Xiao Ding and his servant Liu San lived in a high-class inn in Yanzhou City, and suddenly received an invitation from the Yanzhou Palace, inviting Xiao Ding to go to the palace the day after tomorrow to attend the birthday banquet of the 60th birthday of the King of Yanzhou.

After sending away the messenger, Xiao Ding returned to the room and secretly wondered: This king of Yanzhou, the news is full of well-informed, how did he know that he had arrived in Yanzhou? Why did he invite himself to the feast?

was pondering alone in the house, when footsteps came from outside again, and then I heard the shopkeeper knock on the door: "Guest officer, are you in the house?" Someone is coming for you! ”

Someone looking for it again? Who is it?

Xiao Ding opened the door suspiciously, and saw that the shopkeeper brought another person dressed as a small guy to stand in front of the door. Seeing Xiao Ding come out, the shopkeeper hurriedly introduced: "Guest officer, this official sent by the old man of Zhizhou is looking for you!" ”

Someone sent by Zhizhou?

Xiao Ding wondered, and said in his heart, what did Zhizhou send people to do?

I saw that after the person dressed as a little guy saw Xiao Ding, he hurriedly bowed his hand, handed over an invitation and said, "You are General Tian, right?" My lord Zhizhou sent me a letter to you, saying that I would invite you to a banquet in the government tonight. ”

Going to a feast again?

Xiao Ding took the invitation handed over by the little servant, opened it and looked at it, and saw that it was an invitation written by Zheng Yi, the governor of Yanzhou City, which probably means that he usually admires the name of General Tian Xiaoding, and today he heard the report of the defenders of the city, and knew that General Tian had come to Yanzhou City, and sent someone to inquire before he knew that he had lived in the inn, so he planned to set up a banquet to entertain General Tian at night and wash the dust for General Tian.

After reading the post, Xiao Ding understood why the Yanzhou Mansion and the Zhizhou Mansion could get the news that he came to Yanzhou so quickly. I found out about it from the guards guarding the city. For the Yanzhou Royal Mansion and the Zhizhou Mansion, it is very easy to place eyeliner at the city gate.

gave the messenger two taels of broken silver as a reward, sent him away, and asked him to tell Zheng Zhizhou that he would go to the banquet on time in the evening.

Thinking that he was going to the Zhizhou Mansion in the evening and going to the birthday banquet the day after tomorrow, Xiao Ding felt that it would be better to bring some gifts to the past. So, he selected a few good-looking jade items from the gifts given to him by King Mu and put them in a gift box individually.

These jade objects are all left after being selected by the women of the Splendid Workshop, and they are all relatively large ornaments and the like. Women prefer jewelry and the like, so these larger ornaments, although they are very expensive, they don't like them.

King Mu gave Xiao Ding a lot of jade and other ornaments, Xiao Ding left some of them in the General's Mansion, and only brought a few things to put in the car, which was originally intended to be brought back to Xia Village and put in his own home as decorations, but this time it came in handy.

In the evening, Xiao Ding carried a gift box containing jade ornaments, went out with Liu San, and asked Liu San to drive him to the Zhizhou Mansion.

The Zhizhou Mansion is in the center of Yanzhou City, and it is not difficult to find. Liu San only inquired a little and inquired.

When Xiao Ding came to the front of the mansion, Xiao Ding found that the Zhizhou Mansion was also dilapidated. This reminded Xiao Ding of the county government in Luoxia County, which was in tatters and looked like houses in the village.

Although the Zhizhou Mansion in Yanzhou is not as dilapidated as the county government of Luoxia County, it can also be seen that it has not been repaired for many years.

The iron-clad official of the yamen and the flowing water. It has become an unspoken rule of many local officials that officials do not repair their offices.

This is because magistrates are usually easy to transfer, if an official has been in a place for a year or two, he repairs the yafu, and he may be transferred away before he finishes repairing it, and even if he repairs the ya, it is just to make a wedding dress for people, and after being transferred, it is still left to the next official.

Moreover, it is usually not possible to use public funds for the repair of official offices, and if public funds are used, they may end up with the hat of abusing power for personal gain. But it takes a lot of money to repair the official office out of your own pocket. No one who can be an official is a fool, they are all old fritters who have been mixed in officialdom for many years, who will do that thankless thing!

Therefore, in this era, officials such as Zhizhou and Zhixian who served as magistrates, even if the government office was broken, no one would stupidly pay out of their own pockets to repair it. Therefore, in this era, most of the magistrates' offices were very dilapidated, and no one took care of them at all.

Xiao Ding asked Liu San to drive the carriage back to the inn and leave himself alone. Then he went and knocked on the door of the government.

After the doorman of the palace saw the invitation handed over by Xiao Ding, he led Xiao Ding towards the palace. Obviously, he had already received instructions from Zhizhou in advance, so he dared to go directly to lead people inside.

Follow the doorman until he came to the hall of the main courtyard of the palace, the doorman went in to report, and after a while, Xiao Ding saw several people in official uniforms coming out of the hall.

The first person is about forty years old, with three locks of ink hair, elegant temperament, although he is wearing an official uniform, he still has a Confucian temperament, which reminds Xiao Ding of the old and cunning Hu County Order.

