Chapter 57 Another piece of great news has arrived: "Where is Fifth Master? I told you yesterday that the eldest mistress was coming, but it's already so late, why isn't she here yet..."

"Where is Fifth Master? I told you yesterday that the eldest mistress was coming, but it's already so late and we still haven't seen him."

"Fifth Master is busy in the fields. Three days ago, the Commander's Office sent people down to inspect the fields, and Fifth Master just finished that. I've already sent someone to look for him, and he should be here soon."

The banner lands were distributed to various banner commanders. Some who were good at managing their lands benefited all the banner people under their commanders, while others who were not good at managing their lands suffered losses year after year and had no money. Some even had to sell their banner lands.

To prevent this from happening, the commanding office of each banner had to send someone down every year to check the situation, and if anything was amiss, they would report it to the commander of the banner.

Shen Wanqing's decision was made on a whim, and she didn't expect to run into the people from the Governor's Office. They probably thought she had deliberately come by tagging along with the Governor's Office, which explained why she couldn't even see anyone who could actually make the decisions.

"What do you mean 'should be here soon'? Shanhua, I'm not going to argue with you. You hurry up and invite Fifth Master over. He's busy today and busy tomorrow. Does he mean he'll be too busy to see Madam from now on?"

The stewards who manage the public fields, forest farms, and pastures are mostly not anyone's servants. They are usually selected by the families within the Zuo Ling (a military unit). They don't stay in these estates outside the city all the time; they only come to oversee them during the busy farming season.

Akdun's family held high prestige and had good relationships within the Zuo Ling (military command), so Daijia's words still carried weight. This Shanhua was also a junior member of the clan. She had been in poor health since childhood and could never be selected for the Zuo Ling's cavalry or infantry positions. So she found someone to help her get this job, which was better than staying at home without earning a penny.

Dai Jia was usually warm and straightforward, but seeing that she was getting a little angry, Shan Hua didn't dare to refuse anymore. She turned around and went to find someone, and soon returned with a man who looked to be around thirty years old.

The person who came was the Fifth Master Dai Jia had mentioned. He was not old and was of the same generation as Shuai Yanbao. Since the elders of the clan were getting old, many miscellaneous and mundane affairs were handled by this Fifth Master.

The man, who was in his early thirties, was tall and strong. When he walked up to her and spoke, it felt like his voice resonated. Shen Wanqing felt her head buzzing when she listened to him speak.

They didn't stand on ceremony with Shen Wanqing. Upon meeting her, they first sized up this matriarch who had supposedly almost turned the Hesheli family upside down, and then went straight to the point: "Madam, are you going to spend money to buy your own chickens?"

"Not just chicken, any other poultry or side dishes are fine. How come even Fifth Master knows about this so quickly?"

"The land in Gongzhong is connected to yours. Last night, the head of the village killed a chicken and stewed a goose, and even came to my place to exchange two jars of good wine. You know it even if you don't want to."

Uncle Xiao Wu was surprised when he first heard Shen Wanqing's idea. What kind of master would spend money to buy things from his own estate from tenants and stewards? This was just inciting other people's tenants to cause trouble for their master.

But looking at his wife, who had been muttering to him all night, saying that if things really turned out this way, the tenants of the Zuo Ling family would have an easier life, the man who got up to pee in the middle of the night suddenly understood.

This isn't about spending money to buy things for yourself. This new matriarch, Madam Shen, is trying to win people over and build momentum for herself. Unlike other matriarchs who start with the inner quarters, she's already stirred things up in the backyard and is now extending her reach to the estate first.

Having figured out Shen Wanqing's intentions, the Fifth Master didn't find anything strange about it. What's wrong with a master spending a little money to win people over? She had already taken back the power of managing the household from the West Courtyard, and from now on, she would be in charge of the entire Hesheli family. If she wanted to spend this money unnecessarily, no one else could interfere.

"The clan won't interfere with how the tenants on your side are handled, but other families and the communal estate won't get involved. When the head of the estate collects chickens and ducks, don't bring them to the communal estate, or you'll upset the tenants there, and then it will be difficult for the eldest madam to explain."

"Of course. The output of the public has always been collected by designated people. It's been a long-standing practice. How can we just break the rules like that? What would I be if we did that?"

