Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 648 Annan People

At the time when Young Master Cen Qi was meeting with Huang Zhiting and Gao Wushi, Gao Zhang also entered the Siming Mansion with a dozen or so members of the Gao family.

To be precise, Gao Zhang entered the Siming Mansion right next to Mr. Cen Qi—he came along the way and happened to find the Sicheng wolf soldiers. The army had already withdrawn its troops and returned to Liuzhou, so the wolf soldiers under Cen Qigong did not make any deployment during the war, that is to say, they did not send out sentries, but just rushed all the way to Siming Mansion.

This made it easier for Gao Zhang to follow him. He had already guessed that since the team of Mr. Cen Qi was going south, he could only go to Siming Mansion. There was no reason why he didn't know, so he didn't even have to find the way, and just followed Cen Qigong's team to the south.

After Mr. Cen Qi arrived at Siming Mansion, the large team stopped outside Haiyuan City, and only brought about twenty famous Dings into the city. Since he is an important figure in the chief chieftain's family, and according to the rules, he left all the accompanying guards outside the city. The Huang family's defenders did not stop him, and let him directly into the city.

After Gao Zhang observed outside the city for a while, he also swaggered into the city. He had the Guangxi Procuratorate Customs Defense that Gao Yushi had already issued in his hand. Unless the Huang family rebelled, he would not be stopped. When people come to your city, maybe they are here to inspect whether you will rebel, how dare you stop them?
Therefore, the defense effect of this pass was excellent. Although the wolf soldiers of the Huang family were illiterate, the guarding school could recognize the pass defense pattern issued by the patrol and procuratorate, so Gao Zhang was able to enter the city smoothly.

After entering the city, Gao Zhang ordered everyone to find a place to settle down first and then follow up.A servant asked: "Don't we need to find out the whereabouts of the master first?"

Gao Zhang said with a smile: "Judging from the situation that day, the person who accompanied the master should be a female chieftain. Since the master entered the city at this time, he naturally went to the yamen of the local magistrate. We can't get in now. Why bother?" Why don't you settle down first, and wait for the opportunity to get in touch with the master."

All the family members said that they were good, so they first went to find a place to settle down.

It is a blessing that Haiyuan City is a city with relatively prosperous commerce. Although the city is not too big, there are many inns. Gao Zhang quickly found an inn, but it was not called Yuelai, nor Tongfu, but Nankeju.

Gao Zhang and his group are actually too conspicuous, because except for Gao Zhang himself, the rest of them are dressed exactly the same, and they are all the "standard" brown bunts of the Gao family.That’s not counting, what’s more obvious is that they are all fully armed, in addition to the Yanling Saber, Zhemu Bow, and two pots of arrows, they even carry bird guns—that is actually the Longqing Type [-] musket, which outsiders still call it bird gun.

In addition, each person also carried projectile pouches, gunpowder pouches, miscellaneous pouches, iron kettles, dry food packs, etc. It can be said that this group of people can be pulled out to march and go to the battlefield at any time.

Fortunately, the store in Nankeju seems to have seen armed servants more than once. Although the equipment of Gao Zhang and others is a bit too good, the innkeeper may be confident enough in the deterrent power of the wolf soldiers in the city. Rather calm, he politely asked Gao Zhang and the others what they needed, and discussed the price with him, then quickly led them to the backyard.

Nankeju is one of the big inns in Haiyuan City, but in fact, their inn is mainly used to receive Annan merchants, so Gao Zhang and others felt a little noisy when they entered the backyard.

There are three small buildings in the backyard, one in the south, one in the north, and one in the north. Together with the inn and restaurant opening to the east, they just form a courtyard.Most of the people living in the yard are Annan businessmen. Although they always speak Chinese, they can't understand a word.

In fact, the languages ​​in most parts of Southeast Asia are greatly influenced by Indian culture, and their speech tends to be Indian-style, but Annan is an exception. Since he was split from China and was heavily influenced by Han culture, he did not experience harsh conditions before French colonial rule. The de-sinicized Vietnamese is partial to the Middle Chinese pronunciation.

