I want to be emperor

The marriage and wedding of the Song and Chen families shocked the local people with its grandeur and extravagance, and gave them something to talk about for many years to come.

And some upper-class people from the local area and surrounding areas who were invited here also knew how deep Song Erniu's financial resources were, and many of them were particularly envious of the Chen family.

This was originally just a dilapidated family. It sounds good to say that it is a century-old scholarly family. From the Ming Dynasty to the Guo Dynasty, there were generations of officials, but now the head of the family is no more than a seventh-rank section chief. No one can enter the officialdom... Such a family is already very inconspicuous in the officialdom, and financially, the Chen family also lost their family business early. It seems that they still live in a luxurious and huge manor, but in fact their assets are not much.

However, after such a Chen family hooked up with the Song family, its textile company merged with the Song family's garment factory to form a joint textile company, and received capital injection from Song Erniu and a bank loan. The United Textile Company rose again, and the Chen family, which owns many shares in it, also benefited from it.

Not to mention, Song Erniu also directly spent more than 1 Chu Yuan's money in the form of betrothal gifts... Apart from some traditional gifts and the like, the bulk of these betrothal gifts are actually easy-to-monetize gold, national bonds, and real estate. A sum of money greatly filled the shortfall of the Chen family, allowing the Chen family to relax.

Today's Chen family, dare not say that it has risen again, but its assets have begun to turn losses into profits, at least there is no need for continuous large-scale blood loss.

As long as Chen Yuanxiang, who is in charge of the family business in the future, doesn't be stupid, and don't blindly engage in venture capital or gambling to ruin the family property, then follow-up will rely on the dividends of the United Textile Company and the future share dividends of the branches invested by Song's Apparel Company in the local area. , there will be no problem maintaining a decent upper class.

This kind of change has made many upper-class families who are already dilapidated envy...

Some people have even wondered that the Americas seem to be good at making money, and there should be a lot of sudden wealth. Can I follow the Chen family's example and find a newly rich family in the Americas or other overseas territories to marry, and then earn a lot of money? A large sum of money, by the way, to seek a stable and sustainable financial source?
Song Erniu naturally didn't know that his marriage behavior had aroused the envy and attention of others, even if he knew, he didn't care.

Anyway, it has nothing to do with him!
Now he has been staying at home in recent years, with his newlywed wife Song Chen...Song Chen has just married, although when she married, several maids and old ladies who used to follow her also came with her , continue to work for her, and are not alone.

But after all, she came to a new and unfamiliar environment, and had a new identity: the daughter-in-law of the Song family.

The changes in environment and identity made Song Chen feel very awkward...it took time to adapt.

Song Erniu didn't know her inner thoughts, but he also knew that she should be with her more during the wedding. In order to make the new wife's life easier, to be able to quickly adapt to the new life, and not to irritate the new wife, Song Erniu even let the two A personal maid brought back to the mainland has been staying in the other courtyard for the past few days so as not to show her head...

Although the Song Chen family is the daughter of the upper class, they are actually very clear that men in the upper class are not common, but eight out of ten have a lot of women... Only thirty years have passed since the Ming Dynasty , and the empire itself is still a traditional feudal dynasty, so some ancient traditional concepts still deeply affect the operation of society.

Concubines are no exception.

Although the laws of the Great Chu Empire firmly enforced the monogamy system, and there was even a criminal offense of bigamy, the crime of bigamy was only aimed at statutory couples, using various legal loopholes, such as using false identities to register marriages with other people specific offenses.

It's not simply cheating, or taking care of a wife, finding a lover, etc... These are all personal matters, and the law doesn't care.

After all, official marriages in the Dachu Empire have always only recognized legal marriages, that is, registered marriages, and other de facto marriages and the like are not recognized...

The laws of the Great Chu Empire do not even recognize illegitimate children...

