No one cared about Liu Zhang's grievances. The battle between the Dongzhou faction and the Yizhou faction broke out for the second time after Zhao Wei's death.

In this battle, Liu Zhang's opinions are actually very important.

After all, he is the king of Hanzhong, the king, and the leader. Everyone has their own little girl, but Liu Zhang is not a puppet. When the two factions compete, Liu Zhang's opinions are very important.

Pang Xi originally had military prestige and military power, but this Northern Expedition was dragged down, and there was no complaints in the army. Pang Xi was greatly criticized.

That's why he was eager to find the culprit from the locals in Yizhou to make up for his shortcomings.

But this is not easy.

Wang Shang did not let go when he died. Liu Zhang could not lose the support of the people of Dongzhou, and of course he would not allow Wang Shang to speak. Wang Shang himself knew that he could not speak, so he didn't say anything if he bit him to death.

Fa Zheng wanted to use torture to force confessions, but was intervened by Zhang Su. Zhang Su's intervention made Fa Zheng unable to give full play to his full strength and could not make progress.

As a result, the conflict between the people of Yizhou and Dongzhou became more intense. The officials and generals of both sides were full of gunpowder when they met. The situation in Hanzhong was very bad.

Both sides began to work hard on Liu Zhang and find a breakthrough in Liu Zhang, hoping that Liu Zhang could give them some help and drive the other party's power to the bottom in one breath.

As for Liu Zhang, when facing the people of Dongzhou, he felt a little guilty.

Because of the failure of this Northern Expedition, he essentially nodded and tried to deal with it.

Pang Xi's attitude of not letting go of her mouth made Liu Zhang, who wanted to pass this matter like this, feel very uncomfortable. He always feels that when Pang Xi is targeting him and destroying Yizhou people, he thinks to destroy him, and even has plans to make the next Zhao Wei.

If you say that Liu Zhang is guilty of doing something bad, he is afraid that others will know, but he is afraid that Wang Shang will not be able to keep the secret, so he tells it out in one go, leaving him shameless to see others.

It felt very bad to feel that there was a handle in your hand. Liu Zhang felt that he had to do something to keep this secret, otherwise his position would not be able to be preserved.

Wang Shang must die, and those who know about this must also die.

In his inner uneasiness, Liu Zhang made such a decision.

So in the early lunar month of the sixth year of Xingping, Liu Zhang held a banquet in Hanzhong. When everyone did not notice it, he sent someone to the prison to secretly strangle Wang Shang to death, and then put on the illusion of hanging himself.

After the banquet was over and everyone recovered from waking up, they noticed that Wang Shang was dead and still hanged.

The scholars in Yizhou were inexplicably sad and angry, and pointed their finger at Fa Zheng and Pang Xi, saying that they were tortured and killed Wang Shang. Now they want to deceive everyone that Wang Shang committed suicide by hanging himself.

Of course, Fa Zheng and Pang Xi denied that this was what they did. They also wanted to ask the truth from Wang Shang's mouth to expand the scope of the struggle and destroy the Yizhou faction's forces in one breath. How could they kill Wang Shang?

However, the scholars in Yizhou ran to Liu Zhang and cried in groups. Liu Zhang was secretly happy. Then Liu Zhang immediately followed the people's will and directly took away Fa Zheng's position regardless of the slightest.

He ordered Fa Zheng to be thrown into prison for interrogation, and he must ask the truth about Wang Shang's death. He also ordered Pang Xi to prevent him from leaving the house and stay at home to reflect on his mistakes.

The situation changed. In just over a month, the direction of this political struggle gradually changed.

Pang Xi was very uneasy after losing Fazheng's plan.

At this time, there were some other scholars around him, such as Cheng Ji, so Pang Xi asked Cheng Ji what he should do under this situation.

Cheng Ji persuaded Pang Xi to admit his mistake to Liu Zhang, saying that what Pang Xi did before was a bit too much. Judging from his actions of drawing his sword to kill Wang Shang, his suspicion was indeed the greatest. Cheng Ji also doubted whether Pang Xi had really sent someone to do it privately.

