“I have a good candidate in mind,” Li Jingfu suddenly said.
“Who?” Old Master Li asked curiously.
“Sixth Uncle’s son-in-law, Chunhua’s husband,” Li Jingfu replied. The Sixth Li Family Branch had three daughters: the eldest Li Chunhua, the second Li Xiahua, and the third the adopted Li Jinhua. Since the Sixth Master Li’s previous two young sons didn’t survive the past hundred days, although it was the sixth branch, the eldest daughter Chunhua was two years younger than Li Jingfu.
“You mean Yao Qianshan? You’ve seen him?” Old Shopkeeper Li asked.
Yao Qianshan was formerly a private tutor at the Li family school. Back then, Seventh Brother admired his talent and arranged a marriage with Chunhua. Unfortunately, while this Scholar Yao was talented, his luck was poor. After repeatedly failing the provincial examinations, he caught the eye of the County Magistrate and became his advisor. Later, when the County Magistrate was transferred elsewhere, Yao Qianshan took Chunhua and followed along. They had been gone for over ten years.
Yao Qianshan’s employer changed every three years as per official rotation. It was said he had been unemployed for several years in between. Initially, there was still some news from them, but in recent years, communication had ceased. The Sixth Brother often worried about his eldest daughter.
“Yes, I met him in Shanxi. I have a friend in the Shanxi Qin family, and I visited them while passing through. As it happened, the Qin family was hosting him for dinner. It seems they value his abilities highly and wanted to help him purchase an official position, but Qianshan declined. His employer passed away as a Provincial Surveillance Commissioner, and his family is helping the widow escort the coffin back home. From what Qianshan said, he plans to return too. He should be here by New Year’s. We can discuss matters with him then,” Li Jingfu explained.
The gold-mining team that had saved him was the Qin family, though this connection couldn’t be revealed. The Qin family seemed to value Yao Qianshan highly, suggesting he must be quite capable.
Moreover, thinking about how Zhenniang was alone in Nanjing without support, and given that Qianshan was capable and familiar with official circles, if he could secure an official position, he could help support the Li family and reduce Zhenniang’s burden.
“Let’s wait until he returns then,” Old Shopkeeper Li nodded, thinking to himself that the County Magistrate had shown great kindness in recognizing Yao Qianshan’s talents. Now that the Magistrate had passed away, Qianshan was helping escort his coffin home, even refusing the Qin family’s offer to purchase him an official position. He must be someone who remembered kindness.
Furthermore, he seemed to be someone with his own principles who wouldn’t be easily swayed. Such a person with integrity, gratitude, and strong principles proved that Seventh Brother hadn’t misjudged him back then. When he returns, they could have a proper discussion and see his thoughts on the matter. After all, these things required mutual agreement.
Zhenniang listened from the side, curious about this Yao Qianshan. As Chunhua was a married daughter, Yao Qianshan wouldn’t be recorded in the family genealogy, but the fact that the Shanxi Qin family was willing to help him purchase an official position suggested he must have exceptional qualities. As long as he wasn’t an ingrate like Wang Jincai, the Li family could consider supporting him. After all, for the business to grow, they needed backing, especially since the Li family ultimately wanted to compete in the ink stick market. Having someone in the court would give them some leverage.
This integration of officialdom and commerce was characteristic of Ming and Qing merchant groups.
The family continued their cheerful conversation.
By evening, the sixth, seventh, and ninth branches had received the news, and Seventh Grandmother hosted a feast, both to celebrate Little New Year and to rejoice in Li Jingfu’s survival.
The feast was lively. The women’s table dispersed first, with the various aunts accompanying the Old Madam for tea inside.
The men’s table continued drinking outside.
Meanwhile, Zhenniang took Xihua, Youhua, Runhua, and little Xiaoguan outside to set off firecrackers.
