Corrupt County Magistrate (15)

The emperor indeed valued Ji Changze very much. As soon as he saw this courtier who was sweet-talking and practical, he handed over the coupon for the royal decree for his wife and mother. He immediately approved it as quickly as possible, and even bought two and got one free. One granted a royal decree to Ji Changze’s grandmother.

When Wei Juncan was about to give birth, the decree was already on the way.

When the child was able to open his eyes, lying in the cradle, being teased by Ji Changze with a rattle, and Wei Juncan, who was still in confinement, looked on with a smile, the will came.

Even before when her husband became the prefect, Wei Juncan, who was born in an official family, knew that she would get the royal decree, but when the Holy Spirit's decree really came and she was really the "Madam" from now on, she still felt like she was dreaming. surprise.

Ji Changze smiled deliberately and made a mocking salute to her: "I have met Madam, congratulations."

Wei Juncan was so amused by him that the sense of unreality in his heart disappeared a lot.

Ji Changze said: "Although my father-in-law and mother-in-law must have known about this matter, in the end it is still solemn to inform you personally. I am afraid that my mother's death is coming soon. I will write a letter and send it to my family right away. You will also write a letter later." Tell your father-in-law and mother-in-law so that they can feel at ease."

Wei Juncan nodded and watched as her husband went out and asked someone to get pen and ink.

After thinking about it for a while, I didn’t know what to write.

She never had children before, and although she respected her parents, she didn't know what they wanted her to be. Now that she is a first-time mother, every time she hears her child's babbling voice, her heart softens.

What I think most about is not how this child will get ahead when he grows up, or how he will be admitted to the imperial examination, but that he can live a peaceful life, not asking for wealth or power, as long as he lives a good life. Just be happy.

Thinking back again, when she married her husband, her father and mother were all sad. At that time, she thought they were sorry for her because she got married in a daze. Now that she thinks about it, her parents may be worried that they don't know her husband well and are afraid that he will treat her badly. She is not good, I am afraid that she will not be able to adapt to a life that is worse than before.

When I turned around, I saw that my son, who had grown fair and plump in just a short time since birth, with round elbows, was sleeping in the cradle under the soft and comfortable sunlight in the early morning. There was a girl embroidering tiger-head shoes next to him. Keep on guard.

When her mother gave birth to her younger brother, although she was young, she still remembered a bit of what her mother looked like during confinement. The mother could not see the wind, and the doors and windows were tightly closed for fear of letting in a trace of wind. I couldn't take a shower for fear of getting cold, and my body would always stink. At that time, my mother wouldn't let my father enter the house, just because she was afraid that my father would see that scene.

But now she is undergoing confinement. Because she uses glass windows, even if the windows are closed and the house is not ventilated, it will not prevent the sunlight from coming in. She is lying on a kang specially made by her husband. Although the weather is cold now, there is no ventilation under it. But it was extremely warm, because it was also hot in the house. Although I still didn't take a shower, I could still wipe myself down.

Now I feel refreshed, my body has recovered, and I am in a good mood. The child has been very well-behaved since he was born. Although he is drinking breast milk, the wet nurse and the girls will take care of him when he gets into trouble. Will personally help the child change diapers.

This is how happiness is, slowly seeping into your heart bit by bit.

Even if her husband does not become the magistrate, but is still the little weeping willow magistrate, she will still feel very happy.

Wei Juncan smiled, dipped his pen in ink, and wrote on the paper: Father and mother...

She wants to tell her father and mother that she is living a good life now. Even if her husband is now the prefect and is respected by the saints, he does not treat her lightly. On the contrary, if someone in the government invites her husband to go to a brothel, he has always been Strictly refuse and never approach other women.

When it comes to children, he never believes in holding grandchildren rather than children. He hugs them when they should, and teases them when they should. The children are very close to their husbands.

Now that she is in confinement, her husband has not shared a room with her. At night, when the child cries, he will get up and comfort her himself.

If there had been no such accident and her parents had followed their original plan to find a husband of a similar family background for her, even if he was a good person, he might not have been as good as her husband.

The girl who was guarding her little master accidentally looked up and saw her master writing a letter with a nice smile on his lips.

She felt relieved too.

When the master is in a good mood, their servants can live with peace of mind. She must take good care of the little master. The master has said that now she is about to get married. The master has told his wife that when she gets married, he will also give her The dowry allowed her to leave the government office.

She has no father or mother, she sold herself here, but she was able to get the support of the government when she got married. How could she not shed tears of gratitude.

After she gets married, she will return to the mansion and serve the master, wife and young master for the rest of her life.

