officials who never doubted Prince Jin found his behavior unacceptable and they even blamed the Emperor too. In times of need, it is the duty of everyone to stand united for the nation. They should not put their personal issues to the front and abandon their nation especially during war.
All in all, it seemed like the ones in the capital city were seemed to be in much danger. Everyone of them regretted their wish to get their daughter inside the Jin Manor, that has created this big of a problem.
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