Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1741 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 62
Cao's thinking was actually quite right. Consort Zhang favored Linlang's family, and the other siblings were indeed unhappy, but there was nothing they could do. After all, Consort Zhang could give her money to whomever she wanted.

Moreover, apart from the two children born to Consort Cao, Consort Zhang would never give them a single penny, lest they give the money to Consort Cao, who would then give it to the Cao family. Consort Zhang had actually given subsidies to the others before, so even if they were unhappy, they dared not say anything, for fear that if they said something that reached Consort Zhang's ears, she would not give them a single penny in the future, and then they would suffer a loss.

After all, this is different from an elderly person who needs their son to support them in their old age. Consort Zhang does not need them to support her in her old age. She is a consort, and even if the Prince of Ying passes away, she does not need to leave the palace and can live there until she is old.

Since she doesn't need her descendants to support her in her old age, she can naturally give money to whomever she wants.

Of course, even if she needs her grandchildren to support her in her old age, her sons will take care of that, and she won't rely on her grandsons. So, no matter what, her grandsons can't do anything to her because she favors Linlang's family, since they have no leverage.

Of course, only Consort Zhang could give money to whomever she wanted. Ordinary people's elders need their younger generations to support them in their old age, and it's impossible not to treat them equally. After all, you can't expect those who didn't receive money to support them in the same way as those who did.

These people dared not say that Consort Zhang was biased, lest she withhold a single penny from them in the future. However, they were still unhappy to see that Linlang and Li Yu had received a considerable amount of money. So, just as Cao Shi had said, the relationships between the others and Linlang and her husband were rather ordinary. Even Li Yu's own brother, Li Sanlang, was like that, with a distant relationship with Li Yu. Fortunately, Li Yu was obsessed with playing chess with Linlang all day long, so he didn't care at all about Li Sanlang's dislike for him.

As for Linlang, she didn't care at all. After all, what could Li Sanlang do if he didn't like them? At most, their relationship would be distant and they wouldn't interact much. She wasn't afraid of that. After all, would a rich person be afraid of a poor person not associating with them? No, in fact, it was better if the relationship was distant and they didn't interact much. It would prevent them from seeing that her family was rich and coming to borrow money when they were short of cash. Now that the relationship was so cold, they wouldn't even dare to ask her for money.

Linlang wasn't just daydreaming. Looking at how poor Li Erlang's family was, and how shameless Cao Shi was to even come directly to Linlang's door to ask for a share of the money, she knew that when Li Sanlang got married and was short of money, he might ask them for a loan.

Now that Li Sanlang has stopped associating with them, isn't that just right? When he gets married and needs money, he can come to her for a loan without any guilt, since Li Sanlang's relationship with them is just so-so.

In fact, Li Yu's mother, Zhao, felt sorry for her younger son who had no money, and would give him subsidies from time to time, much more than she would give to her older son, Li Yu.

But as Cao said, Zhao came from a noble family of scholars and didn't have much money, so even if she wanted to subsidize Li Sanlang, she didn't have much money to give him.

To be honest, Lady Zhao was introduced to Master Li by his stepmother, the Princess Ying. As for Master Li's first wife, Lady Chen, she was chosen by his birth mother, Consort Wu. From the fact that the Princess Ying introduced Master Li to a noble scholar's daughter, while Consort Wu knew to find her son a wealthy merchant's daughter, it can be seen that the Princess Ying was actually up to no good—she didn't want her illegitimate son to have a good future, so she found him a marriage that looked respectable but offered no real benefit.

For members of the imperial clan who couldn't participate in the imperial examinations, the daughters of Hanlin scholars were of no use to them. The kind of merchant's daughters that Consort Wu found for her son were the kind of women they should marry.

Merchants have no social standing but are wealthy, while members of the royal family have social standing but not much money, receiving only a fixed salary. The best combination is the one that combines both.

In fact, many members of the royal family married daughters of merchants or wealthy men, because they coveted the bride's dowry, hoping to improve their own future lives.

So, while Princess Ying's arrangement for Li Er to marry Zhao Shi appeared to be for Li Er's good, it was actually a cunning move. Consort Zhang was not unaware of this, which was one of the reasons why she was unwilling when Princess Ying wanted to use her as a weapon against Consort Liu.

After all, how could Consort Zhang possibly agree to secretly harm her son and then demand that she take the lead in harming the favored concubine, intending to kill her?

So although Zhao Shi favored her youngest son, she had no money, so even if she was biased, she could only say a few words of reproach and couldn't actually give him anything.

However, Master Li had a little more money. After all, Consort Zhang doted on Li Yu, but Master Li was her biological son, so she naturally doted on him even more. Therefore, Consort Zhang gave part of her money to Li Yu, part to Master Li, and the rest to others and for her own use.

Master Li is a decent man; he treats all his children fairly, which is quite good.

As for the Prince of Ying, the biggest benefactor of the Prince's Mansion, Li Er, just like Consort Zhang who was out of favor, was also out of favor with the Prince of Ying, so he didn't get much money.

Therefore, thanks to Consort Zhang's steward, who was able to share some of the money, otherwise, even if the Prince of Ying lived a long time, the second wife would only be able to live in the Prince's Mansion, which was relatively respectable, but had no other use.

In retrospect, it was thanks to the good example set by Princess Ying in making money that the expenses for the inner quarters were so high each month, drawing away a considerable amount of Prince Ying's money. Otherwise, with the lower expenses in the inner quarters, the large sums of money in Prince Ying's hands would have ended up in the hands of his favorite concubines and their sons, which was obviously something Princess Ying didn't want to see. That's why Princess Ying exaggerated many expenses in the inner quarters back then. She didn't want a large amount of money in Prince Ying's hands to go to Consort Liu and her son, as well as other favorite concubines and their sons, so that her own son, despite being the legitimate heir, wouldn't be able to accumulate much wealth.

By falsifying expenses, she amassed a large sum of money from the Prince's mansion, all of which belonged to her two sons. This way, even if the Prince favored other women and their sons, those women would only receive a small portion of the money.

The great benefit left behind by the Princess Consort has now benefited the Crown Princess and Consort Zhang's families.

Although the Duchess of Cambridge used to earn the money all by herself, now it has to be split five ways, but it's still good enough to have some at all. It's better than the King giving it to his favorite concubine and her son, so everyone is understanding.

It's no exaggeration to say that the King of England is the biggest financial backer of the government.

First, he has an annual salary of 10,000 taels of silver. In addition, he has a large amount of income from his estates accumulated over generations, which amounts to about 50,000 taels of silver per year. Together, he has 60,000 taels of silver.

This was no small sum in those days; the combined salaries of everyone in the entire prefecture didn't amount to that much.

Therefore, it's quite normal that the King's money would be coveted by the Queen.