"Well, I've been busy fighting the war, and I don't even have family leave. There's nothing I can do."
In the township office, Yue Gui took Zhao Xiaolou's hand cordially and asked with an attentive look. Hearing him say that he was not married yet, his attitude became a little more enthusiastic, "Deputy Zhao is so young, and he is already in the imperial camp."
I hold an important position and have a bright future. Are the requirements high?"
"How dare I have any high demands? I was also born into a poor family. My hometown in Yanzhou, eastern Zhejiang, is also in the mountains, with eight mountains, one water, and one field. My family used to be a tenant farmer with a large population but no land.
By working as farm servants for tenant farmers, and in their free time, they went into the mountains to collect herbs, hunt, and even burn charcoal and mine, etc., but they still could not afford to have enough food and clothing.
It was also because my family was poor that I joined the army later. I just wanted to have enough to eat, but I didn’t expect to be lucky. Following Long Live Master, my destiny suddenly changed. Now my family has bought land, and
I built a new house, and one of my brothers joined the army to get paid, so life became easier."
"Deputy Zhao Shao, if you don't mind it, I have two daughters, one fourteen and one sixteen. They are pretty good-looking. These years of turmoil have also delayed marriage. Now they are still waiting to be married. I don't know Zhao Shao.
Would you like to meet me, Vice President?"
Yue Gui claims to be a descendant of Yue Fei. The Yue family has settled in Nanzhao for many years and has a large population. They even built two Yue family villages before. Yue Gui is tall and thick, but he also has a reputation as a scholar.
The Yue family used to have thousands of acres of land, as well as lead ore and iron ore, and also ran banks, pawnshops, grain shops, cloth shops, etc. They were well-known powerful people in Cuizhuang, a country with ten miles of land.
In normal times, as powerful as the Yue family, they would not look down upon a small sentry officer.
But now, Yue Gui is very happy to marry a daughter to Zhao Xiaolou. She is young and promising. As an officer in the imperial camp, it is even more of a security guarantee.
Before Zhao Xiaolou could agree, Yue Gui proposed that if he could like one, the Yue family would give him a generous dowry, saying that he had already prepared a dowry for his daughter.
Yue Gui directly told him about the dowry he bought for his daughter. The cash in cash was eighteen taels of gold and eighty-eight taels of silver. In addition, the jewelry, clothing, and furniture were worth more than three hundred taels, and there were even twenty acres of land. The total value was no less than
Eight hundred taels of silver.
During the Wanli period, this dowry was considered relatively wealthy among the local gentry and powerful people. Generally, the dowry for rich families was only one to two hundred taels.
Since the late Ming Dynasty, it has been a custom in marriage for the man to give a dowry to the woman as a gift. The woman basically has to pay the dowry according to the Ping ceremony, or even double the dowry.
Even later, the dowry becomes more and more numerous.
My daughter is definitely a money maker.
In many places, marrying off a daughter can lead to bankruptcy, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
If the dowry is small, you will be ignored or even bullied when you marry into your husband's family.
Therefore, rich people often give many dowries, even several times the number of concubines, which even leads to a serious phenomenon of female infanticide in Fujian and Zhejiang.
In ordinary people's homes, the wedding gift is usually a few taels to more than a dozen taels, and the wedding banquet and other expenses are not included. However, in the homes of the rich, the gift is often dozens of taels or even one or two hundred taels, and the dowry is doubled.
After the late Ming Dynasty, the burden of wedding dowry was a huge burden on the family.
When the soldiers were married, Yuying helped pay the dowry, and the woman did not even need to dowry. The Yuying arranged a dowry for the soldiers. Although the gift and dowry were not very generous, it was indeed an excellent benefit for the soldiers, and it was not necessary.
Fewer poor people marry their daughters, which relieves them of a huge burden.
At the beginning, many of the soldiers recruited from eastern and western Zhejiang were poor, and there was nothing to blame if they could get a wife. However, many ordinary people were affected by the turmoil of the war and were in danger. They could marry their daughters without a dowry, and they could even receive pen gifts, and even
My daughter is still willing to marry the Imperial Guardsman.