“Well, well, heaven truly has eyes,” inside the room, the wives chatted, with Madam Cheng still holding Madam Zhao’s hand, repeatedly sighing. Her eyes reddened as she thought of her departed husband.
The Old Madam in the main seat understood her eldest daughter-in-law’s emotional state and changed the subject: “By the way, Zhenniang’s mother, what are your thoughts about Zhenniang’s marriage?”
After Madam Huang’s return, she told the Old Madam everything about the situation in Nanjing. Now that Zhenniang was a royal supplier, her status had changed, and there were many more suitors with various intentions. Previously, no one had shown interest in Zhenniang, but now, whether through Madam Huang’s side, Madam Han Li’s side, or Madam Zhao’s side, all sorts of marriage proposals were coming in. However the intentions were too complicated, so the Li family needed to establish some guidelines.
“I’ll defer to Seventh Aunt’s judgment,” Zhao replied after some thought. She understood that with Zhenniang having a ten percent share in the ink workshop as dowry, she couldn’t make this decision alone. It required Seventh Aunt’s involvement.
Hearing Zhao’s response, the Seventh Old Madam didn’t stand on ceremony: “Let’s set aside the other families for now. Zhenniang’s Second Aunt has a candidate, suggested privately by Third Master Chen. If you approve, we could discuss it further.”
“Third Master Chen? If it’s the Cheng family, that would be excellent, but aren’t all their young masters already engaged?” Zhao asked curiously upon hearing about the Cheng family.
“Third Master Cheng wasn’t suggesting someone from his family, but rather Luo Wenqian,” the Old Madam explained.
“Luo Wenqian? The Luo family’s young master runs a bank in Nanjing. Would that work? Isn’t he still technically engaged to the Tian family’s third daughter?” Zhao frowned, asking in rapid succession. It wasn’t that she objected to Luo Wenqian, but rather that he had been engaged to the Tian family’s daughter. Although the engagement seemed to have ended after the Luo family’s troubles, the Tian family’s third daughter still wasn’t betrothed to anyone else. During her time in Nanjing, she had seen the Tian family’s third daughter greeting young Master Luo, and even in this recent ink incident, it was through the Tian family’s third daughter that Luo Wenqian had resolved the funding issue. Thus, there seemed to be some unresolved entanglement between young Master Luo and the Tian family’s third daughter. While Luo Wenqian would indeed be an excellent choice, thinking of these complications, how could Zhao feel at ease?
“I’ll have my second daughter-in-law look into this matter more deeply. I suspect things aren’t as simple as they appear on the surface,” the Seventh Old Madam pondered.
“In that case, let’s wait until we have a clearer understanding,” Zhao replied after some thought. After all, this was her daughter’s marriage – nothing could be taken lightly.
“Yes, that’s appropriate,” the Old Madam nodded.
Meanwhile, Zhenniang was outside playing with the children, setting off strings of firecrackers. Little Xiaoguan, bundled up like a ball, stumbled as he ran, nearly falling. Zhenniang quickly stepped forward to steady him, and the little one collapsed laughing into her arms.
His little nose was red from the cold.
“Alright, alright. Zhenniang, bring them back inside. It’s really cold today, it might snow tonight,” Aunt Jinhua called out with a smile from the corridor.
“Mm,” Zhenniang had barely responded when she felt something icy on her face. Looking up, she saw a few snowflakes floating down. She exclaimed, “Ah, it is snowing! Aunt Jinhua, you’re truly prescient!”
Being “prescient” meant having an iron mouth and copper teeth – whatever she said came true.
In the blink of an eye, large snowflakes began falling. The children were especially excited, jumping around in the snow while the maids and servants watched them closely.
Just then, wailing could be heard from the street outside: “My foolish daughter, how could you think of such a thing?”
“What’s happened?” someone asked.
“What else? Life’s impossible these days. A perfectly good family, all took rat poison,” another voice called out.
“Ah…” came a chorus of shocked exclamations.
“Can they still be saved?” someone asked.
