To the north of Taipingmen Street in Nanjing is Xuanwu Lake, and to the west is Shangyuan County School and Xiaofushi. Adjacent to the Taiping Gate in the northeast, it is one of the most important main roads in the northwest of Nanjing. In the early years of the Chu Dynasty, when the imperial treasury was tight, and it was used for ten years, few people started the idea of these terra nullius nearby. So, the wealthy merchants in the south of the Yangtze River took out real money to buy the land, and the imperial court used the money to repair the city wall, and a large piece of land near the Taiping Gate belonged to the Jiang family, a famous family in Jinling.

How the Jiang family was rich in the past is already a matter of folk songs and rumors, and now there is more talk on the streets and alleys about the upcoming clan meeting at the Jiang family ancestral hall.

After years of reproduction, the Jiang family does not count the side branches scattered out, and the four rooms of the descendants have always been the foundation to support this famous family. It's just that the patriarch who has been served by the long house fell into the hands of the three old ladies of the third room many years ago, and now the family members of the long house are over forty years old, and even their sons are adults, but the third room still has no intention of returning the position of the patriarch, and the old man and Mrs. Jiang don't know how many ways to pull out how many connections, but in the end it still ended in failure. Today's clan assembly is undoubtedly the last time in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the eyes of insiders, the meaning is very different.

The Jiangjia mansion is divided into four courtyards from the middle road Tianzigzag, each with a gate, and the east, west and north and south two roads are for the car car to pass, and you can go up to the front of each courtyard. Therefore, it is said that they live together as a family, but in the final analysis, the four compounds are in charge of their own affairs, even if it is the strength of the three old ladies of the patriarch, it is not good to interfere in the internal affairs of each courtyard. Now that he is not there, Master Jiang Qi saw that the various rooms were connected in series, so he sent people to intimidate and win him over, and now on this day, except for the other two rooms of the long room, he was of course smug, and he couldn't even listen to the reminders of a few stewards.

In the afternoon, the invited guests have arrived one after another. If you are close to each room, you will naturally go to each room and the third room will be in charge of the clan for many years, and naturally there will be the most people in the courtyard to rest and talk, in contrast, the long house will be shabby and tight. The Shangyuan County Ya only sent a head to deliver the post, and the rest only had a few shopkeepers and some good friends in the industry. Compared with the full seats of other high-ranking friends everywhere, the cold and deserted posture here even makes people mutter.

At this moment, the two porters guarding the door were sighing and sighing, and suddenly there was a shouting outside, and then it seemed as if a car had stopped in front of the door. They hurriedly ran out to take a look, and when they saw that the curtain of the car was lifted, it was Jiang Shiro who poked his head out first, and the joy that had just gushed out suddenly disappeared, and he was even a little weak when he stepped forward to salute.

"The fourth son is well......"

Seeing their listless appearance, Jiang Shilang suddenly shouted angrily: "What are you doing here, hurry up and go in to return to the eldest lord and eldest wife, and say that the prince of Zhendong has arrived!" ”

When the two porters heard this, they all looked incredulous for a moment. When they found that behind this seemingly simple carriage, more than a dozen horsemen came galloping, and the young man at the head was like frost, but he had an awe-inspiring temperament, and they suddenly dared not doubt it. One of them was busy greeting and saluting, while the other was running inside. After a while, three or four more people came out of Hula and came forward to serve and lead the horses in a disorderly manner.

Xiao Lang, who got off the horse, glanced at the lintel, and when he saw Jiang Shilang coming forward, he nodded lightly, and then did not wait for anyone to come out again, and went straight inside. After a shadow wall and through the front door, someone in the room hurriedly came out, but it was Master Jiang with a haggard face.

He respectfully slammed himself to the ground, and was about to say something polite, but he saw that Xiao Lang had already crossed him, so he had to quickly straighten up and chase after him, and said: "It is really an honor for the prince to come this time."

Only up and down have not been prepared, and there are many simple and sloppy ......"