"My father-in-law, I have been in the army for several years. Although my military salary is generous, I have only just been appointed as a sentry officer. Most of my previous salary was used to buy land and build houses, so I don't have much left." He said a little embarrassed.
Yue Gui prepared a dowry worth 800 taels. Even if he took half of it as a gift, it would still cost 400 taels. How could he afford it?
Even though he has been promoted to deputy sentry officer, his salary is actually not much. The salary of the sentry commander is 9 yuan a month, that of a sentry officer is 6 yuan, that of a superior soldier is 4.5 yuan, and that of a platoon leader is 4.8 yuan.
He only has one dollar and a half more per month than a first-class soldier. His pay per day is two denarii, and he has six measures of monthly rations per month.
As a sentry deputy, you still have some position money and some minister money. If there is any surplus for public use, it can be regarded as their subsidy. However, under the imperial camp system, the income of those below the camp officer level is actually not high.
You have to start as a camp officer to get a better income. A camp officer earns fifty taels a month, while he only earns six yuan a month. The difference is many times.
However, Yuying actually only pays nine months of salary a year, and he has to save three months. Therefore, his basic salary is only fifty-four yuan a year, and he still has to send it home.
Four hundred yuan, how many years does it take him to save it.
Yue Gui smiled and waved his hand.
"I understand the rules of the imperial camp. We will follow the rules of the imperial camp. If you like the little girl, you will be given ten silver coins as a dowry. How much dowry I will give is my own business."
"I value Deputy Zhao Shao more. I think you are young and enterprising and have a bright future. I also hope that my daughter can live a good life with you in the future. In the future, Deputy Zhao Shao will become a general and be granted the title of wife and daughter-in-law. My daughter will also be able to get one.
Imperial decree."
Seeing Zhao Xiaolou stunned, Yue Gui clapped his hands, and then two young girls came in.
"Deputy Zhao, please have tea!"
The two girls came in, looking very elegant.
Zhao Xiaolou didn't come back to his senses at first. When the clear voice rang in his ears, he looked up and suddenly realized that these two girls had a noble look between their eyebrows and they were quite upright.
Their temperaments and voices are also nice, so they must be the two daughters Yue Gui mentioned.
"Thank you, thank you, miss." Zhao Xiaolou panicked for a moment, and even his ears turned red.
He has never come into contact with this lady of the family.
Although he had broadened his horizons in the army, and he had learned to read and read with Lieutenant Liu, but he considered himself a bitch and could hardly speak to this girl in silk and satin.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Yue Gui coughed, and the two girls took their leave again.
"Deputy Zhao Shao, what do you think of my two little girls? Which one is more attractive to you?"
"Everything is fine," Zhao Xiaolou replied in a panic. Then seeing Yue Gui smile, he quickly explained, "I didn't mean that. I, I, I all follow the arrangements of my father-in-law."
"Hahaha, Deputy Zhao, please sit down for a moment."
Yue Gui turned around and left. Zhao Xiaolou sat there and his mind was filled with the appearance of the two girls just now, and he started to giggle as he thought about it.
"Deputy Zhao Shao?"
Zhao Xiaolou came to his senses and saw Yue Gui coming back, "Yue Gong."
"I just went in and asked two young girls. They also have a good impression of Deputy Zhao Shao. They think that Deputy Zhao Shao is very simple and honest, and he is a person who can be trusted for life.
If Deputy Zhao Shao doesn’t mind it, how about Qiniang Xiangping?”
Qiniang is that sister, she is the seventh in the family and is sixteen this year.
How could Zhao Xiaolou be unwilling? He nodded stupidly.
Yue Gui then smiled and said that it was an agreement, and then specifically asked Zhao Xiaolou's Nian Geng horoscope.
When Zhao Xiaolou left, Yue Gui asked Qiniang to come to the door to see him off. Miss Qi also gave Zhao Xiaolou a sachet, which made Zhao Xiaolou feel dizzy and he was still giggling when he walked out the door.
The soldiers were waiting there with their horses, but he turned a blind eye and walked over. The soldiers caught up with him and asked, "What happy event has happened to the sentry officer?"
"I want to get a wife."
The soldier smiled and said, "I want to get a wife too,"
There are nearly 200 auxiliary soldiers in this outpost, and more than half of them are not yet married. Originally, according to the rules of the imperial camp, only those who are superior soldiers are qualified to marry a wife in the imperial camp, and they have to queue up.
