Chapter 246

The sun was shining brightly, the sky was clear for thousands of miles, and a carriage was traveling on the official road in the southern suburbs of the Love Shenjing.

Sitting in the carriage were Jia Cong, Feng Shi, and Ying Lian.

Some time ago, the Ningguo Prefecture was stripped of its title and raided, and the Rongguo family servants were involved in the case; now everything had been settled, and the two prefectures had gone through huge twists and turns and were temporarily stable.

It was just that among the servants of the Rongguo Prefecture, a large number of people in charge like Hearing Lai Da were suddenly gone, which made them very busy.

Wang Xifeng and Ping'er were busy day and night, and even Lady Wang couldn't be idle, helping to be busy for a few days.

Until they promoted a few reliable old servants like Lin Zhixiao from the family-born slaves, and bought some proper new slaves from outside.

Only then did they gradually straighten out the family affairs that were originally somewhat chaotic in the prefecture.

And in the past few days, Feng Jie re-checked the account books and found that since Hearing Lai Da and others were detained and new people were appointed, the daily expenses had actually dropped by 30%.

After reporting to Jia Mu and Lady Wang, everyone knew that the original old servants like Hearing Lai Da were respectful and filial on the surface, but behind their backs, they didn't know how many benefits they had parasitized from the Jia family.

When the news spread, everyone in the Jia family heard it and felt creepy; if it weren't for capturing these people in one fell swoop this time.

After Jia Mu learned the foundation, she scolded the treacherous slaves for being shameless.

And Hearing Lai Da and his brother being able to be the head stewards of the two prefectures of Ning and Rong was also promoted by Jia Mu, who had been a daughter-in-law of the Jia family for fifty years, was old and calculating, and promoted with all her strength.

Just one Lai family could actually raid out more than twice the amount of stored silver.

And most of this stored silver was scraped by the Lai brothers, who were stewards of the two prefectures, from the assets of the master's family through various means.

And Jia Zheng, under Jia Cong's suggestion, specially submitted a memorial to the imperial court to severely punish the treacherous slaves of the family, because the treacherous slaves deceived the master and did evil outside, causing damage, and the Rongguo Jia family was willing to compensate for the victims.

And after the Lai brothers were convicted, the imperial court raided the Lai family mansion; it was said that just the treasury silver raided out was 170,000 taels.

If this continues, disasters will accumulate, and the Rongguo Prefecture might not be able to say that it will end up like the Ningguo Prefecture, being raided and stripped of its title.

However, this was also the illegal act of Jia She and Wang Xifeng on weekdays, which hadn't broken out at this time.

It was even more to allocate sufficient money and food to the Firearm Supervision, so that it could quickly recruit talents and develop and manufacture firearms.

This matter soon became a joke among the major noble families in the Love Shenjing; they couldn't help but be amazed at the "great feat" of the Jia family's masters being stupid and raising servants.

Later, I heard that Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao added an establishment of 1,000 musketeers to the Five-Army Firearm Battalion.

What made Jia Mu feel even more heartache was that the stored silver accumulated by these servants was all confiscated by the imperial court, and not a single tael fell into the hands of the Jia family.

When Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao accidentally learned that the treacherous servants of the Rongguo Prefecture were captured in one fell swoop by Jia Cong's planning, it was said that he was quite appreciative.

That attendant Lai Mama, who accompanied her into the Jia mansion, had knelt and begged Jia Mu several times in Rongqing Hall to save her two sons who fell into the Grand Court of Justice.

Jia Mu almost fainted when she heard it; the dignified Ningguo Prefecture was raided, and only 80,000 taels of treasury silver were raided.

This move cleared the relationship for the Jia family and even won some good reputation.

Not to mention Wu Xindeng, Dai Liang, Qian Hua, Zhou Rui, etc., all were supported by Jia Mu and Lady Wang.

In addition, the stored silver raided from the homes of Wu Xindeng, Dai Liang, Qian Hua, Zhou Rui, etc., combined with the Lai family's treasury silver, was nearly 300,000 taels, and the court and public were in an uproar.

She was driven out of the mansion by Jia Mu and never saw her again.

And after Hearing Lai Da was caught in the Grand Court of Justice, more evil deeds of the Lai brothers were involved, and the rest of the Jia family's old servants were also dug out for many evil deeds of relying on power to harm the people.

The grace bestowed the name of Xiuniang incense shop as Xinchun Hao, and also generously allocated 50,000 taels of treasury silver as a loan for Xinchun Hao to set up business routes.

