The destiny of all heavens begins in the Red Chamber

Under such circumstances, the current emperor's shameless and rampant embezzlement of silver naturally aroused Jia Huan's curiosity, who wanted to find out his purpose.

It can be said that the current emperor is in the best situation and condition since he ascended the throne.

The retired emperor's health was not as good as before. Although he had struggled back from the brink of death time and time again, his vital energy must have been greatly depleted. This is something that needs no further mention.

Under such circumstances, the retired emperor's ability to restrain the current emperor has naturally decreased significantly, and he is no longer able to suppress the current emperor's power.

Chapter 216 Fanning the Flames (Seeking Subscriptions and Monthly Tickets)

An emperor who gradually gained real power, despite not being short of money, still amassed wealth on a large scale.

The purpose was definitely not to bribe court officials and military generals; it was more like the other way around.

Then there is only one explanation: the current emperor has great ambitions to establish civil and military achievements!

Thinking about it, it's understandable; the current emperor's life before that was quite frustrating.

Before adulthood, he was a nobody, and he must have suffered a lot of humiliation in the palace.

Soon after he came of age, good fortune smiled upon him. His brothers ahead of him acted recklessly and all perished in the battle to depose the crown prince, but in the end, the throne fell to him.

Unfortunately, even more frustrating days were just beginning!

For the next twenty years, he lived in the shadow of the retired emperor.

He held virtually no real power and was a complete puppet emperor.

No matter what decision you make, you have to honestly consult the Emperor Emeritus first, otherwise the decree will not leave the Daming Palace.

Fortunately, he has a really good mindset. Perhaps it was his childhood experiences that allowed him to endure it peacefully for twenty years.

Even if there were any minor actions, they were all within the limits permitted by the retired emperor.

If it were a normal emperor who ascended the throne, he probably would have already followed Li Er's example.

The Jiaqing Emperor of my Great Qing Dynasty is the best example. He couldn't stand being suppressed for three years by the so-called "Perfect Old Man" and developed psychological problems.

I'm already in my early forties now, and it looks like I can live a long time to come!

This fellow gained an absolute advantage in the contest of lifespan with the retired emperor.

Now, the retired emperor can no longer suppress him, and the current emperor certainly wants to do something.

Otherwise, wouldn't he have been a "puppet emperor" for over twenty years for nothing?

Throughout history, the achievements of emperors are best reflected in their civil and military accomplishments.

Anyone who demonstrates any ability to achieve something, even an emperor like Emperor Wu of Han, can be remembered for generations.

Of course, these are all Jia Huan's guesses, and we'll find out later whether they're accurate.

If this is accurate, then some of the battles in the later stages of Dream of the Red Chamber can be reasonably explained.

As the weather grew colder, the core members of the Rong family became increasingly anxious.

The matter of the family-returning villa had not been properly discussed, and both the old lady and Madam Wang were quite dissatisfied.

They even invited Qin Keqing, the head of the Ning Mansion, and Jia Qiang to participate in the discussion. Their purpose was self-evident: they hoped that the Ning Mansion would contribute to the construction of the Imperial Residence for the Imperial Family.

Everyone knows that the Ning family has made a lot of money in recent years, and the old lady and Madam Wang have long been envious of it.

Fortunately, Qin Keqing and Jia Qiang were not fooled and lost their composure, resolutely refusing to get involved in the matter.

He also stated that while Consort Yuan's visit to her family home was naturally a great event for the Jia clan in the capital, since Consort Yuan was originally from the Rong Mansion, the main matters still needed to be handled by the Rong Mansion itself.

The Ning family won't hold us back, but they probably won't be able to offer much help either.

He also implied that he could give silver, but not too much, otherwise the other tribesmen would have objections.

This was also the reason Jia Huan reminded them. Long before, after the Ning family made a fortune from participating in the military grain trade, in addition to paying off the national treasury's debts, they set aside a sum of money to improve the living conditions of their clansmen.

Instead of giving money directly, they hired craftsmen to renovate and improve the residences of the clansmen on the back street.

For example, the renovation of dilapidated houses and the reconstruction of dangerous houses are planned and designed in a unified manner, and all of them are built into standard two-story brick and tile wooden buildings. Even the sewer system is planned and constructed properly.

The amount of silver invested in this was no less than tens of thousands of taels, and the head of the Ning family naturally received unanimous praise from the clansmen.

It's not just about building houses for the clansmen; it also involves cleaning the backstreets where the clansmen live, maintaining the specially made windproof streetlights, and so on—all of which require a continuous influx of money.

Of course, compared to the money the Ning family earned from buying and selling military rations, this investment was nothing. But the clansmen didn't know that.

The Ning family also vaguely released some information about their finances, leading the clansmen to believe that the Ning family had paid a heavy price and had little energy left to deal with other matters.

It can be said that since Jia Rong became the head of the Ning Mansion, the living environment of the clan members has been greatly improved, and their support for the Ning Mansion, the head of the clan, has reached a new high.

Right now, when the Rong family asks for money, they can use this as an excuse, leaving the Rong family helpless.

