The Ren family started out by leasing coal mines and operating coal kilns, and has settled in Youzhou, northern Yan, for generations.
During the decades when the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyan were trampled by the Liao cavalry, although the family property was lost and the clan members died out, the Ren family did not leave this land and migrate south with the court.
Afterwards, the fourth King of Yanbei, Xiao Qishan, lived up to the reputation of his ancestors and led a large group of people to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyan and intercept the Liao people outside the Jiajing Pass. The Yanbei region returned to the rule of the Great Zhou.
At this time when everything was in ruins, Baoming, the then head of the Ren family, took out three gold bars hidden by his wife under the toilet compartment, and despite his family's opposition, he took a gamble and bought several unowned hilltops in the west mountain outside Yunyang City in Youzhou.
Maybe it really was a lucky break for the Ren family. The West Mountain turned out to be a treasure trove of coal. The coal mined from the four or five hills bought by the Ren family was of particularly high quality. The annual output could not only supply the entire Youzhou area but could also be transported to surrounding provincial capitals.
In addition, the head of the Ren family was good at scheming, and within just a few years, the Ren family's coal warehouses were spread all over Yanbei.
With wealth and power, the Ren family has since regarded themselves as a powerful family in northern Yan.
After Yanbei was initially settled, countless powerful families emerged in the Yanbei area overnight like mushrooms after rain.
In addition to the Yanbei Palace, which has guarded Yanbei for generations and is actually the uncrowned king of Yanbei, there are some old northern families that moved back to the north after the war, such as the Yun family, and the Su family who rose to fame after following the Yanbei King in the Northern Expedition, and the Ren family who made a fortune by relying on various luck and means.
The new and old nobles were unwilling to accept each other. The new nobles could not stand the fact that the old noble families were so poor yet so arrogant. The old noble families looked down on the new nobles because they had shallow roots and lacked the bearing of noble families. Both sides fought openly and secretly, trying to trip each other up.
It was not until the King of Yanbei mediated and the two factions, the Yun and Ren families, took the lead in making peace that the situation in Yanbei was truly stabilized.
Over the past few decades, although there were occasional disputes between the new and old factions of families, most of them were able to coexist peacefully under the strong pressure of the Yanbei Palace, and many of them even married their children to each other.
The wife of the current head of the Ren family, Yonghe, was born into the aristocratic Qiu family of Jizhou. Although Qiu's father's lineage was not a direct branch of the Qiu family, the head of the Qiu family had no children, so Qiu's brother was adopted as his own. As a result, the current head of the Qiu family is actually the eldest brother of Old Lady Ren, Qiu. This relationship also made Qiu's position in the Ren family more upright. After all, although the Ren family had barely become a prominent family in Yanbei due to fate, it still lacked the confidence of the old and established families like the Yun family and the Qiu family.
The main residence of the Ren family is located in Baihe Town on the southern foot of Xishan Mountain, more than 90 miles outside Yunyang City. Although Baihe Town is not as prosperous as Yunyang City, the first city in Yanbei, it is prosperous because it is located at the north-south transportation fortress and has always been a battleground for military strategists.
The Ren family's house covers a vast area, with carved beams and painted rafters, pavilions and towers, the beauty of which is no less than that of the Nando gardens.
It is said that this place was once the ancestral home of a prominent family. Because the whole family moved south, they sold the house at a low price. Later, it was purchased by the head of the Ren family, who moved in after renovating it.
Ren Yaoqi has lived here since she was born. Before she left the Ren family at the age of sixteen, she rarely left this place. Although it was old, rotten, and infested with termites, it was renovated into a magnificent place with tiles and painted walls.
After recovering from his illness, Ren Yaoqi walked out of Ziwei Courtyard for the first time. When he walked under the nine-curve corridor and looked at the mansion again, he had a different feeling.
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