Chapter 288 287 Welcoming and Sending Off the Bride

It has been two years since Wei Guangde left Jiujiang. When the boat passed Madang Town, looking at the Bengshan Fort on the riverside in the distance, Wei Guangde also had mixed feelings in his heart.

He had lived here for several years when he first came here, and he always thought that Jiujiang Mansion might be his destination.

It would be unimaginable for a modern person to appear in ancient times and become an official in the imperial examination. After all, what he learned was completely irrelevant.

However, it seems that people who travel through time are really blessed by heaven. After fighting all the way, he actually passed the exam and became a glorious Jinshi Master in the Ming Dynasty.

Thinking of Master Sun in the town, as Wei Guangde's mentor, Wei Guangde was full of emotions. If it weren't for Master Sun's thumb and thumb, Wei Guangde might not have achieved what he has today, and he would have been rejected in the college examination. .

Master Sun must have known that I was selected as a Jinshi. I don’t know how happy he would be.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde couldn't help but smile.

Wei Guangde's ship finally arrived at Jiujiang Pier. The merchant fleet had returned to Jiujiang Prefecture early, and also brought back the news that Wei Guangde was stranded in Nanjing.

Although Wei Guangde did not inform his family in advance when he came back this time, the boat was quickly seen by the servants who had been waiting here after it arrived at the dock, and several carriages quickly approached.

Wei Guangde finally returned home. He left for Beijing at the end of October of the 34th year of Jiajing's reign to take the exam. After two years, he finally returned to his parents in Jiujiang Prefecture.

However, the Wei Mansion did not have time for him to rest at this time, and he would start preparing for the wedding.

Of course, Wei Guangde also played a trick at this time and did not visit the prefect's Yamen on the second day after returning to Jiujiang Prefecture.

According to the system, his leave note needs to be signed and deposited at the local government office, which means filling in the time of arrival and stamping it with the seal of the prefect. This is the beginning of his two-month vacation.

Wei Guangde's return to Jiujiang Prefecture naturally spread quickly, and Wei Guangde's Holy Family Dragon had already been publicized in Jiujiang Prefecture.

Despite this, the prefect of Jiujiang Prefecture did not approach Wei Guangde. In fact, such fraud was commonplace within the civil service group. As long as everyone had a vacation, they would usually try to delay their arrival home, so that the vacation could be reasonably extended.

It was November, and Wei Guangde went to the magistrate's office to visit the current magistrate about ten days after arriving home, gave him some gifts, and went through the necessary procedures.

And on this day, a huge fleet was moored outside Zhoushan Cengang, and in the center of the fleet was a huge sea-going ship.

On Zhoushan Island not far away, a group of people were boarding a sea boat.

"Master Xia, you have to think twice. The big pirate Wang Zhi is across from you, and he kills without blinking an eye."

At this time, the last official in the group of people who boarded the ship, wearing the uniform of a fourth-grade imperial military attache, was saying goodbye to those who were seeing him off.

The speaker was the magistrate of Dinghai County. He was also wearing the uniform of a seventh-grade official. He just stared at Mr. Xia and wanted to continue persuading him, but Mr. Xia waved his hand.

"Master Tutang is destined, I must make this trip."

Mr. Xia smiled and said to the Dinghai magistrate, "Besides, I have met Wang Zhi before. If he were really in danger, I wouldn't be alive now."

After saying a few words, Master Xia stepped onto the steps and boarded the ship.

The ship left the dock and turned around to sail towards the fleet outside the port. At this time, the expression on the face of the magistrate of Dinghai changed, with a slight chill, and the corner of his mouth curled up with disdain, "This Xia Zheng really doesn't know how to live or die, what? Master Tutang, you can’t even understand what kind of person Hu Zongxian is, huh."

After sneering a few times, the magistrate of Dinghai County turned around and ordered his subordinates: "Bring the sedan here, let's go back."

For the middle and lower class officials and local gentry of this era, Hu Zongxian's reputation was completely ruined when he wiped out the big Japanese pirates Xu Hai.

Most of the people's dissatisfaction with Hu Zongxian before was due to his increased taxes and commercial taxes, but because this was approved by the court, they could only curse a few words in their hearts.

But after he deceived Xu Hai with cunning tricks, especially after Xu Hai's wife committed suicide by drowning herself in the sea, the moral stain became a black history that could not be erased from Hu Zongxian's life, and it also gave the people below finally an excuse to complain.

It should be said that Hu Zongxian did go back on his words and was extremely shameless in his treatment of Xu Hai. Although it is said that the person behind it was Zhao Wenhua, who designed this matter in order to win the credit for annihilating the Japanese pirates, but in any case, the person who actually did it was Hu Zongxian. .

In fact, at this time, most of the lower-level officials no longer trusted Hu Zongxian, and only those generals whose names were left in the merit book were very humble and obedient to Hu Zongxian when they received rewards for this matter.

As for the fleet outside the harbor, it is naturally Wang Zhi, the largest Japanese pirate force in the Ming Dynasty.