Over there, Ji Changze went to the study to write down a letter and sent someone to deliver it to his hometown at high speed.

The person who delivers the letter is also very knowledgeable and very filial. Every time he comes up with something new or something delicious, delicious and fun, he will make a copy and send it to his hometown.

Logically speaking, this is a private order, but the people below are fighting for this job, and they even play guessing games, and only the winner can take it.

There is no other reason, sir, you are so generous!

It doesn’t take long to deliver a letter, and you can eat and drink at public expense along the way. When you come back, you will not only be grateful to the adults, but also get rewards.

This money is certainly not worth the attention of Wu County Cheng and others, but for those poor people with low salaries, it is simply a windfall.

Therefore, they wish that Master Ji could send a letter every day.

Of course, Ji Changze is not so exaggerated. At most, he sends things to his hometown once a week. Because he feels bad every time he has to ride horses to run around, he pulls his three subordinates to hold a small meeting on "Should we do a courier?"

As for how the three people are full of frustration and resentment... He just doesn't look at it. If he can't see it, it means it doesn't exist. It's perfect.

After watching the messenger leave, Ji Changze returned to the house, rubbed his hands, and began to write a letter full of implicit flattery with a serious face.

Yes, this letter is written to the emperor.

Since he became the emperor's confidant (self-proclaimed), he has fully demonstrated his shameless spirit and added a lot of personal opinions in his greetings.

Being an emperor is actually a tough job. There are too many people under him, and each of them has to send greetings at a fixed time.

Because this is a tradition, everyone has no new ideas. Basically, the beginning is a dry sentence: Your Majesty, I, xxx, greet you. The weather is good recently, and I will think of you. The weather is bad, and I will also think of you. Although I am far away in x place, I always miss your majesty in my heart.

The piles of memorials are all the same and have no novelty. Except for the handwriting and names, everything else is almost the same. Even if the emperor has eighteen pairs of eyes, he can't read them all.

But what can he do? He is not a tyrant. The people under him are thinking about him and paying special attention to him. Can he just throw them aside and ignore them and chill the hearts of the ministers?

There is no way, just read it.

Not only read, but also reply one by one: I know, I see, I know your heart, the weather is good here, take care of yourself.

Replying one or two is fine, but replying so many piles, and not letting others take over, is simply a tiring and hard laborer.

And every time he did these things, the emperor was most looking forward to seeing Ji Changze's greetings.

The text is humorous, the language is witty, and occasionally he would talk about local interesting things, interspersed with a few food recipes and very vivid descriptions of how delicious this thing is, and how much happiness it feels after eating it.

In a boring greeting, Ji Changze successfully stood out from the crowd with his unique sweet words and became a clear stream in the emperor's work life.

So gradually, even though the emperor didn't know what Ji Changze looked like (he had seen him before but didn't take it to heart at that time and had forgotten it long ago), Ji Changze's position in his heart was indeed getting more and more important.

If this is a game to increase favorability, Ji Changze would probably hear the notification sound of "Emperor's favorability increased by three" and "Emperor's favorability increased by five" all the time.

The emperor couldn't wait to call Ji Changze back to Beijing during the New Year. Although he couldn't call him back to Beijing to work, he could always take a stroll.

Because Ji Changze would occasionally mention how loving he and his wife were, how gentle, considerate, generous, kind and excellent his wife was, and how she took the initiative to help him share the pressure of supporting the orphanage. Although she was a daughter of a wealthy family, she was not arrogant or spoiled. When he was the magistrate of Chui Liu County, the county government was very dilapidated, but she never complained, and instead secretly used her dowry to supplement the family expenses.

It was because he saw his wife, the daughter of a wealthy family, being like this that he firmly decided to make money and improve the environment of Chui Liu. That’s why he created Yuanhua Pancreas, named after Yuanhua. It was also because Yuanhua had always been a way of boasting about women in Chui Liu (it was only after Ji Changze arrived), and he felt that it was very appropriate to compare Yuanhua to his perfect wife.

Because of Ji Changze’s various flatteries, the emperor not only had a good impression of him and his wife, but also had a good impression of Lord Wei, who had taught such a good daughter.

Speaking of teaching children, he was not as good as a minister.

Before, he specifically asked the queen to reprimand the concubine of the third prince who dared to influence the royal selection. Who would have thought that after the reprimand, the third prince, who was originally very fond of the woman, immediately ignored her, and even had the intention of ignoring her to the end.

It's not that the emperor doesn't want to see his son ignore that vicious woman, but before, you were so sweet, but you turned hostile immediately after the queen scolded you. Not only are you cowardly, but you are also particularly irresponsible.

