Zhao Yonggeng, the biological father, was overjoyed to learn that his beloved daughter was finally getting married.

Upon receiving the letter, he immediately replied to Huang, saying that he would follow his mother's arrangements.

In addition, the couple will also prepare a separate dowry for Zhao Qinghe.

The couple clearly felt like they'd been given a hot potato.

If a daughter doesn't get married when she's grown up, people will always gossip about her.

The couple didn't seem to care about these verbal disputes.

What they care about most is that they fear their daughter will be left destitute in her old age, and that she will also have to pay some kind of single tax.

That's infuriating! Marriage should be based on one's mood, so why should one be forced into marriage?

Of course, Zhao Yonggeng dared not express his dissatisfaction with the government's orders, and continued to dutifully pay the money every year.

Luckily, his daughter is getting married soon, otherwise the doubled taxes every year would be a burden that most people couldn't afford.

Even though he was a prefect, he felt the pinch of paying out a singles tax.

The new emperor did not abolish the single tax upon his ascension to the throne, mainly because he wanted more children to be born.

Population is the cornerstone of a country's prosperity. Without ordinary people, who will farm, who will work, and who will guard the borders?

However, this decree was very unfriendly to women.

In order to avoid paying taxes, once they reach a certain age, even if they don't have a mutual lover, they are forced into arranged marriages by their families.

Whether they will be happy in the future is not within the scope of consideration.

This is the tragedy of the times, something that a mere prefect like him cannot resist.

Of course, he didn't dare to submit a petition to abolish the single tax; if he did, he would probably lose his official position.

Therefore, we can only focus on improving people's livelihoods and provide more opportunities for ordinary people to make money.

Only when people are prosperous can they live and work in peace and contentment.

After receiving her son's reply, Mrs. Huang began preparing her granddaughter's dowry with great enthusiasm.

Huang didn't want to prepare a dowry to make a good impression.

Those things aren't worth much money in total; it's more important to buy more land and shops for my granddaughter.

In the capital, it is extremely difficult to acquire a suitable shop.

After all, shops in good locations had long been in the hands of high-ranking officials and nobles.

However, buying a house for my granddaughter is still an option.

The capital city is vast, and living there is not easy.

Finally, on the edge of the Zhao family estate, they finally found a two-courtyard house.

It cost the Huang family three thousand taels of silver, and the area was not very large.

If Huang hadn't once lived in a small house in the countryside, she would definitely have felt that this house was too cramped.

In the future, if her great-grandson plays in the house, it seems there isn't enough space.

However, this house was bought as part of her dowry, so that her granddaughter could heal herself when she was feeling down.

This can also be seen as giving his granddaughter confidence.

There wasn't any suitable land in the suburbs for the time being. So Huang had to go further afield and find 200 mu of farmland and a hill for her granddaughter.

To outsiders, the hilltop is a barren land, but to the Zhao family, it means a golden goose.

Growing fruit trees, mushrooms, and vegetables, and raising poultry and livestock, couldn't be better or more suitable.

However, the journey was indeed quite long.

It would take at least two days to travel by horse-drawn carriage.

Of course, this comes with a low price.

As for the rest of the dowry, Mrs. Huang planned to get more gold jewelry and the like for her granddaughter.

The old lady always believed that gold was the best way to preserve value.

As for acquiring other things like pearls and agate, Huang didn't even consider it.

Those things are too expensive and difficult to preserve.

Yan Yue and the other women in the family all agreed with Huang's views on money.

Princess Yan Yue, in particular, knew best that a whole box of gold jewelry might not be as valuable as a few of her jade bracelets.

In particular, fine jade is rare.