Chapter 52 Meeting the Estate Owner to Seek Benefits (A Long-Awaited Two-in-One): Yesterday, Lai Xi and Jiang Xue arrived at the estate ahead of time, firstly to prepare the rooms they would be staying in, and secondly to...

Yesterday, Lai Xi and Jiang Xue arrived at the estate ahead of time, firstly to prepare the rooms they would stay in, and secondly to inform the estate manager and steward that they should prepare to bring the account books to see Shen Wanqing.

The Hesheli family owns two more farms further away. It's the busy farming season now, and even though they received the news yesterday, they might not be able to get here today. If they have other work to do, they might not be able to arrive until tomorrow.

When Shen Wanqing and her group entered the manor, they discovered that even in this largest manor, the area with actual walls was not very large. It was nothing like the large manor that Shen Wanqing had seen in TV dramas where you would get lost as soon as you entered.

The courtyard consisted of two sections. Upon entering the main gate, there was a row of rear-facing rooms, mostly filled with various farm tools and bulging burlap sacks. Then, two gatehouses formed the front yard. This was probably a place to store some important but not so important items, which the tenants of the Hesheli family could freely enter and exit.

There was no screen wall or hanging flower gate between the two courtyards; just a simple door separated the front and back. The main house in the center of the main courtyard was occupied by the head of the estate and his family, while the east wing housed the accountant and two stewards sent by the manor.

The west wing served as a kitchen and storage room, where dried goods and delicacies from the mountains, as well as smoked rabbits, roe deer, and wild boar meat, were stored. They were to be sent to the Hesheli family together during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.

Further on, there's a small courtyard enclosed by a fence. It's actually just a vegetable garden, a place to raise chickens, ducks, and geese, and a woodshed. These things are maintained by the head of the village to supplement his income. Everyone knows about it, but nobody cares.

After all, the estate is nowhere near as bustling as the capital. The people sent here to work must be shrewd and capable, otherwise they wouldn't be able to manage so many tenants and farmhands. But truly capable people are popular everywhere, and if the landlord wants them to stay on the estate, he definitely has to pretend to be a little oblivious.

Once inside the courtyard, Shen Wanqing looked around. Unlike what the head of the village and his wife had imagined the night before, that the eldest mistress was coming to make a big show of things and was going to do it all over the village, she didn't ask any questions about their daily lives.

"Why are you only raising a few chickens and ducks? Are you short-handed and can't take care of them?"

"We're usually too busy with farm work, so raising these animals is enough. We raise them just so we can easily get some eggs, and then we'll slaughter them for meat at the end of the year."

The fenced-off backyard is quite large, probably about an acre. It's divided in the middle, with one side for growing vegetables and the other for feeding chickens and ducks. There's also a stable and a cowshed.

The chicken feeding area alone is huge, and right now there are only a few chickens sitting there all alone. The ducks and geese have gone out for a stroll and haven't returned yet, so there probably aren't more than ten of them. It's unbelievable that such a large area with such a long feeding trough could only house twenty or thirty little creatures.

However, the head of the farm was afraid that the landlord would be unhappy to see that he had raised so many poultry. After all, the more time he spent on these things, the less time he had to manage the affairs of the tenants and the landlord.

"Let's feed them more. If we feed them a lot, we can send them home next year, and I'll give you the money then."

Shen Wanqing felt there was no need to get involved, since she couldn't control it anyway. People are selfish, just like when she first entered the workforce, she only received an internship salary of 1800 yuan a month, and she always procrastinated on the small amount of work she did.

At that time, my mindset was that since I was only getting 1,800 yuan, I would only do the work for 1,800 yuan. Doing any more would be a loss.

Later, when I became a junior manager, I was always thinking about getting promoted, and my mindset immediately changed. It was like there was a carrot dangling in front of me; I didn't know how many empty promises the bosses made.

It wasn't until she herself became the one making empty promises that she understood the true mindset of these business owners. Conversely, she also learned what methods would actually work on these estate managers.

“Madam is joking. Everything on our estate, every blade of grass and every tree, belongs to the manor. There’s no reason for you to give money to your servants.”

