The Zhong family was making trouble in the front yard of Wangfu Middle Road, and Zhao Xiu was sitting in the guest house, but he didn't go to see the excitement. Although they are not used to looking at the Zhong family, they are the princess's maiden relatives after all, she is a person with a foreign surname, she is not related to her, and she has no position to take care of other people's housework.

However, she sat in the guest courtyard for a long time, and she didn't hear the quiet in the front yard, and it seemed to be getting more and more chaotic, and even the chanting of monks and Taoists stopped, she frowned, a little worried.

Although Yanyu was angry at what the Zhong family did, she was still very concerned about the funeral of the housemother, she stood in the main room of the guest house for a while, listening to the movement, she couldn't help but go to the front yard to take a look, and then angrily turned back and scolded a few words. After getting along for more than 20 days, these girls have already familiarized Zhao Xiu's temper, as long as they don't go on business trips, and they are diligent enough, in fact, she is a very kind and talkative little girl, and she doesn't look like the daughter of the Hou Mansion, they cry tired, she won't say that they are lazy or disrespectful to the princess, but will let them take a break and drink some water to replenish their water. Therefore, Yanyu can rest assured and boldly scold the Zhong family in the guest house, without worrying that Zhao Xiu will blame her, or sue in front of Cao's mother.

After scolding a few words, Yanyu listened to the movement in the front yard, and it didn't take long for him to go over and watch, and then come back to scold after watching for a while. This back and forth has brought a lot of the latest news to Zhao Xiu.

There are a lot of people from the Zhong family, including Mrs. Zhong, Master Zhong's family, Mr. Zhong's second family, as well as two or three cousins and in-laws, among whom there are also those who have not been affected by the rebellion case, but because of their humble positions. has no power, so he has always been attached to the Zhong family. Of course, it is also because of their humble position. When the Zhong family took refuge in Zhu Lifei, they didn't pull them at all, so they escaped, and afterwards they were alienated from the Zhong family, for fear that they would be implicated, even if the dignity of the past was obtained by the Zhong family, the princess of Guangping, they were unwilling to come to give the Zhong family a stick of incense.

But now it's different. Just two days ago, Mr. Zhong, who refused to resign under the pretext of illness, received a notice from his boss that he had been found guilty of dereliction of duty and corruption in office. The property that he embezzled is more than 100,000 taels of silver, which is a loss of the trust of the imperial court and must be severely punished! Now not only do they want him to take out the 100,000 taels of silver and return them to the public, but they also want to dismiss him from his post and investigate him. Never hired. His boss even said. This is already extraordinarily gracious, because considering that Princess Guangping has just died, he is the princess's own brother, and the emperor can't bear to add guilt at this time, so he will be extra gracious. But if he is unwilling to hand over the greedy money, then wait to sit through the prison, and maybe exile for 3,000 miles, who will tell him to live up to the trust of the Daxing Emperor and the new monarch. Insulted the name of the family again?

Master Zhong was aggrieved, when did he be greedy for so much silver? It is true that there have been acts of embezzlement of public funds in the past. He also took out a large amount of money to fund King Ying, but all the money added up is definitely not as much as 100,000 taels! 100,000 taels is already more than ninety percent of the Zhong family's entire family property, this is still the sum of several people, is it possible that he will go bankrupt?

But Dali Temple and the Criminal Department did not accept this statement, because when Mrs. Zhong was alive, the Zhong family was still an ordinary scholarly family, and the rich were absolutely incomparable, that is, ordinary wealthy families, with hundreds of acres of land in their hometown, and a 30-hectare big Zhuangzi sent by the princess in the suburbs of Beijing, and there were two shops in the outer city to collect rent, which was enough to feed a family of less than 100 people. But after the death of Mrs. Zhong, Mr. Zhong was in charge, and the property under his name increased greatly year by year, not only the land under the name of his hometown exceeded 10,000 mu, but there were three or four more Zhuangzi in the suburbs of Beijing, and there were also twenty or thirty shops in the city, which gave dividends to the Zhong family on a quarterly basis. These are nominally to protect themselves in the name of the Zhong family, but Master Zhong's official position is not high, what does he rely on to protect others? Isn't it just relying on the palace? In the years when King Guangping was the prince, the Zhong family's family property increased tenfold. Because it is not a matter of harming nature and reason, the king and his wife of Guangping did not care. But now that Dali Temple and the Criminal Department want to settle accounts after the autumn, they will hold on to this matter - the Zhong family is not a rich family, if it is not greedy for silver, where can so many industries be purchased? Said it was given by someone else? Why did someone give it to his family? Call the man who sent the property to testify!

Those people are too late to hide from the Zhong family now, how could they be willing to come forward to testify? The official sent to inquire, and they didn't say that they were forced to send it, after all, they had to take into account the face of the Guangping Palace, so they said that the Zhong family used the money to buy and buy shares, as for where did the Zhong family's money come from? Sorry they didn't ask.

