"Does the great official also have an official position?"

Caixia asked in confusion, "Is your official rank high?"

"Generally speaking, he should be a little bit older than that Shi County Magistrate."

Zhao Jun thought about it.

In the Song Dynasty, the magistrate's official who provided him with a salary was generally of the seventh rank, and he himself was of the first rank, so it was indeed a little bit higher.

Fang Caixia obviously didn't know the significance of what the other party said. She thought it was the county magistrate's superior, the Tongpan or the prefect, and was overjoyed.

After a while, Jiang Dalang brought several teams of imperial guards, about forty or more than fifty imperial guards, who rushed into the village, broke into the Zhou family, and arrested the Zhou family members.

The leader of the Wang family was a steward of the landlord Wang. After being released by Zhao Jun, he immediately drove his carriage towards Ling County without stopping.

They had brought a carriage with them when they arrived, intending to transport the body back, but they hadn't expected it to be put to good use. Although the horses were only slow, they were still faster than walking. With full force, they whipped the carriage hard, and after a distance of more than thirty miles, they reached Lu County in less than an hour.

It was a little after five in the afternoon. The housekeeper hurried back to the mansion of the landlord Wang and reported the matter to him.

When the landlord Wang learned that Cheng Yaojin had appeared out of nowhere, he was furious and immediately went to the county government office to find County Magistrate Shi, hoping that he would bring the bailiffs and his own servants to cause trouble for the other party.

In fact, County Magistrate Shi's relationship with Landlord Wang was just so-so. After all, the county magistrate was a temporary official, and the mobility of officials in the Song Dynasty was too high. A county magistrate, prefect, etc. usually would not serve in a local position for more than two years, so there was really no need to cultivate too deep interpersonal relationships.

But there is a problem. The younger brother of the landlord Wang is a Jinshi in the third year of Tiansheng. Although he is only a fourth-class Jinshi, he has been in officialdom for so many years and is currently serving as a prefect in another place. Moreover, he has a good relationship with the current Bozhou prefect Guo Chengyou, who occasionally visits the Wang family.

Furthermore, the landlord Wang was quite a good person, often donating money or sending valuable gifts. Therefore, considering this relationship and the gifts, County Magistrate Shi had generally turned a blind eye to the Wang family's misdeeds in the past, and would try to protect them in the lawsuit.

But now the landlord Wang asked him to take the yamen runners to arrest people, as if the government office was run by his family, and he directly ordered them around, which made County Magistrate Shi very unhappy.

However, considering that the landlord Wang had recently lost his son and might have lost his mind in anger, the county magistrate could only understand.

It happened that the canal was blocked again at noon, and someone had already reported it to the county. County Magistrate Shi thought that even for the sake of Prefect Guo, it would be a good opportunity to solve both problems at once, so he agreed to the request of Landlord Wang and personally led people there.

There was no time to lose. Before it got completely dark, the county magistrate and the landlord Wang led a hundred people and rushed towards the village where Zhao Jun was.

(End of this chapter)

2015