Beginning in the 34th year of Jiajing, Hu Zongxian asked to send Ningbo students Jiang Zhou, Chen Ke and others to Japan to persuade Wang Zhi to surrender. Of course, the students would not go in vain and do some business along the way, which was also allowed by the government. project.

Jiang Zhou, Chen Ke and others met Wang Zhi himself through Wang Zhi's adopted son Mao Haifeng, and successfully persuaded Wang Zhi to submit to the imperial court and allow him to continue trading tribute and trade with Japan.

Later contacts with Wang Zhi, including Wang Zhi's disclosure of the whereabouts of Xu Hai and other Japanese pirate forces to the Ming court for advance deployment and prevention, were all handled by the commander Xia Zheng.

This time Wang Zhi led the fleet back to the Ming Dynasty, of course not to plunder, but to surrender. However, after the fleet arrived at Cengang, Zhoushan, Wang Zhi hesitated.

Speaking of which, Wang Zhi and Hu Zongxian are fellow villagers, both from Huizhou Prefecture. In the 19th year of Jiajing, they went out to sea to engage in smuggling trade and gradually developed into the first armed sea merchant of the Ming Dynasty.

During the period when Japanese pirates were rampant, Wang Zhi's family was naturally arrested and imprisoned by the court. When Hu Zongxian was appointed as the governor of Zhejiang, he sent people to release Wang Zhi's family and arranged for them to live in Hangzhou.

This is actually one of the main reasons why he gained Wang Zhi's trust.

Seeing that the opportunity to disintegrate the largest group of Japanese pirates in the Ming Dynasty's sea border was right in front of him, Hu Zongxian naturally couldn't sit still and immediately sent Xia Zheng to persuade Wang Zhi so that Wang Zhi could go to Hangzhou with confidence.

Therefore, the scene just now happened.

What Xia Zheng didn't know was that Hu Zongxian sent him to persuade Wang Zhi to surrender, and on the other hand, in order to be safe and prevent Wang Zhi from pretending to surrender and attacking the coastal prefectures and counties of Zhejiang, he also secretly mobilized the troops of Lieutenant General Qi Jiguang and others to be on high alert.

Xia Zheng's boat sailed out of Cen Port and approached Wang Zhi's fleet. After he raised the flag to show his identity, he was naturally led into the fleet quickly.

Wei Guangde didn't know all this. At this time, he was drinking and chatting happily with the prefect of Jiujiang.

Although Wei Guangde was only a sixth-rank official, several levels lower than the fifth-rank of the prefect, he still had the sign of the emperor's favorite minister on his head, and he was also a noble Hanlin. For such a promising young official, the prefect of Jiujiang would naturally not put on any airs in front of him, because he was a Beijing official.

As for Wei Guangde's identity as the future son-in-law of Xu Pengju, Duke of Wei, in fact, he was not taken seriously by the civil servants.

They didn't know what was happening on the sea thousands of miles away, and the trapping and eventual killing of Wang Zhi also triggered a larger-scale and bloodier Japanese riot along the coast of Daming in the future.

Xia Zheng's trip was naturally fruitless. Wang Zhi had power at sea, and there were countless sea merchants on land who secretly provided him with intelligence. In fact, Wang Zhi had already received the news when Qi Jiguang and other generals were secretly transferred.

Seeing that the government troops were on guard, Wang Zhi refused to go ashore, but sent his adopted son Mao Haifeng to follow Xia Zheng to meet Hu Zongxian.

Hu Zongxian naturally couldn't sit still in the face of the great merit that was within his reach, so he arranged for Zhejiang General Lu Tong to travel on Wang Zhi's boat, promised him the title of governor, and acted in charge of the sea market, forged an amnesty edict to pardon Wang Zhi's crimes to calm his heart, and took the commander Xia Zheng as a hostage.

Wei Guangde followed his elder brother to leave Jiujiang Prefecture again and went to Nanjing to marry Xu Jianglan, the daughter of the Duke of Wei. In the governor's office in Hangzhou, the governor of Jiangnan, Hu Zongxian, finally met the great pirate Wang Zhi himself in his own territory.

In front of the high-ranking official Hou Lu and the pardon edict, Wang Zhi finally put aside his last worries and went to see Hu Zongxian with his subordinates Ye Zongman and Wang Qingxi.

Hu Zongxian was overjoyed. He not only arranged wine and food immediately, but also invited local officials from Hangzhou to accompany him.

Recruiting Wang Zhi was a great achievement for Hu Zongxian at this time. Since then, there has been no large-scale Japanese pirate forces on the Ming Dynasty's sea borders, and the great cause of pacifying the Japanese pirates seems to have been accomplished.

In his joy, while entertaining Wang Zhi and the officials of Hangzhou, Hu Zongxian took the time to go to the back hall and write a letter of report, claiming that he had captured the pirate leader Wang Zhi.

As for Wang Zhi and his group outside, Hu Zongxian used a polite detention to release Wang Zhi, arranged a room in the governor's office, and ordered local officials to take turns to feast with him.

After finally leading Wang Zhi to the shore, Hu Zongxian naturally would not let him go easily.