In the laws of the Great Chu Empire, marriage is very serious. Everything is based on registered legal marriages, and nothing else counts... because it involves a very critical issue of inheritance rights, especially the issue of noble inheritance rights. ...It can even affect the issue of imperial succession.

Due to the limited technical level of the Great Chu Empire, it is difficult to determine the parent-child relationship in terms of technical conditions... The ghost knows if this is your son... This will lead to a series of troubles that are difficult to figure out.

If you recognize de facto marriage, then since they are all legally recognized marriages, do children born out of wedlock, that is, illegitimate children, have inheritance rights?
If the inheritance rights of illegitimate children are recognized... then the problem is even more troublesome. For example, after a certain nobleman dies, a woman runs out holding the child and says that it is the nobleman's illegitimate son. What do you do?To recognize or not to recognize?To give this title or not?
You said that there are not so many nobles, but there are quite a few ordinary rich people in the folk... If you dare to admit the inheritance rights of illegitimate children, countless people who claim to be illegitimate children will come up every minute to snatch the inheritance rights, but you still can't live in the world. Technically distinguish authenticity from falsehood.

Since they couldn't figure it out, the authorities simply identified it... directly across the board, only recognizing legally married children, and ignoring everything else... Even pre-marital children of legally married couples are not recognized at all.

Only the children born to the legal couple during the marriage have the right to inherit... nothing else.

Of course, there will also be embarrassing situations where a woman cheats, and then the child born with another man gets the right of inheritance... But the right of inheritance is the priority of the will. If you suspect that this son is not your own, just make a will and not leave an inheritance for him That's it.

If you don't know... how can you blame anyone... the official is not your father, your wife is giving you a cuckold, what's the matter with closing the Yamen...

However, the right to inherit the title is different... The right to inherit the title is directly legal. The eldest son inherits, and you can't give it to whoever you want. If you want to deprive the eldest son of the right to inherit the title, it will be very troublesome... Generally speaking Said, unless you come up with hard evidence to prove that this is not your son.

For example, for example, you were clearly not together with your wife during a certain period of time, but nine or ten months later, she gave birth to a big fat boy... Or for example, you and your wife are both serious people from the Chu country. , it turns out that your wife gave birth to a white or black child for you, or some other very clear and ironclad evidence, otherwise don’t expect to deprive your eldest son of his inheritance rights.

The issue of the succession rights of the Great Chu Empire is very serious. It is related to the succession of titles and even the throne of the aristocratic system. The Great Chu Empire has always attached great importance to this aspect.

Because of the issue of inheritance rights, the empire also attached great importance to marriage relationships. In order to avoid various potential troubles that would cause the inheritance system to shake, the laws of the Dachu Empire only recognized legal marriage relationships, and other relationships were not recognized, and there was no so-called de facto marriage.

Since the law does not recognize de facto marriage, then naturally there is no illegal situation...

It's just that there are no such terms as concubine, concubine, and housemaid now, but have become terms such as personal maid, adopted daughter, concubine, concubine, etc. There are many different names for different classes in different places, but basically they are That meaning.

Many people will live together grandly, as long as your wife doesn't care about you, you can keep as many as you like... Call it whatever you want, personal maid, concubine, adopted daughter, lover, confidante, even in front of others. It doesn't really matter if the husband and wife match each other.

At least it's not illegal!
Of course, it’s hard to say whether your wife will divorce you and take half of your property, or steal in revenge and give you a son who is a groom, a gardener, a servant, or even a monk, and then inherit all your property. .

In short, the laws of the Great Chu Empire don't care too much about many things... After all, the law only guarantees the most basic lower limit, and it is not used as a moral judgment standard.

The standard of law is far lower than morality!
If a person follows legal standards and lives on the edge of the law all his life, then there is a high probability that he is not a human being, but an animal!

----

Although Song Erniu likes women, it is only a human nature. After all, he was single before and had no shortage of money. It was normal for him to hire a few personal maids to take care of his daily life day and night.

But he would not let his personal maid come to Song Chenshi when he was newly married, so as to make things difficult for Song Chenshi.