Gao Zhang fully demonstrated the heroism of the members of the Gao family when they went out to perform tasks. More than a dozen people took over the entire second floor of the North Building, but the price was not high, four taels of silver for three days. Cheap, agreed without further ado.

The arrogance and fully armed appearance of their group caught the attention of the Annan merchants in the inn, and many Annan merchants privately speculated about their origins.

Because Gao Zhang couldn't understand what they said, he didn't bother to pay attention to it. Besides, they were already tired after coming all the way, so a group of people gathered in Gao Zhang's guest room to discuss the next arrangement.

During this period, a shop waiter came to do the cleaning. Gao Zhang planned to send him away and tell him to come back later, but this waiter turned out to be from Annan, and he couldn't understand what Gao Zhang was talking about. Seeing this, Zhang didn't bother to talk to him, and the group began to discuss how to rescue the master.

After all, he was patrolling a province. Although he had left a Tibetan acrostic and ordered the officers and soldiers to withdraw, after all, his whereabouts were a mystery, and Liuzhou and even Guilin must be worried.Three to five days may be tolerable, but ten days and a half months is a bit hard to say. If there is no news for a month, the deputy guard Jiang Xin and others will definitely not be able to sit still. No one can guarantee what accidents will happen then.

Therefore, although Gao Zhang was not very anxious about what would happen to Gao Wushi, he was eager to ask him to officially report his whereabouts to Liuzhou and Guilin, so as to reassure the ants on the hot pot.

The result of the discussion between Gao Zhang and others is also very simple. In a nutshell, it is to wait for the rabbit.They felt that the reason why their master didn't take the initiative to reveal his identity now was because he wanted to take this opportunity to inspect Siming Mansion. In this case, the master would definitely find a way to get out of the mansion.

In this way, as long as you stay outside the gate of the mansion, you will meet the master sooner or later. If the master walks with the female chieftain all the way, he must be regarded as an important guest, so it is impossible to leave the mansion through the back door. Just a side door.

After Gao Zhang's discussion here, it just so happened that the waiter had also finished cleaning. The waiter nodded and bowed and made gestures. Gao Zhang waved him to go to the shopkeeper for a report, and then began to arrange for guarding the door in turn.

However, after the waiter left, he didn't go to "return to the shopkeeper" at all, but sneaked into a guest room in the south building.

There were three guests in the guest room, all of whom were dressed as Annan people. One of them was sitting cross-legged on the futon in the back room, with his eyes closed as if he was chanting scriptures.

The other two, one fat and one thin, were not very tall, and their eyes showed shrewdness. At first glance, they were no different from those big merchants who traveled north and south.

However, when Xiao Eryi came in, the expressions of these two people immediately became serious.

The thin man asked: "Have you found out who it is? Is it someone sent by Liuzhou officials to investigate Siming Mansion?"

The waiter was all smiles: "Commander Fan, these people are servants of Guangxi Xunyan Yushi, and they seem to have come to rescue Gao Xunyan."

The thin man known as "Commander Fan" was taken aback for a moment: "Save Gao Xunyong? The Huang family caught Guangxi Xunyong after eating the bear's heart? It's impossible!"

How did the Xiao Er know this, but he provided another information, saying: "I don't know if Mrs. Huang has arrested Gao Xun, but this morning, when Miss Huang returned to Haiyuan City, she was with a Han man. The scholar came back together...just, but that person should not be a Guangxi patrol officer."

Commander Fan asked, "Why do you say that?"

Xiao Er said triumphantly: "The scholar is too young, he will not be more than 20 years old at most, how could he be a provincial inspector?"

Unexpectedly, when he said this, the thin man and the fat man immediately looked at each other, and the fat man who hadn't said a word snorted coldly: "You idiot, it really is just like what the Ming people said, 'You have eyes but don't know Mount Tai'. Hmph, I look at that Nine times out of ten, the scholar is the Guangxi censor of the Ming Dynasty, Gao Yushi, who is also the number one scholar of the six poems of the Ming Dynasty and the world's top literary scholar!"

(End of this chapter)