Chapter 75 Chapter 75 Aunt Wen paused at this point...
Madam Wen paused here, then looked at Madam Qin and Madam Kong, both of whom looked unhappy, and it was obvious that they had thought of something.
As expected, Concubine Kong said, "It's strange. I only had this abdominal pain after I came to the mansion. When I was waiting to be married, I lived a good life and never had such a situation!"
Although Aunt Qin didn't say anything, her eyes flickered and her face looked even paler.
Madam Wen saw this and had an idea in her mind, so she said, "But these days, the mansion is short of food, so I always cook for myself in my courtyard."
"But after more than a month, my abdominal pain seems to have improved a lot. This time, my period has come and my stomach only has a dull pain, which is much better than before."
Although Madam Wen did not say it explicitly, she had already hinted clearly at what Bai had done.
Although Aunt Kong and Aunt Qin had some doubts about Bai before, they only thought about it in their own minds. Now that the three of them got together and talked about it, everything came true.
At this time, Aunt Qin stood up and took Aunt Wen's hand and said, "My dear sister, this meal is really worth it. I was young and ignorant when I first came to your house, so I never came to visit you. You won't blame me, will you?"
"That's not right." Aunt Wen smiled and said, "If I blamed you, why would I invite you to play in my yard?"
Aunt Qin: "That's good. It's only today that I know how enthusiastic you are. Why don't we three become sworn sisters and keep in touch with each other so that we can take care of each other in the mansion?"
Aunt Qin was a smart woman. She immediately understood Aunt Wen's intention and immediately took the initiative to propose becoming sworn sisters.
Although Aunt Kong is not as smart as Aunt Qin, she is not stupid either. At this time, he immediately said: "We can take care of each other in the mansion and avoid being framed by those treacherous people. This is a good thing."
Madam Wen then said, "As madams, if we want to gain a foothold in the mansion, we must have a son or a daughter."
"There are two young masters in the mansion. The second young master has never taken my sweet sister seriously. But the prince still cares about this sister and occasionally sends some gifts and sends people to greet her."
Upon hearing this, Concubine Kong said, "That's true. I didn't have enough people to serve me in my room before. I asked for help several times but no one came. It was the prince who came forward to ask for someone to come."
Aunt Qin was sent by the Grand Prince. She didn't say anything at this time, but she had some thoughts in her mind.
Although her family and the eldest prince are in the same boat, her future offspring are the foundation for her to gain a foothold in this marquisate. It’s okay that she doesn’t have a child now, but if she does, I don’t know if Bai will do anything to her!
After dinner, everyone returned to their own courtyards, but that night, the Marquis went to Concubine Qin's room. Aunt Qin said to him, "The kitchen has been really harsh these days. They only make some vegetarian noodle soup every day, which is not enough to fill you up. I also want a small kitchen of my own where I can cook for myself."
When the Marquis heard this, he said, "There is a food shortage these days, why build a small kitchen? Let's talk about it later."
Aunt Qin deliberately said, "My Lord, you don't know that you were not at home before. We, the concubines, only have white flour in our courtyard every day, and we eat worse than the servants in the second young master's courtyard."
"The Second Young Master has five or six dishes every day, which is no different from before the famine. What he and his wife can't finish, they give to the maids and servants below."
"When Aunt Kong saw this, she went to ask Madam why the servants in the mansion neglected us, the aunts. Guess what Madam said?"
"What did you say?" Lord Xue asked casually.
"Madam said that the food in the second young master's yard was provided by the Bai family and has nothing to do with the public palace." Aunt Qin said.
"Bai family? Did she really say that?" Lord Xue frowned and asked immediately after hearing it.
Bai is in charge of the public household and is a little partial to her own son. As long as it does not affect Lord Xue's interests, he is too lazy to care.
But before that, when he wanted to borrow grain from the Bai family, the Bai family flatly refused, saying that the Bai family had no surplus grain.
As a result, Lord Xue went to every branch of the Xue family to beg for food, but to this day they have not returned it, so the branches of the Xue family came to his house to question him.
If the Bai family had food, but Bai deliberately said that he had none, wouldn't that mean he was just watching him suffer and not taking him, the Marquis, seriously at all!
Thinking of this, Lord Xue also felt a little dissatisfied with Bai. Aunt Qin tried to persuade her again with both soft and hard methods.
Finally, the Marquis agreed to set up a small kitchen for her after the famine was over.
A few days later, the Xue family still hadn't returned the grain. Several branches of the Xue family came together and blocked Lord Xue, who was about to go to court, at his doorstep.
"My Lord, when you asked us to borrow grain, you said you would pay it back after the New Year."
"Yes! You are a great marquis, your words are as good as gold, you can't just go back on your word like this, right?"
"The prices of vegetables and rice in Beijing are frighteningly high now. We, the side branches, don't have as much property as the Marquis' Mansion. Life is hard and we can barely make ends meet!"
"If you don't pay back the grain, we will have no choice but to file a complaint against you at the government office. This will let the world see that even a noble mansion can fail to repay its debts! We can't let the children at home starve to death, can we?"
…
These side branches of the Xue family usually flatter and lick Lord Xue. But now, just because of a food shortage, they all turned hostile and started speaking rudely.
Lord Xue was really forced into a corner and had no choice but to call Bai over and ask her to buy another batch of grain and pay it back no matter what.
After hearing this, Bai said, "Rice prices are sky-high now. Buying food now would waste thousands of taels of silver. Our annual income would be wasted!"
"We have to buy it, but are we really going to let them file a complaint against me? And let those old men in the court report me?" Lord Xue said angrily, "It's your fault for not having a brain now. I see many families in the capital have already prepared to store food, how come you are the only one who hasn't? I don't know how this family is run!"
