At the Su family, Mrs. Su's brother, An Hongkang, came again. This time, it wasn't because he lost money gambling. He didn't come asking for money every time. If he did, Mrs. Su would feel bad, so she had to be nice to her.
"I gave you so much money last time, and it all went into gambling." Mrs. Su looked at her brother and warned him, "Don't gamble anymore."
"I didn't gamble much," An Hongkang said. "Losing a few hundred taels of silver is nothing."
That's what An Hongkang thought. He had an agreement with the casino. If he lost a lot of money, he would ask for it back from Madam Su. He would then say that she had more money. He just wanted to get more money from Madam Su.
He was not afraid of being criticized by Madam Su, because he was her only brother.
An Hongkang seized on this point, and Mrs. Su could not ignore him.
"What do you mean it's nothing? A few hundred taels of silver can buy a lot of things." Madam Su didn't think a few hundred taels of silver was too little. A little bit adds up to a lot. A few times, it can add up to tens of thousands of taels of silver. "You'd better be careful."
"Very careful." An Hongkang said.
"Don't just talk the talk and not do it," said Mrs. Su.
"You gave your stepdaughter a lot of things, didn't you?" An Hongkang said. "She was married a long time ago, and yet you gave her so many things when she returned to Beijing. You gave her so many things, but doesn't she dislike you?"
"She doesn't like her." Mrs. Su's purpose wasn't to please Su Qiuya, but to please Master Su. She couldn't let Master Su think she was too stingy, or that she had treated Su Qiuya unfairly.
Su Qiuya is the biological daughter of the Su family after all, and Mrs. Su cannot treat Su Qiuya too badly. Su Qiuya is not someone who can be dealt with easily. Even though Su Qiuya lives outside now, it doesn't mean that this person hasn't thought about catching her tail.
"I told you to be careful," Madam Su said, "I spent so much money just to fill the hole for you."
Mrs. Su also sold some things. She didn't have that much cash, so she had no choice but to sell things. She also couldn't let Master Su know too much. She had saved a lot of money over the years. Although the money seemed to come from legitimate sources, some of it came from the Su family's public treasury, and she also took some things from Master Su.
When Master Su was in a good mood, he would ask her to go to his private storehouse to pick out some things, and Madam Su would choose them. Although these things were with Madam Su, Master Su knew them all.
If Mrs. Su always sells those things, Mr. Su will definitely be unhappy.
"Sister, don't you still trust your brother?" An Hongkang picked up the teacup. "It's okay. By the way, I plan to open a restaurant. What do you think about opening a restaurant right across from your stepdaughter's shop?"
"Why did you open a restaurant across from her shop?" Mrs. Su frowned.
"Let you vent your anger." An Hongkang said.
"Don't go," said Madam Su. "If you open a restaurant across from her shop, she'll go there first and you'll go later. If your brother-in-law finds out, he'll definitely think it's my fault."
Mrs. Su is not that stupid. Even if she wants to deal with Su Qiuya, she would not let her brother open a restaurant opposite Su Qiuya's shop.
"Then you're just going to let her go?" An Hongkang asked.
"What's the point of letting her go? She's already married." Madam Su said, there was no need for her to add unnecessary details. As long as Su Qiuya didn't always think about taking things away from the Su family, that would be fine.
"Sister, you just have a good temper," An Hongkang said. "You don't have to worry about this. Restaurants are usually located in clusters, not just one restaurant. If hers can open one, so can ours. If we don't, someone else will."
"Go somewhere else." Madam Su frowned. "Don't go there. You know your brother-in-law's temper. If he knew you did that, he would definitely think you were wrong."
"...It's really troublesome." An Hongkang was helpless. He also wanted to vent his anger for his sister, but these people would not allow it, so he had no other choice.
Su Qiuya from the second branch of the Liu family met Feng Guanjing from the third branch. Feng Guanjing came over to see Su Qiuya, and the two of them chatted.