After visiting the backyard, the group returned to the main house in the main courtyard and sat down. Shen Wanqing didn't intend to joke with anyone. After looking at the clean and tidy house, she turned to the head of the manor and continued talking.

“The farm is the farm, and the animals you and your wife raise are raised by your wife. They are unrelated.”

The main focus in the village was tending to the land. Wheat, rice, and other grains such as corn, soybeans, and sweet potatoes took up most of the tenants' energy, leaving little space for them to grow vegetables and raise livestock.

Even if poultry like chickens, ducks, and geese are raised, it's all done in a scattered manner. Most of them are sold to buy essential daily necessities like salt, sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar that they can't grow themselves. In the end, they only keep a small amount for their own consumption.

"This servant is foolish and does not understand what Madam means."

The head of this farm was surnamed Zhuang. At first, everyone called him Zhuang Zhuangtou, but later it became too difficult to pronounce, so they just called him Zhuangtou'er.

He was a clever and bold man who had been guarding the estate for the Hesheri family for years. He was also in charge of managing the two more distant estates. If he were dull-witted, there would be no clever people on the entire estate.

“Boss, I’m a young woman who’s just arrived here, so I won’t try to fool you. The second wife used to be in charge of the household, but now it’s my turn. The people who do the grocery shopping for the family will be replaced, and the shop that supplies meat and vegetables to the family might also be replaced.”

“Those are outsiders, so it’s fine to change them, but we can’t do that to the people in our own estate and shops. I’ve seen the grain and money you’ve handed over to your families over the past few years, and it matches the accounts, but it only matches. Do you understand what I mean, estate manager?”

"Grandma, you are wise. These farmers depend on the weather for their livelihood; they can only harvest so much grain throughout the year..."

"My maiden name is Shen, and I belong to the Han Banner of the Plain Yellow Banner. The distance between my maiden family's fields and the dowry fields given to me by my maiden family is at most an hour's walk from here."

I'll send someone over now; they'll arrive after lunch. Whether the court should grant land to the Manchu Eight Banners or the Han Banners, you should know the answer without me saying it.

These two plots of land are under the same sky. Our land here has more irrigated land, while my family's land is mostly dry. I won't find anything if I don't check your accounts. If I investigate too hard, the already weak bond between us will turn into enmity. I'm just asking how much others can harvest year-round, depending on the weather. Is that acceptable?

"Grandma, there's no need to ask anymore, no need to ask..."

Yesterday, the head of the estate had the accountant go through the accounts again overnight, patching up any necessary errors to ensure that even if the eldest mistress had three heads, six arms, and eight eyes, she couldn't find any fault with them. Who knew that she wouldn't buy it at all? He wondered what kind of eccentric upbringing she had, and why she was so difficult to deal with.

"No need to ask, I don't want to ask either." Shen Wanqing picked up her tea and took a sip. The rustic tea was not as good as the kind that Hesheli usually drank, but it had a unique flavor, and even had a slight smoky taste. Shen Wanqing liked it very much and planned to take more with her when she went back.

"Going back to what we were saying before, in the past, few people from the family came to visit, and you didn't visit the family often either. We can't continue like this."

"I'm not satisfied with the accounts you submitted. September is just around the corner. Asking you to submit a figure that I'm truly satisfied with by the end of the year would be me deliberately making things difficult for you. Just do your best."

"But you can't do that next year. You need to take better care of our family's farm. Send the chickens, ducks and geese raised in this little yard home every two weeks, and I'll charge you the prices in the capital."

That's the downside of being far away; you can't keep a close eye on many things yourself. If you want people to work obediently, you have to offer them some benefits; you can't just force them.

Shen Wanqing couldn't possibly be like Shumulu, knowing she was a fool yet still acting like one for the meager profits the estate offered. She had to come up with another way to generate income: you all focus on doing your jobs well, and I'll arrange and pay for your side hustles.

The headman could visit the manor once every two weeks. It didn't matter how many chickens and ducks he brought; what mattered was that he could see the housekeeper, Shen Wanqing, once every two weeks, and Shen Wanqing could also see the stewards once every two weeks.

