Jinghong Tower

Chapter 418 Brother and Sister
The next day, Captain Liu filed a complaint against He Zongqun, who lived next door, in the government office.

Longxi is just a small city. Almost all the wealthy families in the city are families of military officers. They all know each other. The death of Madam Liu had long been a hot topic in the city. Everyone knew that Captain Liu and his wife were not on good terms, and that Madam Liu had no children. Captain Liu had long planned to divorce her. Now that Madam Liu was dead, everyone thought that Captain Liu had beaten He Zongqun half to death to vent his anger, and then took some compensation silver, and the matter would end there. No one expected that Captain Liu would sue He Zongqun.

He Zongqun's identity and background were also found out. He turned out to be an official who came to Longxi because he was ostracized.

The emperor is far away and Longxi has always been a place for escape. It is hard to tell which peddler in the city may have committed a crime and fled to Longxi.

Therefore, it is understandable that there is a small official in the city who has nowhere to live.

Long before Min Man ascended the throne, the officials of Longxi were not appointed by the imperial court but arranged by the local generals themselves. Even if the officials were appointed by the imperial court, when they came to Longxi, they could not even enter the gate of the yamen and could only go back crying to report. As a result, no official was willing to come to Longxi.

After Wu Dongming started his rebellion, he did not change this unwritten rule. The magistrate of Longxi once served as Meng Zhong's aide.

After Meng Zhong died, Meng Cheng replaced the county magistrate with one of his own. The current county magistrate, Wang, was a scholar in the past. It is said that he got the position of county magistrate by giving his wife and sister to Meng Cheng.

Ever since Meng Cheng's death, County Magistrate Wang has been living in fear, fearing that he would be removed from his position.

When Captain Liu's petition was submitted, County Magistrate Wang felt that there was nothing to examine. There were witnesses and physical evidence of He Zongqun's murder, and the witness, Wang Shusheng, was County Magistrate Wang's younger brother.

Magistrate Wang immediately slammed the gavel and He Zongqun was sentenced to immediate execution.

That’s right, the magistrate of Longxi judged cases in such a simple and rough way. He did not need to report to the higher authorities and could judge however he wanted.

He Zongqun protested his innocence in the court, saying that he had committed murder by mistake and that it was Madam Liu who broke into his house first and he mistook her for a thief.

But Magistrate Wang ignored it. There were witnesses and evidence everywhere. It was such a simple case, but he closed it a quarter of an hour late. That meant he was incompetent.

Two yamen runners came forward and dragged He Zongqun in. The execution ground was at the mass grave outside the city gate, and there were already people waiting to watch the beheading.

At this moment, a voice suddenly came from outside the hall: "Madam Chang'an has arrived!"

Madam Changan?

Why is she here?

County Magistrate Wang didn't want to meet Madam Chang'an. Meng Cheng was killed by Madam Chang'an, but he was promoted by Meng Cheng.

Magistrate Wang gritted his teeth and stood up to greet him. He Shuting walked over slowly with light lotus steps and glanced at He Zongqun's face. She did not remember this cousin, but she had someone check and found that He Zongqun was indeed from a branch of the He family.

"Oh, why did Madam come here in person? If you have anything to say, just let me tell you." Magistrate Wang was smiling.

He Shuting looked at Captain Liu who had just knelt down and said, "Captain Liu, I heard that you don't have any children?"

Captain Liu hurriedly said, "That's right, I have no children."

He Shuting pointed at a maidservant beside her and said, "This is my wife's personal maidservant. She is eighteen years old, gentle and virtuous. I want to marry her to you. Is Captain Liu willing?"

Captain Liu was a rough soldier in his middle age, and the maid was young and beautiful. Captain Liu was surprised and delighted, and he kowtowed to the ground and said, "Thank you, madam. Thank you, madam."

He Shuting smiled slightly: "No need to thank me, Madam, because I have conditions."

Captain Liu was startled: "What conditions?"

He Shuting smiled and said, "Please ask Captain Liu to withdraw the petition and let He Zongqun go."

Not only Captain Liu, but even County Magistrate Wang widened his eyes in surprise.

Captain Liu reacted immediately and turned to Magistrate Wang and said, "My Lord Magistrate, I will not file a complaint anymore. Please return the complaint to me."

Magistrate Wang, you have rehearsed this.

