The clan meeting of the Zhao clan has always had rules requiring every person in the house to participate, if the head of the family is not there, then the heir will do it for him, if the heir is not there, or a brother, or a nephew, in short, according to the blood distance and the status of the descendants, the most qualified person should be selected among the members who stayed behind as an agent. In the event that all the men in the family go out or die, let the housewife or eldest daughter take the place of the male in the house. For those who are out of the house, the family will first be discussed by the clan, and the heir will be selected, and the heir will come forward.

If there is a last resort, or if the whole family is in a foreign country with the head of the family, or if they move to another place and cannot rush back to attend the congress in time, then if they are dissatisfied with the decision of the clan assembly, they are not entitled to raise objections, because they themselves have waived their right to express their opinions.

This rule has always been well enforced, and the only thing that can be blatantly unruly but no one can hold them accountable is the second room that has not been separated in the past. That's not said, Jiannan Jungong is the guarantee of the prosperity of the whole clan, is the patron of the Zhao clan, he has been guarding the frontier for many years, or returning to the capital to recuperate after saying goodbye, except for occasionally returning to his hometown to worship his ancestors, he basically doesn't interfere much in the affairs of the clan, but no one dares to really treat him as transparent. Whenever there is a major event in the clan, he will send a letter to the county grandfather in advance, ask for his opinion, and after getting the right word, convey it to the clansmen to know, and then start voting. If the matter is urgent, and the clan meeting is held before the county prince knows how to express his position, then the meeting must also send the results of the public meeting to Beijing urgently the next day. Report it to the county lord to know that if he objects, then the lord Yu will definitely reconvene the clan assembly. Overturn the previous resolution......

Of course, this situation is relatively rare, and the county lord has only opposed the results of the two clan conferences. Once, it was mentioned by the old man Yu, charging a large fee to the people of each house, and choosing another feng shui treasure to move the ancestral tomb over, because that year Fengxian was flooded, and the location of the ancestral tomb of the family was at risk of being flooded. But this ancestral tomb is actually the ancestral tomb of the inner three rooms. The outer nine rooms are all attached, and even if there are a few new graves erected in recent years, they have not reached the point of moving the graves. The fees demanded by Master Yu added up to far more than the amount needed, and there was a suspicion of accumulating money. When the county grandfather found out, he scolded the messenger sent by Master Yu to deliver the letter, and the matter of raising money and moving the grave was over. Changed to a second room, and rebuilt the ancestral tomb at the expense of the money. After that, Master Yu never dared to bring up similar topics.

The other time is one of the two generations of side branches in the outer six rooms, the adult male is a layman, the family is wealthy, the father and son both died due to accidents, only the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are left, and the daughter-in-law is eight months pregnant. Master Yu felt that it was not good to have a man as a filial son at the funeral, so several families in the sixth room discussed it and pushed a boy out. I plan to be the heir to his family, but this way. No matter whether the daughter-in-law gives birth to a man or a girl, she will not be able to inherit the family property. At that time, a doctor diagnosed that the daughter-in-law was pregnant with a male fetus, and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law fought hard against the succession, but they couldn't resist the clan, and Master Yu ignored their opinions, and in order to catch up with the funeral, he preemptively held a clan meeting to settle the matter. But afterwards, the county grandfather found out, scolded him again, overturned the proposal, and waited for the daughter-in-law to give birth to a boy, but still got back the family property, and the boy who was a filial son was sent back to his biological parents after only receiving a red envelope. Zhao Qixuan's grandfather was still in charge of the sixth room at that time, and he lost face because of this incident, and he had no choice but to rely on the face of the county grandfather to do a good job.

It can be seen from this that the second room has a great right to speak in clan affairs and what a transcendent position.

But now that the second room has been separated, Xiao Changfang has been staying in the capital for many years, and there was such a disgraceful sinner as Zhao Jiong, who did not return to his hometown to express his views on clan affairs, and the clan was not interested in soliciting their opinions, anyway, they themselves refused to return to their hometown, and no matter what resolution made them dissatisfied in the future, they were not qualified to oppose it. The second room is in the clan, and now it is mainly the small second room, and the Zhang family took Zhao Wei to attend the conference every time.

At the moment, Zhang and Zhao Wei are not at home, only Zhao Xiu is left, and Zhao Jing, who is in charge of the clan conference, is also very troubled, letting a girl participate in the clan conference, it is still such a young age, it is a unique thing. However, the small second room is absolutely not absent, except for Zhao Xiu, there is no one else to attend, not even a man from the side branch, since Zhao Xiu took the initiative to ask to participate, it can only be let her. Originally, among the clansmen who lent money to Bafang, Zhao Xiu was the second-ranked creditor and a bitter master, how could he miss the little girl if he wanted to deal with the culprit of cheating money?

On the day of the conference, she solemnly dressed as simple and solemn as possible, took Lu Changxiu and Lu Ma to the ancestral hall next door, and then left them outside the door and entered the ancestral hall alone.