"This time, the business of our shop is really not that good. It's not much better than when we were in the northwest. With that little money, there is not much left after spending it every month." Feng Guanjing really felt that business was difficult. When they were in Beijing, they seemed to earn a lot, but they also spent a lot of money.
This meant that they had no money left, so Feng Guanjing wondered if they could continue to make money by selling food in the future?
"Fangmei is pregnant," Feng Guanjing said. "My mother-in-law wants to give her something, but where can we get the money? When we came to the capital, we didn't have enough money to buy a shop, so my mother paid for it."
Feng Guanjing felt upset that under such difficult circumstances, Aunt Chai still wanted to send things to Liu Fang.
"My husband went to persuade her, and at least he managed to get her to stay." Feng Guanjing said helplessly, "She doesn't usually help with the shop work. She only comes to us when she needs money."
Feng Guanjing felt sad every time she thought of this. The family was in such a difficult situation, but Aunt Chai didn't know how to help them and just spent money.
"Have you heard of it? Marry a virtuous wife, and a concubine...is bound to be a little pampered." Su Qiuya said, Aunt Qing is a concubine, and Aunt Chai is also a concubine.
Liu's mother had not paid much attention to these concubines before, which allowed them to develop thoughts that they shouldn't have.
Su Qiuya wondered if Mother Liu really thought those concubines were good, or if she just wanted them to have bad thoughts and to see them teach their children bad things. But no matter what, they had no right to criticize Mother Liu.
That's what being a legitimate mother is like. If she controls too much, the illegitimate children will be dissatisfied; if she controls too little, others will think she is trying to overpraise her children.
Su Qiuya now thought that Aunt Qing was such a bastard, most likely because she was indulged, "Just be patient."
"I don't know how long I have to endure it." Feng Guanjing said.
"As long as your husband doesn't follow your mother-in-law in making trouble, that's all that matters." Su Qiuya said, "For us women, getting married is like this. There are bound to be bumps and bruises. The most important thing is that our husbands treat us well. If our husbands are not good and our mother-in-law is not good either, then we will be sad."
The reason why Su Qiuya could tolerate Qing Yi Niang was because Liu Yanbo treated her well. Su Qiuya snorted coldly at Qing Yi Niang. She wanted to find a way to alienate Liu Yanbo and Qing Yi Niang.
However, Su Qiuya didn't have to do these things. Aunt Qing's previous outrageous behavior had already made Liu Yanbo very dissatisfied.
"That's enough." Su Qiuya said, "It's hard to marry a good one even if I marry again. There's no love. Others just think we just want to be rich and despise our incompetent husbands."
Su Qiuya had long understood this, which was why she hadn't really divorced Liu Yanbo. She was considering various factors. If she remarried, her husband wouldn't like her, her mother-in-law wouldn't like her, her sister-in-law wouldn't like her...
Su Qiuya got a headache just thinking about that kind of situation. It would be better to just deal with Aunt Qing and Liu Yuqin.
At the Marquis of Jingning's mansion, Liu Yulian returned home. She had just returned from the farm. They had been going there frequently these days, mainly because it was time to start sowing some crops.
Even though they were not from the Ministry of Agriculture, Liu Yulian still asked someone to study it.
There's no need to wait for the Ministry of Agriculture to conduct research; establishing a discipline is a lengthy process. Those researchers can conduct more research based on the existing foundation.
"Are you done planting?" Mother Liu asked when she saw Liu Yulian came back early today.
"Yes, they've all been planted." Liu Yulian said, "Others will take care of them."
Liu Yulian mainly had a cheat, otherwise, she wasn't good at planting. She relied on some good varieties of seedlings. She took some of the good varieties from the game store and mixed them with the original ones. She said she got them from other places, and since she didn't take much, others wouldn't be too suspicious.
If she took out a lot at once, others would be suspicious.
"I just went to take a look," Liu Yulian said. "Actually, there's no need for me to do anything. This Dean is like this sometimes."
Liu Yulian doesn't have many projects under her belt, but she's currently working on researching white sugar and salt. For example, she's working on making white sugar from beets and sugarcane, which can also be used to make brown sugar, and salt can be dried on the beach.
