The eldest son of the red mansion

Chapter 542 Years Ago
After dealing with these things, Jia Ke could finally relax.

During the period before the Chinese New Year, Jia Ke was really busy.In the past, most of the matters were handled by the emperor, and he didn't think much of it. He didn't know how trivial these things were until he was in charge of the world.

But you still have to do it, because any trivial matter will pass through the world when you leave the gate of the Prime Minister’s Office. Now, even the smallest things are big things, such as how much firewood is needed in many northern cities, and whether they starve to death in winter If the beggar dies of starvation, then who will collect the body and where it will be buried in the end, these things have to go through Jia Ke.

Apart from these matters, the most important thing is the appeasement situation of the army all over the country. Jia Ke never let others intervene in these matters, and they are all under his own control.

In the twelfth lunar month, Jia Ke visited all the three major battalions near the capital and the Xiaoqi battalion, sat with the soldiers below, ate and lived together, in order to win over their feelings.

On the 23rd day of the first lunar month, it can finally be sealed.The previous seals were kept in the imperial palace, but this time all the seals are stored in a secret room of Lord Yan. You can’t see anything unusual from the outside, but in the secret passage, there are dozens of personal soldiers guarding them day and night. .

After the seal was sealed, Jia Ke took Li Deshan back to the Duke of Yan's mansion. As soon as he entered the lobby, he saw Qin Keqing and Shi Xiangyun, discussing how to celebrate the new year.

After Shi Xiangyun came to the Duke of Yan's mansion, Qin Keqing handed over some matters to Shi Xiangyun to deal with, but because Shi Xiangyun was young, all he dealt with were trivial matters.

Lan Xiang, who used to help Qin Keqing deal with these matters, did not know what happened, and was left idle by Qin Keqing for a long time. Jia Ke never intervened in these matters that Qin Keqing was responsible for. It was Lan Xiang who complained several times in front of Jia Ke. Jia Ke didn't even intercede for her in front of Qin Keqing.

As soon as Qin Keqing saw Jia Ke came back, she quickly got up and took Xu Xiangyun to lead Jia Ke into the lobby, and then patted the snow off his body. Shi Xiangyun had already served hot tea beside him.

Li Deshan stood respectfully at the gate, waiting for his masters to call.

Jia Ke took a sip of the tea, sat there and asked them, "How are your preparations for this year's Chinese New Year?"

Shi Xiangyun is now obediently standing behind Jia Ke, beating his back non-stop.

And Qin Keqing sat next to Jia Ke, and said with a smile: "Everything is almost ready, and the annual gifts from various places have also been delivered."

Jia Ke nodded, and then said, "How many annual gifts have you received from officials from various places?"

Now Jia Ke not only has to accept ice and carbon, but also has to add one more thing, to accept annual gifts from officials from all over the country.

Qin Keqing said with a smile: "This year, there are more gifts than in previous years. There are about 80 million taels."

Jia Ke thought about it silently, and then said, "Don't touch the money, just keep it in the warehouse. I can still use the money."

Qin Keqing nodded after listening, and then said: "Master, the annual gifts in the past few years have added up to 200 million taels, and they are not allowed to move. What is the use of you?"

Jia Ke glanced at Qin Keqing, then smiled nonchalantly and said, "What's the use? It's just thinking of adding some land for us, so that our children and grandchildren will have a place to eat in the future."

Qin Kexin smiled after hearing this, and said nothing more.

At this time, Ruizhu who was standing by and waiting on the side spoke, "Master, Madam sent someone this morning to ask about this year's filial piety, when will it be delivered?"

Shi Xiangyun was a little strange when he heard this statement, "What filial piety? What kind of statement is this? Why haven't I heard of it?"

Qin Keqing quickly smiled and explained to him: "A few years ago, it was more difficult for the neighboring mansion. At that time, your uncle had just been granted the title of marquis, and life was better than that of the neighboring mansion, so you had to pay 5 yuan to the neighboring mansion every year. Two silvers, and it turned out to be a custom."

Shi Xiangyun was a little speechless after hearing this, "5 taels of silver? How big is that?"

Qin Keqing looked at her and said with a smile: "It's not much, just a dozen boxes. I'm going to check the library in a few days. Follow me to see how many there are."

Upon hearing this, Shi Xiangyun immediately said happily: "That's great, remember to call me when the time comes."

Seeing that pure smile, Jia Ke also showed a smile on her face, then grabbed Shi Xiangyun's immature little hand and patted it and said: "It's as if I haven't seen you, wait a few days to go in with your grandma, and take your After a day in Curry and Silver, you don't think about it anymore."

Shi Xiangyun said disapprovingly, "Even if you let me sleep with Yinzi every day, I won't dislike it."

Her words made both Jia Ke and Qin Keqing laugh.

Qin Keqing laughed for a while, and then said: "It's not easy in the mansion next door this year, otherwise, Feng girl wouldn't come here in a hurry to ask for money."

"How do you say this? There are people in the neighboring mansion who give gifts every day. Are you short of these taels?"

After Qin Keqing finished listening, her face became serious.

"Uncle doesn't know. The cost of food and clothing in the nearby mansion is now higher than before. If it's just these things, there is still some savings. But there are a few hard-working ones over there, and you can't help it."