People need to see each other often to build relationships. Subordinates need to report and communicate frequently to know what their leaders need them to do and how to do it, and leaders can also know what they have done and what they want. If they rarely see each other and only meet during holidays, no wonder they mess around.

Since they don't see them all year round, they don't find the ladies and mistresses in the mansion anything to be afraid of. There are only two possible outcomes: either they'll run into one who's too lazy to manage things and just lets things slide, in which case as long as they can appease her, everything will be fine; or they'll run into one who's intolerant of any wrongdoing, and if they run into her, they might get beaten, punished, or even sold off.

Neither of the two types of Shen Wanqing wanted to do it, so she could only try to motivate them first. Using a trendy term she'd heard before coming to this world, this could be considered a kind of alignment granularity.

Thinking of this word, Shen Wanqing couldn't help but smile. She didn't know why she suddenly thought of the father and son, Kangxi and the Crown Prince. Their relationship had gone from being very close to becoming estranged, with the Crown Prince being appointed and deposed twice. Perhaps this was because this problem hadn't been resolved.

However, that's not something she can manage right now. She needs to take care of her own little plot of land first before she's qualified to talk about the future.

"Think it over carefully before you reply. My method has no downsides other than requiring you to make two more trips each month. It just depends on whether you, the head of the estate, are willing to do this work for me."

Of course, I'd be happy to go to Beijing once every two weeks; the head of the farm couldn't be happier with this opportunity. Before, I wanted to go, but my master wouldn't allow it. He wished he could live on this field all year round, afraid that if he left, the tenants would slack off. He was just a dog chained to the field by his master.

Before he left the manor, he had served his master and enjoyed a period of glory. Later, he was sent to manage the estate. At first, things were good. He had plenty to eat and drink, and he could keep a little bit of the estate's food as long as his family lived comfortably.

He didn't even need to fawn over his master; all the tenants fawned over him as if he were the master. In less than three months, he felt his back was straighter than before, and even his voice had become deeper.

But as time went on, he realized something was wrong. Every time he went to the city for a holiday, everything was unfamiliar. When he arrived at the mansion, everyone was a stranger. People who used to be attentive and polite now just nodded and greeted him and that was it. There were also many unfamiliar faces that he didn't recognize, and he didn't even know that he was a member of the family.

If you kowtow to your master and ask a few questions, and the grain and money you hand over are enough, that's fine. If you encounter a famine and can't make ends meet, your master will scold you a few times and that's it. In short, a trip to the mansion will not take more than half a day.

Over time, this man's ambition gradually faded. He then looked around and saw his son and daughter-in-law also working as stewards on the farm, nominally stewards, but they had become typical farmhands. During the busy farming season, they worked in the fields; during the off-season, they idled away their time chatting with the other farmhands.

Last year, when my son followed me into the mansion, he didn't dare to look up at anyone. He kowtowed to the second wife in the west courtyard, but when I went in, he couldn't even get through the second wife's door.

After returning home, he told himself he wouldn't go again, saying that the people in the manor were looking at him strangely, and that he was much more comfortable on the estate. That night, he hid in the storeroom and got completely drunk, crying so hard that he didn't dare let his family know he was crying.

Now that his master had suggested that he return every two weeks, the headman's innate ability to calculate was even faster than his brain. Before he could even think of a question, the words had already slipped out.

"Could our tenants also grow more chickens and ducks? Wouldn't it be too much if we sent them all to our house?"

“It’s fine with our own farms, the rules are the same. Take good care of the work in the fields, and you can use the rest of your time to feed the poultry or grow vegetables, I won’t restrict you.”

"You don't need to worry about whether the family can eat it all. But eating fresh chicken and duck every day will get boring after a while. I'll send two people over to teach you how to make cured meat and smoked fish. I don't mind having too much of these things."

Unlike the south, where people in the capital have cellars to store vegetables and meat in winter, or meat left outside in the dead of winter is unlikely to spoil, people here don't eat a lot of cured meat. Even when they do make it, they mostly use yellow wine to marinate fish and meat, which has a rich flavor but lacks that unique smoky taste.

Shen Wanqing didn't like it. When she was a child, her family had a big freezer with a rusty outer shell, the kind that the corner store used to store popsicles.

