During the time when Xue Zhinong went to inquire about the situation of the bandits in Guide Prefecture, Wu Shigong was not idle either. He would go to the homes of the soldiers who were killed and injured in turn to express condolences.

Fortunately, the soldiers all lived nearby and lived relatively concentrated, so it did not take Wu Shigong a few days to express condolences to these family members. However, Wu Shigong's condolences moved these family members very much, and Wu Shigong also expressed his condolences during the visit.

, and also helped solve some of the difficulties of those family members. Therefore, this kind of behavior made Wu Shigong's reputation for "benevolence and righteousness" among the soldiers even more resounding.

After that, Wu Shigong stipulated a system for his officers, asking them to care about the families of their soldiers who were killed and disabled in the future, and they must not let these families encounter difficulties in life.

Wu Shigong's Qianhusuo fortress also received a number of visitors one after another. The first one to visit was the teaching minister Gong Haoran. He brought some students from the county school to express condolences to Wu Shigong and the others.

Wu Shigong was overjoyed when he heard about the arrival of Gong Haoran and the students. It was not because of the Ming Dynasty's bullshit tradition of lifting literati to the sky, but because the literati finally had a righteous mind and respected Wu Shigong and these soldiers for their sacrifice for the country.

Therefore, Wu Shigong immediately organized a formation of soldiers and gave Gong Haoran and his party a grand welcome and review ceremony. And in the subsequent conversation with Gong Haoran, Wu Shigong said that he was going to build a fortress in Qianhusuo for the soldiers who died in the battle.

The idea of ​​a Martyrs' Shrine.

After that, Wu Shigong also kindly invited Gong Haoran and the students to write a memorial for the fallen soldiers. Wu Shigong will erect a stone tablet at the entrance of the Martyrs' Shrine, and the memorial will be engraved on the stone tablet. It will also be engraved.

List the names of Gong Haoran and all the students in the county school.

Wu Shigong's approach best catered to the literati's habit of loving fame. So when Wu Shigong's invitation was raised, these students were eager to give it a try. Even Gong Haoran was stroking his beard and couldn't sit still.

But Wu Shigong's method of making friends was not just that. He also promised to give a certain amount of annual support to every scholar in the county in the future. Moreover, if those scholars go to the government examination in the future, or even pass the examination, they will go to the capital to meet.

If you try, Wu Shigong will provide you with certain procedures.

As soon as Wu Shigong used these two hands, everyone was immediately happy and laughing. Of course, this was also related to the fact that the students knew that Wu Shigong was also a scholar and a scholar like them.

Wu Shigong's actions are not without purpose. There are only more than a hundred scholars in the county, and Wu Shigong's annual expenditure is not much. Besides, Wu Shigong came back this time to serve as the spokesperson of the Ming Dynasty's ruling class of literati and gentry.

Therefore, wooing these young and passionate students is the most convenient and cheapest way to improve Wu Shigong's reputation.

So in the end, when Wu Shigong asked Gong Haoran to introduce some more children as literate teachers for his soldiers, Gong Haoran immediately agreed. Gong Haoran knew that the children who taught here before were treated very well by Wu Shigong. In fact, if he did this again

There should be no resistance in any aspect to this kind of introduction.

Then Yao Yuanwai and other gentry also invited Wu Shigong one after another. However, at Yao Yuanwai's banquet, Yao Yuanwai introduced Wu Shigong to his in-laws, a Yuanwai named Li.

After Wu Shigong went to King Qin this time, there were six or seven local gentry families who wanted to acquire Wu Shigong's 7,000 acres of land, and Li Yuanwai was also one of them.

Those gentry conspired to bribe a pian in the county government and asked the pian to make some fake land deeds for them. Of course, these land deeds had the official seal, and from the outside, they were no different from the real ones.

.

After these gentry learned from rumors that Wu Shigong might not come back, they used these fake land deeds to complain to the county government. Of course, along with the petition, there was a generous gift to the county magistrate Yu Zilian.

However, although the county magistrate Yu Zilian had a personal grudge with Wu Shigong, he was no longer the passionate scholar he was before. He had transformed into a cunning bureaucrat. Yu Zilian was not like those gentry who did not know Wu Shigong's background very well. Did he know that Wu Shigong was behind the scenes?

There are two behemoths from the Hou Mansion.

Therefore, Yu Zilian was not willing to make a rash judgment before the situation was clear. He only made a gesture of favoring the gentry during several court hearings in order to be worthy of the generous gifts given to him by the gentry. After that,

Yu Zilian resorted to procrastination and delayed in making the final decision.

Yu Zilian's calculation was that if he got accurate information about Wu Shigong's death and defeat, Yu Zilian would not mind adding insult to injury to Wu Shigong. But if Wu Shigong made military exploits, Yu Zilian would not fight with Wu Shigong.

If they break up, there is still room for maneuver. And because of the ignorance of those gentry, Yu Zilian can justifiably take those generous gifts for himself without returning them to those gentry.

