Fan Yongdou, who is less than fifty years old this year, has been the head of the family for fifteen years. Early this morning, the whole family was busy with the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival ancestor ceremony and the birthday celebration of the clan uncle, but Fan Yongdou hid alone in a three-story building in the backyard, ordering that no one should disturb him.

The Fan family is located in the northernmost part of Jiexiu City, and compared with the adjacent county government and other facilities, the Fan family is undoubtedly a giant in the general store. Standing on these three floors, holding a glass of red Western grape wine in his hand, overlooking the panoramic view of the entire Jiexiu, a thrill of conquest arises spontaneously, and Fan Yongdou can't help but feel his heart fluctuate.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the Fan family was just a small trader with a storefront, forced to make a living, the ancestors of the Fan family went to the west exit, broke into the outside, and finally gained a firm foothold in Zhangjiakou, which is not enough for outsiders. After Fan Yongdou took over the position of head of the family, he developed this business to the extreme, with a steady stream of salt and iron, tea, gunpowder, and armor being exported to Guanwai, and a large amount of gold and silver was also transported into the Fan family's pockets like flowing water.

Nowadays, the Fan family in Zhangjiakou, Jiexiu, and even among the Jin merchants are all holding bull's ears, it can be said that in this acre and three points of land in Shanxi, his Fan Yongdou's words have far more effect than any Shanxi government official. Fan Yongdou took advantage of the marriages between Jin merchants, township parties, clans and other interests to weave a huge but intertwined network for the Fan family. It is also this big net that has protected the Fan family to this day.

In the eyes of outsiders, the Fan family is now prominent and expensive, but Fan Yongdou's heart is walking on thin ice, in the past two years, the position of the Fan family has become increasingly stable, but the errands assigned by the master outside the gate have been repeatedly frustrated, and even he has been reprimanded and punished many times. The strongholds of the Fan family in Hebei and Shandong have been uprooted one after another, and the layout in the south has not yet been completed, but the north has lost ground one after another, and Hebei and Shandong have been wiped out, and some of the Fan family's sons and nephews have also died in vain.

Dolgon ordered the Fan family to loot the grain, thinking that it was used by the Qing army, but Fan Yongdoucun's mind was to take the opportunity to snipe and kill Zhu Ping'an, who was escorting the grain, for this reason, he did not hesitate to bribe He Youling and Liu Zhongshu, and used Liu Zhongshu's eyeliner in the army Wang Liang to launch a mutiny, so as to achieve his goal. But it's a pity that it fell short. After Ning Wan, I personally rushed to Zhangjiakou and scolded Fan Yongdou for not doing things well. made Fan Yongdou angry, but helpless.

Fan Yongdou is very aware of the current situation of the Fan family, which is dancing on the tip of the knife, and if he is not careful, he may be doomed. The situation of the Fan family looks beautiful, but in fact, there are hidden worries everywhere. The Fan family has been hit in the past two years, and the rest such as the Jin family, the Wang family, and the Liang family seem to be submissive on the surface, but in fact, they all have the idea of replacing them behind them.

This year, Fan Yongdou also wanted to take this opportunity to regain the strong strength and prestige of the demonstrator in front of the people, and find an opportunity to deter the rest of the Shanyou families and stabilize their position in the minds of the Jin merchants and the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

While thinking hard, the guards downstairs made a sound, and Fan Yongdou looked down, but it was his big butler who led a steward from the outer room to hurry downstairs.

Fan Yongdou coughed, waved his hand for the guards to let them go, and let the two of them go upstairs. As soon as they met, Fan Yongdou noticed that the chief butler's expression was different, and asked with a stiff face, "What's wrong?" ”

The chief butler took a step forward and handed a piece of paper to Fan Yongdou's hands with both hands, "Master, please look!" This is a congratulatory gift just sent by someone in the name of the Zheng family in Fujian! ”

"Fujian Zheng family?" Fan Yongdou was slightly stunned. The Fan family, which is located in Shanxi, the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, and the Zheng family, who are engaged in maritime trade, rarely come to each other, how can the people of the Zheng family come to the door on this day?

