Chapter 71: Two judges compete on the bench, two marquises in the Bowling Mansion
Three days passed in a flash.
On February 12, Sun Shaozong originally thought that the hardest thing to endure was the evening gathering of his classmates, but when he arrived at Jia Zheng's place at noon, he experienced an embarrassing moment in advance.
There were a total of four people gathered in Rong Xi Tang at that time, namely Jia Zheng, Jia Yucun, Sun Shaozong, and Jia Zheng's favorite student Fu Shi. This time, Jia Zheng held a banquet in order to introduce Fu Shi to the two of them.
According to Jia Zheng, Fu Shi originally served as a sixth-rank secretary in the Guanglu Temple. Because he was rated as a top grade in the imperial examination last year, he is now about to be promoted to the position of sixth-rank Tongpan in Shuntian Prefecture, in charge of the money, grain and taxes in the prefecture.
Upon hearing this introduction, Sun Shaozong knew that Jia Yucun had received another strong support.
You must know that although the Tongpan of Shuntian Prefecture is not as noble as the court officials, he is an important link between the upper and lower levels. Among the three Tongpans now, two of them are connected with Jia Yucun. From now on, Han Fuyin will probably have trouble sleeping and eating.
Jia Yucun obviously thought the same. His face was full of smiles and satisfaction, and all the gloom of not being able to show off his power in front of the emperor was swept away.
He wanted to recruit him, and Fu Shi also tried to please him, so after a few cups of rice wine, the two of them became brothers. They took advantage of the wine to recite some sour toast poems, and the atmosphere was very lively.
Jia Zheng was a literary man to begin with, so it was natural for him to blend in without any effort.
But how could Sun Shaozong know any poetry?
It's so embarrassing to just sit at a banquet!
If he was really a reckless man, he might not be able to detect it, but how meticulous is Sun Shaozong?
After just observing for a while, he could tell that Fu Shi was quite hostile towards him, and he took the initiative to bring up the topic of poetry on purpose - to put it bluntly, he just didn't want to bring a rough guy like Sun Shaozong along to play with him.
If he was the only one like this, Sun Shaozong would not be left out.
But perhaps because Jia Yucun had failed to get a formal response after two "earnest attempts", he also wanted to take the opportunity to teach Sun Shaozong a lesson so that he would know the pain of being alone.
With these two people controlling the topic, even if Jia Zheng wanted to save Sun Shaozong's face, he was powerless.
Sun Shaozong sat alone for a long time, thinking of a reason to get away, when he saw Zhou Rui, the housekeeper of Rongguo Mansion, rushing in and reporting: "Second Master, the Marquis Zhongjing and his wife are here to visit the old lady, and the eldest master happens to be away from home, what do you think..."
When Jia Zheng heard that it was Marquis Zhongjing Shi Ding who came, he did not care about anything else. He quickly apologized to everyone at the table and hurried to where Lady Jia was.
After the master left, Jia Yucun and Fu Shi were left alone, and it was not easy for them to write any more sour poems about love and romance.
Therefore, Jia Yucun took the opportunity to exclaim: "These days, a family like the Baoling Marquisate with two marquises can really be called an 'unusual number'."
Fu Shi also smiled and echoed, "This achievement of leading an army to conquer a country is naturally unmatched by others. If Lord Shi Ling had not unfortunately passed away in Goryeo, it is possible that our Great Zhou Dynasty would have had another king of a different surname."
The Baoling Marquis Mansion they were talking about was the maiden family of the old lady of the Jia family. It was originally a founding marquisate, and its status was far inferior to that of the Ning and Rong mansions.
But today, the head of Rongguo Mansion, Jia She, is just a first-class general, while the Baolinghou Mansion has two marquises in one family. In addition to the title of Baolinghou passed down from their ancestors, there is also the title of Zhongjinghou, which is a rare anomaly in the court.
Talking about the origin of the two marquises of the Shi family, they are actually related to the Sun family.
About sixteen years ago, the then Emperor of the Great Zhou, now the Supreme Emperor, was so angry that he sent an army of 200,000 to conquer Goryeo because Goryeo had repeatedly invaded the border and plundered the people of the Great Zhou.