Pang Xi widened his eyes and said innocently that this was really not done by himself.

"I also want to ask Wang Shang about his accomplices and severely punish them. How could he kill Wang Shang? If Zhang Su hadn't been obstructing, I would have asked Xiaozhi to be punished long ago, but those Yizhou people always blocked me, which was very abominable. At this time, why would Ji Ran still doubt me? It would be no good for me to die before the conviction."

Cheng Ji said that this was not because he wanted to suspect Pang Xi, but because Pang Xi was too suspicious.

Pang Xi was even more worried and felt that it would not work to continue like this. Cheng Ji just asked him to write a letter to Liu Zhang and admit his mistake to Liu Zhang, but he didn't think he had done something wrong.

"If I really did something wrong, it would be fine if I admit it, but what did I do it wrong?"

"The general should admit his mistake about the failure of the etiquette in front of the palace, so that the king can be happy, and then he will defend himself that he did not commit the murder of Wang Shang, saying that he would definitely find out the truth and make himself clear. In this way, he can turn the situation around."

Pang Xi felt that what Cheng Ji said made sense, so he wrote to Liu Zhang, acknowledged his mistakes to Liu Zhang, and then expressed his feelings.

Liu Zhang was quite happy to see the mistake in the first half of the time. He took it and saw that he wanted to find out the truth about Wang Shang's death, and his face suddenly collapsed.

How can this work?

If he really found out that the murderer was me, how should I deal with it?

A monarch who conspires to murder his own generals and ministers?

Liu Zhang realized that he had done stupid things before, but now in order to make up for this stupid thing, he had to do more things to make up for. Moreover, these things became bigger and bigger, and if they were not exposed, they would probably be unable to control them.

But if you don’t do it, you won’t even have the chance to clean up.

Liu Zhang began to feel that Pang Xi was annoying to deal with all kinds of things and was very targeted at him. He was very uneasy, so he wrote a reply to Pang Xi.

He said that he was very satisfied with Pang Xi's attitude of admitting his mistakes. He hoped that Pang Xi would not participate in the matter of Wang Shang. Now that something dead has happened, it has caused disagreement among the ministers. Could Pang Xi continue to do this?

After receiving the reply, Pang Xi felt it was very strange, so he wrote to Liu Zhang again, telling Liu Zhang that this matter was really important.

If the envoy behind the scenes is not found out and severely punished, these people will stand up and drag their feet during the Northern Expedition in the future, and the possibility of Liu Zhang going to Chang'an to be an emperor will be gone.

Be a ghost emperor?

Liu Zhang is now feeling uncomfortable, just afraid that what he did will be discovered, for fear that his current status as the King of Hanzhong will be threatened, and he will be a ghost emperor!

He even felt that he shouldn't have come to Hanzhong. It was a huge mistake to make Pang Xi enterprising Hanzhong!

It would be great to stay in Shu honestly, and it would also allow Zhang Lu to resist Guo Peng and cause disaster for himself!

Why come here to be the king of Hanzhong!

Liu Zhang regretted not being able to do so, but regretted that he was blinded by lard at that time and wanted to go further.

But the situation has reached this point and it is difficult to stop the flooding. Liu Zhang thought about it and felt uneasy and felt that there was only one way to use it.

He found the brother of his own brother Liu Mao's wife, Wu Yi.

Wu Yi was from Chenliu County, Yanzhou, and his uncle Wu Kuang was once an official of General He Jin.

When Liu Yan was transferred to the governor of Yizhou, Wu Yi brought his whole family to Shu with Liu Yan because his father had a good relationship. He was one of the representatives of the Dongzhou delegation who followed Liu Yan as his basic base into Shu.

However, Wu Yi is a low-key person. Although the Wu family has a very high status under the command of Liu Yan and Liu Zhang, Wu Yi himself did not compete with Pang Xi, so Pang Xi's status and power have always been above Wu Yi.

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Chapter completed!