After all, Master Cen Qi has a noble status in the Guangxi chieftain community. Although Huang Zhiting was afraid that he would poach her, she could not help but treat him with courtesy and arranged a separate guest house for him to stay temporarily.
The idea of "should I detain Cen Ling in Siming Mansion" briefly came to her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. There were two reasons why she didn't want to do this:
First, Sicheng Prefecture is currently in a situation where two tigers are fighting each other. Once Master Cen Qi is detained in Siming Mansion, Huang Ma can immediately take control of Sicheng Prefecture, but Huang Ma’s Huang does not belong to the Huang family of Siming Mansion. Huang, what benefit does his mastery of Sicheng Prefecture bring to Siming Mansion?
Not to mention that Cen Shaoxun is not dead, even if he is, his only son Cen Yunhan is now in Guilin. If Huang Ma dares to usurp the power of Sicheng Prefecture, the most likely result is that the imperial court will take this opportunity to send troops to Sicheng Prefecture. Although Chengzhou is strong, since it is a tyrant, the other branches of the Cen clan in Guixi will not help each other. Instead, they may respond to the court's call and send troops to Sicheng, and Sicheng will be defeated by then.
What would be the consequences if Sicheng was defeated? At first glance, it seems that the main branch of the Cen family has declined again. Relatively speaking, the Huang family may be superior to the Cen family. But what's the point? At that time, the imperial court may directly transfer the native land to Sicheng Prefecture and send the directly-ruling officials to the core areas of the chieftains in western Guangxi.
Even if the imperial court decides to be more stable, it can send someone to send Cen Yunhan back to assume office, and then use the excuse that Cen Yunhan is only four years old and unable to rule Sicheng, and send Ren Tongzhi, an exiled official, to assist him and actually control Sicheng - if this is done, The imperial court has grasped all the righteousness, and the surrounding chieftains can't even find an excuse to rebel. They can only eat Coptis chinensis in silence, unable to express their sufferings.
It can be seen that no matter what the court chooses, for the Guangxi chieftains, the "fall" of Sicheng Prefecture is a big defeat. Not only would the Cen family's interests be harmed, but the entire Guangxi chieftain would have to pay the price.
Therefore, although the detention of Cen Qi Gong seems to have given the Huang family an opportunity to replace the Cen family and become the number one chieftain family in Guangxi, behind this sweet bait is the imperial court's eager eyes, and in the end the gains will surely outweigh the losses.
The other reason is somewhat difficult to explain. Huang Zhiting felt that if she did this, Mr. Zhang might misunderstand how vicious she was.
No matter which of these two reasons is more important, Master Cen Qi got the opportunity to "be a guest and Siming" in this way, living in another guest house not far from the guest house where Gao Jingshi lived.
After arrangements were made for "Mr. Zhang" and "Mr. Cen Qi", Huang Zhiting, who had been away from the government for more than half a month, could not delay any longer. She could only go to meet with local officials at all levels under her and quickly deal with some of the recent backlog of government affairs in Siming Mansion. .
As soon as she left, Mr. Cen Qi walked out of his guest house and headed towards the guest house where Gao Pangshi lived.
After all, Mr. Cen Qi is an honored guest, and Huang Zhiting can't give him an order not to go out. At most, he can't just walk around in the backyard at will. However, several guest rooms are adjacent to each other. It is naturally not good for the Huang family's servants to walk between the guest rooms. stop.
Young Master Cen Qi suddenly came to visit, and Gao Pingshi seemed to have expected it. He welcomed him in with a smile, and then ordered the servants sent by Huang Zhiting to wait for him to go out and wait.
Huang Zhiting treated him with great courtesy, and the servants couldn't figure out the situation, so they had no choice but to leave after being ordered to leave, leaving the two distinguished guests to talk.