"Besides, there are only so many tenants in my family. After deducting the amount we keep for ourselves to eat throughout the year, there isn't much left to send to the mansion. It's enough for our own family. There are many people in the public treasury. If they all raised chickens, ducks, and sheep for me, I wouldn't be able to eat them all. The public treasury's produce has its own destinations, so of course I shouldn't ask too many questions and make people unhappy."

Before the Fifth Master could say anything, Shen Wanqing preemptively said everything she wanted to say. At first glance, it seemed like she was being reasonable and didn't intend to be the one who didn't fit in, but upon closer inspection, every word she uttered was sarcastic and sarcastic, making one's heart ache.

How could Fifth Master not know that the public's output was sold off cheaply? How could he not know which families pocketed the price difference between the inside and outside? Is this Shen family member just following the rules? She saw through the mess in the clan and didn't bother to get involved, but she didn't want to get her hands dirty, so she didn't touch it at all.

"Shanhua just told us that Fifth Master is busy, so we won't get in the way. Just go out and follow this road to the end, and you'll reach Sister Daijia's estate. You go about your business; at this time of year, nothing is more important than the work in the fields."

Shen Wanqing found the look of Fifth Master's disgust amusing. It was enough that he had planted a seed this time; the day when he could truly become a towering tree capable of shaking the vested interests was still a long way off.

Or perhaps these people are all old-fashioned and inflexible. Even if there are better days, they don't care about them and prefer to stick together as a single clan. It's not impossible that the clan elders would eat the meat while the others would pick up scraps.

Shen Wanqing wasn't in a hurry. After all, they were old and she was still young. They were the ones who should be worried and anxious, not her. She had plenty of time to wait.

Shen Wanqing meant it when she said she was leaving. She glanced at Qi Di briefly, got a general idea of ​​what was going on, and then left.

As for the managers of the forest farm and ranch who arrived late in the afternoon after receiving the news, they looked at each other and remained silent after hearing about the new rules set by the Shen family at the Hesheli family by Master Wu.

After all, these managers weren't all from the clan elders' families. Everyone knew that those few families were living a life of luxury by controlling the public land, and everyone wanted to experience that kind of life.

A pebble thrown into the lake creates ripples, then sinks to the bottom and the lake returns to calm, as if nothing had happened. But once a pebble enters the lake, it can't truly be ignored. It's just that whose heart did Shen Wanqing's pebble reach? That remains to be seen.

From her own estate to Akdun's estate, Shen Wanqing truly witnessed what the majesty of a Manchu steward grandmother should look like.

Daijia was a woman who could fight Akdun to a standstill. Her headman was like a mouse before a cat when he saw Daijia. Without Daijia even having to ask anything, he would take the initiative to lay out all the account details and even clean up the storeroom overnight, just waiting for Daijia to see it.

Seeing her so attentive, Shen Wanqing couldn't help but sigh in admiration. After all, she was the matriarch who was born to dedicate her entire life to managing the family business, unlike herself.

I stumbled and struggled my way up by relying on so much advanced knowledge and years of being a child immersed in television, piecing together all sorts of miscellaneous information. But what others do? That's real iron-fisted tactics, incredibly impressive.

Shen Wanqing was never stingy when praising people, and she never praised them behind their backs. Dai Jia blushed as she listened to Shen Wanqing's various ways of praising people. She had originally planned to stay on the estate alone for another day, but the next morning she took the initiative to say that she would accompany Shen Wanqing back to inspect the shops.

“Your family has a grain and oil shop right next to my family’s soy sauce shop. My family has two chefs who are very good at making soy sauce. You can take some soy sauce home with you.”

“I know that place. My maid always sends the gatekeeper to buy pickled garlic and cucumbers. I never expected it to be your business, sister-in-law. I won’t stand on ceremony with you. Give me a big bowl of each of the pickled garlic, cucumbers, and fermented bean curd.”

In the capital, you either need to go all out to create an elegant and scarce business, ideally becoming the only shop in the entire capital that makes a living from that business. No matter what you sell or how expensive it is, you can still make a fortune.

The corresponding thing is that you must have a powerful backer behind you, otherwise if you offend someone or arouse someone's jealousy, you will soon die without a burial place.

