Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 277
Jiading Bo Zhou Kui's house is located in the west city of the capital. It is a big house with five entrances.The layout of the house is modeled after Zhou Kui’s old house in Suzhou. It is a landscape of gardens in the south of the Yangtze River. There are rockery ponds, corridors and stages, exotic flowers and plants. The furniture used in the back house is all made of high-quality red sandalwood and rosewood. .The whole house is rich and elegant, and it belongs to the top-ranked mansion in the capital, only slightly worse than some Xungui's houses.

"Father, I heard that Zhou Fan in Kaifeng donated half of his family property for national use because he was considerate of the difficult state affairs. My child heard that the donation alone is tens of thousands of hectares of land, as well as the number of shops in Luoyang, Nanjing and other big cities. Ten rooms. In the past few years, the emperor has been selling salt, doing business, and opening workshops. The money under his hands has made a lot of money. This time, he has made a lot of money for nothing. My son thinks, why don't you go to the palace and ask my sister for some? Although our family's life is not bad, but who thinks this money is too much? We are the emperor's relatives, and you are also the only head of the Ming Dynasty , The emperor's son-in-law has so much money, why should he distribute some to his relatives?"

Under a weeping willow by the pond in the back garden, Zhou Kui, wearing a bamboo hat, was concentrating on fishing with a pole.An eight or nine-year-old boy was standing behind him holding a sandalwood box, which contained dried fish bait, and another beautiful maid was fanning Zhou Kui with a long cattail fan. It was Zhou Kui's eldest son Zhou Yi who spoke.

Zhou Yi, who is over [-] years old, looks a bit like Zhou Hou, with pretty eyebrows, but the slightly curved nose tip and a pair of thin lips destroy the entire layout of the face, giving people a feeling of meanness and ungratefulness.

As the eldest son of Zhou Kui, the head of the state, and the future successor to the title of Earl of Jiading, Zhou Yi was not satisfied.He repeatedly encouraged Zhou Kui, explicitly or secretly, to go into the palace many times to put pressure on his sister, begging the emperor to change the title of Jiadingbo to Jiadinghou.If the emperor refuses, then ask for another earl for his brother who is close to him.

Zhou Hou couldn't stand his father's rhetoric, and some time last year, he searched for an opportunity to euphemistically bring up the matter with Zhu Youjian, but Zhu Youjian unceremoniously rejected it on the grounds that he could not be named a marquis without military exploits. As for Don't even think about the matter of two uncles.

Zhou Hou felt that he had lost face, so he didn't see Zhu Youjian for more than half a month, and Zhu Youjian stayed with Concubine Yuan and Concubine Tian in turn.

The reason why Zhu Youjian refused Zhou Hou's request was purely out of his deep disgust for what Zhou Kui and his son did in history.

There is nothing wrong with being stingy, but seeing that the thieves are about to break through the capital and the emperor urgently needs money to recruit soldiers, Zhou Kui, as a relative of the state, is only willing to donate 5000 taels of silver to lose. ?What happened in the end?Didn't the thieves loot the several 10 taels of silver hidden in the cellar?

As an emperor, Chongzhen still cared more about family affection.Most of Zhou Kui's family's huge wealth came from the land and shops that Chongzhen bestowed on the Zhou family, but when Chongzhen spent the money, he couldn't count on it.

What makes Zhu Youjian hate the most is that after the thief broke the capital, the 16-year-old prince Zhu Cihong ran to the Zhou family to seek refuge. Later, the Qing army entered the pass and took the capital. However, Zhou Kui and Zhou Yi actually gave their own nephews to Jiannu with their own hands, and finally Jiannu tortured and killed them in the name of a fake prince.

Zhou Kui and his son's despicable behavior in history made Zhu Youjian deeply disgusted.Ever since he crossed over, Zhu Youjian only maintained a polite relationship with Zhou Kui for Zhou Hou's face, but he was never as friendly as he was with the other two relatives.

"Oh? Seriously? Zhou Fan is the first class among the princes this time. Why is he bloodletting like this? Could it be that he asked the emperor to do it? What a fortune! Tsk tsk! But, let me tell you, our family is now There is no shortage of money. The emperor has been rich in the past few years, but he has made our family rich. Right now, there are many places where Ming uses money. It is for raising soldiers and disaster victims. Let’s go again I'm afraid it's inappropriate to ask for money? As a relative of the emperor, it's important for our Zhou family to set an example for the world!"

Looking at the serious and righteous nonsense father, Zhou Yi curled his lips secretly, and then mercilessly exposed: "As the saying goes, no one knows a father better than a son, so fathers should stop using this high-sounding excuse to prevaricate their children! It’s all for outsiders to listen to. Why do we need to be so ignorant between father and son? Don’t you want to get a fortune for nothing, or because you feel scared when you enter the palace to see my sister? My sister is also, The elbows are always turned outwards. Anyway, we are her direct blood. Who else should she turn to if she doesn't turn to her mother's family? Father, think about it. One day in the future, after you drive the crane west, it will be easy for the baby to talk about it. He can still inherit the title, but the second brother is only a vacant post of Jinyiwei, and he is honest and dull. If you don’t save him more money, he will spend a lot of money in the future. good?"

Zhou Kui's second son, Zhou Fang, suffered from cold and fever when he was young, and the root cause of the disease was not treated in time. His mind was sometimes sober and sometimes confused, and because he was the second son, he could not inherit the title, so Zhou Kui always felt indebted to him.

Although Zhou Yi is not a fun guy, he has always loved his brother who is two years younger than him. Seeing his younger brother like this, he has been urging his father to ask for a title for his younger brother. In the future, when his father leaves, the two brothers will separate , my younger brother has a title, and I can feel at ease.

Zhou Kui is very reluctant to go to the palace to find his daughter now, and he knows the reason very well.

A few years ago, when the court was short of money, Zhou Hou couldn't bear to see her husband worrying about money and food every day, so she asked Zhou Kui to send 5000 taels of silver, and asked him to add another 5000 taels to donate to the court in the name of the Zhou family.But this week Kui was so dishonest that he withheld 2000 taels of silver from Zhou Hou and only donated the remaining 3000 taels.

Zhou Hou was very angry when she learned about it. Since then, she has no good words for Zhou Kui, and asked someone to bring a message to Zhou Kui, don't go to the palace to look for her casually.

Speaking of which, Zhou Kui hadn't entered the palace for a long time except for the last time he had the cheek to enter the palace and asked Zhou Hou to talk to Zhu Youjian about the promotion of the title and re-entrustment.

"Forget it! In order for Fang'er to have hope in the future, I went to the palace for my father, saying that this time it is for Fang'er's support family. Let's see what your sister can say! I don't believe it, but you can Is it really that there is no family in heaven?"

When Zhou Yi mentioned Zhou Fang's name, he immediately hit the softest part of Zhou Kui's heart.He put down his fishing rod, got up and cleaned his hands in the copper basin next to him, turned around and went to the back house to change clothes and enter the palace.

"Father, my sister has been pregnant since last year, and she is about to give birth soon, you'd better bring some supplements to the palace; you know, it's better to go in without hitting the gift giver than you go in empty-handed?"

Zhou Yi reminded with a smile.

"You almost forgot if you didn't mention being a father! You're all thinking about how to speak in the palace. You go and tell the butler, and get some wild ginseng, angelica and the like from the warehouse to prepare for my father!"

(End of this chapter)