Looking at the number of the silver ticket in his hand, Fan Yongdou gasped, "What a big hand, as soon as we meet, it is 20,000 taels of silver, what does the Zheng family mean by this?" Could it be that you have a request for my Fan family? ”

The chief butler hurriedly said: "Master, the point is not the face value on this silver ticket, please take a closer look, but this silver ticket was issued by my Fan Jiajin and the firm!" ”

The words of the chief butler reminded Fan Yongdou, and he hurriedly looked at it carefully, yes, the monograms, patterns and paper on it are undoubtedly the name of Jinhe.

"Little Dou Guts, before coming, I deliberately checked the account books, and we did issue this silver ticket in the name of Jinhe. But......! ”

"But what! Straight to the point! Fan Yongdou scolded.

"Yes!" The chief housekeeper continued: "After a small detailed investigation, I found that this silver ticket was actually issued by the Shandong branch two years ago, that is, the sixth master, and it was originally used to pay off the arrears, but later Dengzhou came out of that file ...... the matter!" ”

When the big housekeeper said this, Fan Yongdou suddenly understood that the Shandong branch had always been taken care of by his sixth brother Fan Yongnian, but two years ago, Fan Yongnian died in Shandong with Wang Yanshu of the Wang family, and all the properties of the Shandong branch were also taken over by Zhu Ping'an, but now how could this silver ticket, which had long been missing, suddenly appear in Jiexiu?

Could it be ......?

As soon as he thought of this, Fan Yongdou couldn't sit down anymore, stood up, and paced back and forth in the room, "What kind of person is coming?" ”

"There are more than 20 people in total, dressed gorgeously, led by a young man, in his twenties, with an ordinary appearance, but with very different temperaments, the little one dares to conclude that he is the son of everyone. It's just that in terms of accent, he speaks official dialect with correct words. The little one also inquired carefully, these people entered the city early this morning, and they didn't contact anyone, so they came directly to our house. ”

"Invite them to sit in the flower hall, remember to treat each other with the courtesy of distinguished guests, and then send a letter to the militia group, there are people from all walks of life who have come to Jiexiu in the past two days, and we must strictly prevent people from taking advantage of this to make trouble, mobilize some good people to come to the house to be on guard, and keep a firm eye on those who come from Fujian."

……

The huge ancestral house of the Fan family is very lively, and there are more than 500 people who are qualified to enter the mansion alone, and the rest are also placed in the mansions everywhere, with a total of nearly 1,000 people. In the middle of the day, Fan Yongdou personally helped the seventy-year-old uncle to come out to meet the guests and accept the birthday gifts of the guests, but they were all superficial articles, which seemed to be extraordinarily noisy, but in fact, they had their own thoughts, which even Zhu Ping'an and others who were watching could see.

Ten tables are feasted in the flower hall across the courtyard, and the rest are distributed in the pavilions and pavilions not far away, sitting here, all of them are local officials from Jiexiu, and I heard that the political envoy of Shanxi has also come in person, but it did not appear here, but it is the Fenzhou Zhizhou, the Tongzhi and the judge and the magistrate and the county magistrate are seated in the right seat, and the head of the eight families on the right side of the mountain or the principal are also seated here.

Shen Ke deliberately chose a location near the window by the pool, under the outer corridor is a pond in the inner courtyard of the Fan family, although it is the hinterland of Shanxi, but the pond is full of different kinds of lotus, water birds swim on the water, and koi fish are not jumping out, a style of Jiangnan scenery, more importantly, the cool breeze here is particularly refreshing in this hot and dry weather.