After a while, He Shuting brought He Zongqun back to the general's mansion and dismissed the servants. He Shuting blamed him, "Brother, you are such a fool. Why didn't you come to Longxi to seek refuge with me? If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have known you were here."

He Zongqun blushed, "Madam Mei, my clan has invested all its resources in me, but I failed to live up to expectations. Not only did I fail to help my clan members, I couldn't even keep my official position. How can I have the face to see you?"

He Shuting sighed: "Those who excluded you were all instructed by others. They teamed up to target you."

He Zongqun raised his head abruptly, his voice trembling slightly with excitement: "Do you also think they were instructed by someone?"

He Shuting nodded: "They are all Feng Xieying's people, and they are under Feng Xieying's instructions, but this is just on the surface. Feng Xieying clearly knows that you are a member of the He family, but he still lets people exclude you. Guess what's going on?"

A layer of mist welled up in He Zongqun's eyes. He was a smart man. How could he not think of what He Shuting could think of?

He just didn't want to believe it.

He Shuting understood what he meant and looked at him with eyes full of compassion.

"Brother, you should know why I came to Longxi."

As a court official, He Zongqun certainly knew that He Shuting had fled from Xi'an to Longxi.

Seeing that he didn't say anything, He Shuting continued, "We are actually the same, but she used thousands of troops to drive me away, but she only gossiped about you. Brother, we have the same ancestor as her. Tell me, why does she treat us like this? She was forced to grow up outside, and that has nothing to do with us. Besides, after she returned to the He family, everyone in the He family treated her well. The He family doesn't need her to repay the kindness of raising us, but she can't hurt us."

He Zongqun still didn't say anything, but the veins on his forehead revealed his emotions at the moment.

He hates!

He Shuting's eyes were filled with tears: "Brother, I am very happy that you can come to Longxi. I am finally not alone anymore. I also have a family. Brother, you are my family."

He Zongqun stood there for a moment, and suddenly, he looked at He Shuting: "You saved my life. Even if there is no brother-sister relationship between us, I must repay you. From now on, I, He Zongqun, will obey Madam Chang'an."

After saying that, He Zongqun knelt down and kowtowed three times. A hint of satisfaction flashed in He Shuting's eyes. Once she had the satisfaction of controlling other people's life and death, she didn't want to lose it.

"Brother, I don't have any good generals under my command. The generals in the army don't take me seriously at all. It was fine when I was alone before, but now I have a son, the only descendant of the Wu family. Everything in Longxi belongs to him."

He Zongqun: "Don't worry, give me a month and I will make these people work for you."

He Shuting was surprised and asked hurriedly: "Really? Are they really willing to do that?"

He Zongqun: "They will agree."

When they were in Jiangnan, those prominent families did not take the Ran army seriously at all. Many of them even kept private soldiers. But in the end, these families were convinced and were willing to pay the money.

In the capital, He Ran had just received a letter from He Dali. After Xiao Wenyuan joined forces with the Tartars, he captured seven or eight counties in succession. He even said that he wanted to build the capital in Xi'an and use He Dali's head as a sacrifice.

He Dali was unable to succeed, but now he and Xiao Wenyuan were far apart, and it was not yet time for the two armies to face off against each other.

He Ran asked Xiao Li to reply and asked He Dali to defend Shanzhou. Xiao Wenyuan wanted to build the capital in Xi'an, but he could only dream about it.

Zhong Yi brought news from Fuzhou that the Empress of Emperor Yonghe had given birth to a son, who was named Crown Prince, and the former Duke Dingguo Jing Chongguang was appointed as the Crown Prince's Tutor.

In other words, Jing Chongguang was not only the regent, but also the prince's tutor.

He Ran felt that Emperor Yonghe would soon have to find a way to deal with Jing Chongguang.

Jing Chongguang treated Emperor Yonghe as his own son, but Emperor Yonghe did not necessarily treat him as his father. Besides, there was no family affection in the royal family. So what even if they were biological father and son, not to mention that they were not biological father and son.

He Ran said to Zhong Yi: "How capable are the people you sent out? Do you want to send someone from Jinghong Tower to support us?"

Zhong Yi shook his head: "No need, she is very strong."

He Ran said: "I don't want the heads of Emperor Yonghe or Jing Chongguang. If they die, their followers will bring up another Emperor Yonghe. Besides, children are much easier to manipulate than adults."

