That same afternoon, memorial after memorial was carried into the palace, until they were heaped into a small mountain on the Xuan Emperor's dragon desk.

For the first time the Xuan Emperor found reading memorials a comfortable thing to do.

Every one of these memorials pleaded for the deposed crown prince.

At the Fan residence, Fan Taihe held his brush and for a long time could not bring it down to the paper.

Because once the brush came down, he would be offending the Fifth Prince.

Pardon the deposed crown prince and he would never be given real employment again — but he was of the imperial blood after all. He was still an imperial son.

And any imperial son was a threat to the Fifth Prince.

But if he did not write this memorial, he would have to give up his son and daughter.

He turned it over and over, and in the end he wrote a memorial pleading for the deposed crown prince and sent it into the palace.

This move of Ning Chen's was too savage!

Set beside Ning Chen, the Fifth Prince's methods looked a lot poorer.

The next day, the morning court!

Ning Chen was in the hall too.

The whole body of ministers knelt one after another and asked the Xuan Emperor to remit the deposed crown prince's death sentence.

"Your Majesty, the deposed crown prince committed a fault, certainly, but he is the heir apparent after all, he is of the imperial blood, and he must not be killed."

"Your Majesty, your subject begs that the crown prince's death sentence be remitted."

"I beg Your Majesty to pardon the deposed crown prince."

"Your subject seconds it!"

"Your subject seconds it too!"

The peace party's officials knelt all over the floor.

They begged for the deposed crown prince's pardon, and toward the end they did not even bother to find reasons for it.

In this contest between sovereign and ministers they had lost, and lost utterly.

They understood perfectly well that they had not lost to the Xuan Emperor. They had lost to Ning…