Standing outside the gate of the Macao City Council, this official of the Ming State is surnamed Zhong Mingsheng. In the official sequence of my Ming Dynasty, since he is wearing a grass-green official robe with a quail complement, there is no doubt that this person is an eight-rank official...... To be exact, it's a county.

In other words, this middle-aged man with a mediocre appearance and a long beard, although he is a sesame official, he has a lot of background. Gai because the younger sister is married to the Liangguang Governor's Mansion Zan Hua Huang Ping, the so-called crossing brother-in-law is also.

Yes, Zhong Sheng is Zhong Xiuxiu's brother, the eldest son of Hangzhou Master Zhong, and the brother-in-law of the traverser Huang Pingru, as I said before.

To say that Huang Ping is now a person who has more brothers-in-law in the crowd. The family where Zhong Xiuxiu was abducted and trafficked when she was young already had seven brothers and brothers-in-law. After that, Zhong Xiuxiu returned to Hangzhou, and there were several more uncles such as Zhong Sheng. This kind of big family scene with a large number of people once made Master Huang, the only son of the crossing who grew up in a family of three, extremely uncomfortable.

As for the genuine brother-in-law Zhong Sheng, this originally unknown county magistrate of Xiangshan County in history, but because of the arrival of the traverser, he is destined to leave a mark in the history books.

It is said that during the period when the Nanyang head office began to be formed and kept recruiting talents, the high-level of the traversal forces hidden behind the scenes were actually not idle.

First of all, through telegraph remote command, the cabinet coordinated the pro-Cao forces in Beijing and the local conservative forces in Guangzhou, so that a group of letters from Guangdong to drive out the Portuguese appeared in the Ming court at the right time, sent ammunition to the pro-Cao faction, and finally prompted the court to issue a decree and give Xiong Wencan, the governor of Liangguang, permission to act cheaply.

When the imperial decree arrived in Guangzhou in April, it seemed to be calm on the surface, but in fact there was a series of intense preparations for war.

It's tedious. It not only includes the preparations of the crossing forces themselves, but also promotes the administrative system of Guangdong in the Ming Kingdom. The latter point is particularly difficult, as it is laborious to get a lump of sludge to move along a designated route.

Fortunately, with financial resources and the level of technology and management ahead of this era, in the end, when the time came to April 1631, the crossing group secretly took care of most of the hands.

The big mouth of Commander Wang Bo at the Baietan's investment promotion conference before was actually a premeditated briefing after the finishing work began: the war was about to start, giving the collaborators an advantage of information asymmetry. As for how to take advantage of this...... Just look at the boss of Zongbenzong, Mingren just lacks hundreds of years of knowledge in later generations, and in terms of IQ alone, there is no shortage at all.

After that, of course, it was time for the official ultimatum. As a result, there is the "feat" of the eldest brother who bravely entered Ho Jing O today.

Having said that, Mr. Zhong stood in front of the Macau City Council today, and his mood was quite excited.

In the years when the people did not come, as the county governor of Xiangshan County, Master Zhong's life was actually very "busy". Unlike other counties that are leisurely and powerless, the county magistrates of Xiangshan County, because of the existence of Macao under the rule of the Francois people, usually have to keep one eye open to sleep - but whenever the Franco people make trouble, whether it is a major event such as repairing the city wall or a trivial matter, it will alarm the level of the political envoy and the governor, and it must not be ignored.

But the world is unpredictable. Since his sister-in-law got married, Zhong Sheng's county life has been getting better day by day.

First, his aunt followed Xiong Wencan to Fujian Land. After the two sides established contact, Zhong Sheng found that he had inadvertently added a strong backer. After that, my uncle introduced Zhong Sheng to a newly rising strongman in Fujian and Yueyang.

Later, as this group of strongmen recruited An, Ping Thief, and King Qin became bigger and bigger and became the pillars of the imperial court, Zhong Sheng was involuntarily pushed by the times, and unknowingly, he became a peripheral official of the "Cao Department". After all, he is inseparable from Huang Ping, and the actual political leader of the Zhong family's generation is Huang Ping, so Zhong Sheng can only follow.

It's not over yet. In August last year, Zhong Sheng was pleasantly surprised to get the news: Xiong Wencan came to be the governor of Guangdong!

This time, Zhong Xiancheng really trembled, and even when the county commander saw him, his attitude changed a lot. After all, it is no secret that he has something to do with Xiong Wencan. Before, it could be said that the mountain was high and the emperor was far away, but now the old Xiong Fuyue, the good son-in-law of the Zhong family is enough to reach any official in Guangdong and Guangxi.

This should be treated with caution: the more this kind of staff member is trusted by the bigwigs and has real power, the more afraid the people below are...... No matter which official document you make a few words, the people below will not be able to eat and walk around.

Zhong Xiancheng spent the first few months of Lao Xiong Fuyue happily and leisurely. Until one day not long ago, his good uncle Huang Ping personally summoned him to the city of Guangzhou, informed him of the current situation, and assigned an errand: to give an ultimatum to Francis.