The question comes back to the question, where did Master Zhong get the money? Counting the ancestral property of the Zhong family, the marriages of the wives and grandmothers over the years, there are not so many. If it is said that it was all sent by the princess, the Guangping Mansion is unwilling to admit it, what else can Master Zhong say besides admitting that he is corrupt?

The most terrifying thing is that Dali Temple also lists the official positions that Master Zhong has held over the years since he made his first fortune, looking for the source of his embezzled money. He has not held a high official position over the years, but he is also a real decent position, and he has served as an examiner in the local area, and several disaster relief funds have flowed through his boss, and there have been small-scale imperial examination fraud scandals in the areas under his jurisdiction where he is an examiner - of course, it is the county level that caused the accident, but he is a prefecture-level examiner, and he has not been involved, it is reasonable to say that he is innocent in the past, but now to say that he is not clean, it does not seem to be unreasonable, he can't explain it clearly.

The Zhong family is a scholarly family, starting from the old lady, and has been established in the name of the Qing Dynasty. This crime of dereliction of duty and corruption may also be mixed up with some excuses such as negligence or lack of general affairs, and be forgiven by some people in Shilin, but if they embezzle disaster relief funds, they will morally beat Master Zhong to the bottom, and they will be suspected of fraud in the imperial examination, so they will simply remove the Zhong family from Shilin. Once this crime is convicted, at least three generations of the descendants of the Zhong family will not want to stand up in the circle of scholars, and decent and innocent people will not be willing to marry the Zhong family, which is the biggest blow to the Zhong family.

Master Zhong finally found out that neither the Criminal Department nor the Dali Temple bought his account, and he couldn't prove his innocence, and he was even more worried that he would have a stalemate with the people from the Criminal Department and Dali Temple, and the other party would once again pursue his case of rebellion. But if he sells his property to make up for the stolen money, he is unwilling. The 100,000 taels of silver were taken out, and the Zhong family instantly returned to the level of wealth when his father had just died. Isn't all his harvest over the years all in vain? He could only come to King Guangping again, hoping that King Guangping's father and son would look at the dead Zhong's face. You can help him again.

Gao Zhen's warning he had already heard from his wife, and he didn't dare to take that risk, but now that Gao Zhen's father and son were not in the palace, if at this time, their family would come over to help the palace assist in the funeral. came forward to receive the guests who came to mourn, and so on, so that everyone in the capital knew that the Zhong family had made a big contribution to their daughter's funeral. When the father and son of King Guangping come back, there is no reason to embarrass the Zhong family, maybe they will have to repay the favor of the Zhong family and help him intercede in front of the emperor......

Master Zhong's wishful thinking. The stewards in the palace with a little face can see it. Even Yanyu guessed it. Because the news that Master Zhong has recently provoked a lawsuit is not a secret in Beijing. Zhao Xiu is because his brother is in the palace, and he rarely interacts with outsiders on weekdays, and when he arrives at the Guangping Palace, he rarely asks about the affairs of the court, so it is the first time he has heard of it.

She felt a little strange in her heart, these charges sounded like bluffing, but if they were true. Why hasn't anyone talked about it in the past? If Master Zhong really did such a thing, King Guangping would never tolerate it. And those who want to pull King Quang Binh from the throne of the prince have long used this kind of thing as an excuse to attack King Quang Binh, right? Zhao Xiu guessed that Master Zhong might not have really done such a thing, so why is the Criminal Department and Dali Temple investigating it again? And without clear evidence, he deliberately convicted him. The Criminal Department and Dali Temple have been quite busy lately, right? Still have the leisure to do this? If Master Zhong didn't like it, he would have been able to get rid of him with a direct rebellion case.

Zhao Xiu remembered the unpredictable expression on his face when he separated from Gao Zhen that day, and secretly wondered if this would have something to do with Gao Zhen? Perhaps, this is Gao Zhen's revenge on the Zhong family? As long as the new monarch or the king of Guangping is willing to cooperate, this method can indeed directly pull Master Zhong down from his official position, lest he continue to use illness as an excuse to procrastinate and refuse to resign. And officials who have been dismissed for their crimes have no hope of reinstatement. With such a big crime, even if his life is saved, he will be looked down upon when he returns to his hometown. The son of the Zhong family wants to take the imperial examination in the future, and he will make a comeback, I am afraid it will not be so easy.

Zhao Xiu guessed here, planning to wait for Gao Zhen to come, and ask him privately, and suddenly saw Yanyu coming back angrily again, this time supporting the pale mother Cao. She hurriedly greeted her: "Mom, what's wrong?" Cao's mother looked like she wanted to cry without tears, looked up at her and opened her mouth, and hung her head weakly.