You can't just say that Consort Yuan's visit to her family is a big deal, and that we should make our clan suffer first; Lord Zheng wouldn't agree to that.

In fact, the Rong family patriarch quickly came up with a solution to the problem raised by Jia Huan through the Second Master Zheng: to buy the houses opposite Ningrong Street and renovate them.

Ningrong Street. It is true that the Ningrong Mansion occupies almost the entire street, but that is only one side of the street. The other side is also occupied by the mansions of powerful and wealthy people.

Of course, the houses opposite the Ning and Rong mansions were almost all the villas of other powerful and wealthy people.

Only a fool would live across from the Ning and Rong mansions and complain that their own lives are too leisurely, right?

Therefore, it's not impossible to buy these houses. However, the cost would be too high for the core members of the Rong family to accept, but this is the only solution.

It was impossible to imagine converting the entire East Courtyard of the eldest master and the Huifang Garden of the Ning Mansion into a separate residence for the emperor's family, just like in the original novel of Dream of the Red Chamber. The old lady was the first to object.

Just think about it, which powerful family tycoon could stand having palace eunuchs living in their home all the time?

To put it bluntly, if you wanted to buy a house across the street at this time, you'd be embarrassed to even ask the price if you weren't prepared to spend a million taels of silver.

The Rong family no longer has the Lin family's assets to bail them out.

The matter suddenly reached a stalemate!

In the main study, facing the Second Master Zheng's long sighs, Jia Huan also expressed his helplessness.

Even if he had such wealth, he wouldn't have shown it off just to build a separate residence for Yuan Chun's visit home.

If he could break into officialdom, he might be able to achieve his goal and become a third-rank official, so why waste his energy and money on visiting his family?

No one could guarantee that Yuan Chun's visit to her family would necessarily bring her father a promotion in his official career!

With a million taels of silver thrown in, no one who accepted the money would dare not fail to do their job!

This involves a million taels of silver. Damn it, who would dare to take the money and not do the job? They'd better expect the Rong family's relentless and fierce retaliation. Even Master Zheng would go crazy.

The old lady and Madam Wang had been troubled by the money issue for a long time.

This matter was no secret within the Rong family. Aunt Zhao informed Jia Huan almost immediately, her tone full of schadenfreude.

Since she and Jia Huan couldn't gain any advantage over Yuan Chun anyway, they naturally didn't mind that Yuan Chun's visit to her family home wouldn't happen.

At that time, just seeing Madam Wang's worried face will make me happy for half a day.

The Second Master Zheng was also quite troubled by the issue of money, which was the main reason why the Rong family had not yet publicly announced Consort Yuan's visit to her family.

I heard that because she was in a bad mood, the old lady had complained a lot about Master Zheng.

They criticized him for not paying off the national treasury debt in one go. If that money were still in his residence, he wouldn't have to worry about it and could have just spent it.

The way he said it made it sound as if the money owed to the national treasury wasn't something he had managed to obtain through his own efforts.

The Second Master Zheng was also quite annoyed. Was his mother settling scores after the fact?

Even Madam Wang openly and secretly made things difficult for Master Zheng.

This infuriated him!

Did he really think he didn't know? When the old lady and Madam Wang were in charge of the public treasury, they certainly amassed a lot of valuables for their own private coffers, even the most important inner treasury of the mansion...

When it was so difficult to repay the national treasury's debts, these two people didn't provide much support.

Especially the last 400,000 taels of silver, which almost drove Master Zheng to the brink of collapse!

If it weren't for the enormous contributions made by the heads of the eight major estates, he probably wouldn't have been able to complete the task of repaying the debt. He wouldn't necessarily have been ruined, but he certainly wouldn't have gotten any benefits.

At that time, neither the old lady nor Madam Wang did anything!

Since Master Zheng was in a bad mood, Jia Huan, the cunning strategist, naturally had to come up with some terrible ideas.

It's just being disgusting, as if anyone can't do that.

"Master, Sister Yuanchun's visit home is a major event. Since the manor is short of money to build a separate residence for her visit, let's use the silver from the Imperial Treasury to make up for it first!"

"With the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver still in the public coffers, that should be enough, right?"

He said with a smile, "There's no need to worry or get angry about this. It's a good thing after all."

The Second Master remained relatively calm and did not utter any harsh words, but he was anything but happy.

With his daughter's visit to her family home, things have been in chaos lately. Does he really think he can't hear all the rumors?

There were some things he truly couldn't express, and he even considered giving up.

Anyway, the old lady and Lady Wang can go to the palace to meet Yuan Chun at a fixed time every month, so it doesn't matter if they have a little more time to visit their families!

In order to visit relatives, are they really going to empty out the mansion?

Just thinking about spending millions of taels of silver to buy a mansion, and then spending countless more to build a separate residence for visiting relatives, all of which ultimately belonged to the imperial family, made his heart ache, even for someone as insensitive to money as him.

After all, he had presided over the matter of urging the recovery of the national treasury's debts, and he had been the head of the Court of State Ceremonial for quite some time, so he naturally understood that silver was a valuable thing and it would be a real pity to waste it.