Contentment with modest wealth

Chapter 33 Who exactly are you? (Seeking monthly votes)
The original plan to split the Zhang family was to severely weaken Zhang Qi's power.

Unexpectedly, while she suffered a setback, she also inadvertently poked herself in the back!
The old lady of the Zhang family died six months after Qiu Niang and Xie Zhang returned to Shawan with the children.

At that time, Lu Jia was still young, and since the old man was in charge of the household, Qiu Niang's family was personally taken care of by the old man. Therefore, she did not have a deep impression of her second maternal grandmother and had no contact with her.

But just as the Zhang brothers were tearing each other apart, Lu Jia was surprised to hear that the old lady who had been dead for many years still had a role to play!
What Madam He meant was that the old lady had tampered with the Zhang family's public property before she died. Qiu Niang and her husband had only just been brought back when she was already on guard against the old man's favoritism towards his daughter from his first marriage. She secretly transferred public property into private property to subsidize her own son.

If that's the case, then although Qiu Niang's account book is inaccurate, it doesn't count as falsely accusing Zhang Qi.

The problem is, with the family business entirely in the hands of the old man, was he really completely unaware of what the old woman was doing?
She pressed her face against the wall, listening intently.

Zhang Qi slammed the account books he had brought back to the room into the drawer, cursing angrily, "I thought that people born of different mothers couldn't be close to each other, but I never thought that people born of the same mother could be so unreliable!"
"Although the old man divided the spoils among us, the old lady also secretly gave them a lot of money!"
"Do you think I don't know? When the old lady was alive, she doted on her youngest son, always saying that he was unmarried and that life would be difficult for him in the future. She secretly gave a lot of money to the third son's family."

"If we really want to calculate, how much difference did they actually get? If we're talking about embezzling public funds, the portion that the old lady kept was mostly taken by her third branch of the family!"
"His second brother was the same. When he heard that the old man was going to give a share to his eldest sister, he was the first one to get anxious!"
"'Originally, the second and third wives can only have 50% together, so there's not much left for us. If another portion is given away, how much will we have left?' Who said that?"
"And who was it that urged me to go and cry with the old man?"

"I've been working myself to the bone for the past two years on the counter, and they've just been reaping the profits without doing a single thing! Now they're blaming me for not making enough money! What a bunch of scoundrels!..."

The couple inside continued their cursing one after another, and Lu Jia had already moved her ears away.

She couldn't really describe her feelings at that moment.

The complaints from this couple were definitely not unfounded. Not only did the old lady embezzle the Zhang family's public property to subsidize her son, but the three brothers also went to the old man to complain, and judging from their appearance, they succeeded.

Beneath the surface of daily life, it's not all about giving or calculating; it's mostly a mix of comfort and anxiety.

When Qiu Niang got married, she had already received a generous dowry. Logically speaking, she should not have any share in her family's property.

However, the Xie family had done the Zhang family a favor.

The old man gave the Xie family a house in return, took them back to Beijing, and lived with them, taking care of them. All of this was because the old man Xie was the benefactor who helped him make his fortune.

Even if Qiu Niang wasn't a daughter, what the Zhang family did for the Xie family was still what they should have done.

If we must say that Qiu Niang, as a daughter, received something extra, it was nothing more than a shop and two thousand taels of silver given to her by her father before his death.

And this property was received by Qiu Niang from serving her medicine, so it wasn't excessive.

The fact that the father and daughter have reached this level of relationship shows that neither of them owes the other anything. This also speaks volumes about the old man's character.

However, Zhang Qi's words prove that the public assets that were misappropriated were ultimately not returned to the public accounts.

Lu Jia didn't know whether the old man had questioned the old lady about her actions, but since he had tacitly approved the destination of the family fortune, the scales in his heart had already tipped.

Qiu Niang still defends her father and understands his decision. She doesn't know that the father who loves her also has limited love for her.

A loud bang came from inside the window, and the light went out.

Shen Qingzhou said, "They've left."

Lu Jia listened to the noise, then opened the window and struggled to climb over the wall, trying to get inside.