"Don't say any more of these boring words!" Xiao Lang interrupted this greeting impatiently, and then asked directly, "Since it is the opening of the clan conference today, have you contacted all the others?" ”

Master Jiang didn't expect Xiao Lang to ask so bluntly, he was dumbfounded for a while, and it took a long time for Ai Ai to say: "I have already sent people to lobby, but after all, everyone is afraid of the power of the third old lady, but I am afraid that the situation is not easy to say......

"Can't say? It's already the last day, and you're still not sure? ”

A rhetorical question, seeing the sneer on Master Jiang's face, Xiao Lang couldn't help but be angry. Seeing that Jiang Shilang behind him shook his head again and again, he had to suppress his thoughts and said lightly: "In short, the stakes are very high, and I have already greeted the people who should be greeted." If they still plan to keep the trade of more than three or four hundred thousand taels of silver every year in the Zhendong Hou Mansion, they will push you, and they will come over later. But don't expect all the affairs of your Jiang family to depend on me! ”

"Yes, yes, the prince is grateful!"

Master Jiang's head was full of sweat, and he nodded his head and thanked him at the moment. When he invited people to the main hall, he found that his wife was here to greet him, and his brows couldn't help but twist into a big pimple. However, seeing that people took the girls to lead the seat to tea, and it was a flattery that made people feel like a spring breeze, which finally blew away the cold air between Xiao Lang's eyebrows, he let go of the unhappiness in his heart, and stepped forward to ask his wife to call a pair of children over.

"What are you calling them for?"

"You're stupid, aren't you? You must know that this Zhendong Hou Shizi will inherit the Zhendong Hou Town's slave guard in the future, if this relationship is good, we will be able to share some profits in the future! Besides, this prince is not yet married, and there is no marriage contract, Jiuniang is also old, and he has not yet written a person, if he ......"

"Master, aren't you too whimsical!"

"What is whimsical, didn't Mrs. Yang of today give it to Runingbo Mansion at the beginning? If it weren't for the one who lost his position as the son of the world and was expelled from the family, the Jiang family would have been able to produce a Mrs. Bo long ago...... It's all the old immortal, and if you don't help at the critical moment, you don't count, and you fall into the well, and the people who hurt you hate the Jiang family to the core......"

At first, Mrs. Jiang thought that her husband's idea was really ridiculous, but when she heard Master Jiang's whispered words, she gradually felt that her heart moved. Well, at the beginning, the Jiang family was only a four-room concubine, because she was related to the late Ru Ningbo's original wife, so the uncle said that her mother-in-law hired this marriage. If he had taken over the power of the family room, his own daughter would have risen a little at that time, and she would be more noble than the Jiang family at that time, and it would not be impossible to match the Hou Shizi of Zhendong!

Thinking of this, Mrs. Jiang Da smiled all over her face and immediately went out. However, "before she turned around, several leading figures on the ground in Nanjing who had made an appointment with Xiao Lang came one after another, and Master Jiang went outside again and again at first to greet him, but later found that something was wrong, so he simply went to the door in person to wait, and hurriedly sent someone to inform Mrs. Jiang. However, I don't know if it was the words at the beginning that made Mrs. Jiang think too much, or if she was dressing up in it, all in all, in this hall, it was changed to Jiang Shilang as the master. Fortunately, he has always been good at dancing with long sleeves, and "he takes good care of everywhere."

Since the people who came were all looking at the face of the Hou Mansion in Zhendong, they didn't have any unusual expressions about the fact that Jiang Shilang's family room was actually received by Jiang Shilang, but many people frequently looked at the face of this disciple of the Jiang family, and some people even saw that Xiao Lang invited Jiang Shilang from time to time to ask something, and few people quietly tried Xiao Lang.

"The fourth prince of Jiang and the prince seem to have known each other for a long time?"

