The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 725

In Shexian County, Huizhou Prefecture, Wang Zhi was overwhelmed by the choices when he looked at the birth dates, portraits, and family backgrounds of the women brought by the matchmakers.

Among them were even the birth date and portrait of the youngest daughter of the prefect of Huizhou. The magistrate of Shexian County was naturally involved. Although he did not have a daughter of marriageable age, he was quick-witted. After learning that Wang Zhi was arranging a marriage, he immediately adopted a niece from his own family and sent a letter to the Wang family.

“Honghai, the prefect has sent an invitation. What a great honor! If we can form a marriage alliance with the prefect, who in Huizhou Prefecture will dare to provoke our Wang family in the future?”

At this time, some of the elders of the Wang family, including Wang Zhi's second and third grandfathers, were present. When they learned that the prefect and the county magistrate wanted to form a marriage alliance with the Wang family, they could no longer sit still and came directly to Wang Zhi, trying to persuade him to marry the prefect's daughter.

After all, although Wang Zhi was a general, he was stationed in Japan for many years. As the saying goes, a local official is more powerful than a distant one. The prefect of Huizhou Prefecture still had the final say. Moreover, the prefect had been in charge of Huizhou Prefecture for many years, and many things could be decided with just a word from him.

Wang Zhi naturally understood their intentions: they wanted to benefit from the prefect's influence and arrange for their descendants to work in the government, so that they could rest easy.

If Wang Zhi hadn't asked Zhou Chu before returning to Shexian, what kind of woman he should marry if he were to get married, Wang Zhi might have chosen the prefect's daughter without hesitation. But Zhou Chu's words made Wang Zhi abandon that idea.

"If you want to get married, you can either marry a girl from an ordinary family or a member of the royal family. Nowadays, there are basically no suitable candidates among the royal family."

These are Zhou Chu's original words.

When Wang Zhi heard this, he was puzzled and didn't understand why Lord Zhou would say that.

Zhou Chu naturally noticed Wang Zhi's confusion.

“Once the news of your marriage is released, many officials will definitely want to curry favor with you. However, your position is special, guarding Japan, and the interests involved are too huge. Those officials who want to curry favor with you, regardless of whether they had other intentions at first, will inevitably develop some inappropriate thoughts over time. Japan is a gold mine, how could they not be tempted?”

Zhou Chu stopped there.

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhi was instantly enlightened and understood what Lord Zhou meant. If these people had designs on the silver mines in Japan, or even their business in Japan, and wanted him to do something underhanded or send their people there, should he do it or not?

Or to put it another way, he might have refused at first, but these people kept talking about it over the years, or had his future wife constantly whispering in his ear, and Wang Zhi was really afraid that he would make a mistake.

Therefore, Wang Zhi had no intention of considering the daughters of the prefect and the magistrate, but he couldn't directly offend his elders, so he was in a dilemma.

"Second Uncle, Third Uncle, let Honghai decide this matter himself. We, as elders, shouldn't interfere. With Honghai's current status, that prefect is nothing. To put it bluntly, the prefect is just a fourth-rank official, while Honghai is a second-rank official. There's a difference of three ranks. With Honghai around, no one in Huizhou Prefecture will dare to provoke our Wang family."

Wang Zhen, who was standing to the side, naturally saw his nephew's predicament and stepped in to help him out.

Upon hearing this, the two old men exchanged a glance. They understood that given Wang Zhi's current status, they couldn't act like elders and rely on their seniority. Otherwise, if things got tense, they would suffer great losses.

In front of Wang Zhi now, the entire Wang family, including the older generation, had to speak softly and gently, not daring to act like elders.