Guan Ya said:
"My father told me that back then, the Empress Dowager opposed the Divine Sharp Army's northern campaign because she feared Wu Xin's overwhelming merit would overshadow the throne. She feared the Divine Sharp Army would grow too powerful and threaten imperial authority.
"But there was an even more important reason. The two dynasties had been at war for years. Farmland lay abandoned, the population had sharply declined, and the treasury was empty. The Southern Dynasty needed time to recover and could no longer sustain a national war.
"Wu Xin was a god of war, but politically, he was a blunt fool. He couldn't understand the court's hints, and he repeatedly berated the court in public, cursing the Empress Dowager for allowing a woman to meddle in politics and bring ruin upon the country and its people.
"Back then, Wu Xin returned to the Capital City on imperial orders. Before he even saw the Empress Dowager, he was placed under house arrest. Three days later, he died at the post station. The court publicly declared that he had died of illness. Afterward, the subordinates who had returned to the capital with Wu Xin gathered to cause trouble and were brutally suppressed."
Hearing this, Zhang Yuanqing interjected, "I remember Red Chicken Bro saying that some were killed, some imprisoned, and some dismissed."
Guan Ya sneered. "Dismissed? With the court's methods, how could they possibly have been dismissed? They escaped. 'Dismissed' was merely the court's way of saving face. Of course, those people aren't important. I went over the events and analyzed them. The person truly worth investigating is Zhao Kai."
"Zhao Kai?" Zhang Yuanqing asked in confusion.
"After news of Wu Xin's death at the post station spread, the Divine Sharp Army soldiers who had followed him back to