Becoming a stepmother of three children gives me space

Bai Chi was carried out of the Ma family.

Tang Hao was gathering information in Majiazhuang when he happened to witness this scene.

He didn't know that Bai Chi had been to Tangjia Village, and just thought that the village head was bullying others again. He chatted with him until the evening, and then came back to report the results of the day's work to Xiao Yunxi.

When Xishan Town was attacked by mountain bandits, the military pay sent to the border was robbed, and Dongsheng Pass almost mutinied. The county and border troops sent people to blockade the area around Luochuan County.

Now you can only enter Luochuan but not leave.

This matter had little to do with them, but when they heard that Bai Chi was carried out of the Ma family, everyone's face was terribly gloomy.

"What's the matter? Isn't it normal for the Ma family to bully others?"

Fan Chunhua pulled him aside and told him about Bai Chilai's troublemaking. Tang Hao fell silent.

The horse owner sent him to cause trouble, and then he was carried out with his legs broken. If he said the two things were unrelated, even a fool would not believe it.

Everyone was very worried, but there was no good solution. The village chief told Xiao Yunxi not to leave the village recently and try not to go out during this period.

When the two troubles happened, he was not in the village. If he was, there seemed to be no better solution.

Everyone was worried and didn't enjoy their dinner.

Xiao Yunxi washed the children and waited for them to fall asleep before quietly going out.

There is no such thing as a thief on duty for a thousand days and no such thing as a thief on guard against him for a thousand days. She wants to take the initiative and nip the trouble in the bud.

I went to Ma Cuilan's house first, came out in a moment, and then went straight to Majiazhuang.

The Ma family was located at the head of Majiazhuang Village. It was obvious that Xiao Yunxi went around to the small hill at the back of the mountain, observed for a moment under the moonlight, and chose to enter from the east.

He ran up, climbed up the wall, exerted force with his arms, and lightly climbed over the wall to get in.

The main courtyard should be where the village head Ma Bide lived, and the horse farmer was his only son. The largest side garden should be his residence.

It was already late at night, the yard was brightly lit, and there were the sounds of a woman's giggles and a man's breathing, obviously he had done something bad.

The servant in front of the courtyard gate leaned against the wall, dozing with his eyes squinted. Xiao Yunxi easily climbed over the wall and found the most lively and brightly lit room.

Climb onto the roof, lift up a tile and observe what's going on inside.

"Master, come and catch me!"

"My little beauty, here I come."

The brightness of the oil lamp is limited, and I can only see roughly. The one who is blindfolded and catching people should be Ma Hu.

After failing to catch anyone for a long time, Ma Hu impatiently lifted the blindfold, held the woman in his arms and touched her all over. The lewdness in the room made Xiao Yunxi curse him inwardly.

There are 5 women and 1 servant in the room.

I caught two poisonous snakes when I went into the mountains in the afternoon. If I throw them in now, they will attack indiscriminately and may not bite Ma Hu. I need to be patient.

Ma Hu had a lot of fun.

"Why is the wine gone? Go to the storehouse and get my father's treasured wine!"

The servant lowered his eyebrows and said in a low voice:

"Master, the master instructed..."

"Shut up! Go get some wine right now. If you don't get it, I'll drag you out and feed you to the dogs! And ask the kitchen to send some snacks over."

The servant didn't dare to talk back and opened the door and went out.

Xiao Yunxi was so happy,

Ma Bide exploits the common people, so his family must be very wealthy. It would be fine if he didn't know the location of his warehouse, but now that he knows it, he will definitely come and buy it for free!

The situation here at Ma Hu won’t be over in a short time, so let’s go and steal some first.

The servant went to the kitchen to order the dishes to be served, then left the side yard, turned into the main yard, and went straight to the storeroom. There were two guards at the door of the storeroom.

"The master said that we must have his permission to enter the warehouse."

The servant bravely went to ask the master for instructions.

It is better to offend the master than to annoy the young master.

If a servant in the house made a mistake, Ma Bide would at most give him a beating, but if he offended the horse owner, he would be tortured to death.