To tell the truth, Zhong Sheng was still quite shocked when he learned the news: This is about to start?

As a member of the peripheral faction of the Crossing Group and an official of Xiangshan County, Zhong Sheng still has the exact information that some high-level people know. He knew that the Cao family and the Francois did not deal with each other, but he didn't expect that Xiong Wencan was so deep that he actually asked for an edict from the imperial court to open the way for the Cao family.

Since Xiong Wencan rolled up his sleeves, Huang Ping, who has always had close contacts with the Cao family, is naturally inseparable. Huang Ping can't get out of it, and his brother-in-law doesn't want to stay out of it.

After figuring this out, Zhong Sheng stopped arguing and nodded in response. After all, his position was originally the most suitable for an ultimatum, and he was "his own person" in Huang Ping's eyes, and he would not drop the chain at a critical moment.

At this time, Zhong Sheng found that the relationship between his aunt and the Cao family was far deeper than he imagined.

Because just after he returned to Xiangshan County, the "Cao family" immediately came to visit. To be exact, a team sent by the General Military Administration.

In this team, there are not only martial artists in charge of military strategy, but also scholars in charge of copywriting, and in addition, there are "staff officers" with eccentric ranks.

Zhong Xiancheng warmly received the visitors. He is well aware that everyone is now "their own people".

Next, Zhong Xiancheng was surprised.

He really couldn't imagine that a simple errand to deliver a letter at the door of his house would be so exquisite. After seeing that the group took out the thick bound pages and began to explain to him one by one, and then asked various preset questions and asked him to memorize the answers, Master Zhong was really a little surprised.

This is the Ming Dynasty version of envoy training.

The training is detailed, from how you look to how you respond to various situations, and even how to deal with them after being placed under house arrest or detained. In short, what kind of training did the embassy officials who went to other countries receive in the future, and Master Zhong also accepted this time.

After all these projects were completed, the time crept into April 1630.

On April 2, the Xiangshan County Ya officially received an official letter from Shangfeng. This official document is stamped with the governor's yamen, the political envoy's yamen and the big seal of the Guangzhou government, which can be said to be complete in formalities.

The county magistrate, who had been greeted before, was busy delivering the official document to Zhong Xiancheng in person this time. And told him with the eyes of a bullish man: My brother is afraid that he is going to Haojing Ao.

"It's easy to say, the adults have something to ask, and the lower officials dare to disobey their orders?"

So on the morning of April 3, after packing up, Mr. Zhong went out of the yamen, got into a sedan chair, and went straight to Macau City. With him, of course, it was not the treacherous officials in the Xiangshan County Ya, but a team of people who had been waiting in front of the county yamen for a long time.

Needless to say, I also know that this team of people must be surnamed Cao.

...............................

In the case that no one seemed to pay attention, Mr. Zhong and his entourage passed through the lotus stem gate, swaggered into the city of Macau, and came to the door of the city council.

During this period, the Macau City Council was a stone building with a Barot architectural style.

Seeing Mr. Zhong in an official robe getting out of the sedan chair, the head cloth was wrapped in front of the city council, and the dark-skinned Indian doorman hurriedly sent people in to report. After a while, four or five white men in gorgeous silk robes hurried out.

Speaking of which, among the few white people who came out, Zhong Xiancheng still knew two of them. After all, the Xiangshan County Yamen is the Ming State Yamen that the Francois usually deals with the most, and for decades, the Franco people have not given gifts and bribes to the old men in the Xiangshan County Yamen, so when there are no contradictions on weekdays, the Franco people are also regarded as international friends.

Today, however, is different.

When several international friends came to Master Zhong, they found that the usual smiling and grinning person had changed the template today. I saw Mr. Zhong standing on the stone steps in front of the city council, with his hands behind his back, his feet were not bad, and he was looking up at the sky with his neck bent, and those who didn't know probably thought that his old man had a nosebleed.

"Dear Zhong, I don't know where the wind blew you. Haha, this is so delightful, please come with me, today you will enjoy a special, sincere hospitality from the Francois merchants. ”

The one who uttered the welcome speech in Chinese, which was a grammatically incorrect, was Andrade, the clerk of the Macau City Council.

After hearing Andrade's words, the trained Master Zhong slowly lowered his neck and left the pretending B mode: "Hmph, who am I, it turned out to be Master An." ”

"Well, it just so happens that the officer knows that you are a capable person." Master Zhong was full of official spirit at this time, and he did not pretend at all: "This is the official document of the Governor's Yamen, which is for you." Master Ande, this is going to sign and get it, right? ”

When Zhong Xiancheng said this, he stretched out his hand, took the official document wrapped in oiled paper from his entourage, and handed it to the Portuguese.

Although Andrade felt that something was wrong at this time, but the matter had come to this point, he had no choice but to reach out and take the official document.