The wife of Marquis Yongding died. Ten years after the death of Marquis Yongding's concubine, the wife of Marquis Yongding also died.
Because the person died in Yunlan Temple, Yongding Hou Chen Xiao learned the news a day later.
The Marquis stayed in the study for a night. It had been ten years. Shortly after the concubine's death, the wife of the Marquis of Yongding was almost forced by him to go to Yunlan Temple. In fact, the matter had nothing to do with the wife.
The son born to his concubine, his eldest son out of wedlock, stood up to protect his younger brother and sister-in-law when a frightened horse was charging and about to hit his wife's legitimate children. His own sternum was broken by the horse, and the broken bones pierced his heart and lungs, causing him to die.
After her son died, the concubine struggled on her sickbed for three months before finally dying, leaving behind only a daughter.
He was so angry at the time that he thought it was his wife's fault and that she had done something very cruel. But when he thought about it, he remembered that his eldest son had spat out blood before dying to tell him that it was just an accident and had nothing to do with his wife. The Marquis himself had also carefully checked his wife's case and it was indeed not related to her.
But he could not accept the death of his beloved concubine and eldest son. This nameless anger and hatred for the heaven and the earth had to be taken up by someone, so he forced his wife to go to Yunlan Temple to kneel and copy scriptures for his concubine and his illegitimate eldest son Ming'er.
But three years later, he had thought about taking her home. It was said that the cushions he used for kneeling and chanting scriptures were broken many times. But he didn't say it out loud. After all, it didn't matter.
After that, another year passed, and he accompanied the prince to Yunlan Temple. After a busy day, the prince smiled in the twilight and told him not to work anymore, as they had to stay in the mountains for one night anyway, so he asked him to go and see his wife.
He hesitated for a long time and finally went to the back mountain. The lights in the Zen room of the wife of Yongding Marquis were off. He sat on the stone bench under the tree in the Zen courtyard for a while, quietly looking at the door of the Zen room, and finally got up and left.
Later, Shen Zhaoming and Shen Zhaoshu returned home from other places. The old lady was so happy to see her grandchildren coming back that she asked him to go and pick up his wife to reunite with her.
He did not go, but asked his son and daughter to pick someone up from Yunlan Temple. Although he was on duty as usual, he was a little nervous that day, and he was also looking forward to a family reunion when he returned home.
She didn't come back. So what?
He had no idea how Zhaoming and Zhaoshu had reported this to their mother. He didn't ask, and simply carried on as usual. The next day, however, Yumei's daughter, Zhaoyu, also returned home. Thinking Zhaoyu would be different, he asked for leave to wait at home, and ordered the entire family to open the main gate to welcome them. Except for the old lady, all servants who weren't on duty were to go out to greet them. This meant that Zhaoming and Zhaoshu, who had just returned home, would also be lined up at the middle gate to greet them.
Originally, Zhaoyu was born to a concubine and could not be named according to the Zhao generation name. But after Yumei died, he was grief-stricken and wanted to record Yumei as his first wife. The wife of Yongning Hou, the first wife, was changed to the second wife in the family tree. Then he changed the names of the eldest children of concubines to record them as legitimate children. The original eldest son Zhaoming and the eldest daughter Zhaoshu were moved back one place to become the second legitimate children.
But the old lady was determined to keep Zhaoming's position as the eldest legitimate son and not let the deceased illegitimate eldest son take Zhaoming's status. That's why she only mentioned Zhaoyu, and also allowed Madam Hou to keep her position as the first wife, but with an additional daughter under her name, which raised Zhaoyu's status.
The marquis buried his concubine Yu Mei according to the standards for his wife, but it seemed that this was not enough to him. Her son died for Zhao Ming and Zhao Shu, and she also died, but it was only an empty title, which was not enough!
Since that was the case, he had to make plans for Zhaoyu. After Zhaoyu was recorded as the eldest daughter, he changed the marriages of Zhaoyu and Zhaoshu. Zhaoyu married into the Rongguo Mansion, while Zhaoshu married into the family of a sixth-rank official.
This sixth-rank official was originally a high-ranking official in Kyoto. He held the first rank but was exiled to a distant land due to a crime. When he died, he was still a sixth-rank official, and his son was still preparing for the imperial examination in Beijing, his future uncertain. Zhao Yu, seeing this, was unwilling to marry. The Marquis of Yongding felt that breaking off the engagement would be bad for Zhao Yu's reputation, so he secretly arranged for her to marry him.
Zhaoyu's dowry almost emptied the entire marquis's mansion, so Zhaoming and Zhaoshu's marriage could only rely on 60% of the marquis's wife's dowry. 60% because after he emptied the mansion's public treasury, he asked the marquis' wife to take out 40% of the dowry to add to Zhaoyu's dowry, so there was only 60% left.
When Zhaoyu got married, she was dressed in a dazzling array of red.
Things are unpredictable. The young man of the Wang family that Shen Zhaoshu married was quite talented. Zhaoshu accompanied her husband through all the ups and downs, and was promoted to the capital. The couple loved each other and had a son, Wang Suwen, and two daughters, Wang Lingyi and Wang Xipei.
Back then, when people kept praising the talent and character of this young man from the Wang family, Shen Xiao realized that the lady had put a lot of effort into arranging a marriage for her concubine's daughter.
Shen Zhaoshu thought that it had been another ten years now. She went to Yunlan Temple to burn incense for her mother, pray for her missing brother, and pray for the safety of her son Wang Suwen who was on a mission abroad under the imperial edict.
Wang Suwen was sent to the prosperous city of Yangzhou. On the surface, he was an ordinary official, but in fact he was on a mission to conduct a secret investigation with His Majesty.
Your Majesty feels that although Yangzhou still pays some taxes that seem to be okay but are actually perfunctory, it is impossible to know how much real revenue it earns and how the policies it implements are.
The political and business communities in Yangzhou were like a monolith, reporting only to him as a formality. His decrees were met with official responses from Yangzhou, seemingly acting as if they were being carried out, but in reality, they didn't seem to be doing so.
The emperor once sent four local officials to Yangzhou to take up posts, but one of the four officials seemed to melt into an iron plate after arriving there, and the memorials he submitted were all the same.
One of them didn't stay there for long before he retired due to illness.
There was another official with great means who the emperor had high hopes for. He also cleaned up Yangzhou. However, the emperor was overjoyed when the official's sudden death dampened his spirits.
The last one became a sidelined mascot in the Yangzhou officialdom.
Among the people sent by the emperor several times before, there was an inconspicuous clerk named Zhang Guanghe who unexpectedly established himself in Yangzhou. It was the information that this clerk repeatedly passed on without going through the official route that allowed the emperor to understand some of the real situation in Yangzhou.
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