But this time, the local people all wanted to marry their daughters to the imperial soldiers. Faced with the enthusiasm of the people and the expectations of the soldiers, Li Baoquan and Guo Baoqing finally decided after several discussions to give a girl to those who were not married.
The common people didn't want any betrothal gifts, but the sentry and the village together gave ten silver dollars to the girl's family as a gift, and then gave five silver dollars to the girl's family as a dowry.
A mass wedding was also held for the soldiers.
A newlywed couple will be given a dowry of fifteen yuan, and if there are more than one hundred couples, they will get about two thousand yuan.
Li Baoquan said he wanted to report to the superiors, but Guo Baoqing, Yue Gui, Cheng Sheng and others said that the money was not much, and it was a good thing for the marriage between the army and the people, and the local gentry was willing to pay the money.
The more than a hundred gentry families in this town generously donated their money, and they soon raised enough money.
These people are very active, and they don’t cost more than a few dollars anyway.
They were very positive about this marriage. For example, Yue Gui's two daughters successfully married imperial camp officers, Qiniang married Zhao Xiaolou, the sentry deputy, and Jiuniang married Song En, the platoon leader. It was better to strike first.
He robbed two officers' sons-in-law at once.
Others, such as Guo Baoqing and Cheng Sheng, also acted quickly and snatched the sons-in-law of their favorite military officers.
Most of the more than one hundred places have been taken up by these powerful people. Girls from ordinary people's families still have a chance. What these powerful gentry people are interested in is not the gift of ten silver dollars. They each paid a dowry, as many as Yue Yue.
The dowry of a daughter of your family is worth 800 taels, others as much as 3,500 taels, and others as much as 1,200 taels.
Many soldiers in the imperial camp were hit by the pie in the world. They didn't have to pay a cent of their own money to marry a young and beautiful daughter-in-law for free. The military camp subsidized a dowry of five yuan, and the girl's family also brought back a generous dowry.
Even if you marry an ordinary girl, you will get a wife for nothing.
Everyone was very happy.
Li Baoquan and the others typed up the report. When Zhu Yihai from Luyang Pass heard about it, he just smiled.
"Although their actions are somewhat unruly, it's not a big deal. It's not forced, it's all voluntary. It doesn't deserve encouragement but there's no need to object."
Shen Youlong, Secretary of the Ministry of War, reminded, "It still violates the regulations of the army. Soldiers in the imperial camp must meet the conditions to marry a wife, and they have to queue up. Otherwise, they have to marry a wife, and the army cannot afford it. Now they do this
, they all got married at once, what will the other troops do?"
Wen Anzhi said with a smile, "I don't think this is a bad thing, but it is indeed against the rules. In this way, the soldiers who get married this time will only reimburse them for the fifteen yuan betrothal gift, the wedding ceremony and the wedding expenses.
Half of it, and the rest must be borne by the soldiers themselves. If money is temporarily tight, they can be repaid in installments."
Zhu Yihai thought for a while, "That's okay. There is no rule without rules. This can be added in the future. Soldiers in the imperial camp who meet the conditions can queue up and wait for help from the imperial camp to marry a wife. If they don't meet the conditions, they can marry themselves.
Half of it can be reimbursed according to normal standards.”
"Li Baoquan, Zhao Xiaolou and the others don't need to be punished this time. It's not a big deal. Besides, after they came out of seclusion, they made great contributions in recapturing Cuizhuang Township and restoring the place. Let's give a reward to all the sentry officers and soldiers."
"Your Majesty is going to make up for half of the unreimbursed money for them." Wen Anzhi said with a smile.
"The soldiers are fighting for the country. It is a good thing that they can get married as soon as possible. I tell the generals in each town that besides fighting, they should also actively consider getting married for the soldiers. During the march and garrison, if conditions permit,
We must actively promote it so that soldiers can have wives, children, and families, and they will feel more at ease and at ease."
Zhu Yihai has always been kind to soldiers, especially the imperial soldiers. This is his base. He does not hesitate to reward them. The imperial group is his most solid support. He must give priority to ensuring the safety of the imperial soldiers.