Hu Xianling of Luoxia County is also often dressed as a Confucian student, and often holds a folding fan in his hand, and his appearance is also a scholar's face, but in fact he is scheming.

In fact, this is not surprising, if you think about it carefully, you can understand that these officials came from those scholars at the beginning. Before going through the scientific examination, they were all scholars, and they would only embark on a career after the examination, and after becoming officials, it was impossible for them to completely get rid of the temperament and habits when they were scholars, and even some people were mixed in the officialdom for many years, and they would still retain the scholarly temperament of the year.

Beside the leader, there were three or four people wearing official uniforms of different colors. Xiao Ding didn't know any of them.

At this time, when the official at the head saw Xiao Ding, he took the lead in opening his mouth and said with a smile: "Presumably you are General Tian Xiaoding Tian, right?" When I saw it today, I really had an extraordinary temperament! Ha ha! Ha ha! ”

When Xiao Ding saw it, he hurriedly handed over the gift, and Shi Li said: "It is Tian Xiaoding below, dare to ask if you are Zheng Zhizhou Zheng Daren, right?" Xiao Ding asked guessingly.

"Ah, haha, it's Zheng Ji below. General Tian is too polite, why bother to bring gifts, please come inside! Zheng Zhizhou, the leading official, hugged his fists and said heartily, and ordered the little guy to take the gift. Then he waved his hand and motioned for Xiao Ding to go into the hall.

Xiao Ding followed Zheng Ji into the palace hall, and on the way, Zheng Ji helped Xiao Ding introduce several other officials. It turned out that the other few were the assassins, general judges, and inspection envoys of Yanzhou City, as well as regimental training envoys and supervision envoys. What is the specific name, Xiao Ding is too lazy to remember.

After greeting each other, everyone entered the hall and took their seats.

There was a servant who helped Xiao Ding bring tea. Everyone teaed and chatted with each other.

From the conversation, Xiao Ding knew that it turned out that these officials had heard in Yanzhou that they had been personally rewarded by the emperor in Zhongzhou, and they also knew that they had become generals in Pingxi.

However, just when everyone was chatting hotly, Xiao Ding suddenly heard a woman's crying in the back house of the mansion.

Xiao Ding's hearing is simply unheard of for ordinary people.

He continued to work in secret and listened carefully, and heard that the weeping woman was not very old, but should be a young woman.

Xiao Ding was very curious, and said in his heart, is Zheng Zhizhou, who looks a little elegant on the outside, also a person with a human face and a beast heart? Could it be that he forcibly robbed someone else's girl and put her in the back house?

So, Xiao Ding felt that since he had encountered this matter, he couldn't ignore it, so he asked: "Dare to ask Zheng Zhizhou, I don't know who is crying alone in the back house?" ”

Zheng Zhizhou was taken aback, looked at Xiao Ding in surprise, and then said, "General Tian has good ears, he can actually hear the cry in the back house?" ”

"Well——, it's true that the ear power is beyond ordinary people. I wonder who's crying in the back house? Xiao Ding continued to ask, and secretly observed Zheng Ji's facial expression, hoping to see some clues from his expression.

However, Xiao Ding didn't see anything unusual about Zheng Ji. I saw Zheng Zhizhou shook his head, sighed, and said, "It should be my daughter who is not angry, she is secretly crying again, alas, ......"

"Is it your daughter? Why did she cry alone in the back house? Xiao Ding felt a little strange when he heard Zheng Ji say that it was his daughter. Although the suspicion of Zheng Zhizhou robbing the girl from the good family was cleared, it aroused Xiaoding's curiosity.

"Well——, that's a long story. As the saying goes, family ugliness should not be publicized. I shouldn't have talked about this matter to the outside world, but since General Tian asked about this, it is not good for this official to continue to hide it. This is a family misfortune! Zheng Ji said with a helpless look.

"Ah, since it's an adult's family affair, it's inconvenient to tell each other, so I don't ask." Xiao Ding heard that Zheng Ji said that it also involved his family's privacy, so it was difficult to continue to ask.

"It's okay, since Lord Tian wants to know, then it's okay for the old man to talk about it." Zheng Ji said and stroked the three locks of beard on his chin.

When Xiao Ding heard this, he had to nod his head, and said in his heart, since you want to say it, then you can talk about it, it just so happens that I also want to hear it.

Several other officials also looked expectant at this time, waiting for Zheng Zhizhou to tell the story of his family.

Zheng Zhizhou had a sad look on his face at this time, sighed, and was about to open his mouth to tell the story of his family, Xiao Ding suddenly stood up and said: "Wait, adults may wish to talk about it later, something may have happened in the back house at this moment, let's go over and take a look!" ”

Zheng Zhizhou was also stunned at this time, and hurriedly asked, "What happened?" ”

Xiao Ding shook his head and said, "I don't know, I think we should go over and have a look as soon as possible!" ”

When Zheng Zhizhou saw Xiao Ding's solemn expression, he nodded in agreement, and everyone got up together and ran towards the back house. came all the way to the door of Zheng's daughter in the back house.

Zheng Ji stepped forward and knocked on the door, but there was no response, thinking that something was wrong, so he hurriedly banged on the door, and after knocking them open, everyone looked inside and was surprised!