The color of iron was in the Xuan Emperor's face.

Ning Chen had been preparing to attack Nanyue all along. To say he was in league with the Fourth Prince of Nanyue was simply laughable.

Ning Chen had taken the King of the Left Court alive, taken Mangzhou, won back the frontier, and brought about the peace with the Wu Kingdom.

He had invented the musket and the cannon and worked to raise the Great Xuan's strength in arms.

What could a barbarian kingdom like Nanyue give Ning Chen?

Office?

Ning Chen already held a marquisate, and was a General of the Second Rank and the future consort of a princess.

Money?

Could Nanyue be richer than the Great Xuan? Could the sovereign of Nanyue give Ning Chen more than he himself had?

Unless there was something wrong with Ning Chen's head, he would not go off and league with Nanyue and destroy his own future doing it.

These pig-like creatures could not see even that much, and believed Ning Chen had leagued with Nanyue?

The Xuan Emperor knew perfectly well that most of the men attacking Ning Chen were paying off a private grudge.

Because Ning Chen had taken their silver.

Yet Ning Chen had not pocketed that silver. It was in the emperor's own hands, held as war funds for the attack on Nanyue.

The trouble now was those few secret letters... and the fact that Ning Chen had held back stores on his own authority and filled his own purse, which was now beyond question.

The scoundrel. Is the silver this emperor gives him not enough to spend?

Under the law of the Great Xuan that was a capital crime.

And Ning Chen had let himself be caught with the evidence.

But the Xuan Emperor was no fool. Of all the officials in this court, which of them had never taken anything?

Dynasty after dynasty had worked at clearing out corrupt officials... but when a man had power in his hands, could he really hold to his own heart and keep his hands to himself?

So as…