Unexpectedly, as soon as they left, Mr. Cen Qi, who had been meeting Gao Pingjing with courtesy, stopped smiling. He solemnly lowered his official rank to attend the ceremony of honoring the superior official. He said in his mouth: "Guangxi Chengxuan Chief Secretary, Zhili Sicheng Prefecture Local Magistrate The lower official, Cen Ling, went to visit the censor of Guangxi and paid a visit to Jin'an!"
Gao Pingshi was startled for a moment, and subconsciously wanted to hide it: "Master Cen Qi..."
"I don't dare to do this. I have something to do but please give me your instructions."
Gao Pragmatic twitched the corner of his mouth and said secretly: Ci'ao, am I exposed? I'm just talking about why Cen Ling came to Siming Mansion all of a sudden. I originally thought it was because I was so talented that he really couldn't bear to be intercepted by Huang Zhiting. But now it seems that's not the case at all. It's the status of the patrol censor that is valuable. !
"Well... you get up and speak." Anyway, it has been exposed, and Cen Ling has paid homage to him, so he is obviously confident. There is no point in hiding it at this time.
"Thank you for the press." Mr. Cen Qi stood up and stood aside respectfully, just like the chieftains who met the Guangxi patrol minister at ordinary times - provided that the chieftain did not intend to rebel.
"Judge Cen, when did you know the identity of Ben Bian?" In fact, Gao Pragmatic just learned about the official position of Cen Qi Gong. However, although the official position of chieftain is consistent with the name of the official in the imperial court, at most the word "Tu" is added in front of it. But in fact it is completely different.
A chieftain has his own land, manages his people, controls his troops, inherits his position, governs his place, joins his family, and receives his title. He also "kills people without asking for orders, and dies without worrying about them." This difference But it's too big.
Moreover, the official positions above their heads may not actually be consistent with their actual management of the areas they govern. For example, Cen Ling, a Tuzhou magistrate, according to the court system, is an administrative assistant to the magistrate, responsible for grain, farming, water conservancy, Patrolling, herding horses, etc., his rank is from the seventh level, but he can run around Guangxi and even come to Siming Mansion as a guest.
"Replying to the press platform, the lower official saw the poem carved on the wall of the press platform." Cen Qi Gongzi answered with his hands raised.
Oh, it turns out that this guy ran and turned back...
Gao pragmatic nodded and no longer asked about this matter, but asked: "You came to Siming Mansion for me?"
"Yingtai Yingming, I just have something to do and I want to ask you to seek justice." Cen Qi Gongzi said seriously.
This makes Gao Pangshi a little surprised. You are such a big chieftain, and the court has not wrongfully accused you of rebellion. Why do you want me to uphold justice?
However, the duties of the patrol censor did not specifically say that the chieftain was not outside the scope of his inspection, so the other party asked him to "dispose of justice" according to the rules, and he could not ignore it.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic nodded: "If you have any grievances, just tell them, and I will find out."
Cen Qi Gongzi said: "I want to accuse Huang Ma, a fellow local magistrate of this state, of ignoring the court system, putting the magistrate under house arrest, assassinating the magistrate's son, usurping Sicheng, with ulterior motives, and intending to rebel!"
Gao Jingshi already knew a lot about the fight between the two tigers in Sicheng Prefecture from Huang Zhiting, but Huang Zhiting only knew that Cen Shaoxun, the local magistrate of Sicheng Prefecture, ignored government affairs and left everything to Huang Ma and Cen Ling. I didn’t know he was under house arrest by Huang Ma!
And according to what Cen Ling said just now, this Huang Ma also assassinated Cen Yunhan? No wonder Cen Yunhan was sent to Guilin. It turned out that he was not actively providing protons, but was being sent to seek refuge.
This was a major event that could shock Guangxi. Gao Pragmatic did not dare to take it lightly, and his eyes were focused: "This is a big matter. Please explain it in detail. Don't miss a single point, let alone gloss over it."
