Red Mansion Taoist

Chapter 214 Zhuangzi
Not to mention Jia Qiang, even Jia Min, who was very knowledgeable, was shocked by the sight in front of him.

It is better to say that this is a village than a big garden.

I don't know what kind of means Zhuangzi used, but he felt warm as soon as he entered the door.

"Master Jiahou, except for the young ones, all the maids in Zhuangzi are palace ladies!" Zongji, the left eunuch, introduced Jia Qiang as he led him inside.

Considering that this Zhuangzi is where King Beijing spends his vacation, it is normal to have such an arrangement.

King Beijing came to Zhuangzi with his family, so it would be more convenient for the palace maid.

Next, Zuo Jiancheng Zongji took Jia Qiang and others to visit the planting area and the planting area. In addition to some off-season vegetables, there are also some precious southern flowers and trees in the planting area.

These precious flowers and trees take advantage of the warm environment in Zhuangzi to simulate its living environment.

The breeding area is home to tigers, leopards, brown bears and other beasts, as well as some ornamental animals.

This is equivalent to a zoo, except that it is a private zoo.

In the center of Zhuangzi, where the hot springs are located, a palace was built. Its specifications were completely based on the regulations of the palace.

All the items and decorations inside also reflect the style and heritage of the palace.

If it weren't for the Zhuangzi given by the emperor, it would be a big sin for Jia Qiang to own this Zhuangzi.

Zuo Jiancheng Zongji explained all the way and led Jia Qiang and others into the palace before turning around to arrange food.

"Brother Qiang, I like long-haired white rabbits!" Lin Daiyu said excitedly after seeing Zuocheng Zongji leave.

The long-haired white rabbits she was talking about were a pair of long-haired rabbits, an extremely rare species.

"Sister Lin likes it. When the long-haired rabbit gives birth, I will give one to you!" Jia Qiang nodded and said with a smile.

"I want it too!" Miaoyu said quickly.

Although Jia Xichun, Yunfei and Zhujun did not speak, their eyes also had longing.

"Well, the rabbit will give birth to a lot of babies, and then everyone of you will have one!" Jia Qiang shook her head and said.

The girls all laughed happily and chattered about how to raise rabbits.

In fact, even if the little rabbit is given to them, they don't need to raise it, there will be someone in the house to take care of it.

They only get along with the bunny when they need to play.

"Master's wife, are you worried about the teacher?" Jia Qiang saw that Jia Min was a little distracted and asked softly.

"Yes!" Jia Min nodded and replied.

She didn't treat Jia Qiang as an outsider, she just said whatever she wanted.

"Those twelve guards can stop thousands of troops. Don't worry about the teacher's safety!" Jia Qiang assured confidently.

The powerful generals who can be left in the mansion as guards are all selected from the powerful generals with strong combat power.

A general with this level of strength in the army can at least lead a general with a bodyguard.

"Master, I believe you!" Jia Min felt much less worried after hearing Jia Qiang's assurance, and said with a smile.

"You finally come out, let the palace maid lead you to the hot springs later!" Jia Qiang clapped his hands, attracting the attention of several women, and then he ordered the left prisoner Cheng Zongji who rushed over: "Arrange a small hot spring for me, I'm a little tired too!"

He was taking the initiative to avoid suspicion. He went to the hot spring so that the other women could go to another hot spring.

Lin Daiyu picked up Jia Min and took the little sisters to follow a palace maid to the main hot spring pool, which was big enough for several girls to enter the pool together.

Jia Qiang is on the other side of the palace. Although it is a small hot spring pool, it is still more than ten square meters.

He took off his clothes and entered the pool, revealing his strong body.

He didn't pay attention to the maids serving beside him. If he still cared about these things, he might not be able to integrate into the life of the nobles at all.

The maids here are all deeded to Jiahou Mansion, which is equivalent to his private property.

He lay in the slightly scalding water and the palace maid presented him with fruits.

