Early the next morning, Jia Lian got up late as usual.
If it were the case, Wang Xifeng would hurriedly make up for a bowl of milk and sugar rice porridge, then hurriedly take Ping'er to Jia Mu's place to serve breakfast, then rush to Mrs. Xing's place to serve breakfast, and then return to her own home.
Come to the room for breakfast.
But now that Wang Xifeng is still in confinement, there is no need to "set the rules" for the time being, so she waits for Jia Lian to get up and wash up, and the couple sit across from each other, eating breakfast and chatting.
At this time, Xing'er came excitedly holding more than twenty large envelopes and was about to take them into the house.
Ping'er was waiting on the side, and when he caught a glimpse of Xing'er who was about to stretch his head into the room, he immediately frowned and said:
"Didn't you see the second master and the second grandma eating? Why are you so expressionless?"
Xing'er always behaved in front of Ping'er and didn't dare to talk nonsense, so he apologized and said with a smile:
"Sister Ping'er, the second master has to go to the Yamen soon. Once there, there will be a lot of things to do. If I don't hurry up and find every opportunity to report these things to the second master, where will there be any room?"
After hearing this, Jia Lian waved his hand towards Ping'er:
"He is telling the truth. Let him come in."
Xing'er pouted at Ping'er, walked in and said to Jia Lian with a smile:
"Yesterday, the second master sent a message, asking them to first calculate all the money that they have spent in the past fifty years, and then calculate the interest at the rate of one penny per year, and come to the second master to record it. p>
So early this morning, twenty-two families have already arrived, asking the second master to take a look."
After saying that, he placed the twenty-two bulging envelopes in his arms on the edge of the kang.
Jia Lian casually picked up the thinner one on the top and saw that the name on the envelope was "Bao Yong". When he opened it, he saw that inside was a "confession" and a stack of banknotes with two outside.
A house deed, a field deed.
At this time, I didn't bother to read the confession. I just made a rough estimate of the total in my mind, which was probably two or three thousand taels.
I took the second one and saw that the name on the envelope actually said "Bao Er".
Jia Lian's hand trembled - Damn! Could this be Brother Bao, the "double cuckold" who slept with two wives before and after me?
He...he is just a cook, but he is also corrupt?
Jia Lian opened the large envelope full of doubts and guilt, and saw that there was no confession inside, just two banknotes, two ingots of silver, and a house deed.
Jia Lian was very scornful at first. He held the house deed with two fingers and was about to stuff it in when he accidentally glanced at it and his eyes widened.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
A courtyard near Ma Temple in Sanlihe Village on the western outskirts of Beijing.
Jia Lian felt that his forehead was tight and he was about to sweat.
Because, based on his recent comparison of Shenjing with the capital city in his memory, it can be seen that there is a river next to Sanlihe Village, and that river leads east to Yuyuantan, and a little bit to the west, there is a place that is unattainable in later generations.
The name is "Diaoyutai"...
From this point of view, we really cannot underestimate the ancients. Even if he was a cook, he might be a cook who could buy a house in Diaoyutai.
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At this time, Wang Xifeng had little impression of Bao Er and Bao Er's daughter-in-law, but when she saw Jia Lian's face was uncertain, she smiled and said:
"Are the accounts they put in too much or too little?"
Jia Lian woke up and smiled at himself:
"Those who can be handed over right now must be those who are greedy and have little talent for ink.
Even if those big corrupt people can settle their accounts overnight, they may not be able to collect the money to compensate me in a short time, so just wait."
As he spoke, Chao Xing'er ordered:
"You have to go to the Yamen with me today. While I'm eating, you go down and spread my message:
Let Longer be responsible for collecting all these accounts within three days, listing and recording clearly one by one, and calculating each person's account and the general account.
Invite two other people to follow Su Ming to Lai Da's small building. According to the records in the account books, calculate the amount of money each person has committed and list it for me. I will take a look at it when I come back tonight."
Xing'er promised to go, but was stopped by Jia Lian:
"Tell me again, what you are doing these days involves a lot of people and a lot of money. If anyone has black eyes and can't bear to see silver, and does favoritism or greed in my place, no matter who he is,
I will never agree to it.
Lai Da is the first, but he is by no means the last, and he may not be the one with the worst end."
Xing'er shrank his neck and said immediately:
"Anyway, I definitely don't dare."
Jia Lian smiled and said:
"If something really happened to your kid, he would have bowed ninety-nine times, and at the last moment he would have ruined his own future."
Xing'er stuck out his tongue:
"Second Master, you are looking down on your slave. I am no better than Zhao'er."
"Get lost, you're the one who talks so much."
.
After driving Xing'er away, Wang Xifeng smiled and said:
"I copied the Lai family and made such a huge fortune. Now I should have enough money to build a provincial residence, right?"
Jia Lian thought:
As the saying goes: If you don't have enough to eat, you won't have enough to drink. If you don't calculate, you will suffer from poverty.
The main reason for the decline of the Jia family is that the descendants of the Jia family have no future, and they can only rely on Jia Yuanchun in the palace to make the Jia family look good.
But later, in order to save face for Jia Yuanchun in the palace, the Jia family could only gather the power of the Ning and Rong mansions and spend huge sums of money to build the provincial residence.
After that, the marriage ceremony in Yuanchun, coupled with the welcome and send-off in the palace, quickly squandered all the Jia family's wealth.
Rongning's Second Mansion, with its great family and business, has completely become "the mother of yellow cypress making a chime and hammer - decent on the outside but miserable on the inside".
But things are different now. Others don’t have plans in their minds, but I can.
Calculating based on the design of our provincial residence, including the decoration, furnishings and curtains of each room in the garden, a total of one million and ninety taels of silver is needed.
Now that the main body of the building has been completed, the missing doors and windows have not been installed, and the garden has not been done yet. It is estimated that the rest will cost 1.3 million taels.
Fortunately, the cash and banknotes taken out from the Lai family alone amounted to more than 1,446,700 taels. After the provincial residence is built, there will still be more than 140,000 taels left.
This does not include the eighteen large boxes.
In those eighteen large boxes, there were not only fine jewelry, but also house deeds, land deeds and land deeds. After conversion, if there was not one million taels of silver, there would always be seven or eight hundred thousand taels.
Jia Lian resolutely raided Lai Da's house this time, and with the money, he would have no problem extending the life of the Jia family.
This is just a raid on Lai's house, killing a big mouse, and there are still a bunch of small mice.
Look, Bao Er, the only cook, handed over a set of Diaoyutai courtyard houses and 500 taels of silver.
If all were calculated, it would be hundreds of thousands of taels at least.
I hold on to these more than one million taels of silver, and then lay off two-thirds of the servants in the Rongguo Mansion. Hum, I don’t believe that the Jia family will lose their fortune like this!
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But towards Wang Xifeng, Jia Lian shook his head:
"It's not easy to use this money to build a provincial residence. If you continue to be as lavish as before, it won't be enough. What's more, there will be more places to spend money in the future, so frugality is a must."
Just as he was talking about this, someone from Mrs.
Wang Xifeng agreed and quickly put down her chopsticks and asked Ping'er to change her clothes and make up.
The name sounded familiar to Jia Lian, so he asked casually:
"Take another concubine? Bought from outside?"
Wang Xifeng pouted:
"Yes, I just bought it for eight hundred taels of silver."
"What!"
Jia Lian stood up with excitement.
"I worked hard to earn money here to save this family, but he casually spent 800 taels of silver to buy a little wife? This ignorant thing deserves to be called daddy!"