A total of one hundred and sixty acres of land, plus the deed tax paid for the transfer at the Yamen, the two hundred taels were just used up.
But this time, Fang Xiaoyue took out another three hundred taels of silver notes and asked her grandfather to help run errands to continue buying land.
After all, he is now a sixth-grade official, and the Fang family can be considered a serious official family. When buying land, there is no need to follow the unspoken rules of the previous promotion. Any land exceeding two hundred acres is fine.
In fact, as long as it is above the seventh rank and the field does not exceed a thousand acres, there will be no problem.
Of course, he didn't let his grandfather work in vain. Fifty acres of the land belonged to his grandfather, but he was just relying on himself to exempt him from the excessive taxes imposed by the Yamen.
Hearing Fang Xiaoyue's words, Butcher Zhang's hands trembled a little: "This can't be done, it can't be done."
"Dad, just accept it. Mingrui is showing his filial piety. Besides, Yuan Ming is with Mingrui. From now on, if you pass it on to your eldest brother, it will be the same if your eldest brother passes it on to Yuan Ming."
Fang Zhang, who was sitting nearby, saw her father refuse and hurriedly helped.
"Mom is right, not to mention that my grandpa will have to take charge of rebuilding my family's house in the future. My vacation is only one month, and after the Chinese New Year, I must return to Beijing to take up my post."
When Fang Xiaoyue said this, Butcher Zhang responded shyly.
God knows, ever since he became an adult, Butcher Zhang has been very carefree and has never shown such an expression.
Even Fang Zhang almost thought that her father had been replaced.
New houses will be built next to the old houses.
Fang Xiaoyue originally planned to build a house in the county town, but Fang Zhang was unwilling to leave here.
After all, she once spent the best life here with Fang Xiaoyue's father.
Because of this, Fang Xiaoyue even retained the old house in the design of the new house, but used walls to surround both the new house and the old house to form one whole.
Of course, in Daze Country, building a house cannot be done in a day or two, it takes at least three or four months.
The next morning, Magistrate Cui came to visit.
It is easy for the local Bailihou to know whether a top pick has returned.
Looking at Fang Xiaoyue, who is only 15 years old and has a hint of childishness on her face, Magistrate Cui was filled with emotion.
I have to say that life has changed a lot.
It has only been five months since the county examination, but this young man's rank is higher than mine. Even when he meets him, he has to call him "sir" respectfully.
"I don't know what Mr. Fang needs when he returns home to visit his relatives this time. This county will definitely support it."
Magistrate Cui felt that he might need to be associated with this number one scholar in his future life, so he took advantage of the fact that he was still in his hometown to get close to him.
"Thank you to my parents. Everything is fine at home, but I am a little worried about my mother. I would like to ask my parents to take care of her more in the future."
Fang Xiaoyue also saw what Magistrate Cui was thinking, but he really didn't lack anything now. He couldn't possibly have his house repaired by a magistrate, right? Then he really didn't regard the seventh-grade magistrate as an official.
Therefore, his words can be regarded as taking into account the face of County Magistrate Cui.
After exchanging pleasantries, Magistrate Cui left immediately.
To say that he knew that Fang Xiaoyue won the first prize at the Qionglin Banquet and that the poems he wrote were highly praised by the current emperor, it is conceivable that this number one scholar will have a bright future in the future, which is unimaginable.
If possible, he would like to live in the Fang family, but he also knows that the number one scholar has returned to his hometown, and there are countless officials and scholars who want to get close. Although he is the local county magistrate, it is not easy to stay in the Fang family.
Too long.
In fact, as soon as Magistrate Cui left, the magistrate of Kuangluo County immediately came to visit him.
As soon as the county magistrate left, the county captain followed immediately.
Later, there were visits from the chief registrar, edicts, and even Inspector Sun from the Inspection Department.
Even on the third day, even the county governor came from the county town.
It has to be said that Magistrate Cui's prediction is still very accurate.
After the officials came to visit, Fang Xiaoyue was preparing to write a few couplets to her family. Several ministers from Kuangluo County came to visit one after another, and then a large number of scholars came.
This can be said to be a waste of time.
It was difficult for Fang Xiaoyue to turn away people like these who came to visit her. In that case, they would undoubtedly have a bad reputation and would say that the Number One Scholar was aloof and arrogant.
What's more, several of them were test-takers who took the county and provincial examinations together.
This makes it even harder to refuse.
Of course, the only thing that makes Fang Xiaoyue satisfied is that these people never come empty-handed when visiting.
What Fang Xiaoyue said here was that the gifts they brought were valuable.
Especially those officials and civil servants.
Take County Magistrate Cui as an example. In addition to the four-color gifts, he also received a banknote worth two hundred taels of silver.