"It's not familiar." Jiang Shilang took the teacup from the side and handed it to the person who spoke," and then said with a smile, "It's just that I had some fate with the prince when I was in Yangzhou by chance, and I helped to do a trivial thing." ”

It is said to be one thing, and it is insignificant, but all the people around him are human spirits, seeing that Xiao Lang, the dignified prince of Donghou, is willing to run for the Xiao family, who would not have associations? For a while, all kinds of eyes met with each other, and when Mrs. Jiang entered the house with her children with a spring breeze on her face, she found that few of the guests in the hall looked at her, and they were all circling around Jiang Shilang. At this time, her face immediately sank.

"Shiro!" She opened her mouth and shouted, and when she saw Jiang Shiro walking over quickly, she said lightly, "You go ahead and take a look, if your eldest uncle's side is empty for the time being" and came back for him, these many guests are here, what does it matter if he, the master, is not there? After sending Jiang Shilang out, she led her children to meet Xiao Lang with a smile.

"Lord Shizi, this is my family Balang, this is Jiuniang."

Xiao Lang saw a pair of young men and girls bowing in front of him, and only glanced at them and nodded lightly. He didn't speak, but Zhan Lu, who was standing on the side, knew what was going on, and immediately took out two purses and put them in Xiao Lang's hand, and called the prince in a low voice. At this time, Xiao Lang had just handed out a purse by himself, and when he saw that Mrs. Jiang was about to step forward and say something, he waved his hand impatiently and said, "Now is not the time to talk about these meeting ceremonies, the clan meeting will start soon, and there is nothing to do?" ”

Since she had just listened to her mother's words in the house, Jiang Jiuniang had a trace of thought in her heart. From the moment she entered the room, her eyes were firmly tied to Xiao Lang. Unlike those elders who were full of smirks, this one had been sitting there upright, his expression was always as indifferent as snow, and even his eyes seemed to be just flashing when he looked at him. Hearing such a reproach at this moment, although she complained about his incomprehensible feelings in her heart, when she withdrew from the room under her mother's embarrassed eyes, she couldn't help but quietly glance at him.

………………

The clan assembly of the Jiang family has always been to open the ancestral hall after worshipping the ancestors in the morning, but since the power was transferred to the third room, it was gradually changed to the afternoon. However, the third old lady has always been ruthless, and the people in key positions are stuffed with silver, and over time, the so-called clan conference has become a hall of his own words, and it has not been held once in the past ten years. Even the clan meeting attended by the clan elders and deacons was an ornament, which made this occasion even more unusual.

There was still more than half an hour before the opening of the ancestral hall, and when he heard that Changfang had invited the Hou Shizi of Zhendong to support him, but his father had not yet returned, Master Jiang Qi gradually became a little anxious. At this moment, he was pacing back and forth in the room, until a letter came from outside, saying that Dean He of Jinling Academy was here, and he was suddenly overjoyed.

You must know that although Zhendonghou is one of the biggest customers on the ground in the south of the Yangtze River, Jinling Academy is the real head snake! Although it is difficult for Chief Ai and his wife to participate, the presence of Dean He in person is undoubtedly the biggest face!

He personally went out and invited someone over, and he had to explain with a puzzled face: "Dean He" Dad originally said that he would definitely rush back, but the housekeeper in Yangzhou hurriedly reported that his father had something important to do, and he was discussing it with Mrs. Yang at this time. Regardless of his father's years of hard work in charge of the affairs of the clan, "I want to take advantage of this time to seize the right to our three rooms!" Our Jiang family and Jinling Academy have been in contact for decades, and at such a critical moment, they not only invited the Hou Shizi of Zhendong to help, but also brought in a lot of people through that layer of relationship, and also asked Dean He to give me an idea! ”

"Don't worry, Madame already knows. Since I have come, those who are invited to come will naturally buy some face. As for the Hou Shizi of Zhendong, there is a way that the strong dragon does not suppress the head snake, although the Hou Mansion of Zhendong is one of the biggest customers of our families in Jiangnan, but why don't they rely on the production of our Jiangnan? Unless this prince doesn't even care about the interests of the family, he can't do anything when the time comes, and he won't blindly stand on the side of the long house! ”

He Mingqin is nearly fifty years old, with an extremely high forehead, wide clothes and wide sleeves, a pair of eyes that are extremely bright, but his lips are a little too thin. After he finished his previous words with confidence, he saw that Master Jiang Qi was overjoyed, so he said unhurriedly: "In short, everything that should be done has been done." Even if the county lord of Haining came over in person, things might not change. What's more, Mrs. Yang happened to fall ill, "She can't be disobedient and unfilial, and leave her seriously ill mother-in-law on the road together, right?" ”

"Yes, yes, Dean He is smart!"

