Liu An invited Hou Qing and Hou Gonglian, the heads of the Jiuyuan Hou clan.

Before this, Liu An had investigated clearly and found out that the Hou family was only a small clan in Jiuyuan, with no more than 200 servants in the family.

However, the Jiuyuan wealthy clan has long been connected with the same spirit. They are both prosperous and destructive. Even if they are just a small clan, Liu An cannot move lightly.

A single move can affect the whole body. If Liu An touches Hou Qing, it will inevitably trigger a counterattack from the entire Jiuyuan and even the entire Wuyuan County wealthy family.

Therefore, Liu An invited Hou Qing just for a drink.

In addition, Liu An also investigated that this person loved silk very much and liked to collect silk of various colors, and then made it into the style he liked and wore it on his body.

This is also the reason why Liu An chose him from more than thirty small families in Wuyuan County.

Hou Qing is not a fool. He does not hold any position in the county, nor has he had anything to do with the current county magistrate. He has never even met him, but he was suddenly invited to drink.

Anyone who is not a fool can see that there is something fishy in it.

As the saying goes, when things go wrong, there must be a monster.

In order to take precautions, Hou Qing brought ten young men with strong skills and good martial arts, all wearing weapons, to Liu An's manor outside the city for a banquet.

It is said to be a manor, but in fact it is just a house built with stone walls and wooden houses.

When Liu An saw Hou Qing bringing ten strong armed men to the banquet, he knew that he was wary of him.

But it doesn't matter, this is exactly the result he wants.

The first thing they did when they met was that Liu An checked Hou Qing's strength and felt relieved when he saw that his strength was less than thirty.

Although Hou Qing's bodyguards were all armed with weapons, he himself was not and only wore luxurious and cool silk clothes.

Now that it is June, the weather is getting hotter and hotter. Silk clothes were the most refreshing and cool clothes in Han Dynasty.

Liu An saw that Hou Qing did not bring any weapons and his force value was low, so he stepped forward to entertain him warmly.

He took Hou Qing into the living room of his new house and asked him to taste the silk he had brought from the Central Plains.

In the living room, Liu An had placed the other three silk pieces from the set of silks that he had given to the prefect Lin Fang. After taking Hou Qing into the living room, Liu An went straight to the silk.

Picking up the blue silk, Liu An said to Hou Qing: "I heard that Gong Lian is a recognized master of silk appreciation in the entire Wuyuan. I took the liberty of inviting Gong Lian to come and taste it. I hope Gong Lian won't be surprised."

When Hou Qing saw the silk on the table, he concentrated all his energy on it.

At this moment, he had long forgotten that he was in the crisis-ridden county magistrate's house. Hearing Liu An's words, he came to his senses and immediately understood why Liu An suddenly found him, and his wariness could not help but diminish a little.

"It's an honor for me to be invited by the county magistrate. How can I blame you?"

"That's good." Liu An said with a relieved look, and then handed the silk to Hou Qing, "Gong Lian, how about this silk?"

The quality of the silk produced by the system goes without saying. As a silk collector, Hou Qing has read countless silks in his life, but he has never seen silk of such high quality.

Of course, after all, Hou Qing is just a small tribe leader in a border county, and his knowledge is not comparable to that of the shopkeeper of Lu's clothing store. Even though he loves silk, he has not seen many types of silk, but only in Wuyuan.

The county just has a bit of a reputation.

In his stunning words, Liu Anxin said with satisfaction: "I am very happy to be praised so much by everyone. I still have some silk like this. I heard that Gong Lian was happy to make silk into clothes. So,

I will make these three pieces of silk into clothes and give them to Gong Lian, come on!"

Liu An called out the door, and then several maids came in with measuring tools.

"Measure Gonglian and make these three pieces of silk into clothes overnight. I will give them to Gonglian tomorrow."

"Nuo~" The little maids responded softly, feeling blessed, and then stepped forward to measure Hou Qing's size.

Hou Qing looked embarrassed, "How can this happen? I just told a few truths, how can I accept such a great gift from County Magistrate Liu?"

As he said this, Hou Qing's body cooperated very well and allowed the maid to measure him.

Liu Andao said: "I am in love with Gonglian and treat him as a friend. Gonglian must not be so indifferent. Just call me by your nickname."

Liu An's cousin was named Changsheng. If one official in the county knew about it, it would be no different from the fact that all the powerful officials in the county knew about it.

Even if Liu An didn't introduce himself, Hou Qing would have known about it.

"This, this..." Hou Qing hesitated for a while, and when he saw that Liu An's expression didn't seem to be fake, he finally said: "You will be lucky to be recognized by Immortal in the next three lives."

Liu An saw that the maid had finished measuring, and waved her hand, indicating that she should take the silk and leave quickly.

He had already found some women who were skilled in women's work in advance, and paid a high price to ask them to stay up late to make three pieces of silk into three sets of clothes of different styles.

Then Liu An asked his men to bring wine and food, and he and Hou Qing had a drink.

During the meal, Liu An handed over the only pack of thirteen incense he brought to the cook and asked him to make a delicious dish.

This country bumpkin from the county of Hou Qing had never tasted such delicious food. His mouth was filled with mellow aroma, and even the wine in his glass was much more mellow than before.

The two drank a lot of wine from early evening until late at night.

Before Hou Qing was completely drunk and passed out, Liu An warmly invited Hou Qing to stay overnight.

Hou Qing and Liu An had been drinking all night, traveling from the south to the north, enjoying seafood and delicacies. They had already become familiar with each other, and they had no objection to Liu An's invitation to stay overnight.