When Jia Ke heard this, he understood that the masters of the Jia family were probably using money as dung by now.

Among them, Jia Amnesty is the most exaggerated. Now he has seventeen or eighteen famous concubines, not to mention that there are more than a dozen of those girls who have not been given official titles. It costs a lot of money.

In addition, Jia She loves to play with antiques, and I don't know if he was deceived or what. Every year, boxes of silver are moved out, and they are exchanged for piles of broken copper and iron.

The other one is Jia Zheng. He doesn't have any bad hobbies, but he has four or five Qing customers. These people accompany him to drink and chat, eat tea and enjoy flowers. The most important thing is that they often buy some antiques. To enjoy the painting requires a large sum of money.

Except for these two grandpas, the young masters below also followed suit, and now each of them has their own problems.

Jia Ke sighed and said, "Fortunately, our family can afford it now, otherwise, even if we sell the house, we won't be able to support these people."

"Then what does the uncle mean by sending the money?" Qin Keqing actually didn't want to send any more money. In the past, Jia's family was in trouble, so they gave them 5 taels of silver every year, but now they took advantage of Jia Ke's relationship, not only received Bing Jing Tan Jing, and even started to take over the lawsuits, selling officials and nobles, and now the money is not enough, who can bear it?
According to Qin Keqing's calculations, the Rongguo Mansion now spends at least 4 to [-] taels of silver a year.This is already the first in the capital, even those princes and nobles are not so extravagant.

Jia Ke sighed, "What can I do? Either grandma's or father's. I can watch them hungry."

Qin Keqing is also a little helpless, these relatives are still very close to Jia Ke, and they can't get rid of you even if they want to.

Jia Ke pondered for a while and said: "This year, those little bastards in the yamen of the Infantry Commander sent me about one hundred thousand taels of silver. I will send it to the treasury in a while, and you take 10 taels of the silver and send it to the side. In the mansion. Don’t let the people next to you say that we eat delicious and spicy food now, so that our parents can’t eat.”

When Jia Ke said this, he had to sigh again. There was no one in the nearby Rongguo Mansion who could support him, but if he had the ability to exercise a little, they were also the parents and officials of one party.

Thinking of this, he remembered that he hadn't seen Jia Zhu for a long time.

"How is Second Brother Zhu? Why haven't I seen him recently?"

Before Qin Keqing could answer, Shi Xiangyun rushed to say: "I know, I know, Second Brother Zhu is not in good health now. I went to see him a few days ago, and his face seems to be pale with illness."

When Jia Ke heard this, she became a little worried, "How about it? Could it be that his illness has recurred?"

Qin Keqing shook her head and said, "We don't know the details. We just went to see it and left. It seems that Madam is covering it up very tightly. I'm afraid no one in the mansion knows the details."

After Jia Ke heard this, he was also a little helpless. He judged that Jia Zhu's illness might relapse. In modern times, people said that as long as he smoked that thing, it would not be easy to quit in the future. It was just a temporary quit. Yes, after a long time, I am afraid that I will also commit crimes.

When Jia Ke and the others were talking here, they didn't know that Qin Zhong was in a small courtyard in front of Duke Yan's mansion, and they were in a dilemma.

How do you say?It turns out that Qin Zhong often hangs out with Jia Baoyu, and although Jia Ke and Qin Keqing guard against it, he can't stand it if he wants to, so in the end Jia Ke and Qin Keqing just let go.

As a result, something happened when he got close to Jia Baoyu. It turned out that Jia Baoyu often went to the Mantou nunnery outside the city to fulfill his vows, and Qin Zhong naturally followed him. As a result, he was a little unclear with a nun in the Mantou nunnery. stand up.

If it's just like this, it's fine, after all, even if it spreads about a young master looking for flowers and asking Liu, people won't say anything too harsh, after all, it's much better than Long Yangzhi.

But this Qin Zhong was in trouble. This nun seemed to have a deep love for Qin Zhong, she was pregnant and asked Qin Zhong to marry her.

Seeing this, Qin Zhong was quite frightened. If Qin Zhong was a child of an ordinary family, marrying a nun would not be a big deal, but now Qin Zhong is Jia Ke's brother-in-law, and there are many daughters of powerful families in the world. The lady was waiting to get married with him, so her eyes were naturally high.

Now Qin Zhong would not want to associate with this nun again, but he couldn't stand the nun running to Rongguo Mansion every three days, which made Qin Zhong feel very uncomfortable, afraid that Jia Ke and Qin Keqing would find out about this matter.

Among them, he originally wanted to discuss matters with Jia Baoyu, but he didn't know that Jia Baoyu was a sympathetic nun, so he persuaded Qin Zhong to accept the nun.

This made Qin Zhong a little angry, this nun, you Jia Baoyu has also done it before, who knows whether the child she is carrying is yours or mine, and now you are actually pushing this matter on me.

So Qin Zhong got angry and wanted to deal with this matter by himself.

What he is waiting for is a gangster who specializes in helping people deal with these chores on the street. Now Qin Zhong really has not made up his mind whether to let this gangster handle this matter. After all, people have feelings. Anyway, this nun and herself are also a couple of one day, one hundred days of grace.

(End of this chapter)