For Magistrate Cui, this was an amount that he had thought about and settled on, so that he would not appear to be a corrupt official, nor would Fang Xiaoyue feel that it was too little.
The other officials also gave gifts according to their rank, ranging from a hundred taels to a minimum of twenty taels.
As for those who were elected because they were not officials, they seemed more free to give gifts.
Chen Juren, who returned to Longzhuang, directly gave him a land deed for a hundred acres of grain land, and the remaining Juren also gave gifts such as farms and banknotes.
As for those scholars, they are quite shy about what they do, mainly bacon and sausages.
But that’s okay, Fang Xiaoyue prefers sausages and bacon.
But after receiving this gift, he calculated that it was worth more than a thousand taels of silver.
Otherwise, the scholars in Daze Country are working hard to take the scientific examination. If you do well in the examination, your future will be bright, and you can earn a lot just by accepting gifts.
Fortunately, after this wave of visits, there were fewer people behind.
However, the villagers of Yangjiacun came again and asked the number one scholar to write couplets for them, hoping to gain some literary influence.
In this regard, even if Fang Xiaoyue refuses, his mother will agree.
After all, they are all from the village. Many people have taken care of the orphans and widowers of the Fang family in the past. Otherwise, if Fang and Zhang just rely on people to wash clothes, they will probably starve to death. After all, Butcher Zhang is also a family member.
, it is impossible to deliver meat and rice for a long time.
So Fang Xiaoyue specially took an afternoon to set up a table on the empty dam at the head of the village and wrote couplets to the villagers without taking any money.
When the villagers heard that Master Zhuangyuan actually wrote couplets for them for free, the whole Yangjia Village was in a sensation and queued up one after another.
After a short while, a long queue formed in front of Fang Xiaoyue, and even some people from neighboring villages came to queue shamelessly.
No way, opportunities like this are too rare.
Normally, if you want to get the scholar's literary skills, don't even think about it.
But when Fang Xiaoyue was just halfway through writing, several carriages came outside the village. Judging from the way the wheels were pressed into the soil, they probably contained a lot of things.
Fang Xiaoyue was still wondering whose relative was coming back, when she saw a carriage parked at the end of the village. A servant in green jumped out of the carriage, and then helped a gentleman out of the carriage.
Fang Xiaoyue looked familiar, and after a second glance she remembered that it was the wealthy businessman from the provincial capital - Qian Laipeng!
"Master Fang, I am ashamed of myself for coming here without telling you."
Qian Laipeng also saw Fang Xiaoyue, hurriedly shook off the servant's support, came to Fang Xiaoyue, and said with a smile.
"It turns out that Brother Qian is here. Please come to my house to rest first. I'll come back when I'm done here."
Fang Xiaoyue hurriedly asked her cousin Zhang Yuanming to guide Qian Laipeng and his party to her home, while she speeded up writing the couplet.
When he wrote couplets before, he wrote them leisurely and leisurely, just for leisure and entertainment.
Now, when guests come to visit, it is naturally impossible to write slowly.
As for the villagers, they are not dissatisfied with this. After all, it is free No. 1 scholar's writing and ink, so what else are they thinking about?
After hurriedly writing the couplet, Fang Xiaoyue returned home and saw Qian Laipeng's group of servants unloading the goods carried by several carriages.
A variety of valuable gifts.
Fang Xiaoyue glanced around and came up with the answer instantly.
The value will not be less than ten thousand taels of silver!
You must know that in a middle-level county like Kuangluo County, the annual tax revenue is only thirty thousand taels.
The gifts piled up in this yard are equivalent to four months of Kuangluo County's tax money.
"Brother Qian, what are you doing?"
Fang Xiaoyue hurriedly stepped forward and asked.
"It's just a small gift, I hope Brother Fang Xian won't refuse."
Qian Laipeng also climbed along the pole at this time and called Fang Xiaoyue his wise brother.
After Fang Xiaoyue declined, she could only accept this small gift with regret.
Needless to say, Qian Laipeng was very good at getting things done, and most of the gifts he sent were very popular with Fang's mother.
For example, the seven-inch-tall pure gold Buddha statue and the white jade lotus Bodhisattva statue.
These two items alone are worth no less than two thousand five hundred taels of silver.
In addition, there are some gifts that are very suitable for Fang Xiaoyue.
For example, that blank bloodstone seal, ten high-end jade pendants, twenty fine pine ink ingots, etc.
Of course, the most valuable thing is the 5,000-tael Jinbao Bank banknote, which is redeemable nationwide.
Qian Laipeng was also a wonderful man. After visiting Fang's mother, he said goodbye and left without even having lunch.
