Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

There were no problems on the first day of paying respects, and as more people came later, there would be no problems at all, so there were no big problems with Linlang's paying respects.

Sometimes the concubines would quarrel - of course, because they were high-ranking concubines and in front of the Empress Dowager, even if they quarreled, they would just taunt each other - Linlang was just a bystander, watching with relish. After all, a small fry like her who had just come to pay her respects only had to be a background board and watch those high-ranking concubines fighting. To her, it was like watching a play.

Soon, Linlang's life was just like before, with not much difference.

During the Chinese New Year, gifts had to be given to the Queen Mother. Although Linlang was unhappy about this, it was not because she didn't know what to prepare, but because she didn't want to give a gift to someone she had no feelings for.

Because it was naturally convenient to prepare any gift - she just had to let Little Bee see what gifts other people were preparing, take it as a reference, and then prepare something similar.

In fact, after several years of observation, Linlang knew what kind of gift the empress dowager wanted - what the empress dowager wanted most was yellow and white things.

The Queen Mother of a country wants yellow and white things, which is so vulgar. Naturally, there is a reason for this - the Queen Mother has a disappointing family.

Specifically, as far as Linlang knew, it was the Empress Dowager's brother from her mother's side who was addicted to gambling and lustful. He was obsessed with wine, sex, money and power.

As soon as he received his annual salary, he spent it all. As for the property saved by his elders, such as fields and shops, they had all been sold long ago.

Without money, everyone in the Cheng'en Mansion was left starving, and then the Empress Dowager's sister-in-law came to the palace crying for money.

The Empress Dowager's younger brother, Lord Cheng'en, would have run in to ask his sister for money, if the male members of the harem had not been unable to enter. After all, gamblers will have no shame in order to make money, and as long as they are out of money, they will try every possible means to get money to gamble.

In this situation, the empress dowager had no choice but to give money to her natal family. Otherwise, if she didn't give them money for daily use, the family might starve to death. If they didn't starve to death, Duke Cheng'en might also drag the women in the family out to sell for money for gambling.

No matter whether the emperor's uncle was starved to death or sold his women for gambling, it would become a laughing stock in the capital. The empress dowager could not afford to lose face, so as soon as the emperor's uncle's mother came to the palace and cried, she would give the money obediently.

This is also pinching the empress dowager's soft spot, otherwise, the empress dowager is the champion of palace fighting after all, and she is scheming. How could she be easily controlled by others? There is no other way. The empress dowager has scolded Duke Cheng'en and even let her mother beat her brother, but her brother is a gambler. What can the empress do?
The Queen Mother did send word to the capital that whoever dared to take her brother in to gamble would not be compensated for his losses. But Lord Cheng'en insisted on paying - if he didn't, no one would take him to play. Lord Cheng'en wanted to play, so naturally he had to pay. As a result, the Queen Mother's words were in vain. After all, Lord Cheng'en was protecting him, so who would dare to do anything to those who took him to play? After all, Lord Cheng'en was the Queen Mother's weak spot, and the Queen Mother couldn't do anything to him, so her words were naturally nonsense.

Since the Queen Mother's words were bullshit, and she couldn't bear to part with her only brother, she was soft-hearted, so she could only give money. The Queen Mother's annual income was naturally not small, and she was the Emperor's biological mother, not a stepmother, so she didn't give rewards to the eunuchs and maids in the palace, and the eunuchs and maids in the palace didn't dare to deduct her food, clothing, housing and transportation. So, according to reason, all the money was given to her family, and there was no need to worry about her having a bad life in the palace.

But the key point is that her brother spends too much money. Even if she gave him all her income, he would still squander it all - her brother could squander more than 100,000 taels of silver a year, and that was only the amount of money he spent, otherwise he could have squandered even more.

This was evident from the beginning, when the Empress Dowager's father passed away and her brother began to take charge of the household, he soon sold all the family's fields and shops. It was obvious that at that time, he could squander hundreds of thousands of taels of silver a year, which was extremely terrifying.

That’s right, gambling is a bottomless pit, no amount of money can fill it.

One hundred thousand taels of silver would be spent every year, and the salary of Cheng En Gong was not much, and the family had no other source of money. Where did the rest of the money come from? It was all supported by the Queen Mother.

How could the empress dowager have more than 100,000 taels of silver? After all, no matter how much her monthly allowance was, it could not be 100,000 taels. So the remaining money had to be given as tributes by the concubines in the palace.

In fact, the Empress Dowager tacitly approved the female officials around her to make money to help people get promoted. After making the money, the female officials could keep about 10% for themselves, and the remaining 90% would be given to the Empress Dowager.

If the Queen Mother had not been so proud as to not make this matter public, she would have directly marked the price for selling the position of concubine in the harem.

——So it was fortunate that Chu Zhaoyi did not bribe the female officials around the Empress Dowager and accuse Linlang of taking money to get promoted. Otherwise, all the female officials around the Empress Dowager would have been killed after she exposed the buying of positions. The Empress Dowager would have lost her trusted people to make money, which would have led to trouble in the Cheng'en Mansion. She would have hated Chu Zhaoyi to death. Not only would Chu Zhaoyi die, but Chu Zhaoyi's family would also be implicated.

Relying on the gifts given to the empress dowager by concubines during festivals, the money made in this way, the filial piety of the emperor's sons, and the empress dowager's own monthly allowance, the expenses of the Cheng'en Mansion were barely covered.

In fact, if the Queen Mother ran out of money, she could ask the Emperor for it. After all, the Emperor was her son. She had thought so before, but unfortunately, she was immediately beaten by the Emperor. The Emperor did not want to indulge the Queen Mother, who was a brother-supporting demon, to suck his blood. After all, the Queen Mother's brother was a gambler, and no amount of money could fill his stomach. If he had that much money, wouldn't it be better for him to use it for his own enjoyment? He would have to be crazy to give hundreds of millions of dollars a year to an outsider like Cheng En Gong to enjoy.

So before the empress dowager opened her mouth, the emperor got news from the secret guard and knew that the empress dowager wanted to ask him for money to support the blood-sucking brothers from her natal family. So he spoke first and reminded the empress dowager to restrain the children from her natal family. He said that he had received an impeachment from the censor, saying that the king's uncle was lustful and licentious, and was not a decent person. He asked the empress dowager to stop indulging herself in this for the sake of the royal family's reputation.

The emperor did not mention the gambling of Cheng Engong, he only talked about his lust and debauchery. After all, gambling did not seem to be a wrong thing, and the emperor had no right to control whether his uncle gambled or not. But he could still take care of things like lust and debauchery. After all, lust and debauchery were often associated with robbing women. Since Cheng Engong, the empress dowager's brother, was lustful and debauched, it would be strange if he did not take someone he liked back home as he pleased if he saw them on the street. After all, people would think that he was the empress dowager's brother and the emperor's uncle, so who could do anything to him? So what if he robbed someone?
Duke Cheng'en did indeed do such a thing, so the emperor reminded the queen mother to control her natal family. Although it is not easy for the emperor to deal with his uncle, the emperor mentioned this matter to my mother and asked her to take care of it. If the queen mother does not want to be alienated from her son, she probably will not be so shameless as to ignore it completely. (End of this chapter)