My maternal grandparents would neatly arrange cured fish, cured pork, pickled fish, rice bran sausage, smoked chicken, smoked duck, braised duck, braised fish, and other smoked meats in the freezer in the period leading up to the Lunar New Year.

That freezer was like a treasure chest, the most important place in little Shen Wanqing's heart. From a young age, she was the chubbyest child in the whole town. Later, when her parents came to pick her up, her father almost strained his back when he picked her up.

These memories were quite distant, especially since her father had been dead for many years. Before she transmigrated, she didn't think about them much except during the Qingming Festival, Chinese New Year, and the Ghost Festival.

But as she stepped down from the carriage and walked along the paddy field with Fangyi in her hand, she inexplicably thought of her childhood. Once the thought took hold, it was unstoppable. If Fangyi hadn't been completely focused on the field, she would have noticed her eyes inexplicably reddening.

"At that time, you will take the lead. You will collect the chickens, ducks, meat, and vegetables from each household and send them to the mansion. After receiving the silver, you will come back and distribute it to them."

However, there are two things you must remember. First, this money isn't for buying your things; it's a subsidy from your family to show their appreciation for your and the tenants' hard work. Even if you don't send anything home, I'll have the purchasing staff go out and buy it anywhere. You must remember this principle.

Secondly, I only want the property of my own tenants. If any outsiders come to you and say a few kind words, you'll take their chickens and ducks too. If I find out, I'll only punish you according to the rules for disobedience. But if other landlords find out and come knocking on your door, causing serious injury or even death, I won't protect you.”

Even though it's very close to the capital, as long as it's in a village, the poultry and vegetables raised by farmers themselves won't fetch as much a price as if they were sold in the capital. Even when some peddlers come to the village to buy chickens and ducks from house to house to sell, they will definitely try to drive down the price.

For the people who have lived in the village for generations, raising these poultry is mostly for selling if possible. Sometimes, if they don't sell them for money, they simply exchange them for salt, sugar, and cloth. It's common for them to dream of selling their chickens and ducks at the price they would pay to supply meat and vegetables to the Hesheli family.

This kind of thing can't be kept secret; as soon as a whisper gets out, everyone knows. Right now, the tenants and servants are all, in the master's eyes, his property.

Other families would love for their tenants to put all their effort into their land year-round. If they all used their energy to raise chickens and ducks and make extra money, they would become the target of everyone's criticism.

This is something only she can do for her own tenants. She has to pay for their enthusiasm so that no one will gossip. As for what others do, Shen Wanqing doesn't care or want to care. Right now, she only has the skills she needs and is only taking on this much challenging task.

"Don't worry, Madam. The number of fields and tenants in the family is all accounted for. I'll have the accountant do a count tomorrow. Each household can only support a certain number of people in a year. If it exceeds that number, you can punish the servants."

After all, it was someone Shuai Yanbao had designated to be the manager of the estate when he was still alive, and in just a short while, he had already figured it out.

He would rather not earn a single penny than let this new mistress manage the estate so well, so that everyone would speak highly of her.

All he can think about now is returning home in the next two weeks and figuring out how to teach his son to change his habit of bowing his head and stammering when he sees people.

He knew he was going to die sooner or later. After he died, his son might be able to continue as a minor manager, but by the time his grandson's generation came along, there would be no future for him. It wasn't that he looked down on his son, but rather that his son was simply incompetent.

He himself could never leave the village in his lifetime, but his son and grandson couldn't just be farmers for the rest of their lives.

He had to find a way to please the eldest mistress and keep taking his son back with him. After a while, his son would be able to go to the manor on his own as naturally as if he were going home. Then he could ask for a favor for his son to go back to work. Only then could he be considered to have escaped this manor.

"He's an old man who's been doing things for so many years, he's more thorough than me, a young man. Let's do it your way, and when those two people from the small village arrive tomorrow, the same rules will apply."

When the time comes, the stewards from those two estates will bring the goods to you for collection, and then you can send them home together. Since they live far away, don't expect them to come every two weeks; once a month to the government office is enough.