To be honest, Fang's mother had received a lot of gifts from Fang Xiaoyue before, but these gifts from Qian Laipeng made Fang's mother feel a little trembling.
"Son, will nothing happen if you accept these gifts?"
Mother Fang is always worried about affecting her son's career.
Fang Xiaoyue shook her head: "It's okay, it's just normal business."
During these times, he learned a lot about the officialdom of Daze Country.
To be honest, a gift like Qian Laipeng's gift of tens of thousands taels of silver seems like a lot, but in fact, in the officialdom of Daze Kingdom, it can only be regarded as a small transaction.
Kuangtao Province, on the eastern coast of Daze Country, is rich in salt and has many wealthy salt merchants.
It is said that every time the governor of Kuangtao Province takes office, these salt merchants will give generous gifts, ranging from ten thousand to twenty thousand to fifty to sixty thousand.
Of course, I am not the governor, and Qian Laipeng is not a salt merchant. If I give these generous gifts for no reason, I am afraid I will need to repay a favor in the future.
In the next few days, Fang Xiaoyue had no rest, and some relatives came to her door.
Some of them are from the Fang family, and some are from the Zhang family. They are basically distant relatives whose blood relationship is as far away as five servers.
Don't underestimate the clinging mentality of these people in this era towards a champion.
This can be seen from the county magistrate Fang Changjing.
In fact, Fang Xiaoyue suspected that Fang Changjing had released the news about her return home. Otherwise, how could these distant relatives know that she was back because they never moved around at all?
They came here not to fight against the autumn wind, but to follow Fang Xiaoyue. To put it bluntly, they wanted to be servants who did not need a servant contract.
For example, housekeeper, gardener, concierge and even maid.
This gave him a headache.
You haven't even found a place to live in the capital yet, so why don't you hire a lot of servants first?
To be honest, he was reluctant for the time being, but based on his mother's idea of father and son fighting, he finally accepted a group of servants.
After all, after the new house is repaired, my mother will also need some people to take care of her.
The size of the new house is not small, it is equivalent to a manor.
Of course, even so, he also made a selection, and all those with bad habits such as cheating, cheating, and slipping were driven back by him.
After this, the population of the Fang family quickly increased to twenty-five people.
Since the new house has not yet been repaired and the old house of the Fang family cannot accommodate that many people, most people can only borrow money from the Fang family to live in Yangjia Village.
The Fang family certainly does not raise freeloaders. Among them, there were 17 males between the ages of 12 and 25. Fang Xiaoyue threw them to Zhang Yuanming and asked him to practice the Sky-shattering Sword Technique with him.
The remaining eight people include a little girl who is only 10 years old, a charming young woman in her twenties, and an old woman in her forties. They were left by Fang Xiaoyue to be trained by her mother. They should go into the kitchen to cook.
Cooking, helping to clean up the house, planting the backyard vegetable garden, etc.
At this time, using eight servants seems a bit extravagant, but when the new house is repaired, it will be almost enough.
As for why there are no men over 25 years old, Fang Xiaoyue is not surprised at all.
In fact, in Daze Country, a 20-year-old unmarried man is considered an older leftover man.
Generally speaking, men over the age of 25 will get married no matter how bad they are.
And a married man will never go out to work as a servant.
Unless it's a natural disaster, the family really can't open the door.
Therefore, this saves Fang Xiaoyue the trouble of making arrangements.
Before the Chinese New Year, Fang Xiaoyue went to Wude Temple. What made him a little regretful was that Master Qingyu was not there.
He originally planned to find a way to pick up another book from Taoist Master Qingyu.
But the little Taoist boy said that Master went out to visit friends three days ago, and he didn't know if he would be able to come back after the Chinese New Year.
Fang Xiaoyue could only say goodbye.
Needless to say, there is no more excitement about the Chinese New Year.
Fang Xiaoyue asked Zhang Yuanming to invite all her grandfather's uncle's family to Yangjia Village to celebrate the New Year together.
The snow-white dumplings, the fragrant braised pork, the braised carp that indicates a surplus every year, and the crackling sound of firecrackers outdoors made Fang Xiaoyue feel the rare New Year atmosphere.
However, on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, Fang Xiaoyue had to pack her bags and prepare to leave for the capital.
Farewell from family is the saddest thing.
When Fang Xiaoyue left, although Mrs. Fang Zhang did not cry, her eyes were still red.
When going to the capital this time, Fang Xiaoyue did not take Zhang Yuanming away, because the seventeen men were at the introductory stage of the Sky-shattering Sword Technique at this time. Once Zhang Yuanming, the master, left, there would be no one to restrain him, and the sword technique would probably be very difficult.