The Fan family's wine banquet is also very particular, the aging of Fenjiu is used, and the dishes are also dazzling, only the fruits have more than ten kinds of honey mandarin oranges, phoenix oranges, wind ling, crispy lotus roots, etc., and the rest of the chicken, duck and fish, the famous dishes of the north and south of the river, including vegetables and vegetables, are diverse, I am afraid that even the palace can not find such a complete range now. Wutai's smallpox tripe vegetables, chicken leg silver plate and other mushrooms, the East China Sea's stone flower sea cabbage, dragon beard, deer antlers, Jiangnan black bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, Liaodong's pine nuts, northern goldenrod, golden needles, the yam in the capital, the southern capital's moss, bad bamboo shoots, Wudang's chickpea bamboo shoots, etc., even the popular cream crab in the south of the Yangtze River also jumped into it.

Zhu Ping'an stopped moving his chopsticks after filling his stomach with some dim sum, sipped a small sip of wine, and pretended to appreciate the vocal music of silk and bamboo, but in fact, he kept looking at the guests on all sides. And Shen Ke and the others either sat upright in their seats, or stood aside, and even the subordinates of the Fan Mansion came to invite them to another hall for dinner, but they flatly refused.

Seeing this scene, Zhu Ping'an couldn't help but smile, waved his hand, and whispered: "There are big things to do later, it's not appropriate to be hungry, the Fan family is wealthy, and it is a tyrannical thing to waste such food, you just let it go and enjoy it, you don't have to be formal!" ”

As soon as they heard Zhu Ping'an say this, Shen Ke and the others suddenly blossomed, and they were no longer restrained at the moment, they threw off their cheeks one by one, and they didn't even bother to use chopsticks, snatched fat chicken, fat duck, lamb legs, crabs and other foods, and began to eat nonsense. These people are all veterans, where have they ever seen such an elaborate banquet, for a time there are pieces of oil on the placket, but the sound of chewing is also very loud, attracting guests from all sides to cast their eyes over, with a look of disdain.

Zhu Ping'an didn't care about the eyes of others, holding a folding fan in one hand and tasting wine in the other, Jingshi was indescribably chic and free.

Although Fan Yongdou was saluting and toasting table by table, his eyes couldn't stop turning to the direction where Zhu Ping'an was. Seeing that Zhu Ping'an's subordinates were full of arrogance, Fan Yongdou's heart sank, these people just sat upright or stood solemnly, and stopped like a pine one by one, until the main family spoke, and then they began to eat Haisai, these are clearly soldiers from the army! said that it was the people of the Zheng family, but it was a little imaginary, but the silver ticket should have been confiscated by the Yamen of the Dengzhou Metropolitan Division, and it should have been in the hands of Zhu Ping'an, could it be that these people were soldiers of the Shandong Army, but who was the young man in the middle? Could it be Zhu Ping'an coming in person?

No, Zhu Ping'an has now become the chief soldier of the Ming Dynasty, the military attache of the frontier, I heard that he was under the command of Fu Zonglong, how could he run to Jiexiu hundreds of miles away? What's more, here in Shanxi is still the old nest of the Fan family, and all the officials are the eyes of the Fan family, how can Zhu Ping'an come to Shanxi without a trace of wind and grass?

Absolutely not! Fan Yongdou secretly rejected the overly bold speculation in his heart.

Not long after, Fan Yongdou came to Zhu Ping'an accompanied by several children of the Fan family, and the elite of the militia who were temporarily dispatched stood one step ahead of the passages everywhere, hiding in all corners with the handle of the knife, carefully observing the every move of Zhu Ping'an and others.

"Dare to ask which son of the Zheng family is here?" Fan Yongdou poured a glass of wine and asked with a smile.

Zhu Ping'an stood up, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and arched his hand towards Fan Yongdou, "I have heard the name of the head of the Fan family for a long time, and it is really extraordinary when I see it today." Throughout the ages, those who have betrayed the country and sought glory, the head of the Fan family can definitely be among the top three. Xiao Ke is not talented, although he is far away in Shandong, he is also admired inexplicably, so in the name of the Zheng family, he came to give a generous gift to the head of the Fan family and help the head of the Fan family to ascend to the sky in one step! ”R1152