Shen Qingzhou leaped inside first, then lifted her by one arm and effortlessly brought her down to the ground.

Lu Jia already had a good grasp of his skills, so she stopped being amazed. She groped her way to the cabinet where Zhang Qi had previously put the account book, and tried to pull out the drawer, but it was already locked.

Just as he was hesitating, Shen Qingzhou reached out and grabbed the lock, pulled hard, and the lock beam came off.

Lu Jia glanced at him, silently opened the drawer, and took out several account books by the dim light of day. Shen Qingzhou had a tinderbox, so the two of them hid behind the cabinet and squatted down to look through them.

The ledgers were compiled by the second and third wives in one night, with one book specifically recording the money lost over the past three years compared to previous years. The other books contained the accounts submitted to the counter each year.

Upon looking at it, she couldn't help but frown. Although there had been profits each year for the past three years, the income had decreased by nearly half compared to when the old man was alive. Calculating the amount, it totaled nearly 50,000 taels of silver over the three years.

Even if Zhang Qi is incompetent, he can always maintain the status quo. The dock business is so lucrative, and customers are constantly changing. Even if it fails this time, there will always be another opportunity. Where exactly did that 50,000 taels of silver go? ...

She tossed the notebook aside and buried herself in flipping through it again.

Shen Qingzhou wasn't idle either; he picked up the rest of the stack of documents and land deeds in the drawer and started looking at them.

The Zhang family was indeed a wealthy household. In addition to the several shops at the dock that were rolling in money, they also owned a lot of farmland in the nearby villages and counties.

All of them are farmland.

Since the imperial court changed the rice-growing system to mulberry cultivation, large areas of farmland in the previously abundant grain-producing Jiangnan region were converted into mulberry fields. Meanwhile, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces had well-developed water systems. Tanzhou Prefecture was bordered by Dongting Lake to the north and various rivers such as the Xiang River and Juan River to the south, facilitating transportation. At the same time, due to their location in the heart of the north and south and their suitable climate, as long as floods were prevented, there were almost no other natural disasters, resulting in high grain yields. Grain production in these two provinces gradually made them the granaries of the nation.

Judging from the output of Zhangjiatianzhuang over the past five years, it has been considerable.

Even if the shop's profits decreased, the income from Zhang's land remained very stable and effectively supported a portion of the shop's inventory.

This situation is similar to what he and Guo Yi learned from other grain stores recently. When the rice from these farms flows into their own businesses, they save on the expense of middlemen rice dealers, making their profits even more substantial.

Alternatively, they reduce costs and sell at more favorable prices to make a profit, which greatly promotes the circulation of grain in the market.

All signs indicate that Tanzhou is not short of food.

But why did the message he received say that there was still a famine in the area?

Before leaving tonight, Guo Yi said that two floating corpses had appeared in Luokou, upstream of Shawan. They had both starved to death, and their stomachs contained no rice or grains, only sand and tree bark.

Luokou is only a hundred miles away from here, but no news of anyone starving to death has spread over.

This was the first accurate clue they received when they were almost starting to doubt that the rumors about the famine in Tanzhou were just rumors.

Therefore, when he arrived at the Xie family, He Qu and the others had already gone to Luokou.

After pondering for a moment, Shen Qingzhou looked at Lu Jia, who was solemnly flipping through the account books: "Have you heard of any famine in the nearby villages and counties?"

"Am I the poorest one?" Lu Jia thought angrily, her words laced with rage. "I'm the one facing a famine right now!"

Shen Qingzhou's gaze lingered for a moment before he stuffed the estate's accounts into his pocket.

That's true, she lives at the dock, how would she know about the situation in the townships and counties?

By the time the famine reached Shawan, it was already six years later.

At that moment, she naturally wouldn't understand.

Shen Qingzhou extinguished the tinderbox and prepared to call Lu Jia to leave.

Lu Jia stuffed the ledger back into the drawer, stood silently for a moment, and then suddenly asked him, "Can you tell me who you really are?"

(End of this chapter)