So I sent the personal maid next door to avoid meeting her first.

In fact, Song Chen also knew that Song Erniu brought back two personal maids... After all, Song Erniu did not hide it, and let the two personal maids meet their parents, and let them serve tea to them Well... Although there is no title, it can be considered a long-term relationship.

Mrs. Song Chen actually knows all these things... It's just that Mrs. Song Chen, who grew up in a big family, has long been accustomed to these things, and her father has many women... There are several aunts and wives who have long-term relationships, and there are illegitimate children. Five or six.

Her eldest brother Chen Yuanxiang also had several so-called personal maids. Her sister-in-law initially forbade her eldest brother to have these personal maids, but after she became pregnant and gave birth to a child, she slowly let go of this aspect. She couldn't control it anyway... ... Divorce is even more impossible. It is better to bring those women around as personal maids for better control and management, so as to prevent him from getting sick or causing anything else while messing around outside.

These things are common in big families... Song Chen knew a lot from her contact with her since she was a child. Although she was dissatisfied with this, she would not object too strongly.

It's still the same sentence, you can't control it, and divorce is impossible... If you let him mess around outside, it's better to let him go home, so that you can still control the situation.

As for not seeing the two personal maids in the past two days, Song Chen knew it well, and this new husband also knew it well, and he didn't lose his face too much... and she couldn't do it too much, so After thinking about it, I asked the maid to send some small gifts to the two so-called personal maids, telling them not to hide...

Anyway, it's impossible for these two women to leave - they have been with Song Erniu for a long time, and if they really want to talk about feelings, they still don't know who the third party is, so what's the point of hiding in the next room under such circumstances!
Song Chen's actions made the two personal maids very panic... Although they knew Song Erniu earlier and had followed Song Erniu for several years, they knew their own affairs, and the relationship between them and Song Erniu Relationships never come to the fore.

Besides, talking about feelings is also nonsense... Just like Song Chen married Song Erniu because he was a millionaire, these two personal maids are also willing to do so because Song Erniu is a millionaire You don't even need a title to be with him... Don't mention feelings and the like.

If Song Erniu had no money, who would fall in love with him...

With the looks of these two personal maids, even if they are of low background, they are all delicious buns in the eyes of middle-class or even ordinary high-income men, and they will all pursue them hard.

I am not from a really poor family like those who sold their girls in the pre-Ming Dynasty... In America, I am actually a farmer's family with hundreds or thousands of acres of land. It can be considered a middle-income family. In fact, I am a truly poor family. There is no way to raise such a top-notch woman.If you are malnourished and have to work every day, even doing all kinds of farm work outdoors, you can't expect to be very beautiful... Basically, you have a decent appearance, a very thin body, not much meat, and your whole body is dirty. They are stained, especially the gaps between the nails, and the teeth will definitely not have good white teeth, and the hair will not be black and shiny, but like twigs!
Beauty is something that needs to be cultivated in addition to innate genes.

So travel to ancient times, don't expect to find any beauties in the homes of poor people... that's impossible... Most likely you will only see a little beggar dressed in tatters, dirty and full of fleas, You can't even tell whether someone is a male beggar or a female beggar.

It must be at least a middle-class family, because in this way the girls do not have to do hard work since childhood and can have enough to eat. If the genes are good, they can raise a small family, but don't expect temperament and the like.

And the stunning beauties that I like to talk about in time-traveling novels are most likely to appear in the homes of the rich and powerful... Generations of rich and powerful beauties marry and gradually optimize their genes, coupled with a rich life to cultivate later, then as long as the foundation is good, beautiful women will appear up.

So these personal maids who can appear beside Song Erniu, even if their families are poor, are not the kind of poor who can't eat enough... Many of them are actually raised by middle-income families.

It's just that compared with the super rich like Song Erniu, ordinary middle-level families are still in the sky and the earth is in the sky. The gap is so big that they are willing to be an anonymous personal maid.