Otherwise, why do people say that the emperor is difficult to serve.

If his son still favors that woman after the queen scolded him, he would only be angry in his heart, thinking that his third son didn't take them seriously and dared to like someone they hate.

Now that she is obedient and no longer favors him, he is cold and indifferent, and he is angry again, thinking that this son used to look smart, but now it seems that he is sharp, but a little too irresponsible. Is this still his son?

In addition, he was able to favor that vicious woman for so long without seeing her true face, which shows that he has no ability to judge people.

Before, he added this son to the "throne competition table", but now it seems that he has no outstanding ability, is too cowardly, and has poor eyesight. He is not even as good as the daughter raised by the Wei family. What's the point of competing? Just stay here and become a prince in the future.

The third prince naturally didn't know that his father had removed him from the "throne competition list", but he could clearly feel that his father had become more and more cold towards him recently, and the eyes he looked at him no longer had the same expectations as before. satisfy.

And all of this started when the father asked his mother to scold his concubine.

At that time, the father did not say the reason, but only sent a message to the queen to be reprimanded by her. However, the father never interfered in the harem, and he had no interest in their sons' concubines. This was the first time that he took the initiative to be reprimanded by the queen.

That woman must have done something to offend the Emperor. Unfortunately, no matter how I asked her, she just cried and complained that she had never met His Majesty and had never done anything to offend His Majesty.

The third prince had already recorded this debt on his concubine, so it was conceivable that her life would not be much easier.

I'm afraid she was so depressed that she never imagined that she had tried so hard to marry the third prince even though her rival's innocence was ruined, but in the end, what she was given was a lifetime of indifference.

Being confined inside the house, she could still hear the chatter of the little girls outside.

"I heard that there is a new thing called a fire kang in the palace. It will be very cold tomorrow, but it will be too hot to lie on it. Your Majesty has already used it and ordered the queen to make it too. Now every palace wants to I want it, but I don’t know if our Third Highness can have it.”

"The Third Highness is the Queen's legitimate son, so it is natural that he should be so. Is this fire kang really so powerful?"

"No, it seems that Mr. Ji, who was the former magistrate of Weeping Willow and is now the magistrate, got in. The same happened to Mr. Ji before. Why is this Mr. Ji so powerful? I heard from Little Box that his godfather's brother is here. His Majesty is accompanying him, and even though Lord Ji is out in public, Your Majesty values ​​him very much."

"Of course it should be taken seriously. Mr. Ji has given so many treasures to His Majesty. Let's not talk about it for now. Now that the sun has come out, I have to go and dry the bedding."

She listened blankly to the people outside talking.

She naturally knew who the former magistrate of Weeping Willow County was. Wei Juncan's husband was also a poor student she found casually.

There are people around her who are married to such students. The poorer these men are, the more arrogant they are in their hearts. They look down on officials who marry them. Most of them think nothing of marrying their own daughter. It's not "how much I should cherish her no matter how good she is", but "she married me just because I am so good".

Except for those who have their own means and scheming, most people who marry into a small official family cannot live a good life, because in addition to facing husbands who think they are talented, they also have to face country parents-in-law who may not be able to read or write. , they are illiterate and regard their "excellent" sons as the most powerful people. They think that when a woman marries into their own family, she should be a cow or a horse. Even the woman's father should immediately pave the way for his son. If the daughter-in-law's family helps, they will be proud of it. Their son is very powerful. If he doesn't help, it's his daughter-in-law's fault.

She had seen too much, so she wanted to marry into the royal family from the beginning, and become the imperial concubine. She was much better than others in terms of reputation.

As for Wei Juncan, if you want to blame her, it's her unlucky fault. Who made her happen to bump into his hand? Who made her so pushy? If Wei Juncan hadn't stolen her limelight, how could she have taken action.

Wei Juncan should be allowed to marry such a person and spend his next life struggling in the swamp.

But she can become the third prince's concubine. If the third prince ascends the throne in the future, she may also become the imperial concubine.

But now, everything has changed.

Logically speaking, one should believe that Wei Juncan was a slut. Ji Changze, who treated her indifferently and was not outstanding in literary talent. Ji Changze, who should have been a humble official in a small place like Weeping Willow all his life, suddenly became the prefect. With such a favor, Wei Juncan also had a royal title. .

But she, for some reason, failed to reprimand her, and even the third prince treated her indifferently.

She was lying next to the door, unable to figure out why things turned out like this.

