After Zheng County Magistrate sent an urgent official letter of eight hundred miles to the Taoist Inspector, he eagerly waited for Sima Guang's reply. He had only been in officialdom for five years, so naturally he didn't know much about officialdom routines.

When the inspector receives urgent messages from the county magistrate, he does not always reply to them one by one. In Sima Cong's mind, Zheng Mingjie is also very unfamiliar. How many counties are there in Jiangnan Road? How many county magistrates? Isn't it obvious?

But Magistrate Zheng felt that Sima Cong was like his own father. He was satisfied that as soon as Sima Cong received his letter, he immediately replied and promised to send him hundreds of soldiers to protect the county.

The two death row prisoners detained by the Yamen flew to the capital in a majestic manner. How exciting.

But what he never expected was that Sima Cong could only handle his letter "on official business". After all, he was a third-rank inspector, so instead of being unrelated, he had to consider his own situation. He also had to deal with this matter.

Zheng Mingjie had the same mentality and cleverly passed the matter to the Minister of Punishment.

The Minister of the Ministry of Punishment was no exception, and in the end he passed the matter to the Minister of the Ministry of War. Although Sima Cong did not know about this, he unintentionally fell into his trap. Of course, the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment did not bother to reply to him to inform him of the result.

On this day, Magistrate Zheng got up at dawn because he was eager to free up a house for Lu Dushi and find another place for his second wife. These "official affairs" all involved his official career, and he would fall short if he was not careful.

.

When it was dawn, he wanted to walk alone in the still quiet streets. If he met some shopkeepers who knew him as the county magistrate, he would take the opportunity to strike up a conversation and reveal some hope of borrowing a house, and they would try to curry favor with them.

The county magistrate will happily agree to help him find a good house. In this way, it will be a matter of course to find a house for his mistress.

Although the county seat had just experienced a fire and was covered with traces of burnt blackness, because most of the people who opened shops on the street were wealthy owners, within a few days of the fire in the county seat, more beautiful street-facing shops appeared everywhere than before, which was the first county-scale store. Therefore,

He was also very happy.

However, this morning, he clearly felt that the atmosphere was not right. There were more people on the street than before, and they were all government soldiers wearing armor. Magistrate Zheng couldn't help but be surprised.

He often sees officers and soldiers, but he rarely sees government soldiers. Because government soldiers are regular troops of the court, they are stationed in peacetime and are not under local control. Wucheng is a small county in the hinterland of the Tang Dynasty. It is very safe and is not always heavily guarded.

Strategically important area. Therefore, the garrison in this area is mostly in the southern mountainous area and rarely appears on the streets of Wucheng.

What's going on now? Magistrate Zheng has not connected this matter with his urgent letter to the Taoist government.

"What do you do?" A short shout surprised the unprepared and imaginative county magistrate. Not far away, he saw a school lieutenant (an eighth-rank military officer in the Tang Dynasty, also known as the Xuanjie school lieutenant, usually with deep eyes).

The man in blue clothes (at this time, because he was wearing the armor worn on the battlefield and could only tell his military rank from the belt he wore) pointed at him and yelled at him.

"I am the magistrate of this county." Zheng Mingjie pointed to the county government office not far away and replied with a smile.

"Asshole," the eighth-grade captain seemed not to take him as a seventh-grade county magistrate seriously, and still waved at him roughly: "I'm not asking whether you are a county magistrate or a lieutenant, but what are you doing here?

?”

"Just take a walk." The seventh-grade county magistrate's self-esteem was hurt by this eighth-grade barbarian. He was very unhappy, but he had to reply.

"Now this area has been classified as a anti-riot area by our troops, and General Fan has asked us to station here. You go back immediately and are not allowed to walk around the streets at will, otherwise we will be killed."

After all, Magistrate Zheng was the son of a cloth merchant. He had never seen such a battle before, so he turned around and walked back. Behind him, there was an insult from the eighth-grade captain to the seventh-grade magistrate: "A

The little Qipin County Magistrate, what are you pretending to be?"

Magistrate Zheng didn't care about chatting with the vulgar captains behind him, and hurriedly ran back to the county office to talk to Lu Hechang who had just arrived in the inspection room.

"Oh." Lu Hechang seemed to be surprised. He didn't receive any notice. Why did a large number of government soldiers suddenly arrive?

"The captain said that this place has been listed as a riot zone by the higher authorities, and we are prohibited from traveling."

"Oh, I understand." Lu Hechang suddenly realized.

"what?"

"Didn't you send an urgent official letter of eight hundred miles to the Taoist government some time ago?"

"Yes. It's according to your wishes."

"That's what happened," Lu Hechang nodded. "After Sima Cong received your urgent official letter, he felt that the situation in Wucheng was serious, so he elaborated and told the Minister of Punishment that the situation in your county was very critical and asked him to send officers and soldiers to escort the people stranded in Wucheng.

Two death row inmates in Cheng County.”

"Are these government soldiers here to escort the prisoners?" Zheng Mingjie beamed with joy.

"Not quite." Lu Hechang shook his head.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I think they are here to suppress bandits." Lu Hechang seemed to understand something.

"Then they didn't come to escort the death row prisoners, but to hunt down the snitches?" Zheng Mingjie turned pale with fright.

