The swansong of the swansong

Chapter 6: Pocket Money in the Palace
These days, two taels of silver is no longer considered a small amount of money.

You should know that in today's capital, low-quality rice costs only about seven cents per liter.

Two taels of silver can buy 400 kilograms of low-quality rice. This amount of rice, along with some wild vegetables and sweet potatoes, is enough for a family of five to keep themselves from going hungry for most of the year.

After the chief treasurer left, the Sixteenth Brother curiously asked Yinyu, "Fifteenth Brother, where did you get so much silver?"

Yinyu smiled lightly, wanting to tease Old Sixteen, and said, "I don't like to go to operas, go shopping, or eat snacks outside, but I have saved a lot of my annual salary."

In the palace, from the Empress Dowager to ordinary palace maids, everyone received an annual salary.

Specifically, when the princes had not yet been granted a title, they were all treated like concubines and received an annual salary of 200 taels of silver.

Of course, all the daily expenses of the princes, including food, clothing, and other daily expenses, were borne by the Imperial Household Department.

The 200 taels of silver were merely pocket money, and did not include the reward given by Kangxi.

At present, the income of the princes mainly consists of three parts: one is a fixed annual salary (equivalent to basic salary); the second is daily necessities, silk, accessories, etc. (this is considered a position allowance); the third is rewards for festivals, birthdays or academic performance (similar to performance bonuses).

The Sixteenth Prince was young, did not know how to make money, and liked to spend money lavishly. He was often short of money and needed to be subsidized secretly by Concubine Wang.

Yinyou was different. He was a master's graduate from a 211 university in finance and economics, and had been the vice president of a central enterprise at the department level for many years.

What should I do if I have no money to reward the eunuchs and maids in the palace?

Of course we have to do business!

There were four "Hahazhuzi" friends around Yinyu, two people in a group, taking turns to serve Yinyu.

Among them, the one who was most trusted by Yinyu for the time being was Hahazhuzi, the eldest son of his cousin Li Xu, Li Ding.

Li Ding was born in the 33rd year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi. He was 13 years old, just one year younger than Yinyu.

To be honest, the relationship between Concubine Wang and Li Xu was relatively complicated.

The Qing Dynasty was a society with strict etiquette. Only the relatives of the stepmother were proper relatives. The relatives of the biological mother (concubine) were not considered relatives.

For example, in Dream of the Red Chamber, Aunt Zhao’s younger brother Zhao Guoji was not respected as an uncle by Jia Huan. Instead, he was treated like a lowly slave and was ordered around at will.

Concubine Wang's father, Wang Guozheng, was the younger brother of Li Xu's biological mother.

From this perspective, Li Xu, the current Suzhou Weaving Supervisor, is the cousin of Yinyu, the Sixteenth Prince, and the Eighteenth Prince.

However, there is another story. Wang Guozheng, Yinyu's maternal grandfather, was originally a small weaver leader under Li Xu. Because Concubine Wang was particularly beautiful, Li Xu took a fancy to her and asked his stepmother, Wang, to recognize Concubine Wang as his goddaughter.

Of course, the life experience of Wang Shufei and the details of how she entered the palace have always been a mystery.

Yinyu only knew that Concubine Wang had told him in person that Li Xu was her cousin.

For Yinyou, who had read Dream of the Red Chamber carefully, wasn't Li Ding the nephew of the old lady of the Jia family, Marquis Zhongjing Shi Ding?
Before the first crown prince was deposed, Li Xu and Cao Yin were both playing two games, trying to curry favor with Crown Prince Yinreng while secretly trying to please the eighth prince.

According to the rules of the Qing Dynasty, bannermen were not allowed to do business.

If the news that Yinyou was secretly doing business reached the ears of Kangxi, he would definitely be in trouble.

Trust has always been a double-edged sword!

However, Yinyou had reason to believe that Li Ding would not betray him.

According to the laws of the Qing Dynasty, if Hahazhuzi and Baoyi Aha took the initiative to report the illegal behavior of their masters, not only would they not be rewarded, but they would be executed by slow slicing.

Even in a society with imperial power, the emperor did not dare to do whatever he wanted, because the absolute loyalty of the Imperial Household Department was related to the life and death of the entire royal family.

Yinyou had no intention of making a lot of money, he just wanted to have more money on hand so that he would have money to reward the eunuchs in the palace.

Even though Yinyou's annual salary was 200 taels of silver, it seemed like a lot.

In fact, the aunts around the Empress Dowager, the favored eunuchs and maids in the Defei Palace, the powerful people in the Qianqing Palace, Su Peisheng and Xiao Shunzi around the fourth brother, the servants around his two younger brothers, Hahazhuzi, Jingqi Ma, the head ma, the head aunt, the chief eunuch and the head maid around him, all needed the lubrication of silver.

It is no exaggeration to say that if Yinyou had only been receiving this so-called annual salary of 200 taels, he would never have been as popular in the palace as he is today.

Yinyou knew better than anyone that if he wanted to gain long-term profits, he had to choose one of the commercial projects that were essential for food, clothing, housing and transportation.

Due to limited funds, Yinyou rented several shops in the alleys on the back streets outside Qianmen Street.

Because there are a lot of people doing small business near Qianmen, and they all have to eat on time.

Therefore, Yinyou's shop only did one kind of business: set meal boxed lunches.

We bought brown rice for three cents a liter and steamed it in a large wooden barrel. Each set meal included: a plate of pickled radish, a plate of cabbage stewed with meat bones and a large bowl of rice.

Each set meal is sold for only ten cents, with the goal of making small profits but quick turnover.

Because there was no need for a cook, a lot of expenses were saved. Yinyu personally taught the method of pickling vegetables and asked the servants around Li Ding to help watch.

Steaming rice is even easier, which servant doesn’t know how to do it?

As for the rent of the shop, it was almost negligible, because the owner of the shop was Li Ding's husband.

When running a restaurant business, the more diverse the product, the easier it is to control costs.

If there are too many varieties of meat or vegetables and they cannot be sold out, you can only watch the vegetables rot and deteriorate, which is a waste.

After the shop opened, Yinyu had the unique idea of hiring a dozen beggars, and they advertised the restaurant's large portions and all-you-can-eat service in the streets and alleys near Qianmen.

As the saying goes, a bargain is worth nine.

It’s filling and there’s some meat, and most importantly, it’s very cheap. Who doesn’t like that?
As a result, in the opening month, Yinyu made a net profit of nearly one hundred taels of silver.

Li Ding wanted to expand the scale of his business, but was stopped by Yinyou.

A big tree will attract the wind, which easily alarmed Kangxi.

Isn't it nice to earn some pocket money quietly?

Yinyou's business practices are just like the places where taxi drivers gather to eat today. They are indeed cheap and affordable, and the gross profit margin is not high.

However, because so many people eat it, the net profit is not low.

After the storyteller took his seat on the first floor, he slammed the gavel and began to tell the story of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Plan to Recruit Jiang Wei".

The Sixteenth Old Man liked the Romance of the Three Kingdoms very much because Kangxi had once told them personally that their great ancestor, Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty, Huang Taiji, had relied on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to lay the solid foundation for the Qing Dynasty to enter the Western Regions.

Seeing that the Sixteenth Prince was listening attentively, Yinwei couldn't help but smile and couldn't help but think of an old event.

Back then, he ate lunch while listening to Yuan Kuocheng's narration of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the radio. When he got to the exciting part, he even forgot to eat. For this, he was often scolded by his parents.

(End of this chapter)