Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1714 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 35
Although the mansion provides everything, from clothing and food to housing and transportation, the stewards of large families are very good at making money, and the quality of the things they provide is very poor. For example, a set of clothes might cost tens of taels of silver, but it's not as high-class as clothes that cost only a few taels outside. So if you want to dress decently, you still have to buy some things privately. This is why each family has to spend money. That's why the second branch of the family used to be in such a bad situation. Consort Zhang was not favored, so she didn't receive any private subsidies from the Prince of Ying, nor did she have any other source of income. Her rank was also low, resulting in a small monthly allowance. She couldn't support her son, so the people in the second branch only had that little monthly allowance. They couldn't even afford a decent set of clothes. That's why they were in such a bad situation.

Where does this profit come from? Naturally, it comes from the public funds.

But how will the public funds come about? The accounts previously managed by the Princess Consort followed a set pattern. For example, jewelry and clothing all had prices. After Consort Liu took over, it was impossible for her to inflate the prices too much. After all, if she inflated the prices too much, the Princess Consort would be able to tell when she regained control of the household. If the Princess Consort complained to the Prince, it would leave a bad impression on her.

Although she was a favored concubine, she couldn't afford to be reckless. After all, if she angered the King of England and he gradually lost interest in her, a new favorite concubine would appear, which would be disastrous.

So on the surface, the purchases made by Consort Liu were not a big problem, and were similar to those when Princess Ying was in power.

Consort Liu's main way of making money was to avoid the Queen's people and send her own people to order clothes and jewelry, leaving the Queen's managers aside.

In this way, just like how the Queen Mother's stewards split the profits with her before, Consort Liu's people will split the profits with her in the same way, so that Consort Liu can also make money.

Moreover, in the past, no one other than Princess Ying could get these benefits. So now that Consort Liu has taken the stage, she asks people other than Princess Ying to order clothes and jewelry and then shares the profits with her. The people she gets are more than the people Princess Ying's stewards give her. After all, Consort Liu wouldn't use them if they didn't give her more.

These people couldn't get such a good deal before, but now that they have, they naturally want to reciprocate by giving Consort Liu even more money. Otherwise, she could just use the Princess of Ying's people and then use their gifts.

These people weren't afraid of taking jobs from the Princess Consort's subordinates and that the Princess Consort would cause them trouble in the future. In their view, Consort Liu was favored and the people she used were people the Princess Consort wouldn't dare to deal with.

Because Consort Liu received a larger share, she made more money than Princess Ying, which is why she had the money to give Consort Zhang and others a red envelope of one thousand taels each.

Of course, the main reason was that Consort Liu was opportunistic.

Although she only managed the household for three months, Consort Liu already knew that Princess Ying was still alive and that she wouldn't be able to keep the reins for long. Sooner or later, she would have to return the reins to Princess Ying. So, as soon as she took over, she started buying things like crazy.

For example, she bought clothes and jewelry for all four seasons at once.

Originally, like the Princess of England, because she had always been the housekeeper, she never thought that someone else would take over the housekeeping duties. Therefore, when buying things, she would never buy a year's worth at once, but would only buy things for the current season.

Consort Liu knew she might not be able to control the situation for long, so while she still held power, she went on a buying spree. Some of her purchases weren't just for a year, but for several years. For example, she bought fabrics for the servants in the mansion. Since the servants used roughly the same fabrics every year, unlike the mistresses who had to follow fashion trends and would waste money if they bought too much that wasn't fashionable the following year, the servants' fabrics never went out of style. Consort Liu noticed that she had bought the same fabrics every year, so she bought fabrics for the next few years. After all, they wouldn't spoil, so she could just buy them and leave them there.

Although Consort Liu only managed the household for three months, she bought up enough money to last for the next year or even the next few years, which meant she earned far more than she could in three months.

This almost made the Duchess of Cambridge furious when she took over the collection. After all, if she bought these things now and then bought them again in the future, the King would definitely be unhappy, saying that they had already been bought before, so why buy them again?

If the King of England is displeased, he certainly won't give any money to the inner court, meaning she won't get much. Seeing how ruthless Consort Liu is, not only has she taken away the profits from the first three months, but also from the future, how could the Princess Consort not be angry? But she can't speak ill of Consort Liu in front of the King of England, because if she does, the King, who favors Consort Liu, will definitely say, "Those things won't spoil, so it's fine that Consort Liu bought them in advance."

Princess Consort couldn't tell the King that there was some profit involved, since the prices that Consort Liu bought were the prices she had set beforehand, and there was no price gouging. She couldn't accuse Consort Liu of skimming money, otherwise the King would find out about her past skimming. So even if she was angry, she could only keep it to herself.

Seeing this situation, Princess Consort Ying wanted to kill Consort Liu even more, since blocking someone's path to wealth was like killing their parents.

Consort Liu knew that if she did this, Princess Ying would be angry, but she wasn't afraid of Princess Ying's anger. After all, if she dared to say how much she had embezzled, wouldn't that expose how much more she had embezzled over the years?

She's already dissatisfied after only a year of this underhanded scheme; what about Princess Ying, who's been accumulating wealth for decades? If she were to reveal this, wouldn't the other masters in the manor be even more unhappy? After all, the Prince of Ying's money belongs to everyone, and she's channeled it all into her own private coffers through the steward. Who would like her?

Consort Liu was dismissive of the fact that she had angered Princess Ying, but she did not expect that all the events that had happened together had brought Princess Ying's anger towards her to its peak.

Soon after, Consort Liu was boating on Wangfu Lake to relax when someone accidentally capsized her boat, and she fell into the water.

Even though the nanny beside her was a good swimmer, in the end, both she and her nanny died in the water and couldn't climb ashore.

By the time the people on the shore saw that Consort Liu's nanny had not only failed to rescue Consort Liu but had also sunk herself, and sent people to rescue her, it was already too late.

Although Consort Liu is dead, this matter cannot simply be left unresolved.

Because when Consort Liu died, she was crying for help and saying that someone was trying to harm her at the bottom of the lake.

Therefore, the King of England was naturally furious upon hearing this and immediately sent men to surround the lake and search for the person who had harmed Consort Liu.

Finally, they caught the people who were hiding in the lake and hadn't had a chance to escape.

That person probably knew they couldn't escape, so they didn't really try to escape.

After the man was brought in, the King of Ying would naturally interrogate him, asking why he killed Consort Liu.

The man said that he killed Consort Liu because he was resentful that Consort Liu had punished him when he was in charge of the household.