Cen Ling said he didn't dare, and then reported the causes and consequences of the so-called "two tigers fighting" in Sicheng Prefecture to Gao Pragmatic High Inspector.
According to Cen Ling, the Huangma family only came to prominence when Cen Meng attacked Sicheng Prefecture in the past years. They are "no more expensive than three generations." At that time, Huang Ma's grandfather was just an ordinary native of Sicheng Prefecture. Relying on his family's power, he controlled the territory of several villages. When necessary, he was recruited by Zhizhou Cen.
When Cen Meng invaded, Cen Jie thought he was outmatched, so he recruited all the Tumu troops near Lingyun City, the state capital, to jointly defend Lingyun City. As mentioned earlier, this battle went back and forth for several years, and Huang Ma's grandfather was gradually promoted to more important positions due to his ability in the battle.
Due to Cen Meng's raids around Lingyun City, many of the originally stronger clans were seriously injured. Huang Ma's grandfather relied on his military exploits and the trust and rewards of the Cen family to gradually expand his strength. During the Meng Rebellion, Huang Ma's grandfather was already the most powerful Tumu near Lingyun City besides the Cen family.
After passing through Huang Ma's father, when Huang Ma became Tumu, he pretended to be Cen Shaoxun's right-hand lackey and responded to Cen Shaoxun's instructions and requests. The Tumu family finally secretly completed basic control over Lingyun City's defense forces.
Cen Shaoxun likes fishing and hunting, and often takes a small group of wolf soldiers to go fishing and hunting in the mountains outside Lingyun City. Finally, when he returns from hunting, Huang Ma, who has long been plotting to usurp power, falsely sends an order to transfer the wolves controlled by Cen's family. soldiers, and then placed under house arrest. Cen Ling was young at the time and rarely showed up, so he was ignored by Huang Ma.
At the critical moment, Cen Ling, with the support of his servants and subordinates who were still loyal to the Cen family, took out Cen Shaoxun's only son Cen Yunhan, who was just born, from the mansion, broke out of the siege, and rushed to Cen's wolf who was transferred by Huang Ma. In the army, he planned to lead his troops to fight back to Lingyun City.
However, Lingyun City was the core of Sicheng Prefecture's rule for hundreds of years. It was repeatedly reinforced especially during the Cen Meng Rebellion. Although the wolf soldiers were brave, they had no preparations for attacking the city. There was a serious shortage of siege equipment. He was able to send troops to Lingyun City.
Moreover, Huang Ma has won over the four Tumu, and his strength is not weak. In addition, he controls Cen Shaoxun, and Cen Ling is even more afraid of rats. To be precise, at that time, the two sides were in a state of "beating a wolf with a straw and fearing both sides". Who can There is nothing anyone can do.
Cen Ling couldn't attack, and Huang Ma didn't dare come out to fight the main force of Cen's wolf soldiers. The two sides were in a stalemate.
In the end, Huang Ma had a guilty conscience and ordered the two parties to shake hands and make peace in the name of Cen Shaoxun. At the same time, he secretly sent someone to discuss with Cen Ling. Under the premise of ensuring not to harm Cen Shaoxun, the two sides maintained peace and jointly took charge of Sicheng Prefecture - this joint control, in fact, Huang Ma controls Lingyun City and issues orders in the name of Cen Shaoxun, while Cen Ling controls the rest of Sicheng Prefecture. Whether he listens to the orders depends on the outcome of the game between the two parties.
However, without Lingyun City in hand, Cen Ling was still worried about the safety of Cen Yunhan, his little nephew. In the end, he gritted his teeth and sent him to Guilin "as a hostage". Although the status was a bit embarrassing, it could guarantee his safety - Imperial Court After all, things should be done based on the system and "results from teachers". Even the Cen family has sent hostages, so the imperial court is not completely shameless and still takes action against the Cen family.
After telling the story of the Cen family in Sicheng, it is now Gao Pragmatic's turn to express his stance.