............, the ancestral hall of the Jiang family is located in the southeast corner of the Jiang family's mansion, at this time, from the outer gate, the instrument gate, the hall until the gate of the ancestral hall is all opened, and a person should stand outside the door in accordance with the sequence of four rooms, which is the introduction of the ancestral hall in order. Although Xiao Lang, the prince of Zhendong Hou, said that he had a noble status, he was not the Jiang family after all, so he naturally entered last with others.

When he stepped into the courtyard where the ancestral hall was located, he saw a plaque hanging on the three gates, with four big characters on the Jiang ancestral hall, and the inscription at the bottom was Chu Shengshu, the head of Jinling Academy. The couplet on both sides is "The ancestors and the ancestors will not move for a hundred generations, and the sons and grandsons will be filial and virtuous for all generations." With a smile, he walked inside, walked a stone's throw along the bluestone road, bypassed a big ding, this is where the ancestral hall is located, and there are Huanghuang incense candles lit inside, and there are Jiang clansmen who have withdrawn from the inside, thinking that the salute has been completed.

According to the rules, originally the guests from all walks of life went into the ancestral hall to burn three incense sticks, but now the Jiang family's prestige is not as good as before, and today's guests are all invited from all rooms to rack their brains, so no one will mention this stubble without knowing each other.

At this moment, twenty or thirty Lou chairs were set up in the courtyard, the guest seats were facing north, the old deacons of the Jiang family and the heads of each room on both sides were sitting east and west, and the seats facing south in the middle were empty because the old patriarch Jiang was not there. As for the female relatives of the Jiang family, they have avoided the east and west wings of the ancestral hall.

After everyone sat down one after another, Master Jiang stood up and coughed lightly: "Uncles and brothers, the reason for today's clan meeting is very simple. The Jiang family has been inherited in Jiangnan for more than 100 years, and the ancestors have been based on the ancestor's lineage and four rooms from the preparation of military supplies for the great-grandfather to the later purchase of land and property, and the long house is in charge of clan affairs. When my father passed away, I was still young, so the clan affairs were in charge of the three old ladies on my behalf, and this generation was thirty years. Now that the dogs have all started a family, there is absolutely no reason to let the third old lady continue to be a temporary generation......"

"Big brother, that's quite simple!" Master Jiang Qi got He Mingqin's promise, and he had a big grasp in his heart, so he naturally didn't allow Jiang Da Laoche to take care of himself so gently and skillfully, and immediately sneered, "I think when the eldest uncle died, it was the most difficult time for the Jiang family, if it wasn't for my father to turn the tide, would the Jiang family still be where it is today?" The sacrificial fields in the clan have doubled, and the industry in the clan is also thriving, and now the family business is thriving, and the long house wants to pick peaches to collect power, how can there be such a reason in this world! ”

Master Jiang's face sank: "The order of the elder and the younger, the difference between the eldest and the youngest, this is the reason of heaven and human feelings!" ”

"Young and old? Why didn't you say anything about the elders and young when you took responsibility at the beginning, and took this out when you were fighting for power? Over the years, what strength has your long house done to the clan? Did it provide rice and food for the poor people, or did it provide the brothers of the side branch to study, or did it take care of what kind of industry was in order? The shops under your name are only barely operating, not to mention that it is difficult to make a profit and even protect the capital, so you have such a ability, and you want to take all the clan affairs over, who will be responsible for the deficit when the time comes? ”

"You ......"