“Whether they can be saved or not, we have to try,” came the response.
“What’s going on?” Zhenniang exchanged glances with Aunt Jinhua.
A woman came in from outside and approached: “Miss Zhenniang, it’s Mother Jiang crying. It’s all because of this year’s silkworm farming troubles. People were doing fine farming their land, but they were forced to raise silkworms. The officials said silkworm cocoons could offset taxes, but whether the cocoons were premium or inferior quality was entirely up to the officials collecting them. Mother Jiang’s daughter was widowed a few years ago, struggling to raise two children alone. She usually got by with her few poor fields and doing some sewing work.
But when the officials assigned silkworm quotas, Mother Jiang’s daughter had no choice but to raise them. She wasn’t very skilled at it, and the first batch mostly died, losing quite a bit of money. Later, she learned from experienced silkworm farmers and managed to raise them successfully, but when it came time to offset the taxes, her perfectly good first-grade cocoons were all counted as second-grade. The tax credit wasn’t enough, and she still had to pay part of the tax. This left Mother Jiang’s daughter’s family unable to make ends meet. Today is Little New Year, but they had nothing to eat. With an empty kitchen and starving children, Mother Jiang’s daughter fell into despair and, in a moment of hopelessness, took rat poison along with her children. Fortunately, Mother Jiang was worried about her daughter and brought some rice over, discovering what had happened. Otherwise, they might not have been found until they were dead tomorrow. Looking at their condition, who knows if they can be saved.”
The woman shook her head and sighed as she finished speaking.
Could such things happen? In Nanjing, Zhenniang knew a little about this situation. It started with the “replace rice with mulberry” policy. Because the field acreage issue had caused such an uproar, the policy wasn’t implemented, but the profits from raw silk were too tempting. Finally, silk merchants came up with the idea of cooperating with officials, having them encourage people to raise silkworms and linking cocoon harvests to tax payments. This effectively achieved the same result as the “replace rice with mulberry” policy.
This was a policy decided purely on whim. Of course, silkworm farming wasn’t inherently bad – Huizhou had little farmland but many mountains, making silkworm farming a good livelihood. Zhenniang’s family had previously made their living from household silkworm farming.
But when everyone rushed into silkworm farming, it inevitably led to a drop in cocoon prices. Moreover, with officials colluding with merchants, there were too many schemes at play.
“I’ll go take a look,” Zhenniang said.
“It’s dark and snowing, be careful,” Aunt Jinhua cautioned.
Zhenniang nodded and walked out. Outside, a man was pulling a cart where Mother Jiang’s daughter and her two children lay. Mother Jiang followed alongside, wiping her tears.
“Mother Jiang’s family is struggling too. How can she afford to save her daughter’s family?” Onlookers whispered. Many wanted to help, but everyone was having a hard time making ends meet and felt helpless despite their good intentions.
Zhenniang pushed forward, about to take out the silver from her purse – in matters of saving lives, help should be given whenever possible, especially now that she had the means.
“Auntie, don’t cry. Take this silver and quickly get them to the medicine hall,” a deep male voice spoke first, and a five-tael silver ingot was pressed into Mother Jiang’s hand.
“Ah, thank you, young man,” the cart-puller repeatedly expressed gratitude. The crowd also breathed a sigh of relief as they watched Mother Jiang’s group head to the medicine hall.
As Mother Jiang’s group gradually disappeared into the distance.
Only then did Zhenniang realize that the person who had acted before her was Luo Wenqian? The snowfall was getting heavier. Luo Wenqian had just arrived, carrying a bundle on his back, with two guards following. All three were covered in dust from traveling, with snowflakes clinging to their eyebrows and hair.
At this moment, Luo Wenqian also noticed Zhenniang and gave her a grin.
Just then, the sound of gongs and shouting came from the street: “The Emperor has passed away! All citizens shall mourn! Wear plain clothes! No alcohol! No gambling!”