Yanyu said angrily: "Mother went to the front to persuade Mrs. Zhong, stop crying, there are guests coming to condole, let people see it, isn't it a joke?" Mrs. Zhong scolded her mother, saying that her mother had no old master in her eyes, and she was still ...... He said a lot of unpleasant things. Yanyu didn't want those foul words to dirty Miss Zhao's ears, so she omitted a lot of words, but Zhao Xiu could already guess it.

Zhao Xiu frowned: "Someone came to condole?" Who is it? ”

"The eldest and youngest grandmother of Wang Shangshu's family." Yanyu was also a little worried when she said it, "This grandmother Wang made friends with the Zhong family cousin girl before she left the cabinet. When she entered the door just now, her face was also biased towards the Zhong family. ”

Zhao Xiu was puzzled: "Is her father-in-law still a scholar?" Then doesn't she know that the Zhong family is suspected of rebellion? ”

Yanyu smiled bitterly: "Grandma Wang is still very young, and she only came out of the pavilion last year, so she probably doesn't pay much attention to the things that go up." Just now, she also scolded the head of the palace, being too rude to Mrs. Zhong, and being disrespectful to the princess. The manager couldn't reason with her at all, and several subordinate officials couldn't talk to her, so Cao's mother stepped forward and asked her to go straight to the mourning hall to offer incense, and she also counted a few words from her mother. ”

This grandmother Wang is too annoying, since she doesn't care about the government, how can she still take care of other people's palaces? The affairs of the Zhong family are so big, even the businessmen of the people know about it, and they don't want to have anything to do with his family, the young grandmother of Shangshu Mansion next to her, does she really not understand this truth?

Zhao Xiu pursed his lips and comforted Cao's mother with warm words: "Don't be sad, the prince and the prince both understand your character." Let's sit down in the room first, and then talk about it when they have had enough trouble, and they won't be able to make trouble for long. ”

Cao's mother shook her head weakly: "It is also my dereliction of duty to let the Zhong family enter the gate of the palace and stir up the princess's funeral like this." Now that people all over the capital have seen the Zhong family making trouble in the palace, and the face of the palace is swept away, what face do I have to see the prince? ”

Zhao Xiu had no choice but to say: "If there is a way, send a letter to the palace and ask the prince to send someone to drive the Zhong family away." Or tell them to wait for the prince to return to the house. Otherwise, who can stop it if it goes on like this? ”

Cao's mother silently cried: "The Zhong family is now at the end of their rope, and they don't care about any decency." They make trouble, let alone let outsiders see it, even if the people in the palace see it, how much respect can they have for the princess? Why don't the old lady, the eldest and the second old man understand this reason? ”

As he was talking, suddenly two mothers-in-law rushed over and reported to Cao's mother and Zhao Xiu: "Mrs. Zhong fainted from crying, and Mrs. Zhong shouted to send the old lady to the wing room to rest, because Grandma Wang was there, and they couldn't stop it, how could this be good?" ”

It's really an old-fashioned trick, and it's this set again? If you faint, you can enter the wing, and this rest, won't you just stay? Mrs. Zhong is really worthy of Zhong Yazhi's grandmother, and she is more high-end than Zhong Yazhi.

Zhao Xiu sneered, and said to the two mothers-in-law: "Go and tell them that there is a mourning hall in the courtyard of the middle road, which is not a good place to rest, let them move people to the guest house." ”

Mother Cao and Yanyu both looked at her in surprise. Zhao Xiu smiled: "It's okay, if they have to stay here, let them come." Then he closed the door and sent a few more men to guard it. Grandma Wang or something, just to mourn, can you still stay overnight? When the Zhong family comes, and there are other guests coming, we just have to lead people to other courtyards, so that Mrs. Zhong can live and recuperate. ”

Cao's mother was still stunned, and Yanyu had already understood what she meant in an instant. Now the people in the palace are worried that the Zhong family is making trouble in front of the mourning hall, so they will move the people away first. The guest house on this side of the West Road is independent of the Middle Road, and as soon as the doors on both sides are closed and someone is sent to guard them, the Zhong family will not want to go back to the mourning hall. This is the interior of the palace, and people outside can't see it, how to deal with the Zhong family, that is the internal affairs of the palace. Where is it not possible to entertain female guests who come to mourn?

Cao's mother did not object, so the mother-in-law immediately went to inform the manager, and Yanyu quickly helped Zhao Xiu pack up the things in the second room and send them to another yard along the path. The front yard of the East Road was the place where the officials of the palace did their work, but there was a small rectangular courtyard at the back, which was also used to greet female guests in the past. Now it is very easy to clean up and replace the function of the guest house.

Zhao Xiu just stood in front of the door of the main room of the guest house, watching a group of people from the Zhong family walk in accompanied by a strange young woman. (To be continued......)