Take Guangyuan Bank as an example. No other money exchange in the entire capital city can match its ability to profit from both large and small businesses. Now that something has happened, the other money exchanges and banks have all received the news. They're telling themselves to take back the principal and interest they've invested in loans at exorbitant interest rates, and to avoid causing any deaths, to stay away from this kind of business in the future. If they behave themselves for a few years, the matter will be over.

Guangyuan Bank not only went bankrupt but also couldn't get the person out; in the past few days, I've heard that even their backer has been arrested.

The largest shareholder behind Guangyuan Bank is a prince from the imperial clan. A few days ago, Emperor Kangxi summoned him to the palace and gave him a good scolding. It's hard to say whether he can keep his princely title. I heard that His Majesty is considering picking someone from another branch of his family to inherit the title.

Without the title, this branch of the royal family would become a mere idle member of the royal clan, and within a few years, their descendants would be forgotten.

This move was so devastating, it terrified the nobles and relatives even more than dragging the Guangyuan Trading Company owner and his family to the execution ground and slaughtering them. In their hearts, taking away their titles was more devastating than losing their lives.

Since Shen Wanqing couldn't find a powerful backer and didn't want to be in the limelight, she had to keep her family's shops as low-profile as possible. She would do whatever business was related to the daily lives of ordinary people, such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

Rice shops, oil shops, general stores, clothing shops, tea shops for people to rest, sauce shops, dried goods and seafood shops from the south, and leather and mountain goods shops from Liaodong—all these were businesses where one or two could survive on a single street.

Dai Jia ran a soy sauce shop, so she must have had experienced chefs with recipes for all sorts of pickles. The Hesheli family didn't have these recipes, so for years they just ran a general store and had the family manager run it.

The original plan was that since the two shops were right next to each other, and Dai Jia's sauce shop was doing so well, Hesheli's couldn't possibly be doing too badly.

To their surprise, upon arriving at their destination and stepping off the carriage, they found the soy sauce shop bustling with activity, its owner and staff working non-stop, as lively as a modern-day market. Meanwhile, their own local grocery store was practically deserted.

In broad daylight, the shop, which had a neat and proper storefront, was completely dark from the outside. Only when you got closer did you realize that there was indeed a person guarding the shop leaning against a recliner behind the counter.

The counters in these shops are high, and the reclining chairs are almost flat, so from the outside, you would never guess there's anyone inside. You have to walk up to the counter, stand on tiptoe, and peek inside to find them.

But it didn't matter. Walking into the general store, she saw that everything was dusty and the items inside were mostly old and outdated, with few trendy ones. Although they were all new and unused, if Shen Wanqing were a customer, she would never spend money to buy this junk. Whether or not someone was minding the store didn't really matter.

Shen Wanqing wasn't angry. After all, the shop hadn't been in her hands before, so how bad it became was none of her business.

She suddenly realized why Dai Jia was following her so eagerly. Her family's pickle shop was right next door, so how could she not know what kind of mess Hesheli's grocery store was? She was just here to see the joke.

Shen Wanqing slapped Dai Jia's arm in an annoyed tone, and Dai Jia burst out laughing. It's no wonder she insisted on watching this spectacle; both times she'd dealt with Shen Wanqing, she'd found this Shen woman incredibly formidable.

The more capable a person is, the more she wants to see how they plan to deal with the shop and its manager. Watching a capable person act like this isn't considered laughing at someone, and she's naturally not afraid of angering Shen Wanqing.

The shopkeeper only took the book off his face when he heard the noise. He couldn't see who it was at first because the light was behind him. But when he stood up and saw that it was Dai Jia Shi among the two people, he quickly came out from behind the counter to pay his respects.

"I'm just a guest, shopkeeper, you don't need to stand on ceremony with me. This is your eldest mistress, haven't you met her yet? It's a bit unreasonable that we've come all the way to your shop and still can't find you."

"This servant greets the eldest mistress. A few days ago, Changshun from the manor came by and told this servant that the eldest mistress would come yesterday. However, I waited all day yesterday and she didn't come. This servant then thought that the eldest mistress was not coming."

"And then I caught you red-handed. Is Manager Fang thinking right now that I did it on purpose, to catch you off guard?"

"No, no, this servant is..."

"Don't be afraid, I just wanted to catch you off guard."