In addition to the descendants of the Zongfang and the Eighth Chamber, Zhao Xiu was the earliest one. In the council hall, the chairs have been arranged according to the order and order, and there are rules for who sits on each chair. The two chairs on the upper seat, one is reserved for the Zhang family, and the other is for the eighth old lady, they are the highest existing elders in the clan, and even when the elder Yu was the sect chief in the past, he had to sit down. The two rows of chairs on the left and right sit the heads of each house of the "fire" generation, and the chairs in the row behind them sit on the side branch of the same "fire" generation, and then there are the "jade" generation. At present, there are no children of the "water" generation in charge, so there is no place for them, and if there are men from the "water" generation attending the meeting, they will have to stand in the last row. The whole venue is orderly, there is a clear distinction between respect and inferiority, and who is qualified to speak, who can only echo the voice, is exquisite.

But there is one exception to this, that is, Zhao Wei of the small second room, the previous clan meeting, because he was the only male in the small second room, and he was also the head of the small second room. He is the only male representative of the second room to attend the conference, so although he is from the "jade" generation, his seat cannot be ranked in the row of the "jade" generation. Zhao Jing found a reason. said that he was young and his grandmother was old and needed to be taken care of, so he arranged his place in Zhang's chair, and sat on the same chair as the children of the "jade" generation, but his status was equal to that of the elders of the "fire" generation. The clansmen knew that he had a noble status and a title, and no one objected.

Now Zhang and Zhao Wei are gone. Zhao Xiu is from the "jade" generation, but she can't be thrown into the row of chairs with the "jade" generation, otherwise there will be no shadow of the second room in the upper position! So Zhao Jing arranged for her to sit in the seat of her brother Zhao Wei. Just start with Zhang's empty chair.

The little girl was not yet large enough to sit on a chair with her legs free. However, she wore a green cross-collared hemp shirt with an indigo blue silver twig skirt. A pair of blue embroidered shoes under the skirt. Only a little of the tip of the shoe is exposed in the air. The black hair on the head parted in the middle and combed into two twisted braids, which were tied up with a blue headband, and looked like two symmetrical hair mustaches that reached down to the ears. She sat there upright, her little body straightened, not at all disturbed like other children of her age, nor did she look left and right, as if she were a little adult. Saw someone coming through the door. If it was an elder or a junior, she would prop up the chair with her hands. Quickly jump off the ground and salute each other; If it was a junior, she would sit still and accept the greetings. If you do it well, no one can make a mistake.

The people who came to the assembly were a little surprised to see her watch, but they quickly accepted this fact calmly, and took it for granted.

As the time for the start of the meeting approached, more and more people entered the ancestral hall, and everyone greeted each other in a friendly manner, and each found his own seat to sit down.

The eighth old lady finally appeared under the support of his son, everyone stood up and saluted him, he nodded lightly all the way to respond to the juniors, came to the seat that belonged to him, and saw that the closest to him was actually Zhao Xiu, first stunned, then frowned and said: "Sister Xiu's son is a girl, how can she be here?" ”

Zhao Xiu respectfully saluted him and said, "Uncle and grandfather, if the nephew and granddaughter don't come, no one will come to the second room, and Brother Jing has to arrange for me to sit down." Besides, according to the clan rules, I am the eldest daughter of the second room, and my brother is not at home, so I should attend on my behalf. It's about the clan, and the nephew and granddaughter don't dare to be lazy. ”

When the eighth old lady heard this, her brows stretched slightly, but she still felt that it was not like words, but thinking about the daughter of the "jade" character in the second room, there was only Zhao Xiu, and it was not wrong to say that she was the eldest daughter, and it was not a violation of the rules to attend the clan meeting on behalf of the brothers, it was better than not showing up alone in the second room, so he acquiesced and sat down on his own. His son Zhao Kun hurriedly retreated to the right of his lower hand, sat down opposite Master Yu, glanced at him, and turned his head away.

When the deacon shouted outside the door, the clan assembly began.

Zhao Jing ordered someone to escort the eldest son of Bafang, who was still wearing the silk clothes he wore when he went to his mother's house to pick up his wife, but his hair was very messy, there was a big crimson slap mark on his right face, and a ball of cloth was blocked in his mouth. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was forced to kneel in the hall, struggling desperately.

Zhao Jing also ignored it, and read out his crimes to the whole clan in public, from contradicting his father, defrauding and selling the clan land, filling his own pockets, greedy for family property, fleeing with money, and conspiring with others to fabricate debts to coax his family, all kinds of charges were clearly stated, and finally said loudly: "Today's clan meeting is the request of Uncle Cheng Bafang, to expel this unscrupulous son from the Zhao family, and invite all the clansmen to discuss together." ”

After hearing this, the people of the clan exchanged heads and ears, and discussed endlessly in private, most of them had similar thoughts, this kind of child staying in the clan would only ruin the reputation of the family, and it would have been too early to go, and it was proposed by his own son, and he did not go to the yamen to accuse him of disobedience and unfilial piety, which had left him a way to live, so there was no objection.

But there are also people who have other thoughts and want to take advantage of this opportunity to achieve their goals, so they raise their voices behind the people and say: "If you really expel him from the clan, he will no longer be his own person from now on, is it not for him to admit his mistake and make amends to everyone?" ”

Zhao Jing paused, embarrassed. This request is not excessive, the problem is that this person's mouth is not clean, once he is given a chance to speak, he will definitely climb the ugly thing in the second room back then, and even his father will be dragged into the water at that time. If not, how can he refuse?

Zhao Xiu sat silently on the side, his eyes flashing. (To be continued......)