Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1763 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 84
When Zhou Erniang saw that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was ignoring her, she was naturally unhappy. She thought that they were all her father and Master Zhou, and they were all Master Zhou's children. When the family divided, Master Zhou, being the eldest son, received the lion's share. This was impossible in the countryside, because in the countryside, the family would basically divide the property equally, and it was impossible for the eldest son to receive the lion's share.

Now that the eldest son's wife is enjoying such a good life, she wanted to ask them for some financial assistance, but they refused. They were so stingy; no wonder she couldn't be happy about that.

Indeed, in the countryside, the property of ordinary families is divided equally, unlike some wealthy families where the property is given only to the eldest son.

Wealthy families knew that their property could not be divided equally. If it were, the family would be divided generation by generation, and then the large family would become a small family, and the small family would become ordinary people. This was the commoners' version of the imperial decree. Of course, they could not fall for the court's trick, so their property would never be divided equally.

Fortunately, the large family had a lot of wealth, so the inheritance was not divided equally, and the other children were able to live a good life.

But rural families don't have much money to begin with. If all the money is given to the eldest son and the other children are given smaller portions, then they won't get anything and won't be able to make a living. So rural families can't do what wealthy and powerful families do.

Because she grew up in an environment where the family property was divided equally, Zhou Erniang asked the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion for money. After all, in her opinion, the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion had taken a huge advantage and should have given her some money as compensation.

But how could the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion possibly pay attention to her? After all, they had already divided the family property. Unless the second branch of the family was struggling to make ends meet, they might lend a hand. As long as they could survive, they had no obligation to give them money.

Besides, this isn't even about dividing the family property anymore; she's already married out. They have even less obligation to give her money. After all, she's not only a member of the second branch of the family, but also a married daughter of the second branch. What right does she have to ask the first branch for money? If she really didn't have any money, shouldn't she have gone to her own family first? There's no reason for her to go to her uncle's family from the next branch.

Therefore, the people of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion naturally ignored Zhou Erniang's unreasonable demands. Moreover, she was asking for an exorbitant five hundred taels of silver, saying she wanted to buy a house.

It turns out that the official's family didn't have much money and couldn't afford to buy a house for each of their children. So, Zhou Er's family didn't have a house to live in and were still renting, so she wanted to buy a house.

But houses in the capital are not cheap. Even small courtyards cost a lot of money, which is why Zhou Erniang went to the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion to ask for money to buy a house.

Of course, if the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion really gave her five hundred taels of silver, she probably wouldn't buy the house. She actually had enough money to buy a house, but she didn't want to spend money on it, which is why she went to the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion to ask for money. After all, she really couldn't bear to spend so much money on a house.

So she was just using the pretext of buying a house to ask for money. After all, she wouldn't dare ask for five hundred taels without such an excuse. Once she got the money, she would just keep it and spend it slowly, and wouldn't actually buy it. After all, what would she do if she spent a lot of money on a house and then ran out of money?

When Zhou Erniang saw that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was unwilling to give her five hundred taels of silver to buy a house, she couldn't help but get angry. She said to Zhou Da Niang, who was now the housekeeper of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion, "Sister-in-law, you have taken the lion's share of the family's money. Now I'm so poor that I don't even have a place to live. You live in such a big place as the Duke's mansion. When I asked you to lend me five hundred taels of silver to buy a house, you were unwilling to help us. This is too cold-blooded!"

She knew that her family was better off than her own, and she knew that if she directly said that her family had no money and asked the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion for help, they would definitely not give her any. So she only said that she wanted to buy a house. It was normal for her family to come and borrow money when they had money, because although her family had money, it was not enough to buy a house, so they needed to borrow.

She called it a loan, but it was really a loan she was never going to pay back. Anyway, the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was so rich, what did it matter if she didn't pay it back? Did the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion have the nerve to come to her door and force her to pay it back? If they really forced her, she would cry and wail, letting everyone know that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was so rich, yet they were forcing their poor relatives to pay back the money.

The reason she asked for 500 taels right away was that she didn't want to borrow only 10 or 20 taels at a time, and then borrow another amount if she didn't repay it. The other party might say that she should repay the previous loan before borrowing again, which would make it difficult for them to borrow new money. She certainly didn't want to repay it, so what was the point of only getting 10 or 20 taels? It was better to borrow more at once, which was equivalent to borrowing countless times, and it was more convenient.

In short, Zhou Erniang had prepared all sorts of countermeasures for the possibility of the borrower not repaying the loan, but she never expected that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion would refuse to lend her the money. Her scheme to fleece the mansion was thwarted from the start, which naturally made Zhou Erniang unhappy, hence her current statement.

Grandma Zhou wouldn't tolerate her, and immediately said indifferently, "Whether we get the lion's share of the family's money is a matter between us and the second branch of the family. Now that you've married into the Liu family (the second wife's husband's surname is Liu), what does it matter to your Liu family how much money we get? Isn't it normal for the Zhou family not to give money to the Liu family? Besides, no matter how big the Duke's mansion is, it was bestowed by the imperial court, not bought by us. What does it have to do with you not having a house?"

Grandma Zhou thought this Zhou Erniang was really inexplicable, actually thinking that since the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion had received a lot of money, it should give money to her husband's family, the Liu family.

She estimated that her maternal family, the Prince Ying's Mansion, could earn over 100,000 taels a year. In the future, all of this would belong to the eldest branch of the Prince Ying's heir. With so much money, did she really think that the Prince Ying's heir would get the lion's share and owe her maternal family's fourth branch, so the eldest branch should give her ten or twenty thousand? What a joke! If her maternal family's fourth branch jumped out to make a fuss, they would be pointed at and gossiped about. What right did she, a married-out niece, have to ask her uncle's family for money to subsidize the Duke of Zhenguo's Mansion? At most, she could only ask her maternal family for money.

Of course, in this era, married women wouldn't ask their natal families for too much money to take to their husbands' families, so Zhou Erniang's words were completely unreasonable.

To be honest, after marrying into the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion, Madam Zhou discovered that apart from Old Master Zhou, who had some knowledge and her husband, who, although lacking in knowledge, was obedient, the rest of the Zhou family, even those who had gone to the capital and become nobles, still had the shallow knowledge of the countryside. Sometimes, the things they said left her speechless.

Putting aside everything else, her in-laws' handling of Zhou Sanniang's situation was particularly baffling. First, they condoned their daughter's affair with the son of the second aunt, then they allowed her to leave the second aunt's house, and then they allowed her to sleep with the Prince of Jin. To be honest, the reputation of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion in the capital was really bad because of Zhou Sanniang's behavior. Fortunately, this time when Zhou Sanniang said she wanted to come back and remarry, her in-laws finally realized that they couldn't let her come back and refused. Otherwise, the reputation of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion would have been even worse.