Now that Mrs. Song and Chen are married, they didn't make things too difficult for the two of them, which made them each heave a sigh of relief... They had discussed it in private. If they fall out with their wives, they can only leave with the money that Song Erniu has given them over the years, and find a man from a middle-class family to marry.

Now Song Chen didn't embarrass them, which is pretty good, so he will continue to stay with Song Erniu, give birth to a son and a half daughter, and continue to enjoy a prosperous life.

Although this kind of life doesn't have any official status, and it's not nice to say it, but the material conditions that should be there are nothing less, a proper upper-class living standard.

And this level of life is something they struggle for a lifetime under normal circumstances, and they can't even touch it.

Of course, this is their own opinion. As for Song Erniu himself, he thinks that these two women have been with him for several years, and they are very good in every way. They claim to have some feelings... Typical self-moving!

If Song Erniu goes bankrupt today, tomorrow these two personal maids will dare to leave Song Erniu and go back to America...Song Chen also dares to go for a divorce directly...

High society, it is such a reality!
Song Erniu knows a little bit, but he doesn't care, because he doesn't think he will go bankrupt, and he claims that his business ability is still reliable...

Taking a step back, even if he was really unlucky enough that the core asset Song's clothing company went bankrupt due to poor management, he still had hundreds of thousands of Chu Yuan's personal assets.

As a mature and successful businessman, he knows very well that you must never put all your eggs in one basket!

So Song Erniu's ability to resist risks is actually very strong... Even if his career is ruined, he can still live a comfortable life with hundreds of thousands of Chu Yuan's personal assets, and he can still live a luxurious upper-class life, eating and waiting to die. lifetime!

So many of the so-called ideas and even encouragements actually don't matter to him... If he really cared about these, he wouldn't go all the way back to his hometown and marry the legitimate daughter of a strange upper-class family...

Not to mention signing a prenuptial agreement with Song Chen under the negotiation of lawyers of both parties before marriage... He is not stupid, but he will not marry a strange woman and come back, and then she turns around and divorces in two days and takes him away half of the property.

According to the prenuptial property agreement, if the marriage relationship between the two parties really breaks down and they get divorced in the future, Song and Chen can only receive a compensation, but don't expect large assets or anything like that.

So before officially registering their marriage, both parties hired a team of lawyers to negotiate a prenuptial agreement... and finally signed a perfect prenuptial agreement.

This is also a common means of getting married in the wealthy class of the contemporary empire... It not only protects the interests of men, but also protects the interests of women... Because people in the contemporary Chu state marry women, and the family conditions are often given a lot of dowry. Asset security also needs to be guaranteed.

For example, Chen Yuanxiang's wife brought a large dowry with her when she married. There were more than [-] shops of various kinds, and there were also a lot of bonds such as treasury bonds and stocks. According to the prenuptial agreement she signed with Chen Yuanxiang, These dowries belong to her personal control.

Once divorced, these dowry assets, including the income generated by the investment of these dowry assets, can be taken away directly.

Even though the Chen family has fallen and the family is already in difficulties, they still collected a dowry worth nearly [-] Chu yuan for the Song Chen family... In fact, they took a large part of the large betrothal gift given by Song Erniu It was given to the Song Chen family as a dowry.

Of course, the big head gave it, but the small head stayed. After all, the Chen family's economy is really difficult, and it will be difficult to recover blood for a while... Song Erniu also made preparations in advance, and specially gave a few thousand more Chu Yuan as the dowry.

However, the above-mentioned situation is only limited to the upper class. For ordinary families, there is not much dowry, but the dowry is also small... After all, they are all poor...

There is no situation where only a betrothal gift is given but no dowry... Unless you really have the mentality of selling your daughter and want money for life and death, but the daughter is also marrying with the attitude of selling herself for her parents and family, so that will There are situations where only betrothal gift but no dowry is received.