Although the memorial also stated that Wang Zhi was willing to make meritorious contributions while serving his sentence, and expressed his willingness to be loyal to the court and join the army to fight against the Japanese pirates, Hu Zongxian himself had no idea what the result would be when the memorial arrived in the capital.

Along with the memorial, there was also a letter to Yan Song, the capital. Now that Zhao Wenhua has fallen, as a former staunch supporter, no matter what interests Hu Zongxian and Zhao Wenhua had linked together, the previous relationship had been invalidated.

Fortunately, through Zhao Wenhua, Hu Zongxian also got in touch with Yan Ge Lao, otherwise he, the governor of Zhejiang, would not have become the governor-general of Jiangnan so easily and take charge of the entire anti-Japanese military affairs.

Wei Guangde's wedding fleet arrived in Nanjing on time the day before the wedding, and the journey was smooth.

They lived in the other courtyard of the Duke of Wei's mansion outside the city, waiting to enter the city the next day to get married.

The last time he came to Nanjing, Wei Guangde's whereabouts were kept secret from Duke of Wei Xu Pengju, so this time he naturally couldn't keep hiding.

On the day they arrived in Nanjing, Wei Wencai took Wei Guangde to meet Xu Pengju, Duke of Wei.

Xu Pengju was in his forties. When Wei Guangde first met Xu Pengju, he secretly praised him in his heart, saying, "Old handsome guy."

Most of the later generations who wrote about Xu Pengju mocked his pen name Pengju and tarnished Yue Fei's reputation, because his talent was really a bit hard to describe.

However, when Wei Guangde met his father-in-law this time, he saw that he spoke and acted in a methodical manner, and there was no sign of his lack of ability at all.

It was also the first time that Xu Pengju saw his son-in-law, and he was generally satisfied. After a few words of greeting, he introduced his family members to Wei Guangde one by one, of course, not including his daughter Xu Jianglan.

At this time, the young couple could not meet.

Wei Guangde also saw Zheng, the concubine that Xu Pengju insisted on promoting to the main wife, for the first time. She was really good-looking. Although she was already a woman, she still exuded an irresistible charm.

The reason why Xu Pengju arranged for Zheng to appear on this occasion was because she was nominally the stepmother of Xu Bangrui and Xu Jianglan.

Although the two siblings did not recognize Zheng's identity, they did not dare to act presumptuously under the imperial edict.

Afterwards, the two brothers Xu Bangrui and Xu Bangning met Xu Bangrui. They also pretended to meet Xu Bangrui for the first time, greeted each other with a few words, and their attitude towards Xu Bangning was similar to Xu Bangrui's, and they did not show anything unusual.

On the second day, with the sound of firecrackers and the sound of suonas, a large group of bride-grooming processions dressed in red festive clothes set off from a courtyard outside Nanjing City and entered Nanjing City, arriving at the gate of Duke Wei's Mansion.

At this time, outside the gate of Wei Guogong's mansion, the ground was covered with red from setting off firecrackers.

Both the Wei family and the Xu family had ample preparation time for this wedding, so it was naturally very lively and festive. Wedding money wrapped in red paper was constantly thrown to the crowd of onlookers. Almost all the officials in Nanjing came to the Wei Guogong Mansion. , even the sincere uncle Liu Shiyan, who had a very bad relationship with the Duke of Wei, also came, but looked at Wei Guangde who was smiling with an unkind expression.

He came here in person, naturally he didn't want to cause trouble. At this time, there was a quarrel with Wei Guogong's family. Let alone Nanjing, even if he arrived in Beijing, he would not be able to do well, not to mention that some things were just acting.

I came here in person because everyone is a distinguished person, and they can perform a full set of performances, but they can't go too far.

With Wei Guangde's current favor in front of Emperor Jiajing, I am afraid that if there is real trouble, Emperor Jiajing will remove his title for a few more years.

Wei Guangde didn't know what happened in the inner courtyard. Anyway, he successfully picked up the bride Xu Jianglan from the Duke of Wei's mansion and sent her into an eight-carriage sedan.

Amidst the noisy sound of firecrackers, the wedding team returned.

Of course they would not return to the other courtyard, but went directly to the riverside, where several large boats accompanying Wei Guangde were ready. The wedding team and the bride's dowry were carried onto the large boats in an orderly manner.

Wei Guangde followed his eldest brother and stood behind his wife's brother Xu Bangrui, looking back at the city of Nanjing that was gradually receding.

Xu Bangrui was going to send off his bride, so it was impossible to just hand the girl over to Wei Guangde and be done with it. The wedding banquet had already been held at home, which was hosted by his father Xu Pengju himself, and the second son Xu Bangning was welcomed and sent off.

"Brother wife, don't think too much. No matter what they do, the position in the end will always be yours."

Wei Guangde whispered in Xu Bangrui's ear.

"Um?"

Xu Bangrui was a little surprised why Wei Guangde was so direct.

"Before, I was worried about my father-in-law's poor health, but when I saw him today, hehe."

Wei Guangde chuckled.