He selected one of the guards who had been guarding the hall and asked him to go home and give a notice that he would not go back that night.

Although the city gate was closed at this time, Hou Qing, as one of the powerful men, would naturally open the door and let his men go back to report the news.

However, Liu An said that his bodyguards had been waiting around and had not eaten yet. He proposed to send his men to deliver the message, and arranged dinner and accommodation for Hou Qing's bodyguards so that they could rest.

Hou Qing shook his dizzy head, looked at the guards in the hall who had longing expressions on their faces due to their fasting, and agreed to Liu An's proposal.

Liu An must settle the matter while Hou Qing is awake, otherwise when he passes out, his subordinates will never listen to him and go home to report the whereabouts of the family leader. In this way, Liu An cannot operate secretly.

Seeing Hou Qing nod, Liu An called someone to deliver a message to Hou Qing's house. At the same time, he asked Liu Bei to arrange food and lodging for Hou Qing's guards. Then Liu An continued to make Hou Qing drink.

After drinking for another quarter of an hour, Hou Qing finally couldn't hold on any longer and fell asleep on the table.

Seeing this, Liu An drunkenly called Hou Qing several times. Seeing that he still didn't wake up, he staggered up and pretended to go to the latrine.

When he came outside, Liu An asked his men to bring him a basin of cold water, washed his face, and felt a little more awake, and asked his men to find Liu Bei.

Seeing Liu Bei, Liu An asked directly: "How are things going?"

Liu Bei said: "I have arranged for someone to go to the city and told him all the details. After Bei checked, he can memorize the planning process skillfully."

"Yes." Liu An nodded, and then said: "Closely monitor the movements of Hou Qing's family, and report to me immediately if there are any movements."

"No!" Liu Bei bowed his hands and stepped back.

After that, Liu An asked someone to take Hou Qing to the wing to rest, and he went back to his residence in the new house to rest.

In order to lower Hou Qing's vigilance, he also drank a lot of wine, and his consciousness was no longer clear at this time.

At this time, at Hou Qing's house in Jiuyuan City, Hou Qing's wife saw that it was getting late and her husband still hadn't returned, and she didn't send anyone home to report the news, so she was already in chaos.

He called all the key members of the family to discuss it. Several hours had passed since Hou Qing was invited by the county magistrate, and it was already dark and there was no news. Everyone doubted whether the head of the family had been killed.

So after some discussion, they decided to send someone to inform the other clan leaders about the matter, ask for help, and then forcefully break into the county chief's manor to look for Hou Qing.

The Hou family sent many people to the house of the clan leader who had a good relationship with Hou Qing late at night to inform them of the matter.

However, they did not believe that the new county magistrate dared to risk the disobedience of the world and secretly kill Hou Qing. They asked the Hou family to wait one more night. If there was no news about Hou Qing tomorrow morning, they would come to ask for him.

The Hou family had no choice but to go back and tell their mistress the result. Hou Qing's wife was a woman with no independent opinions. Although she was worried about her husband, she still chose to follow the decisions of other clan leaders and went to ask for someone early the next morning.

The next day, early in the morning, while Liu An was still sleeping, someone came to report that the Hou family came to ask for someone.

Liu An ordered that no one should be allowed in, and there was no need to explain to them, but no one should be hurt.

Outside Liu An's house, the Hou family was blocked by Liu An's guards with knives. However, anyone who tried to break in would have the knife held to their necks, which frightened the Hou family so much that they did not dare to break in.

They are few in number, Liu An has a hundred guards, and all of them are strong. They are just a group of servants, who are no match for Liu An's guards.

However, no one of Liu An's guards was injured. The intruder was taken down, tied up with a rope, and guarded.

Liu An was hosting Hou Qing in the inner courtyard, and his guards were all arranged in the inner courtyard. However, they had no idea what was going on at the door.

After being woken up by his men, Liu An simply stopped sleeping. He got up and washed himself, then went to check on Hou Qing. Seeing that he was still sleeping, he exited the room and asked his surroundings to wait until Hou Qing woke up. He immediately reported to Hou Qing.

I went to eat by myself.

Hou Qing's guards were already awake. Liu An arranged breakfast for them to eat in the inner courtyard. He also arranged ten people to handle the inner courtyard and prevented Hou Qing's guards from leaving the inner courtyard.

At this time, the servants of the Hou family, who failed to get the request and were instead kidnapped by Liu An, hurriedly returned to the city and reported the situation to the heads of each family.

When the family heads heard this, they felt that the matter might be serious, so they gathered together to discuss what to do.

After some discussion, the heads of these small families decided to organize their manpower, fight their way into Liu An's manor, capture Liu An, ask about the cause of the matter, and then hand Liu An over to the powerful Zhang family in Wuyuan County.

Disposal of the owner.

The Zhang family is the largest powerful person in Wuyuan County. They have thousands of servants and have been rooted in Wuyuan for hundreds of years. Most powerful people in Wuyuan County follow their lead.

Another powerful man who had thousands of servants at home was Cheng Ze. He was a rising star who only became the captain of Wuyuan in the past two years.

Before that, only the Zhang family was powerful in Wuyuan.

The clan leaders in the city basically knew that Liu An only had a hundred guards. Although the newly recruited local warriors numbered five to six hundred, they had no weapons and were not to be feared.

The weapons they left in the armory for the county magistrate were useless at all, so they were not worried that Liu An would threaten them.

This was one of the reasons why they couldn't believe that Liu An dared to touch them.

Several clan leaders totaled up and brought a total of 300 sword-wielding servants to attack Liu An's manor.
To be continued...