Wei Juncan's husband is obviously a lowly businessman. He should love money and be arrogant. He should treat Wei Juncan coldly when the mountains are high and the emperor is far away and Wei Juncan's natal family cannot help him.

But why, he is so good.

She is unwilling to give in and does not believe that Wei Juncan can take advantage of all the good things in the world.

Even if Ji Changze is kind to Wei Juncan, shouldn't his parents, who are businessmen and should have a shallow vision, pick on Wei Juncan and make arrangements to give Ji Changze concubines to breed offspring after their son becomes the prefect?

***

"Concubinage?"

The gray-haired Grandpa Ji sat at the door, basking in the sun and squinting as the person in front of him spoke to him in a flattering manner.

"No, Mr. Ji is now the prefect. I heard that he still doesn't have any concubines. It would be a bit embarrassing to say this. Old lady, look, my granddaughter is sixteen years old. She is beautiful and smart, and her appearance and temperament are beyond words. , and I wholeheartedly admire Master Ji, you see..."

Grandpa Ji touched his beard and waved his hand: "My patriarch does not accept concubines. He is very busy and has no time to marry a girl to the house."

The visitor's expression froze, and he never expected that the reason for rejection could be this.

He wanted to say a few more words, but Grandpa Ji had already squinted his eyes and started to doze off while sitting. The servant waiting next to him hurriedly came forward; "Mr. Ma, the old lady is getting older and more confused. She often sits like this recently." He sat down and fell asleep, why don't you come back another day?"

After all, the man didn't dare to wake Master Ji's grandfather, so he could only leave with regret.

As soon as he left, Grandpa Ji opened his eyes and snorted coldly.

Changze often sent letters and things to them, but he often told them about what was happening in the Guanchang. Now that he suddenly sat in a high position, he didn't know how many people were jealous and wanted to pull him down. There were many people in the government office who were staring at him (all of them were his confidants). He had to manage the state government and finish the things left by Chui Liu before. He was so busy every day (either lying down or sitting), and he didn't even have time to go back to the inner court. Those who wanted to pull him down also made trouble for him and wanted to send women to him (to please their superiors).

He didn't have time to deal with these women. His wife would not disturb him because she had a good relationship with him and felt sorry for his busy affairs. She just wanted him to live a long life, but these women who served men with their beauty would not think so. If they were really allowed to enter the mansion, I'm afraid they would want to squeeze him dry.

Anyway, they only wanted favors and didn't care about his health.

He was very distressed about this and refused repeatedly. Fortunately, his wife did not mind sacrificing her image and played the role of a "tiger mother" with him, which stopped the subordinates from sending women (they were too busy to think about how to please their bosses).

The old man was literate. He felt sorry for his grandson who had such a hard time with the greater power and responsibility, and directly rejected the people from his hometown who wanted to curry favor with his family and send women to their door.

It would definitely not work to say "these women are like wolves and tigers. My grandson is so busy every day that he has no time to deal with them." Fortunately, he was old and had a high seniority. Every time the other party wanted to say something, he would just pretend to be confused or sleep, which worked every time.

Having rejected another bad love for his grandson, he stood up contentedly and asked the servant beside him: "Did Changze send someone to deliver a letter today?"

"Not today, but according to the date, it will probably be one of these days."

The servant carefully supported the oldest old man in the family and asked: "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see your madam and see what she's doing."

The madam is making clothes for her great-grandson.

She was old, but her eyesight was still good. She was sewing small clothes carefully. Grandpa Ji came and saw it, and laughed at her: "Why are you wasting your energy? Changze Juncan and his family have many servants, how can the children lack clothes to wear?"

"Others' work is not as good as my grandmother's."

Grandma Ji has lived with Grandpa Ji for a lifetime, and she is not afraid of him. She speaks casually: "In the past, I was afraid that I wanted to find Changze but couldn't stand the hardship on the road. Now Changze sends people to deliver things and letters every few days, just like he is still with us."

As the two were talking, Ji's father came.

Because Ji Changze also gave him a supply channel for Yuanhua Pancreas, although it was small, but Ji's father felt that his son had become a talent and he was also successful in his career, so he walked with a tiger's power recently.

When he saw his parents, he bowed to them first, and then casually talked about going to drink today, and as a result, someone insisted on marrying his daughter to his son as a concubine.

Grandpa Ji and Grandma Ji immediately became alert: "Did you refuse?"

"Of course I refused."

Father Ji answered very quickly, and seeing this, the two elders gave him a satisfied look.

The three of them smiled at each other, and everything was said without words.

Today is also a day of working hard to protect Changze from being squeezed dry. ,,