She needs to manage her subordinates, but she can't manage them all individually. If she really controlled every village head and manager, Shen Wanqing wouldn't have anything else to do all day.

By using this subtle differentiation to distinguish between close and distant relatives, these village leaders will soon establish their own hierarchy. As for whether anyone will try other methods to rise to power, that's not something Shen Wanqing needs to worry about.

"Don't tell anyone about this yet. They're busy in the fields right now, so let them work in peace. You can tell them after this busy period is over. I'm a recluse, and I don't need them to come here and kowtow to me after a long day of hard work and sweating profusely. You can go out and explain it to them later."

"This servant thanks Madam for her kindness on their behalf."

Despite saying he wouldn't kowtow, the headman still knelt down and kowtowed to Shen Wanqing again. He knew perfectly well whether she was truly aloof or not, whether she genuinely enjoyed the pomp and circumstance and relied on the servants and tenants to fawn over her, or whether she genuinely disliked having her servants do these things.

"At noon, my wife prepared stewed chicken with hazel mushrooms and braised pork trotters. She learned to make these two dishes when she was a young girl. The ingredients are not expensive, but everyone says they taste good. Madam, you must try them."

"Chicken stew with hazel mushrooms isn't worth much? You're quite arrogant, boss. We're guests today, so we'll follow your lead. We'll wait and see what we have for lunch. You can make the arrangements."

Having given the necessary reprimands, Shen Wanqing stopped sternly trying to scare people. The head of the village also left the main room and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

"I thought that the eldest mistress brought me here today to bolster her power, and that she would not rest until she had killed a few fools. I did not expect that the eldest mistress was so compassionate that she did not punish the head of the village."

“What’s the use of punishing him? The tenants are lazy because they only get so much each year. Even if they sweat buckets and risk their lives on the land, they won’t get more.”

In this case, either someone else would be just like the headman, or even worse. After all, the Hesheli family has been in complete chaos for the past few years. As the steward in charge of the estate, it would be quite good if he could just manage to keep things going on the surface, at least above the minimum acceptable level.

Either the new tenants they get are all eager to please them, wishing that an acre of land could produce 800 catties of grain, and if they really do that, by the end of next year, at least a few of these tenants will die in the fields.

“I think it’s better to use our own people than outsiders. Although we don’t see these tenants often, they’ve been farming our land for us every year, so they’re practically family. They can earn this little money, so they can have some spare cash in their pockets. They can make a few coats for winter, and they can get a pair of silver earrings for their daughters when they get married.”

Most of these people are honest and hardworking; the more you give them benefits, the more willing they are to live a peaceful life. They'll then value the land even more, taking better care of it than themselves—wouldn't that be good for everyone?

"Your money is just being given away for nothing. Don't always feel sorry for them because they are living a hard life. As long as our land is not compared with the imperial estates, it is the best land. They take 60% of this land themselves and only pay 40%. Their lives are not much worse than those of the farmers outside."

She understood Shen Wanqing's reasoning, but she still felt uneasy. She felt that everything on the estate originally belonged to her, so why did she have to spend money to buy it now?

“But if I don’t buy theirs, I’ll buy someone else’s. Sister-in-law, have you ever seen eggs that cost forty coins a pound this year?”

"Forty coins? That's highway robbery! This summer, the cheapest chicken was less than fifty coins. Who would dare to charge that much for a pound of eggs?"

"My home."

Upon hearing this, Dai Jia understood. Shen Wanqing said that replacing the purchasing personnel wouldn't be easy, as these people all had intricate connections with the Hesheli family. Even if they were to be replaced, it might not be stable. It would be better to bring in the head of the estate and the tenant farmers first. Even if they didn't completely replace them, they could still cover most of the chicken, duck, fish, and meat supply.

They're all one family. Those who supply meat and vegetables are just doing so because of their connections with the manor. The headman and tenants are essentially members of the Hesheli family. If you really want to talk about who's close to whom, even if it comes to the Tongjia clan, it's hard to say who will win or lose.

This Granny Shen is truly shrewd. She appears to be just inspecting the fields, but she has already begun to transform the entire Hesheli family. She has also found such a good excuse to make herself appear to be the one without any selfish motives.