"Miss Qiaoqiao, Mr. Zhang lost the knife to save me. Please pass it on to him as a thank you gift from me."

"Zhang Shiba lost his father's knife?" Lin Pingping next to him was shocked, "Sister! What's going on?"

Lin Qiaoqiao glared at her and smiled at Cui Ning and said, "This is a girl who is a pungent girl. She came from her hometown the day before yesterday. She spoke without any restraint. Please don't blame me."

Cui Ning heard Lin Pingping's tone and seemed to be very important. She apologized and bowed to her and said, "Miss Pingping, Mr. Zhang lost the knife to save me. I'm so sorry!"

"Nothing! Nothing!" Lin Pingping scratched the back of his head embarrassedly and smiled: "That broken knife, when I was a child, my father even beat me. It would be best if I lost it, I wouldn't have a pity!"

As she said that, she took the knife from her sister, pulled out the sheath, her eyes lit up, and she praised, "Good knife!" She pulled a knife flower and chopped two steps. Several guards knew the sword was powerful, so they hurriedly hid back. The knife was too heavy. She danced twice and felt a little sore, and she chopped it to a small tree at the door. "Crack!" The small tree was cut into two pieces, and fell down with a bang, almost hitting the shopkeeper who had just come out.

"Mrs. Ping, today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. If you don't learn what you want, you will learn from those reckless men who are playing with swords and guns..."

The shopkeeper slapped the dust on his body while complaining. When he looked up, he saw that the soldiers in the armored area were staring at him fiercely. He was so scared that he swallowed the second half of the sentence back, and turned around and ran back in a panic.

"You are the lady of an official family!" Pingping couldn't help asking when he saw Cui Ning was protected by hundreds of guards.

"Yes, my name is Cui Ning."

Seeing that she was so cheerful, Cui Ning couldn't help but like her. After thinking about it, she pulled out a peony golden hairpin from her head and handed it to Lin Pingping and said, "I'm going to meet for the first time, I'll give this to you!"

"Miss can't do it!" Lin Qiaoqiao saw that the peony flowers were made of pure gold, especially the flower core was a sapphire the size of a finger, dazzling, so she quickly stopped it, but Lin Pingping didn't care. Seeing that the golden hairpin was extremely exquisite, she was happy in her heart, so she took it without hesitation, but took the small bronze mirror on her waist and handed it to Cui Ning and said, "This is for you!"

The guards next to them couldn't help but cover their mouths and laughed out loud, but Cui Ning took the bronze mirror with both hands and thanked Lin Pingping sincerely. She turned around and said coldly to the guards: "The things are not about the high and low, but about the heart. You men know that loyalty is the first, but why should you laugh at a woman?"

All the guards looked ashamed and bowed to apologize together: "Miss is right to teach her a lesson!"

Cui Ning saw that she stood at the door and talked for a long time but didn't see Zhang Huan come out. She was extremely disappointed, but she didn't dare to ask more questions. At this time, Lin Pingping inserted the golden hairpin into her hair and smiled and said, "I'll show Zhang Shiba."

But after walking two steps, she suddenly remembered something and couldn't help but say depressedly: "I forgot that Zhang Shiba has gone out."

Cui Ning felt a heart. When she saw Lin Pingping having one Zhang Shiba on the left and one Zhang Shiba on the right, she suddenly remembered that he had asked her to call him like this, so she asked her tentatively, "Miss Pingping, why do you call Mr. Zhang Shiba?"

Lin Pingping laughed, "I have called him like this since I was a child. He refused at first, but later he was afraid of being beaten by me, so he had to make sure!"

Cui Ning felt a sweet feeling in her heart. She got onto the carriage with her spirits, and leaned her head to wave to Lin Pingping and smiled: "Miss Pingping, welcome to come and play with me!"

Seeing Cui Ning's carriage disappear, Pingping asked Lin Qiaoqiao happily: "Sister, who is she? I like it very much."

"She! She is as stupid as you, go and ask Zhang Shiba!" Lin Qiaoqiao stuffed the knife to her and left, leaving only a confused Pingping.

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Zhang Huan went out to pay New Year's greetings early in the morning, but not to the mansion of the head of the family, but to the mansion of the Grand Tutor Zhang Potian. Although Zhang Potian was also a concubine's son, he was a little different from Zhang Huan. Zhang Potian's father was the concubine's son of the Zhang family, and he was also the concubine's son of his father. His mother was a maid and died soon after he gave birth to him. He lived alone in the outermost area of ​​the Zhang family since he was a child, and it happened to be the house where Zhang Huan lived. He grew up to eighteen years old and didn't even have a name.

Later, the Anshi Rebellion broke out, and he ran to join Li Guangbi's army. During the Taiyuan Counterattack, he led his forty brothers from the tunnel to the general's tent of Shi Siming, making the most critical contribution to Li Guangbi's defeat of Shi Siming's 100,000 troops with 5,000 troops. He was promoted to a partial general and named "Potian" by Li Guangbi, which means breaking the sky from the tunnel.

