His Rui (Webnovel)

Chapter-7

Four years ago

Everyone in the city was jumbling with great excitement. After two days, the place was going to have a banquet. Many noble families were invited. The females of these noble families didn't want to lose this chance of setting a good impression in front of the royal family.

Xi Ying was going to Xi Mansion after the ending of morning court.

" Prime Minister Xi "

He listened to someone calling him. On turning, he found General Li walking towards himself. As they don't talk much, Xi Ying thought that it must be something serious.

" General Li "

He gave a nod to General Li in greeting. The middle-aged General smiled at his greeting.

" Prime Minister Xi, do you have some free time? I want to have some talk with you. "

"Sure, General Li. What do you want to talk about? "

" Let's sit somewhere. "

Xi Ying glanced at An Ping and An Ping arranged a private room for them in a nearby Pavillion.

Sitting inside the Private room, Xi Ying patiently waited for General Li to start the conversation.

" Prime Minister Xi, I will come to the point and don't waste your time. I and your father have been great friends. I have always seen you as my son ."

Xi Ying looked at the general with a confused expression. Where was he trying to reach by all this?

" I wanted to ask you if you would like to marry my daughter, Li Rui. I am sure you and she are ..."

" No, General Li. I think that's all you wanted to talk about. Have a nice day ahead."

Without giving any chance to General Li to complete his words, Xi Ying stood up and left from there.

On his way to Xi Mansion, Xi Ying thought about the dim expression General Li had after he rejected the sudden proposal. He knew what the old general was trying to do.

Xi Ying was very close to the Emperor. The Emperor has always praised him for his intelligence. He knew that the Emperor doesn't like General Li that much.

In fact, the Emperor was looking for a chance to snatch all the military power from General Li. But this wasn't an easy task. The former Emperor trusted General Li's father a lot. Hence, he had given him all the military power and some special rights to make decisions about the borders. After General Li's father sacrificed himself on the battlefield, the former Emperor transferred all those rights to General Li Heng. All of the citizens and soldiers respected Li Household for the sacrifices they had done to safeguard this city and its borders.

It wasn't easy to reduce the effect of Li Household instantly.

So the only way was to weaken the position of the Li Clan bit by bit. The Emperor had already started his work from General Li's in Law's Family. Yi Clan. The daughter of Yi clan Yi Jie was wangfei of General Li. The power of the Yi clan is a great benefit to General Li.

The emperor issued an imperial edict of marriage between the Second Prince and the only daughter of the Yi clan who had gotten seventeen this year. In the eyes of others, it seemed like General Li was being favored by the emperor. But Xi Ying knew the real motive behind this move.

Preventing the Yi clan from making strong relations with any other family was a great move. Yi clan's only daughter will soon lose herself among the other concubines of the Second Prince. The only son, not favored by the Emperor would also not be able to maintain Yi's position in the royal court. The Yi clan would vanish in six to seven years like this and General Li will lose his most strong backing.

The royal family seemed to be attractive but only some knew that it was very difficult to maintain their position especially those who are not royals from birth.

Now General Li was afraid that the Emperor's next target would be his own daughter, Li Rui. So he was trying to be smart and ask for an imperial edict of marriage with someone else before the Emperor himself could announce it with any other prince.

But Xi Ying doesn't want to be involved in this mess. Nothing mattered more than the country. And he himself thinks that military power should be in the hand of the Emperor himself. He was a special advisor to the Emperor in this whole case. This was the plan he had suggested after a lot of effort. Then how could he marry General Li's daughter only to get their plan failed?

What he didn't know was that in the future, he would hate himself for everything he was doing now.