Reborn After Widowhood

Chapter 39

After Chen Jingzong left, Hua Yang picked up the three greeting cards on the table.

Princess Consort Xiang and Lingyuan County Lady were both imperial clan members, and the famous Bai family had produced several high-ranking officials in this dynasty. The head of the family, Old Madam Ji, was indeed qualified to visit her.

Beside Old Madam Ji, Hua Yang only heard of Princess Consort Xiang and Lingyuan County Lady by name but never met them.

There were too many imperial clan members in this dynasty, a hundred thousand people in total. Hua Yang was only deeply impressed by these two people because of her previous life.

In Fifth-Month of the same year in the previous life, Lingyuan County Lady hanged herself at home. His son was so grief-stricken that he ran to the prefect's yamen of Lingzhou Prefecture in mourning clothes, suing Prince Xiang for injustice of raping his mother, Lingyuan County Lady, at the Prince Mansion.

The prefect at that time was Hua Yang's eldest brother-in-law, Chen Bozong.

Chen Bozong sent someone to invite Prince Xiang to come to the Yamen to confront him, but Prince Xiang said that he was drunk and met the Lingyuan County Lady while wandering in his garden. His mind was muddled at the time and did not recognize her, only thought that it was a maid in the mansion who took the initiative to seduce him, so he took her to the garden and done a good deed. After the incident, Prince Xiang sobered up and found that the woman next to him was actually Lingyuan County Lady. Prince Xiang was furious and scolded her for shamelessly seducing a fellow clansman. He concluded that Lingyuan County Lady was so ashamed that she resorted to suicide after that.

Prince Xiang also brought several servants around him to testify, but on Lingyuan County Lady's side, except for a maid who was missing at the time of the incident, there were no witnesses.

In this case, Chen Bozong could not convict Prince Xiang because there was no evidence.

But not long after the case, Hua Yang's father-in-law Chen Tingjian suddenly handed over a memorial to the capital, listing thirteen crimes in one breath, including Prince Xiang's rape of women, disregard human life, and seizing people's fields.

Father emperor sent two imperial envoys to Lingzhou Prefecture to thoroughly investigate Prince Xiang's crime. One of them was Shi Yao, an old friend of father-in-law, and the other was Zheng Hong, father-in-law's opponent.

When the Prince Xiang heard that the imperial court had sent imperial envoys to investigate him, he actually raised a large flag in front of Prince Mansion and wrote a letter of "Redress of Injustice Banner" (讼冤之纛).

The term "纛" referred to a military banner, and unless it was used by the military, this banner was typically associated with rebels. Shi Yao reported to the court that Prince Xiang intended to rebel. Although Zheng Hong believed that there was insufficient evidence of Prince Xiang's rebellion, her father emperor still decreed the demotion of Prince Xiang's entire family to commoners and their exile to the frontier.

At this point, the case seemed to have been settled. However, after her father-in-law died of illness, the former Princess Consort Xiang suddenly came to the capital with her son and accused her father-in-law of using public affairs for personal gain. Because the Chen family had an old grudge with the Prince Xiang, he instructed Shi Yao to falsely accuse Prince Xiang of conspiring a rebellion. At the same time, Zheng Hong also submitted a memorial again, proving that Prince Xiang did indeed commit various evil deeds, but he never intended to rebel.

After a thorough investigation by the Jinyiwei, there was one more item on her younger brother's decree to convict her father-in-law – falsely accusing his vassal!