A surge of grief and indignation surged in Zhong Yi's heart. How could the Zhou family have any decent descendants? From the moment the prince died, the Zhou family was finished.

The Zhou Dynasty actually only lasted one generation.

However, these people were still unwilling to give up and created some children from nowhere, who even he felt ashamed of, to act as his descendants.

Min Man, who served as emperor for several years, was actually a member of the Min family;
The King of Qi, a descendant of Zhou Wen, had long been removed from the Zhou family tree;
Emperor Yonghe didn’t even know who his biological father was.

Zhong Yi looked at He Ran again and said, "You are not much better. You found a grandson for me on Red Street."

Then, He Ran saw Zhong Yi walking away angrily, probably going to the imperial prison to vent his anger.

Xiaoli came in and brought a letter from Zhou Cangyue.

He Ran became excited, wondering what interesting things Zhou Cangyue had written.

Sure enough, Zhou Cangyue did not disappoint her. Zhou Cangyue said that he had conquered a village where there was a witch. The witch said that she knew people's past and present lives. She said she could tell Zhou Cangyue how he died in his previous life. Zhou Cangyue refused. As a result, Bai Gou was very interested and, together with Hongdou and Huangdou, secretly went to find the witch. The witch told them that the three of them were drowned in their previous lives and died in the turbid river water.

The three men were depressed for a few days when they came back. Did they have to be corpse retrievers in this life? It turned out that they all died in the Yellow River in their previous lives.

Zhou Cangyue also told He Ran that he had a panda, of course, it was free-range.

But he didn't know whether the panda was male or female. If it was a female, he would send one to the capital when it gave birth to a cub. There were many pandas in Shu, and the children here rode on pandas to play.

Brother He Ran, are you kidding me?
Xiaoli stood outside the door and heard the laughter coming from inside from time to time. She also curled the corners of her mouth. Zhou Cangyue was too lazy. He should write more letters so that the boss could laugh more often.

After reading Zhou Cangyue's letter, He Ran was in a good mood and worked more efficiently. She spent an entire afternoon reviewing a basket of memorials.

In a blink of an eye, it had been 49 days since King Zhao passed away. He Ran held a small ceremony. After the ceremony, the page of King Zhao was completely turned over.

The preparations for the women's academy in the capital were completed, and it was finally time to officially recruit students.

With the experience of Jinling Women's College as a precedent, women's colleges in the capital began preparations for enrollment two months ago.

Advertisements had already been put out in the evening papers, stating that the women's academy did not charge tuition fees and that any woman, regardless of age or whether she was married or not, whether she was a girl waiting to be married or a widow, a girl from a good family or a maid with a body indentured, could come to the academy to learn skills for free.

However, a contract must be signed. After graduation, the academy will be responsible for arranging jobs. Every student who graduates from the academy must sign a three-year employment contract. During the contract period, they will receive a monthly salary. Only after the contract expires can they find a new job on their own.

However, there were few literate people in that era, and not everyone could see the advertisements in the evening paper, so it mainly depended on word of mouth.

So on the day of official registration, a long line formed outside the women's academy. There were wives and daughters from poor families, maids from wealthy families, orphans from charity halls, and even nuns from temples.

He Yamin sent four newly assigned interns. Since He Ran proposed at a meeting that the morning and evening newspapers should go to the front line, after this year's official examination, He Yamin shamelessly ran to the Ministry of Personnel to snatch people. After a heated debate, He Yamin successfully got four new scholars to intern with him. Among these four people, there are two men and two women, and each of them can write beautiful articles.

One of the male scholars asked a nun in the queue why she came here to register.

The nun told him that the temple had taken in many poor women who had no one to rely on. These women all had children to raise, and the temple was gradually running out of money. They wanted those women to earn money to support themselves, but they had no skills. They had to take care of the children and could not come here to study and learn skills, so the nun came here by herself. After she learned something, she could go back and teach those women.

The newly-minted scholar was dumbfounded. He never expected it to be like this.

The maids in those wealthy families are even more interesting. They are sent by their masters to learn skills here so that they can serve their masters better after returning.

So, everyone only knows that you can study here without paying tuition, but few people notice that you have to sign a contract and work for three years after graduation.

Therefore, although many people came to sign up on the first day, only about twenty people were finally able to register.

Among these people, more than a dozen are orphans from charity organizations. Not to mention signing a three-year contract, they would like to sign a contract for ten or twenty years, or even better, to have the whole life covered for them.