Shen Wanqing made no attempt to hide the fact that she had decided to stay an extra night at Dai Jia's estate without telling the people in the town's shops. She genuinely wanted to see how they would react to her being a day late.

"But it doesn't really matter. I don't see you're planning to close the shop. It doesn't make much difference whether I come yesterday or today."

Now we see that this shopkeeper has a rather arrogant attitude, calling everyone "servant" but actually unwilling to do any extra work.

"Grandma is joking."

"I'm not joking with you. Here's what we'll do: you answer whatever I ask, just don't lie. I won't blame you for whatever you answer."

Fang Liang knew he couldn't fool her today, so he didn't bother to waste any more words. Seeing his new mistress say this, he nodded helplessly.

“You pay two hundred taels of silver to the government every year. You run this shop every day of the year. Besides the monthly salary from the government, how much do you get in a year?”

"When business was good, I earned thirty or fifty taels, but last year business was even worse, and I only made a total of one or two taels."

It would be nonsense for the shopkeeper to say he doesn't take any money from the counter. With such a stagnant shop, he only pockets about thirty taels a year on average, which is indeed not much.

"Whose caravan supplies this shop? They're putting this kind of junk in here to fool people. Doesn't the shopkeeper find it disgusting?"

"The supplier is the maternal grandfather of Huamei, who serves the Second Madam. Ever since the Second Madam took over the household, this servant can only get goods from Huamei's maternal grandfather."

“Now I understand. No matter how bad the goods in the shop are, the Second Madam has already handled them. No matter how little silver is handed over to the mansion at the end of the year, since the shop doesn't belong to the West Courtyard, she can take two hundred taels if she can. She doesn't think it's too little.”

The words were so direct that Dai Jia turned her head away, wishing she hadn't heard them. This Shen was too reckless; she dared to blurt out anything. Why had she come along to watch this commotion? Now look what happened!

"Take these next two days to tidy up the shop and put away the account books. You don't need to keep the shop open."

"Madam, what should this servant do?"

"Have you ever been to school?"

"I studied for two years, so I can be considered literate."

Just now, when Fang Liang was sleeping, his face was covered with a miscellaneous book. The shopkeeper who was just getting by in this kind of shop wouldn't use this to pretend unless he really liked reading. Even if it was just a miscellaneous book, it would be fine.

"Go back to the East Courtyard study for a few months. First, get familiar with the people in the East Courtyard and my work habits. Second, consider it a vacation for you. You must have had a hard time staying in this general store for the past few years."

It's not that running a shop with poor business is being lazy; sometimes, people feel even worse in this kind of environment.

Shen Wanqing needs to help him recover to normal first, and then see if he is still usable. If he is, then he can be used as needed. If he is not, then she will figure out a place to arrange for him.

"This servant thanks Madam for your kindness." Fang Liang, who had not been very enthusiastic until Shen Wanqing told him that she had arranged for him to go to the study in the east courtyard, and even implied that she would need his help in the future, finally became genuinely attentive.

"There's another person in the shop, a clerk who's been working here for the past few years. He's not one of our family members; he was hired from outside by the servants."

“If he’s willing to work for our family, you can bring him along, but he can’t enter the inner gate for now. Keep him at the gatehouse and let him get to know all the people coming in and out of the house. How does that arrangement seem to work?”

"Alright, alright, I'll do whatever Grandma says."

Fang Liang had been married before, but his wife died of illness less than two years after their marriage. He hasn't remarried in recent years, and he treats the shop assistants around like his own children; he can't feel at ease leaving them behind.

"Where is he? I haven't seen him."

"We went to buy groceries. We cook lunch for ourselves."

Well, even though their business isn't doing well, they're still living a good life. Shen Wanqing was both amused and exasperated, but she comforted herself that it was alright, at least it didn't interfere with her life.

After settling into this grocery store, Chang Shun was supposed to go to the next one, but before he even left the store, he arrived breathless.

She looked at Chang Shun, who had rushed over from home, and handed him a teacup that hadn't been touched. "Drink some water and talk slowly. We're bound to have some great good news fall into our laps. What's the rush?"

"Grandma, this is truly wonderful news." Chang Shun finished his tea in one gulp. "Master has done a great service, and the Crown Prince has sent a reward to our home. You should go back and take a look."

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Happy National Day everyone!

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