"This place isn't too far from the seaside. With a carriage, it's only five or six days away," Liu Yulian said. "I'm thinking of going there in a few days."
"What are you going to do?" When Liu's mother heard that her daughter was going to the beach, she was worried that something might happen to her.
What is a woman doing going to the beach alone?
"Go dry the salt." Liu Yulian said.
"Salt?" Liu's mother was puzzled.
"No, I'm not the one who dries the salt." Liu Yulian said that she didn't know how to make salt. The game system didn't explain it. She only knew that potassium, sodium and ammonium salts are all soluble, and that there are magnesium elements in sea water. It seemed that making salt requires some reaction, distillation?
Liu Yulian didn't understand at all that as a person in the future, if she wanted to eat salt, she should go to the supermarket to buy it. Supermarkets have low-sodium salt, iodized salt... Different provinces may have different salts.
Let her go and dry the salt...she will just stand by and watch, she is not that omnipotent.
"I don't understand." Liu Yulian answered honestly, "There's seafood on the beach. Let's go and see. Maybe we can make some food."
"Really?" Liu's mother didn't think that Liu Yulian went to the beach just for food.
"Look at the seaweed and kelp. They're all edible," Liu Yulian said. "You can grow things on land, and you can grow things in the ocean, too."
Liu's mother didn't think her daughter was that capable. She had been to the beach before, but that was just for a look. Perhaps it was mentioned in a book, though, that her daughter was just good at talking.
Fortunately, they weren't on the battlefield. If they were, the generals wouldn't be able to just try this and that. Those people had to think things through carefully before doing anything, and they couldn't just mess around.
It's not that easy for Liu Yulian to say something here and there about research.
"Mother, don't worry, I won't let them do those things blindly." Liu Yulian knew that someone once wanted to raise yellow croaker, and it took more than ten years of research before they were slightly successful, but the survival rate was only about 30%.
This is not a simple matter. Liu Yulian would never tell others that the ocean resources are abundant and they can go and raise fish.
If Liu Yulian dared to say that, others would then resent her. Liu Yulian wanted to make life easier for those people, not to make them fail. Ordinary people didn't know much. They failed again and again. As the saying goes, "There's no such thing as a third time." After three failures, they wouldn't dare try again.
"It's not that you're blindly asking them to do things, but failure is inevitable," said Liu's mother. "Not every success is guaranteed. Even though you're relatively successful now, it doesn't mean you won't fail in the future. Don't be too arrogant. Be humble when you should be."
Liu's mother was worried that Liu Yulian's research would fail one day, and that her daughter would be sad and that others would disrespect her.
"Failure is inevitable," Liu Yulian nodded. "Failure is the mother of success, so don't worry. If you really fail, it's nothing. I've told those researchers not to be afraid of failure. If they fail in one, two, or even ten years, they should still try in the eleventh year. What if they succeed in the eleventh year?"
Sometimes that's just the way it is. If you don't persist, you miss the truth.
Seeing how concerned Liu's mother was about her, Liu Yulian could only say, "Research is like this. I'm not afraid they won't respect me. I have previous successful research, so they will all respect me."
"I hope so." Mother Liu gently patted Liu Yulian's hand. "If we go to the beach, the wind is strong there."
"Yes, it's just that the weather has been hot recently, so it's a good time to go." Liu Yulian chuckled, "If it were cold, I wouldn't go and would stay by your side."
Liu Yulian did not let her mother go with them. Family members could go out and play, but she might not have time to play with them.
"Then you must come back early." Liu's mother said, "Outside is not as good as home."
"Yes, it's not that warm outside." Liu Yulian said, "I'm just going to take a look. It may take two or three months."
Liu Yulian thought about going to the beach. No matter whether she could make salt by then, she would give it a try. Salt was very important. Nomadic peoples were short of salt, and so was the Daliang Dynasty. Many people only ate coarse salt, which was not very tasty.