In the later wars, he made many military achievements and gradually became promoted. In the late period of the Anshi Rebellion, Li Guangbi was frightened by the eunuchs in the army and died of illness. His generals were disbanded. He was also named the deputy envoy of the Hezhong Jiedushi.

Soon, the Uighur army attacked Tang, and Zhang Potian also led his troops to Shaanxi County to gather. Unfortunately, Yu Chaoen failed to command, and the main force of the Tang army was defeated by the Uighur army. Zhang Potian collected tens of thousands of defeated troops and returned to Taiyuan, and defeated the Uighur cavalry three times in Changshan County. He eventually founded the Hedong Army, making great contributions to the Zhang family's seven major families.

As for the reason why he was later disobedient by the legitimate sons of the Zhang family, he broke up with the Zhang family in anger. Zhang Potian no longer wanted to mention these things to Zhang Huan again.

"Zhang Ruohao's willingness to abolish the rules that the legitimate son cannot inherit the head of the family means that he still has some vision and courage, but this is just the beginning, and the real contest is still behind."

Zhang Potian poured Zhang Huan a glass of wine and smiled faintly: "Actually, Zhang Ruohao made this decision because he was forced to do so. You don't know how serious the Zhang family's crisis is."

Zhang Huan drank the wine silently and filled Zhang Potian with a glass of wine. Zhang Potian picked up the wine glass and sighed: "In addition to the old Wu who died early, the other five Jin, Feng, Qiang, and Jun, there are not many wives and concubines, and Zhang Ruohao's father and brothers. In this way, there are more than fifty legitimate sons in your generation. How could they allow the concubine son to inherit the position of head of the family? But this is still a trivial matter. The key is that the Wang family and the Cui family have interfered. This is the real crisis of the Zhang family."

Zhang Huan nodded and said, "A few months ago, the head of the family ordered me to take charge of finance. I found that Zhang Ruofeng had allocated 400,000 yuan to the Wang family. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg."

"That stupid Zhang Ruofeng thought he was smart, but in fact he was pinched in his hand by Wang Yanluo." Zhang Potian said coldly: "Do you know where the money went in the end? Tell you that it was Shandong, which fell into the pocket of the Cui family to support his 150,000 Shandong troops. In the end, the Zhang family had no money to recruit soldiers. Cui Yuan's methods are not something you can understand. Killing people with a knife has always been his method."

Speaking of this, Zhang Potian got up and closed the study door. When he came back, he lowered his voice and said to Zhang Huan: "I will tell you a secret of the Zhang family. The so-called eldest son Zhang Xuan is most likely not Zhang Ruohao's biological son."

"Are you talking about... he is the son of Uncle Third?" Zhang Huan suddenly thought of Zhang Ruofeng.

"No! Things are not that simple." Zhang Potian shook his head gently, "Wang Yanluo seduced Zhang Ruofeng. That was after Zhang Ruohao became the Minister of Rites. Zhang Xuan was ten years old at that time. In fact, many elders knew that twenty-five years ago, Wang Yanluo gave birth to Zhang Xuan only seven months ago. At that time, the Wang family insisted that it was premature birth, and the midwife also said it was premature birth. However, after only three months, the midwife drowned and died of drowning. It was really strange!"

"Isn't the wedding night of the family leader marrying Wang Yanluo? " Zhang Huan asked in his mouth.

"How do I know this?" Zhang Potian shrugged his shoulders and smiled warmly, "It is actually easy if Wang Yanluo is willing to make fakes. Moreover, Zhang Ruohao was still young at that time, so he couldn't imagine so many."

Zhang Huan nodded silently, probably because the head of the family knew it, so he was so cold to them and their son.

Zhang Potian glanced at him and continued, "What I just said about Zhang's real crisis is here. The Zhang family has no army. If something happens to Wang Yanluo and his son, Wang Ang can threaten with force under Cui Yuan's instructions. Zhang Ruohao has seen this a long time ago, so he took advantage of Cui Yuan's opportunity to concentrate on his re-elected right prime minister and suddenly went home to visit relatives, setting off this storm of the head of the family. He was actually betting that Cui Yuan did not dare to attack the Zhang family at this sensitive time."

"But..." Zhang Huan hesitated and said, "But I don't understand why the head of the family fell in love with me? Before that, I was unknown. He could have made another legitimate son, so that he could avoid many unnecessary troubles."

"You are right! This is something I have never figured out. I also know that you are very good in the academy, but this is really insignificant compared to the price you have to pay for establishing a son. With Zhang Ruohao's foresight, he would not have thought of it, so there must be another reason for this."

Zhang Potian gradually fell into deep thought. After a while, he shook his head and smiled, then patted Zhang Huan on the shoulder and encouraged him: "No matter what, I will regard you as the hope of revitalizing my Zhang family. The New Year will be in a few days. This incident of Cui Xiong's victory in me will inevitably become the focus of the struggle. I hope you will hold your head up so that everyone in the world will see that the future head of the Zhang family is you."

Zhang Huan drank the wine in the glass in one go, squinted his eyes and said slowly: "Please rest assured uncle, I will never back down!"

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Chapter completed!