There was once a maid in the family who was very pretty and was favored by the young master. However, the maid refused to obey and kicked the young master in the vital part while struggling.

In the end, the maid was tortured beyond recognition and died in an extremely miserable state.

There was also a servant who failed to complete the task assigned by the young master and was beaten to the point that he could not take care of himself. After his injuries recovered, he was sent to Beibei Mountain to be tortured.

The young master was already furious. If he couldn't get the wine, a beating would be fine. But if he was sent to that kind of place, it would be a life worse than death.

While the servant was waiting for the announcement, Xiao Yunxi crawled down the roof to the lighted study, lifted the tiles, and heard two people talking inside.

"Ship that batch of official silver as soon as possible. Leaving it here is like a time bomb."

"The new county magistrate is investigating very strictly, and the border troops have also sent people. The entire county is blocked, and there is no way to send them to the interior. How about we find a way to dissolve them?"

"The melting noise is too loud, so we can just ship it to the Northern Barbarians and buy the furs there. Even if they find out, no one will care."

"Beishengguan has been put under martial law, and there's no way out."

"If we don't go through Beisheng Pass, that secret trade route has already been opened."

At this moment, the housekeeper came in and said that the horse owner wanted some good wine. Ma Bide waved his hand.

"Go get it, and remember not to let anyone else in."

The butler left.

"Brother, if Hu'er is like this, how can we hand the Ma family over to him?"

"After we get through this difficult time, Third Brother, you should take him into the mountains and teach him well. Now, we should all follow his lead to prevent him from making trouble and causing unnecessary complications."

Xiao Yunxi was a little confused. Ma Bide only had two brothers, so where did the third one come from?

And in the mountains?

Official silver?

She seemed to have discovered a big secret!

The people in the room had stopped talking. Xiao Yunxi left quietly and came to the warehouse again.

The servant left with the wine. The door of the warehouse was locked and two guards were standing at the door. Xiao Yunxi couldn't suppress her curiosity and had to go in to see what was going on.

After getting rid of the two guards, she still couldn't open the warehouse door. The violent demolition made too much noise, so she went in through the roof.

The tiles are directly retracted into the space, leaving a large hole in the roof.

Ancient houses were too high to jump down directly, so one had to climb onto the beams, tie a nylon rope, and slowly slide down.

Through the moonlight, she could roughly see the whole picture of the warehouse. It was a small village head's house, but the warehouse was ridiculously large!

There were piles of grain and wine, and neatly arranged shelves filled with antique calligraphy and paintings, fine jade, silks and satins, precious medicinal herbs, and gold, silver and jewelry.

Three years as a Qing magistrate, 100,000 silver coins, Ma Bide's family property is almost catching up with that of a Qing magistrate!

They were all people's hard-earned money, so Xiao Yunxi collected them without hesitation. At the innermost part of the warehouse, she found more than 10 solid wooden boxes with seals on them.

The seal of one of the boxes was torn, and when it was opened, it was full of silver ingots.

There are two common types of silver in ancient times.

The small change used by ordinary people, as well as the large silver ingots, are the kind that often appear in movies and TV dramas with a whole plate coming out of one end.

Those large silver ingots are official silver and will be printed with special marks.

Official silver is used to be stored in the treasury. No one, including officials, can use official silver privately. When official silver is spent to various places and individuals, it must be melted again and refined into new silver ingots or silver blocks. This is the main source of broken silver.

At the same time, it was accompanied by fire consumption, which was the main means of corruption for officials and military generals.

Obviously,

Such a large amount of official silver could not possibly be issued by the government to the head of the village. So the source of this batch of silver, if I am not mistaken, should be the military pay that was lost a few days ago.

Rumor has it that when the bandits robbed Xishan Town, they also stole the official silver. In fact, the robbery of Xishan was just a cover for the robbery of the official silver.

The village head robbed the official silver, which was really a big deal.

Xiao Yunxi put all the silver into the space and came up with a brilliant idea, the kind that would cheat the whole family of the village for eighteen generations.