I want to ruin the country

Niu Zhaoxin was delighted when he heard this and told his mother that he wanted to follow them to the south to sell silk.

His mother couldn't persuade him, so she gave him some money and let him go.

Unexpectedly, the boat capsized on the way. Niu Zhaoxin, a northerner, could not swim at all. After struggling for a few times, he sank and disappeared.

When Niu Zhaoxin's body was brought back, his mother and second mother cried as if one Buddha was born and two Buddhas ascended to heaven.

What’s the point of crying if the dead cannot be resurrected?

The Niu family no longer has a man in charge, so Niu Yude’s first wife Gao can only be in charge.

Gao likes to discuss things with this cheap brother-in-law she picked up for free, so Eltai is equivalent to being half of the Niu family.

Niu Yude had one wife and five concubines. Needless to say, Gao was his original wife, but she had no children.

The second wife was 33 years old and Niu Zhaoxin was her son.

The third wife was originally a prostitute in the Eight Great Hutongs. She was twenty-four years old and also had no children.

The fourth wife was twenty years old. She sang in a restaurant with her father and had no children.

The fifth wife was a girl from a good family, seventeen years old. She had just married into the family last year. Niu Yude had planned to let her give birth to another child for him, but unfortunately, he died.

Eltai often went to visit Niu Yude's first wife, Gao, and was extremely attentive and caring about her well-being. Gao treated him as a close friend.

The concubines were all young, and they were bound to be lonely after Niu Yude's death.

The third and fourth wives were not from honest families. They felt lonely every day, so they instigated the second wife to ask the fifth brother to get together secretly to play cards and drink.

The Fifth Lady is still a child. She doesn’t know anything. She just comes when she is called. Besides, she is also bored.

Gao was annoyed by their noise and was very angry. She often scolded them. Gradually, the concubines began to talk back, and the house was often in chaos.

Eltai gave Gao some advice.

"Sister-in-law, they are so young and full of vigor. If they do something immoral, my brother will be unable to rest in peace in his grave. Why not ask them and send those who are willing to leave?"

Gao also felt that what Eltai said made sense, so she laid her cards on the table with the four people.

The second lady said,

"I'm so old, my parents are dead, where can I go? I'll just stay here!"

The third wife said that it was okay for me to go out, as long as I was given enough money to survive.

The fourth child said, "However much Third Sister wants, I want it too. Not a cent more, not a cent less!"

Lao Wu just cried and didn't say anything.

Eltai gave Gao some advice.

"Sister-in-law, I'm only willing to tell you this because we're brothers. There's a saying that goes, if you don't make a decision, you'll end up in trouble.

Spend some money now to avoid trouble later. You are getting older and older, and I don’t necessarily have to be an official in Beijing forever. By then, you will be unable to move and fall into their hands. They may starve you to death, don’t you think?

Gao heard this,

"Brother, what you said makes sense, let's do it!"

After Gao made up her mind, she held a meeting with several concubines.

"The master is gone, and you are still young. I want to ask you, do you want to continue living here, or do you want to leave?"

Several people were stunned. How could they get out?

The second lady was silent, and the third lady asked,

"How are we going to live like this? What are we going to say when we get out?"

Gao Dao,

"Everyone should behave themselves from now on. Drinking, playing cards and making trouble are not allowed. It will ruin the family tradition!

If you go out, I won't let you go in vain!"

"What do you mean by not going in vain?"

"Second sister, you've been married for eighteen or nineteen years, and you even gave birth to a son for the master. Even though he's dead, you've done your duty to the Niu family. If you want to leave, I'll give you two thousand taels of silver. After you leave, you'll have no further ties with the Niu family and we won't interfere with each other. What do you think?"

"Sister, our family is very wealthy, and you're just going to give me two thousand silver coins and send me away?"

Gao glared.

"Do you know how little money our family has? We don't even have tens of thousands of taels of silver. We've been living off our savings for years, so how can we have any more money? If you don't want to leave, don't leave. Let's get by together!"

The second wife knew that other people had big mouths and she had a small mouth, because it was her son's fault that he died.

If I don't leave, I will only suffer more in the future. If I save the two thousand silver coins for the rest of my life, I can live a life without worries about food and clothing!

Alas, one cannot fight against fate. She stopped talking, which meant she agreed!

The third lady asked,

"What about us?"

Gao Dao,

"The third and fourth brothers have only been married for a short time and are not very old. I'll give you one thousand silver coins each, so do whatever you want!"

The third and fourth brothers argued for a long time, but Gao refused to take a penny more. They had no choice but to agree.

"Old Fifth, you've only been married for two or three years, and you're still young. You can find a good family when you get out. I'll give you five hundred taels of silver, that's all!"

When the Fifth Lady saw that the Third and Fourth Princesses were eloquent but still failed to gain the upper hand, she wondered what else she could do and so she lowered her head and said nothing.

In this way, the second wife took the two thousand silver coins, spent a hundred or so taels of silver to buy a small courtyard, and recruited a bachelor as a son-in-law, and lived her life there.

With no one to take care of him, the third brother spent the 1,000 taels of silver on wine and women, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and soon squandered all the 1,000 taels of silver.

She tricked the fourth brother into taking out some money, bought a house in the Eight Great Hutongs, hired an old maid and a "big teapot", and opened a "half-door" shop.

They both act as bosses and bitches, and they are doing quite well!

The fifth child was naturally taken home by her parents. She was young and beautiful, so she had no trouble finding a husband. She was married to an old customer from the south who was doing business.

Only Gao and a few servants were left in the huge Niu Mansion.

Eltai again advised Gao,

"Sister-in-law, we have a lot of money, but 'a mountain of gold at home is not as good as a penny a day'. Sitting around eating up all the money is not a solution. It's better to lend it out. It will earn much more interest than putting it in a bank."

"Brother, how can I, a woman like you, understand these things? What if I let you out and run into bad guys or people who refuse to pay their debts?"

Eltai laughed,

"Sister-in-law, you're joking. No one can blame the Imperial Court Magistrate for defaulting on a debt. You can rest assured about that.

If my sister-in-law is willing, I will handle this matter, and there will be no mistakes!"

Eltai was the prefect of Shuntian Prefecture, a third-rank official in the imperial court. Moreover, he had always left a very high-ranking impression on Gao. How could the words of such a person not be trustworthy? No one would doubt him.

Gao no longer had any doubts, so she took out the family's silver from the bank and gave it to Eltai one by one to lend out.

At first, there was some interest income, and Gao became more and more trusting of her younger brother, so she gave her last tens of thousands of taels of silver to Liu Hongxi.

Two million taels of silver, with an interest rate of one percent, would be two hundred thousand taels a year. Gao was secretly happy in her heart, as this was much more profitable than doing business.

A few months later, Eltai said that the money had been lent to a big boss, and the interest rate was slightly higher.