Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1617 Substitute Bride 21
When the Princess Dowager of Qinghe heard that the Prince of Qinghe wanted to take away her power as head of the household, she was naturally unwilling. After all, if she lost the power to manage the household, how could she still make a name for herself in the mansion and how could she exploit the household to the detriment of her youngest son, whose title was too low and who would suffer a miserable life in the future?

So he immediately said, "The princess is newly pregnant. How can we let her manage the household? What if she gets tired and it affects the baby?"

Linlang naturally wouldn't let go of this opportunity to gain the power of housekeeping, since she didn't know when the next chance would come. So, seeing that Prince Qinghe hesitated after hearing the words of the Dowager Princess Qinghe, she knew that he did have concerns about this matter, so she took the initiative to say, "It's alright, I can let the steward's wife handle it, and I can supervise. Besides, my servants Xiaoxi and Xiaomei are quite capable, so I don't think managing the household will affect my health."

When Prince Qinghe heard Linlang say this, he agreed to take this opportunity to seize the power of managing the household, so that as long as the power of managing the household remained in his mother's hands, his family's wealth would become a bottomless pit. So he immediately made the decision: "Then let the Princess manage the household."

After hearing what Linlang said, the Princess Consort of Qinghe was furious that the Prince of Qinghe agreed to let Li Linlang manage the household.

She used to look down on Li Linlang's background, but now she hates her for taking away her control of the household.

She did look down on Li Linlang's background, but now that Li Linlang had become a princess and had the power to manage the household, her status in the mansion was much higher than that of her, an old woman who had been driven away by her son to worship Buddha.

The thought of her own declining status in the mansion while Li Linlang would become a powerful figure filled the Dowager Consort Qinghe with hatred.

However, she was hesitant to make a scene, fearing that the emperor would find out she was being bullied by her son and daughter-in-law, accusing her son of being unfilial and stripping her of her family's title of Prince. In that case, she would become an ordinary old woman and be cursed by her ancestors even in the afterlife. So, although she hated Linlang to death, she could do nothing and had to obediently hand over the power to manage the household.

Linlang had a clear understanding of the situation in the manor over the past year. She knew exactly who was loyal and who was treacherous, who was greedy and who was useful. So, as soon as she took office, she put the right people in the right positions, purged some corrupt officials, and recovered a lot of losses from the manor. The manor's accounts were soon filled with money. You should know that before, when the Qinghe Dowager was in charge, the accounts were always living beyond their means and were in the red.

When the Dowager Consort Qinghe handed over the account books to her, she asked Prince Qinghe to come and look at them together. She said she was afraid that if she took the account books alone, there would be problems with the accounts and she wouldn't be able to explain them clearly. That's why she asked Prince Qinghe to receive the account books together. But in fact, it was intentional, so that Prince Qinghe could see what the Dowager Consort Qinghe had done to the Prince's mansion.

Sure enough, when Prince Qinghe saw that the accounts submitted by the Dowager Princess Qinghe showed that all the money for the coming year had been spent, he was furious. Naturally, he criticized the Dowager Princess Qinghe again, saying that she had managed the household affairs so poorly that she should have handed over the management to the Princess long ago. He believed that the Princess would not have managed the household affairs in such a loss-making situation, saying that she did not even have concubines and her expenses were very small, so there was no way she would lose money.

As he predicted, Linlang quickly took over, dealt with a group of corrupt officials, and the money was in the account.

In fact, many of those corrupt officials colluded with Consort Qinghe to embezzle funds. After all, it was impossible for Consort Qinghe to transfer money from the accounts to her private funds without going through these managers. In order to ensure that these people benefited and did not spread rumors, Consort Qinghe naturally tacitly agreed to share the profits with them.

So when those people saw Linlang checking the accounts and found something amiss, they were asked to make up for the embezzled funds. They then started to betray the Qinghe Dowager, saying that the money was taken by the Qinghe Dowager and that it wasn't all theirs.

But Linlang didn't care whether these people shared the accounts with the Qinghe Dowager. Anyway, the problem with the accounts was in their hands, so she made them make up the missing money. If they didn't, she would send them to the government. If they did make up the money, she would just kick them out and let them choose for themselves.

As for the money they gave to the Dowager Princess Qinghe, they were told to ask her for it back, but she didn't care—she couldn't, after all, it wasn't appropriate for a daughter-in-law to ask her mother-in-law for money. So they could only ask the people in charge for the money; they deserved it for cooperating with the Dowager Princess Qinghe in making money. Those people had no choice but to make up the difference. Much of the money wasn't from what they had taken from the Dowager Princess Qinghe; it was money they had saved up from their own years of making money on their own. But now, in order to make up for what the Dowager Princess Qinghe had taken, Linlang had confiscated it all, which infuriated them.

But Linlang caught them red-handed, so they dared not refuse, fearing they would be handed over to the authorities.

So when these people's homes were searched, the money they obtained was put into the accounts, which not only covered the deficits for this year and next year, but also added a lot of money to the accounts.

This money was what the Dowager Princess Qinghe had siphoned off from the public funds and given to Third Master Jiang over the years.

Of course, this isn't all, but every little bit helps.

When the Dowager Princess Qinghe saw Linlang swiftly and decisively deal with a large number of corrupt officials and recover a considerable amount of money that she had embezzled from the Prince's residence, she was utterly dumbfounded.

She had always been dissatisfied with her eldest daughter-in-law, thinking that she came from a low social class and was not good enough for her eldest son. She only liked her younger daughter-in-law, thinking that she was capable and could control her son. But she never expected that her eldest daughter-in-law would be even more capable than her younger daughter-in-law. Even while pregnant, she managed the household affairs so efficiently and quickly resolved the problem of the family's lack of money.

She originally wanted to see her make a fool of herself, since the money in the account for next year had been spent, and she wanted to see how she would manage the household without money.

—Just look at the reaction of the Dowager Princess Qinghe, and you'll know how shameless this person is. She embezzled all the money in the account for next year, and she doesn't feel sorry for her eldest son. She even gloated and wanted to see how her eldest daughter-in-law would manage the household without money. How shameless!

Unexpectedly, they quickly made money, and with money, life naturally became easier.

Her youngest son was unlucky, since she would skim money from the public funds to subsidize him, but her eldest daughter-in-law wouldn't. Soon, her youngest son could only get his share of the public funds, and he wouldn't get anything more.

Previously, Master Jiang, who used to spend several thousand or even tens of thousands of taels of silver a month, could no longer tolerate this and naturally had no choice but to ask her for money.

Having served as a princess and princess dowager for so many years, Consort Qinghe naturally had money at her disposal. However, it was impossible for her to give him several thousand or tens of thousands of taels of silver a month. In less than two years, her youngest son would have drained her dry. After all, she had already given him money from her own private savings. Her private savings were already quite small, and at that time, she had been giving him money along with the public funds of the Prince's Mansion, so the expenditure was much less. Now that the public funds of the Prince's Mansion could no longer supply her, and she was only using her own money to subsidize him, how could she possibly sustain it! So she immediately told her youngest son that she no longer had the right to manage the household affairs and didn't have much money left to give him, so she would have to give him less.

Third Master Jiang is all talk and no action; he's all talk and no action. So he'll agree to everything, but he'll quickly spend all the money and then come back to her for more.

This is quite normal. Old habits die hard. If someone is used to spending money extravagantly, how can they possibly tolerate spending less?