At that time, Sun Shaozong's cheap father was appointed as the vanguard of the army because of his extraordinary bravery. He thought he would achieve great success and carry out his ambitions. However, he did not expect that the battle would result in a tragic defeat in which the entire army was annihilated. In the end, only 30,000 of the 200,000-strong army escaped across the Yalu River!
Sun Shaozong's cheap father was lucky enough to be among these 30,000 people - unfortunately, he escaped the pursuit of the Koreans but could not escape the emperor's wrath, and was ordered to commit suicide by the Yalu River to thank the world.
As a result, the Sun family fell into decline and at one point even had to rely on collecting money from friends and relatives to make a living.
Five years later, the Great Zhou once again launched an attack on Goryeo, and this time the army was led by Shi Jue, the eldest grandson of Baoling Hou.
Under Shi Jue's wise command, Goryeo suffered defeat after defeat. First, it lost its capital, and later even the king and his entire family were killed by his generals, and their heads were presented to the Great Zhou as a gift.
Originally, according to the intention of the retired emperor, he wanted to completely wipe out the Kingdom of Goryeo and directly divide it into counties of the Great Zhou.
Unfortunately, just as the Zhou army was advancing at full speed, Shi Jue suddenly contracted an epidemic and was temporarily unable to continue commanding the battle.
Helplessly, the imperial court had to accept the alternative condition of allowing the surrendered Goryeo generals to establish the vassal state of Korea and submit to the Great Zhou.
Almost at the same time as the founding of North Korea, Shi Jue died suddenly of illness in a foreign country.
According to the contributions he made during his lifetime, it might be a bit of a stretch to make him a king, but he definitely deserved to be a duke.
But Shi Jue had only one daughter named Xiangyun - this put the court in a difficult position.
Just when they didn't know what to do, Shi Jue's two younger brothers, Shi Nai and Shi Ding, gritted their teeth and donated all their property, asking the court to use it to compensate the soldiers who died in the battle.
As a result, the imperial court simply went with the flow and first let the second son Shi Nai inherit the title of Marquis Baoling, and then made the third son Shi Ding the Marquis Zhongjing, as a reward for Shi Jue's contribution.
After this, the retired emperor felt that he had accomplished a great deal, so he went for a stroll on Mount Tai. When he came back, he abdicated the throne to Emperor Guangde.
Sun Shaozong was just listening to Jia Yucun and Fu Shi discussing the past of the Shi Mansion when he heard a cheerful voice from outside the door: "Which one is Sun Shengtao's youngest child?"
As he spoke, a short and strong man walked into Rongxi Hall. With a casual glance, his eyes fell on Sun Shaozong.
When Sun Shaozong saw this, he knew that it was Marquis Zhongjing Shi Ding who had arrived, so he stood up and greeted him, saying, "Sun Shaozong greets the Marquis."
Jia Yucun and Fu Shi also quickly stood up to greet him.
Shi Ding ignored the others and looked Sun Shaozong up and down, praising him: "As expected, you are Sun Shengtao's offspring. You look like a man who can charge into battle! I've heard a lot about your stories of solving cases recently, and today I finally see you in person!"
At this time, Jia Zheng also followed in from outside, stroked his beard and said with a smile: "We are all family, don't be restrained, sit down, sit down, and talk."
As they were talking, a servant quickly placed another chair between Jia Yucun and Jia Zheng.
Shi Ding was not polite. He sat up with a big horse and a golden sword, leaned forward and asked curiously, "What were you talking about just now? Are you discussing the recent strange case of dismemberment? I heard that the murderer broke into the Rongguo Mansion and injured Qin'er from the third room, but I don't know what happened?"
He started by asking about the case, which played into Sun Shaozong's hands. He immediately told him the details of the dismemberment case, and Jia Zheng and Shi Ding were amazed.
After all, Jia Yucun had read the files, so he could still make a few comments from the side.
But Fu Shi was like hearing a divine book. Even if he tried to talk to him occasionally, Sun Shaozong would deliberately ignore him.
In the end, he had no choice but to shut up and sat there for more than half an hour, cursing Sun Shaozong hundreds of times in his heart. However, he completely forgot that he was the one who started this secret war.