But after the gentry recently learned that Wu Shigong, not only was he not defeated, but he had made military exploits in the battle with the Tatars and was promoted to the garrison of Runing Mansion, they were all a little panicked.

This time, the gentry's attempt to seize Wu Shigong's land was led by Huang Yuanwai. At that time, Yao Yuanwai's relative, Li Yuanwai, learned about this good thing and joined in excitedly.

However, after Li Yuanwai joined, Yao Yuanwai, who had a better understanding of Wu Shigong's strength, once advised him, but Li Yuanwai, who was greedy for profit, did not listen to Yao Yuanwai's advice at that time.

However, after learning that General Wu Shigong would lead the victorious army back to Guide Mansion, the panic-stricken Li Yuanwai immediately went to the home of his in-law Yao Yuanwai and asked Yao Yuanwai for an idea. Today it was Yao Yuanwai who brought Li Yuanwai to apologize to Wu Shigong.

After Wu Shigong learned that Li Yuanwai was a gentry seeking his land, of course he would not let him go so easily. So Wu Shigong immediately cursed and wanted to leave. But Yao Yuanwai held Wu Shigong tightly.

Li Yuanwai kowtowed again and again to prevent Wu Shigong from leaving. Seeing that the heat was almost over, Wu Shigong reluctantly agreed not to pursue Li Yuanwai's pursuit of his own land.

Afterwards, several more gentry came to apologize to Wu Shigong for the same reason. Wu Shigong also received several generous gifts from them. Firstly, Wu Shigong did not want to offend all the local gentry with entangled relationships. Secondly, he wanted to punish those who sought to gain his own

The landed gentry also had to be treated differently, so in the end, Wu Shigong basically forgave the gentry who came to apologize to him.

However, Huang Yuanwai, the gentry who took the lead in seeking Wu Shigong's land, did not come to see Wu Shigong. Although he stayed at home all day long and did not go out, he was also afraid of Wu Shigong's revenge.

On this day, two guests came to the Huang family's home. They were also gentry who sought Wu Shigong's land and did not go to Wu Shigong to apologize afterwards.

A gentleman asked Huang Yuanwai: "Huang Yuanwai, you have to make up your mind. Li Yuanwai from Nanzhuang and Ke Yuanwai from Jiguan Town all went to Mr. Wu to apologize. We really have nothing to do with Mr. Wu.

Can you resist like that?"

After hearing this, Huang Yuanwai felt very irritable. He stood up from his chair and walked back and forth in the room: "I really didn't expect that Mr. Wu's life would be so serious. But when he was fighting a lawsuit with Mr. Wu,

We are the ones causing the most trouble. What if he doesn't accept our apology?"

"That's what I think. Let's collect another generous gift and send it to the county magistrate. Since we have already broken up, let's fight the lawsuit to the end. I don't think Lord Wu dares to drive us all out, just to fight for some land.

, it’s not a big deal. If he dares to touch us, it’s a rebellion.” When Huang Yuanwai said this, he also felt a little lack of confidence. The reason for saying this was nothing more than to embolden Huang Yuanwai himself.

Huang Yuanwai continued: "Even if the county magistrate and Mr. Wu protect each other and our lawsuit is lost, then we only have to wait until Mr. Wu comes to Runing Mansion to take office. By that time, his hands will not be able to reach us.

Come to Guide Mansion."

Listening to what Huang Yuanwai said did make some sense, the two gentlemen nodded.

On August 12, Wu Shigong led 400 cavalry, 600 infantry and an artillery team with ten French machine guns and two three-pound artillery to set out to suppress the bandits. Before departure, Wu Shigong sent people to the county seat and Guide respectively.

Fucheng, and asked them to submit their own official documents for suppressing bandits to the county government, the government government, and the Guidewei government office on August 14. Of course, along with the official document was a valuable gift.

The reason why Wu Shigong wanted to play this time difference was that he was afraid that the news of his suppression of bandits would leak out. Wu Shigong did not take all his troops out. He also prepared 300 soldiers at Qianhusuo Fortress to prepare for another project.

action.

The gentry who wanted to acquire Wu Shigong's land this time, as well as the Huang family and other three families, had not surrendered to Wu Shigong yet, so the soldiers Wu Shigong arranged in the Qianhusuo fortress were prepared for them.

To be honest, Wu Shigong is suppressing bandits in Guide Mansion this time. There is no rigid target for the number of bandits to be wiped out. The principle Wu Shigong follows is to kill them if they can. If they can’t be wiped out, they can run away. The main purpose is to maintain the bandits in Guide Mansion.

My reputation is just for some false reputation, and the benefits are not great.

However, the three gentry families of the Huang family dared to seek Wu Shigong's land. This was a naked challenge to Wu Shigong. Wu Shigong decided to uproot these three gentry families this time and teach the onlookers a bloody lesson.

As for the method to be adopted, it is very simple. Catch a few bandits and ask them to confess that these gentry colluded with these bandits. After obtaining these evidences that they were beaten into submission, Wu Shigong was not prepared to go to court to litigate the case. Wu Shigong was prepared to settle the case cleanly.
Chapter completed!