Lord Xue had never said a harsh word to Mrs. Bai before, but this time he complained to her, which made Mrs. Bai very angry.
No matter how gentle and considerate she usually pretended to be, she couldn't pretend at all at this moment. He just said with a cold face: "How I treat the Marquis' Mansion, doesn't the Marquis know? This time he said this to me, it's just that there is a newcomer in the mansion, so he looks down on me, an old one."
"Forget it. Since the Marquis insists on returning the grain now, then go and buy it. After all, it's the public treasury's money that's being spent."
It was agreed that we would buy back the grain, but there was no source on the market that could provide so much grain.
The grain in the grain shop is now sold by the bushel. One bushel of rice costs seven or eight taels of silver. A few stones of grain were snatched away as soon as they were brought to the shop.
The Xue family had previously borrowed fifty shi of grain from someone, and with the promise to return double the amount, they would need at least one hundred shi of grain.
Such a large amount of food can only be ordered privately in advance by someone else, and it cannot be snatched from the grain store at all.
The matter of purchasing grain was only delayed for a few more days, but more and more side branches came to the Xue Mansion to cause trouble!
The matter finally reached the court, and his old enemies found evidence of it and reported it to the Emperor Wu of Jin, asking him to make Lord Xue an example in front of all the ministers in the court and sort out family affairs as soon as possible.
Just when Lord Xue could no longer bear it, Xue Fenglin suddenly returned home and said to Lord Xue, "Father, I know a place that still sells grain. The Ye family ran out of grain these days, so I asked someone to buy some from there."
For Lord Xue, this matter was like a pillow for him when he was sleepy, so he had no time to care about anything else. He immediately asked Xue Fenglin to help find out how much grain he could buy.
That afternoon, Xue Fenglin went to Shen Xuan and said to him, "The Marquis' Mansion is now in a hurry to buy grain. How much grain do you have left from your previous stockpile?"
Shen Xuan then said, "There are still 100 dan of brown rice and more than 180 dan of polished rice."
Xue Fenglin thought for a moment and said, "Prepare 100 dan of brown rice and 50 dan of polished rice. I will send someone to get them."
Chen Xuan ordered Suyun to deliver fifty dan of polished japonica rice to Xuanzifang. At night, Xue Fenglin sent people to secretly transport away the one hundred and fifty dan of grain.
The Marquis's Mansion was short of food, so Shen Xuan naturally never thought of collecting money. But a few days later, Wu Xin came again, took out an envelope and handed it to Shen Xuan, saying, "Brother Shen, this is the banknote that the Marquis' Mansion used to buy your grain last time. The prince asked me to bring it to you."
Only then did Shen Xuan realize that Xue Fenglin did not ask him to prepare food for free, but asked the Marquis's Mansion to spend money.
After Wuxin left, he opened the envelope and saw that there was a thick stack of silver bills inside, each worth one thousand and two taels of silver.
Shen Xuan opened his eyes wide and took out the stack of silver notes, only to find that there were exactly eighteen of them, totaling eighteen thousand taels of silver.
Such a huge amount of money is really scary. Even a wealthy family like the Marquis' Mansion must have paid a huge price.
It turned out that after Xue Fenglin sent people to take the grain away that day, he transported it to a house and hired a man with a southern accent to disguise himself as a rice merchant.
The merchant lied to the visitor from Xue's house, saying that he had transported all the rice from the south, that the quantity was limited, and that many noble families were vying for it.
If the Xue family wanted it, they would have to spend 20,000 taels of silver to buy out the 150 shi of grain at one time. It would also save him from offending other noble families after selling it to the Xue family.
A huge sum of 20,000 taels of silver was used to buy 150 shi of grain. Even the grain stores on the market don’t have them so expensive!
But now the Marquis' Mansion is in urgent need of food, and this is the only place in the entire capital where so much food can be purchased at one time.
Lord Xue has been so anxious and angry about being impeached these days that his mouth is full of sores. He had no choice but to go meet the merchant in person again, and finally bought all the rice for 18,000 silver coins.
Although the Marquis's Mansion had many properties, the income from the farms and shops alone could generate five to six thousand taels of silver a year. But the expenses in the palace were huge, and there wasn’t much left over every year.
After paying out the 18,000 taels of silver, more than half of the money she had saved over the years was used up. Mrs. Bai felt so distressed that she became sick for several days.
Fortunately, those debt-collecting side branches were finally sent away, and the mansion finally became quiet.
Having emptied so much of the mansion's savings in one go, Mrs. Bai felt that all that was spent was her son's future fortune, and she became even more stingy.
Now there is enough food at home and we have rice to eat every day. But she was unwilling to spend more money on food, and even started to be stingy with Lord Xue's meals.
Lord Xue couldn't stand Bai's expression and visited her even less frequently.
It was rare for Bai to get angry with Marquis Xue. Whenever he went to Aunt Qin's house, his family would deliberately not prepare any good meals.
Lord Xue had been eating plain soup for several days in a row, and his stomach was empty, but he was still unwilling to take the initiative to show weakness to the Bai family.
When he married Ye, he was in a cold war with her for many years and hardly ever entered her room. At that time, Bai was very considerate and obedient to him, which made him love her.
Now that he has made Bai his wife, Bai has started to show disrespect to Lord Xue. Lord Xue was angry and would rather starve than go to Bai's house to have a look at her face.
He walked around the mansion and smelled the aroma of roast chicken. Following the smell, he came to Madam Wen's yard.
I saw Aunt Wen coaxing Tian Jie'er to eat, and there was a table full of delicious dishes.
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