Chapter 261 A Bustling Crowd

Chapter 261 A Bustling Crowd

After roughly dividing his remaining assets into two parts of equal value, the emperor summoned several members of the royal family and, in their presence, handed the relevant deeds to his widowed brother and sister-in-law.

The woman was surprised and touched that the emperor would directly distribute the items to her two sons.

Unlike her, her mother-in-law, who outlived her husband and mistress and is still alive and kicking, is extremely dissatisfied with the emperor and empress's stinginess.

This discontent began when the emperor rewarded meritorious officials and bestowed titles upon them. At that time, the old woman thought that her two grandsons, who were the emperor's nephews, would at least receive the titles of princes. However, when the list of rewards was released, neither of her grandsons was on the list.

A prince? That's even more of a pipe dream.

From the perspective of the emperor and his ministers, the emperor's objective, fair, and pragmatic approach was certainly without fault.

The more effort you put in, the bigger the reward you get – this is the distribution method least likely to incite discontent among the officials.

As for those who want to sit at the table just because they have the surname Yuan, sorry, they are the meritorious officials who risked their lives and their families to follow the emperor and the late emperor to conquer the country, and they have no intention of sharing the spoils with those who have not made any contributions.

After all, the pie is only so big. If the Yuan clan members who did not contribute to the establishment of the Great Wei could also get a share, their benefits would be severely compressed, especially since they risked their lives to fight alongside the emperor and the late emperor.

Who can accept this?

The emperor was well aware of this, so even the crown prince, princes, and his own younger brother were not appointed or enfeoffed solely based on blood ties and favoritism.

However, his biological father's old concubine clearly did not agree with his system of enfeoffment.

Because his grandson failed to gain any benefits, the other party often secretly cursed the emperor in his residence.

It was only because her daughter-in-law kept a close eye on her that she never had the chance to flaunt herself before the Emperor and Empress, nor the opportunity to speak recklessly in front of anyone other than her loyal old servant. Otherwise, it's hard to say whether she could have survived.

Even so, she still wouldn't listen to the repeated advice from her daughter-in-law and grandson, and would always take the opportunity to say whatever came to mind.

This time was no different. Everyone else in the family was grateful for the emperor's generosity, but she was full of disrespectful words towards the emperor and empress.

Her daughter-in-law couldn't take it anymore, so she simply locked her up under the pretext of recuperating from illness.

With peace and quiet restored, the other party was finally able to spare the time and energy to help their youngest son take over the Yuan family's businesses.

Because her eldest son has now been reassigned to a post outside the city, she has temporarily entrusted the property that originally belonged to him to her younger son for safekeeping.

As the mother and son were consolidating their assets, some stewards, including the husband of the palace lady, who were originally trusted by the emperor and empress, naturally had to give way to other stewards they could rely on.

Lady Wang had just reached the age to leave the palace. Not wanting the couple to lose their source of income at the same time, they decided to bring their son with them to Xie Wanniang's place.

The four palace maids who left the palace with the two female officials were all from poor families. After their parents died, they were sold by their relatives and eventually ended up in the palace. Now that they were old, the empress wanted to let them leave the palace, but they had nowhere to go, so they begged the empress to help arrange new jobs for them.

As for the other family of four, although they kept quiet and did not say why they left the capital, Lady Wang observed them for a long time and found that they were all there voluntarily and did not have any dissatisfaction about coming to Baoding from the capital.

The young man who got the job first was particularly engrossed in his tools and blueprints every day, practically eating and sleeping in his workshop. He was clearly so happy he didn't want to leave.

After listening to her, Xie Wanniang finally had a general understanding of the situation of these people. She thought for a moment and said, "Please ask the others for me. If everyone is willing to stay, I will arrange new jobs for you tomorrow."

The female official was overjoyed and knelt to accept the order, saying, "Yes, sir!"

Xie Wanniang smiled slightly, "Then let's do it this way, let's go to the backyard to rest first."

Her county lord's mansion was a large three-courtyard house with east and west wings, covering a very large area.

After looking at the simple blueprints of the house, Xie Wanniang had already decided that she would live in the main courtyard of the second courtyard. The reason was simple: it would be very convenient to go to the front yard and the east and west courtyards.

As for the courtyards in the third section, they will remain empty for now, and will be furnished whenever they are needed.

On the third day after moving into the county magistrate's mansion, Xie Wanniang held a grand banquet for her guests at home.

Because of her current extraordinary status, almost all the officials and powerful families in the prefecture sent representatives to the banquet.

Some people had already sent Xie Wanniang congratulatory gifts for her being named a county princess, so Xie Wanniang had already sent invitations to the banquet to them by Wang Nuguan and others before she came to the prefectural city.

There were also some people who had not sent Xie Wanniang any congratulatory gifts before, so naturally Xie Wanniang would not send invitations to them at this time.

But after hearing about the general attendees, they all rushed over like cats smelling fish, bringing generous gifts.

In an instant, the county magistrate's mansion became bustling with activity, more so than ever before.

Xie Wanniang was somewhat taken aback by the large number of guests.

Fortunately, both Lady Wang and Lady Jiang were experienced veterans who had anticipated the uninvited guests and prepared everything for them, so she didn't have to find a way to settle them at the last minute.

Of course, this is also thanks to Xie Wanniang's willingness to spend money.

Xie Wanniang's salary as a county princess was always delivered directly to the county princess's residence by the prefectural government. Although Xie Wanniang would check the accounts regularly, she did not keep the money in her own hands, but instead had Lady Wang and Lady Jiang manage it on her behalf.

The two had plenty of money, and they had already tested Xie Wanniang's accounts twice before and found that she was not the kind of demanding master. Therefore, when making purchases, the two did not try to save money by being stingy.

Not only were all the ingredients selected to be of the highest quality, but the chefs hired were also from the best restaurant in the prefecture.

As for the problem of having too few servants in the mansion, the two female officials temporarily solved it by borrowing people from the Marquis's mansion.

Unfortunately, they wanted to hire some servants, but Xie Wanniang didn't want to keep too many servants in the mansion.

Her solution was to temporarily hire a group of servants from good families.