But generally speaking, this kind of situation rarely occurs... After all, the Great Chu Empire is still relatively traditional!

Another point is that the ratio of men to women in the Great Chu Empire is very balanced, and there is no situation where there are more men than women, there is no imbalance between supply and demand, and the woman does not have the mentality to live with rare goods.

After all, although sons were favored in the Great Chu Empire, the problem is that there is no B-ultrasound in this era... Patriarchal families can't know that they are pregnant with a daughter and then go to abortion directly!

China has favored sons over daughters since ancient times. This is a fact and a common feature of patriarchal societies.

But why is the problem of the ratio of men to women in ancient times and even modern times not so prominent?That's because in ancient times and even modern times, it was impossible to distinguish the sex of the fetus and then abortion!
However, modern technology has developed, and the popularization of B-ultrasound can accurately determine the gender of the fetus. In addition, we cannot have more children... so many families directly abort the fetus after discovering that it is a girl.

Then continue to conceive, if it is a boy, it will be born, and if it is a girl, it will be aborted...

After giving birth to a boy, I will not continue to give birth...

There is only one goal: to ensure that a boy inherits the throne of the family!
There are not many families like this, if one out of ten couples, the ratio of male to female is completely over!
This is why there is such a wonderful ratio of male to female.

There are also some cases where a baby girl was born and then died, but these are extreme cases. Although they exist, they are not enough to affect the sample...

Because even if 1 pairs of animal parents kill 2000 baby girls in a year, it is still not enough to affect a large-scale data sample of [-] million newborns.

If you want to influence, you have to kill hundreds of thousands of them, and that is obviously impossible, after all, there are not so many animal parents.

The serious imbalance between men and women in the later generations is mainly due to abortion... and the fact that after the first boy is born, there is no further birth... As a result, the next generation in many families has only one boy, or even two boys!
But in the contemporary Great Chu Empire, the medical technology is not very good, but there is no such thing as B-ultrasound, you can’t know whether it is a man or a woman before you give birth... At the same time, the empire does not encourage or restrict people to have children. You can do whatever you like...

After all, whether I have children or not is none of your business; whether you have children or not is none of my business!
Therefore, among the many factors, there is no such thing as aborting a baby when it is found to be a girl, and not having a baby after giving birth to a boy.

The fertility rate in contemporary Chu State is generally high, basically two or three births.

At the same time, it is rare for animal parents to kill a baby girl after birth... After all, there is no limit to only one baby, and there is no need to kill the baby girl to make room for the younger brother!
But anyone who can support them will basically stay and support them...

But then again, in the Great Chu Empire, except for a very small number of areas and groups, for 90.00% of the people above nine, it may be a bit difficult to want big fish and meat, but it is not difficult to really want to eat enough. And it's super hard to starve to death... so it's hard to raise well, but feeding children is actually not a big problem.

Again, if you really can’t do it, just immigrate. If you immigrate to the Americas, you can cultivate hundreds of acres of land in a matter of minutes. You can also apply for official immigration. Even if you are penniless, you can go directly!

If this can starve to death, it is really hopeless.

Therefore, the ratio of men to women in the Chu Empire is not unbalanced. Although there are slightly more boys, the mortality rate of boys is also higher than that of girls. Therefore, by the time they reach the age of marriage, the ratio of men to women is basically the same...the supply and demand in the marriage market are balanced.

Therefore, the marriages in the Da Chu Empire were relatively balanced, and the emphasis was on a well-matched family, with both betrothal gifts and dowries. At the same time, although free love is stipulated in the law, most marriages were actually blind date marriages, and the emphasis was on a well-matched family. I'm not high-profile, so don't expect me to help the poor...

The marriage between the Song family and the Chen family is a typical example!
One is famous but not rich, and the other is rich but not famous, and they just complement each other for marriage!

So the two young men and women, Song Erniu and Song Chen, got married after only knowing each other for more than a month, seeing each other only three or five times, and spending less than an hour alone together...