Noble Consort Ruan made the Crown Prince suffer a big loss this time, which caused the Crown Prince’s reputation to be affected. However, his faction was not one to sit back and let others attack brazenly without caring.
As expected, the Crown Prince’s faction’s counterattack was swift, furious and ruthless.
When she woke up one morning, Lin Feilu heard about the collapse of the Imperial Ancestral Hall.
The Imperial Ancestral Hall was built on the Foguang Mountain outside the palace. Most of the ancestors and Confucians of the Great Lin Empire were worshipped inside. Last year, the official who served as the guardian of the Imperial Ancestral Hall reported that the roof of the hall was leaking. He also mentioned that the statues of the Confucians were also mottled.
The Imperial Ancestral Hall was already quite an old building as it was repaired every year. After thinking about it, Emperor Lin directly allocated a large sum of money from the National Treasury to the Imperial Engineering Sector to have them rebuild the ancestral hall on the Foguang Mountain. With that, the previous ancestral hall would no longer be needed.
The Imperial Engineering Sector started the construction immediately and built the current ancestral hall a few years ago. At that time, Emperor Lin brought the royal family to worship his ancestors and light some incense.
Who would have guessed that it wouldn’t take long for the newly-built Imperial Ancestral Hall to collapse.
Lin Feilu was stunned when she heard it, let alone Emperor Lin. The seriousness of this incident was no less than hearing about an enemy’s pressuring counterattack.
The ancestral hall collapsed abruptly at night, killing all five officials who were guarding the hall and more than a dozen palace servants. When Emperor Lin received the news late at night, he was so shocked that his drowsiness practically dissipated. At first, he thought it was caused by the royal ancestors’ anger, so he summoned the important officials of the court, along with the Royal Astronomy Supervisors and the people of the Yangxin Palace for an overnight discussion.
As a result, after a thorough investigation, it was found that the Minister of the Imperial Engineering Sector, who was in charge of repairing the ancestral hall, had embezzled the money and used inferior wood, which caused the new ancestral hall to collapse.
Emperor Lin was furious and immediately ordered the Minister’s house to be raided. The Minister of the Imperial Engineering Sector and his family, which consisted of more than 30 people, were all imprisoned. All of the officials involved in the incident were all dismissed and sent to prison. The mastermind was beheaded, his sons were all killed or exiled, whereas his wives and daughters were reduced to slaves.
As the Minister of the Imperial Engineering Sector was a firm supporter of the Ruan family faction and was also Prime Minister Ruan’s favourite protégé, the two families had marriage connections between them. Therefore, there were also children of the Ruan family who were involved in this incident.
This disaster, together with those who were killed by the collapse of the Imperial Ancestral Hall, caused a total of more than 20 people to give up their lives.
Lin Feilu didn’t know whether the ancestral hall had really used inferior materials which caused the structure of the building to become overwhelmed and collapse, or whether there were people from the Crown Prince’s faction who secretly did something. By now, the truth no longer mattered.
Prime Minister Ruan’s faction was hit hard because of this. He was even angrily scolded by Emperor Lin in the morning for having bad intentions and ruining the tranquillity of the Palace.
Noble Consort Ruan asked to see him several times, but she would always be rejected by Emperor Lin.
The situation in the country would gradually be determined by the two rival Princes’ factions and their actions.