"It's possible. Maybe the Minister of Punishment sent a letter from the inspector to the Queen, saying that banditry was serious in Wucheng County, so the Queen felt that something big was going on here and sent troops to pursue it."

"It's broken." Zheng Mingjie was so frightened that his soul flew away. He cried and stamped his feet in distress.

"What's wrong?" Lu Hechang looked at Zheng Mingjie strangely: "What does it have to do with us whether they come to suppress us or not? Anyway, they won't do anything to us."

"But this matter was triggered by my eight hundred miles urgent report. If these government soldiers found nothing after the search and reported it to the superiors, the emperor would blame him. Wouldn't I be guilty of deceiving the emperor?" Zheng Mingjie

The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became, blaming Lu Hechang for having bad ideas and harming him.

"Yeah," Lu Hechang didn't expect that things would have such an outcome: "Isn't it?"

"Why not?" Zheng Mingjie couldn't help but burst into tears: "It's okay now, you sent me to the guillotine. If I had known this, I wouldn't be this bad county magistrate."

"Don't always let the wind be the rain." Lu Hechang became impatient: "Before the matter is clarified, you are like a death row prisoner who is about to die. You are really worthless. If you are like this, you might as well stop being a county magistrate.

.”

"Oh." Only then did Zheng Mingjie feel that he had lost his composure. He quickly wiped the tears and snot from his face and smiled awkwardly: "I got confused when I was in a hurry."

"The government of the Tang Dynasty cannot use a confused magistrate like you." Lu Hechang glared at Magistrate Zheng angrily.

At this moment, two soldiers on horseback ran into the courtyard. After jumping off their horses, they were led by the county watchman who followed behind and walked to Lu Hechang's viewing room. They hugged their hands and handed a letter to Lu Hechang.

, Lu Hechang read the words on the envelope and turned around to hand it to Zheng Mingjie.

These two soldiers had just gone to the main hall of the county government office to find the county magistrate. Maybe the leader of the Tang soldiers who had entered the county sent someone to contact him when he saw that the time for the county government office had come. After all, the officers and soldiers were not bandits, so they had to be stationed there.

It is a rule of the Tang Dynasty to meet with the local county magistrate and explain the reasons.

But at this time, even though it was time for the county magistrate to ascend to court, Magistrate Zheng went to the place where the county magistrate used to take charge of matters to talk to Lu Hechang about the matter. The county government watchman also habitually took them to the place where the county magistrate took charge of matters. According to

The current formulation is that if the county magistrate is absent, the people coming from above will be brought to the deputy county magistrate's office, and the deputy magistrate will receive them.

"Oh, great." After reading the letter, Zheng Mingjie beamed with joy and hurriedly invited the two soldiers to sit down.

"I don't dare." The soldiers of the two prefectures retired: "Colonel Huang Yuanxing will come to see the county magistrate soon. If you forgive me, I will go back and get my order."

Magistrate Zheng found out from the documents attached by the second government soldiers that the leader of the Tang soldiers who came to see him was a sixth-grade officer named Zhenwei Xiaowei (equivalent to today's division commander).

Zheng Mingjie was not wearing official uniform because he went to the street at dawn. Now he was going to meet with the leader of the sixth-grade Tang soldiers. Seeing that he was still wearing his old uniform, he hurriedly said goodbye to Lu Hechang and went out. He ran to the temporary inspection room of the county magistrate and asked him to come forward.

After going to entertain the upcoming captain, he hurriedly ran back to his residence, dug out the new and unworn county magistrate's uniform, asked his wife to help take care of it, and demonstrated it for a while until his wife

Nodding, he trotted all the way towards the county government hall with eight-character steps.

At this time, Captain Huang Yuanxing had arrived at the main hall of the county government office, and accompanied by the county magistrate, he walked into the living room on one side of the main hall to wait for him.

Because the main hall is a place used for hearing cases, it is generally not suitable to receive high-ranking Tang officials. For example, if the county magistrate sits in the main seat of the main hall, and the important ministers who come from above sit on one side, it will appear to be overestimating the guests and will make the higher-ranking Tang officials feel uncomfortable.

Shu, so the county magistrate specially brought this captain, who rarely appeared in the county, to the living room to meet the county magistrate.

The school lieutenant and the county magistrate sat down with a case machine, and after exchanging pleasantries, they got down to business and talked about how to escort the death row prisoners who were temporarily detained in the county jail to the capital jail.

"According to the request of the Ministry of War, we have sent a team of more than 60 soldiers to escort the two death row prisoners to the prison in the capital. The Minister of the Ministry of War has sent the general documents issued by the Ministry of Punishment and Dali Temple to our ministry through an eight-hundred-mile expedited document.

Ningyuan General Fan Zhendong. Therefore, you only need to ask the four jailers from your county to bring the transfer documents from your county to us together with the two death row prisoners. All expenses and care for the prisoners' journey will be borne by you yourself.

Take responsibility." The captain explained General Fan's intention clearly in one breath, without giving Zheng Mingjie any chance to chat or bargain.

"Okay, okay." Although Zheng Mingjie felt that there were too few officers and soldiers sent to escort him, he did not dare to say anything and kept nodding in agreement.
Chapter completed!