The source of these 50,000 taels of treasury silver was naturally the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver raided from the homes of the Lai brothers and others and collected into the national treasury.

If it weren't for the fact that Jia Cong had only been promoted to the seventh rank for a short time and had only been observing politics in the Ministry of War for a few months, he might have been promoted.

In fact, it's not strange to say; Jia Cong said that Xinchun Hao spent three years setting up business routes and could make an annual profit of 500,000 taels of silver.

Although it was fast enough, it would take three years after all.

And this time Jia Cong only spent a few days to make the treasury have 300,000 taels more silver; even the God of Wealth wouldn't be more than this, so it was reasonable to express some appreciation.

As for whether all this was Jia Cong's intention, only ghosts would know.

Jia Mu naturally wouldn't know these inside stories; if she knew that in the final analysis, the Jia family didn't actually fatten these treacherous servants, but fattened someone else, she would definitely be angry to death immediately.

If calculated only from silver money, the loss of the Rongguo Prefecture was actually no less than the Ningguo Prefecture, which was raided as a whole family, which could be considered a strange thing.

……

After nearly a month of treatment, the whip wounds on Feng Shi's body basically healed, and her face still carried a trace of paleness.

Beside Feng Shi was her daughter Ying Lian; these days Ying Lian had been taking care of her mother on Xinchun Street, and perhaps because of more hard work, her little face had thinned a bit.

But her delicate and spiritual demeanor was still moving and cute.

The finger bones damaged by Feng Shi's clamp had not healed, and both hands were still bandaged, unable to move normally to this day.

After Zhang Youshi's treatment, the injury was temporarily controlled, but Zhang Youshi had no specialized method for bone healing.

He recommended his elder brother Zhang Youchao to Jia Cong, and yesterday Zhang Youshi sent a letter saying that his elder brother had returned to the capital after traveling.

So early this morning, Jia Cong took Zhang Youshi's letter and went to Huaxi Village in the southern suburbs of the city to seek medical treatment from Zhang Youchao.

Back then, Jia Cong took Feng Shi away from Gusu just because she was Ying Lian's mother, and he had a lot of sympathy for the Zhen family's encounter; it was mostly just doing a good deed.

Until Feng Shi, under the torture of the Zhen'an Prefecture, was actually able to firmly not reveal the location of the perfume workshop.

Under that kind of torture, even strong and fierce men, I'm afraid it would be very difficult to carry it.

And a weak woman like Feng Shi, at the critical moment, actually had such righteousness, which made Jia Cong feel sincere admiration for this woman who had suffered many hardships.

The carriage walked for half an hour on the official road in the western suburbs of the city; what was seen before the eyes was increasingly desolate, everywhere could see miscellaneous trees and withered grass, flies and mosquitoes breeding, and small beasts like foxes and rabbits appearing.

Walking for another distance, turning over a bare stone mountain, the scene suddenly became bright and clear, a river stream with clear water rushing into the eyes, and a burst of cool air came to the face.

And on the opposite bank of the stream, there were village houses, and cooking smoke was drifting, which was the Huaxi Village pointed out by Zhang Shiyou.

Jia Cong's carriage entered the village and saw that there were only a dozen people here, which could only be considered a small village.

On the road, one could see farmers carrying hoes and returning, with strong postures and refreshing spirits.

The whole village had a strange neatness and cleanliness, without the miscellaneous and dirty marks common in ordinary villages.

The road in the village was not an ordinary mud road, but a stone road paved with mountain rocks, and on both sides of the road, there were also daylilies and miscellaneous flowers planted, which were full of elegant interest.

The scene before his eyes made Jia Cong slightly surprised; Huaxi Village, it was really worthy of the name.

Walking to the east end of the village, he saw four or five unique refined houses, which were completely different from the brick and tile farmhouses in the village.

Jia Cong explained his intention to the medicine boy at the door and was brought into the main hall.

After a while, an old man with silver hair came out, whose appearance was six or seven points similar to Zhang Youshi.

Although his spirit and demeanor were much more stable and mature than Zhang Youshi, his face was gentle and moist, his skin was white, his movements were light, and he had no trace of old age.

As soon as the old man entered the hall, he noticed Jia Cong; his bright eyes were restrained, shining brightly, just focusing on looking at Jia Cong.

There was even a look of surprise in his eyes.

Ying Lian on the side saw this scene, and felt strange in her heart, her little mouth slightly pouted; the young master was a bit handsome, but this old man didn't need to stare at him without blinking.

(End of chapter)