Master Jiang is not the best at words" In addition, just now because I saw Xiao Lang bring many people to help, I was proud for a while, I didn't expect that Master Jiang Qi, who has always been no better than himself, would be so sharp-toothed, and he was a little confused for a while, and he was stuck after this one of your words. And Master Jiang Qi saw that he had the upper hand" glanced at He Mingqin, a trace of pride flashed in his eyes, and he swept away the Jiang clan people, and made a gesture.

"Uncles and brothers, although my father is not here, I have something to say here. The Jiang family is not as good as it used to be, "But after my father took over the affairs of the family, it was not as good as before, or was it like this before?" Now our Jiang family is only a talent, and Dean He of Jinling Academy has agreed, but if there are children in the clan who are willing to study and progress, they can be attached to the small academy set up in Jinling Academy, and those with excellent grades can immediately worship the door wall of Jinling Academy. If it is not ten years or eight years, our Jiang family will be a different weather! ”

As soon as these words came out, the four of them were in an uproar, even Xiao Lang, the prince of Zhendong Hou, couldn't help but look at this Jiang Qi master at this moment, and his brows furrowed slightly. It's just that he came prepared after all, and at this time, an old man of medium stature not far away coughed lightly.

"What Master Jiang Qi said is indeed inspiring, but during the period when Ling Zun was in charge of clan affairs, he ignored the old deacon of the clan" is also unsatisfactory in the foreign industry, and the poor in the clan have not received much help, and the peers who have business dealings outside have been calculated, it can be said that the reputation of the Jiang family today is not the same as that of thirty years ago. Well, when he was the first patriarch, he also said that he wanted to make the Jiang family different, and now you say such words again, how credible is it? ”

This remark sparked a lot of resonance for a while. Although the children of the Jiang clan who are here are all quite competitive, there are not a few who have been mistreated in the early years, and the experience of being called by others is not less, and the other representatives of the other families present are even more confrontational" Seeing this scene, Master Jiang Qi did not feel annoyed and angry.

"What kind of comment, heroes are judged by success or failure in this world, what do others say has to do with the Jiang family?" Seeing that the buzzing discussion below was louder for a while, and Master Jiang was full of schadenfreude on his face, "He said two words again, after all, he was a little embarrassed because of the beautiful words that were far inferior to the first. In the end, he had to look at Mr. He with a plea for help.

Seeing this situation, although Dean He secretly scolded Master Jiang Qi's straw bag, he had to stand up. He has always been the deputy of Ai Shanchang, and most of the outside affairs are running in person, so he is familiar with people, and at this time he greeted the leaders of the four places, which soon attracted many return gifts, and the discussion that had just become louder was quickly suppressed by his actions. When the surroundings were quiet again, he took two steps forward and glanced at Xiao Lang meaningfully, before turning to face the others.

"Everyone, I have to correct it, what Master Jiang Qi said just now is not what I He Mingqin meant." Seeing that there was another commotion around him, and then he caught a glimpse of Master Jiang Qi's face even pale, he knew that this straw bag would be wrong, so he immediately said, "This is my promise from Chief Ai Shan of Jinling Academy!" ”

As soon as these words came out, the surroundings were immediately silent. Taking advantage of this, he struck while the iron was hot and said, "Just now Master Fu said that the Jiang family has a bad reputation now, in fact, in the final analysis, this is due to the fact that there are too few people in the clan who read, and because of this, it is even more important for the children in the clan to study and improve." Now, Ai Shanchang is not only willing to accept the talented children of the Jiang family, but also willing to accept the Jiang family Goro as a disciple. In this way, ten years and eight years later, the day Goro completed his studies, the reputation of the Jiang family will naturally no longer be what it is today! ”

Don't talk about others, this last one is the first time that Master Jiang Qi himself has heard of it. Knowing that his son was going to be accepted as a disciple by the mountain chief of Jinling Academy, he only felt a kind of ecstasy enveloping his whole body, and he even forgot to look at Master Jiang with a smug gaze. And under such news, the rest of the Jiang family, you look at me, and the second and fourth rooms that were still ready to move just now gradually died down.

At this moment, I heard a sudden shout from outside: "Mrs. Yang and Mrs. Yang are here!" Generations of patriarchs arrived