Once upon a time, when Liu Yulian was in the northwest, her family didn't have much money, so they bought coarse salt. The coarse salt didn't taste as good, and the dishes cooked with it didn't taste as good either.
Liu Yulian had considered making salt, but she didn't know much about how it was done. She'd seen characters making salt in TV dramas and novels, but she wasn't entirely clear on the specifics. She knew that drying salt wasn't a simple task; it required other steps.
Unfortunately, the game system does not have a search function, so you cannot browse other pages.
What Liu Yulian could do was to find some capable people to see if there was anyone who was good at this. Liu Yulian knew little, but they could still give it a try, just in case it worked.
Some things have no direction and cannot be done, while some things have an initial direction, so they should be done.
Liu Yulian went to the seaside for two or three months, and she stayed there. Seafood has a strong fishy smell, so fishermen don't necessarily make much money, and some people don't know how to process some of it.
For example, if salt is expensive, then those people can't make so much salted fish. They are more likely to want to dry fish, and to dry fish, you need to have enough fish.
Liu Yulian currently has no way to change fishing techniques, nor can she create a super-large fishing boat. She believes that the most practical way is to dry salt.
"Sometimes I just stand there and do nothing." Liu Yulian said, "I'm not afraid that they won't obey. If they don't obey, I won't let them do anything. The emperor has also sent people to me, and I want to give it a try."
"You're so quick to make up your mind. Why do you always have so many ideas?" Liu's mother reached out and poked her daughter's head. "Didn't you say you were researching a steam engine? Haven't you developed a steam engine that everyone can use yet? Why are you running off to the beach again?"
"I also feel that my heart is unstable." Liu Yulian nodded, "I just don't do one thing all the time."
Liu Yulian wanted to keep doing one thing, but the technology in ancient times was not that advanced. Liu Yulian was still waiting for the glass factory to make a microscope. Once they made a microscope, she could study cells and let those people know about viruses and bacteria.
But she didn't want to have so many things so quickly.
Liu Yulian couldn't be omnipotent. She knew her level, and in many areas, she wasn't even half-baked. She couldn't just not do something because she knew little. Even if she knew little, as long as that thing benefited the people and the country, then she should try.
The Ministry of Revenue had allocated a considerable amount of funds to the research institute, with different research projects receiving varying amounts of funding. There was also a portion of funds not allocated to any project, and Liu Yulian could arrange for this amount to be used to initiate new research topics.
Even if Liu Yulian couldn't use more of the silver, she still had some money of her own. Even if the court controlled the salt, as long as she explained her intentions to the emperor, she thought the emperor would let her continue her research.
"Mother, even if I only have a partial understanding, some things cannot be delayed." Liu Yulian said.
If she had to wait until she understood everything, how long would she have to wait? Liu Yulian thought that sometimes even if she racked her brains, she still couldn't come up with the answer, so she still had to brainstorm.
"Okay, go ahead and do it." said Liu's mother.
When the emperor learned that Liu Yulian was going to take people to the beach to dry salt, he decided to let the third prince go with Liu Yulian.
"The third prince?" Liu Yulian was surprised. Isn't that the son of the deceased Cen Shuren?
"Yes," the emperor said, "don't worry, you are still the one who makes the decision."
"People have been drying salt on the seashore for a long time." Liu Yulian said. She had already inquired about it a long time ago and knew that there were people drying salt, but the output was not that high and the technology was not that advanced.
Liu Yulian brought people there to improve the salt-drying technology so that those people could produce more salt.
"The output is not high enough." said the emperor. What he wanted was high output. He believed that Liu Yulian and others would be able to find a way to increase the salt output.
Technology is the primary productive force. The emperor had heard Liu Yulian say that before, and that various technologies could be utilized. The establishment of the research institute was also for the purpose of researching and promoting technology.
"I'll give you an additional 10,000 taels of silver," the emperor said. "Together with the funds your research institute can use, it should be enough for you to conduct research for several months."
"Yes." Liu Yulian responded. She didn't care about the money. She suddenly felt a little itchy. What was the third prince doing over there?
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