These fruits are also produced by Zhuangzi. They are not available in the capital at this season unless they come from the south.

Only Zhuangzi in Xiaotangshan can use hot springs to plant fruit trees.

Without Jia Qiang's orders, several palace maids played palace music behind the gauze curtain.

Jia Qiang closed her eyes, listened to music in her ears, and was surrounded by warmth. This kind of enjoyment was the best in Daqian.

On the other side, the women entered the water wearing small clothes. Even though they were all women, they were embarrassed to be completely naked.

Since the entire Zhuangzi belongs to Jia Qiang, except for the eunuch Zuo eun Cheng Zongji, there is only one man named Jia Qiang, and the rest are palace maids. This allows them not to worry about anything and can enjoy this rare happiness wholeheartedly.

They were laughing and playing, and even Jia Min joined them.

Qin Keqing was the only one sitting aside. Jia Qiang asked her to follow her out this time because she was considering that Qin Keqing had no fault on her own and just asked Lin Daiyu not to be alone with her.

But it was Jia Qiang's order that made the girls unconsciously isolate Qin Keqing.

In the Rongxi Hall of Rongguo Mansion, Jia Mu, Jia Zheng and his wife, Jia She and his wife, and Wang Xifeng were discussing matters.

Wang Xifeng was able to join because she demonstrated her housekeeping abilities.

"Girl Feng, tell me how much money is left to look after the garden?" Mother Jia asked Wang Xifeng.

The matter discussed this time is about the construction of the Provincial Palace. The key to this is that there is not enough money.

Jia Mu was also surprised when she heard the news.

That's five hundred thousand taels of silver. Even if Rongguo Mansion's family has a big business, half a million taels of silver is not a small sum of money for Rongguo Mansion.

In order to collect 500,000 taels of silver, they all sold Jia Baoyu to the Xue family and borrowed 100,000 taels of silver from Lin Ruhai.

"According to the calculations of several stewards, the project is only halfway through, but the five hundred thousand taels of silver have almost been used. I checked the accounts and found no problems!" When Wang Xifeng said this, she secretly glanced at Mrs. Wang. One glance.

Mrs. Wang shrank unconsciously, for fear of being stared at by Jia Mu.

Jia She looked up at the sky, his eyes focused on the roof of Rongxi Hall, as if he wanted to see the flowers on the roof.

Mrs. Xing twisted her body, her guilt written on her face.

The only person here who has not benefited from the construction of the Provincial Courtyard is Jia Zheng, besides Jia's mother.

Jia Zheng is an old-fashioned man, but he regards Rongguo Mansion as his own. As for his good brother Jia She, he is not the master of Rongguo Mansion.

Although Jia Mu could not see these things, she also understood that if she wanted to build a provincial residence, it must be managed by people in the government. It was inevitable that these people would benefit from it.

But the problem is that the original five hundred thousand taels of silver were only half of the project and there was no money left. "Can you still come up with money?" Jia Mu looked at Jia Zheng and Jia She and asked.

"Old lady, we have emptied the bottom of the box, where is the money?" Mrs. Wang replied first.

"I haven't even got the money to buy the fan I'm interested in in the past two or three months!" Jia She also cried.

"We don't have any money, so we have to stop building this provincial residence. This is related to the glory of the Jia family, and will also affect the spring of the palace!" Jia Mu said with a sigh.

There are still some good things in her hands, but those good things are reserved for Baoyu.

Besides, even if you take out all the things in your hands, it won't be enough to satisfy the greed of these people.

Only by asking everyone in front of them to spend money can the Provincial Family House be built.

"Old ancestor, there is something I can do to get some money, maybe enough to build a garden!" Wang Xifeng said in a low voice at this time.

Immediately, everyone in the hall looked at her, waiting for her next words.

"Tell me quickly, girl Feng still has a solution!" Mother Jia quickly urged.

"Then the Jiangnan Zhen family sent people to the house. I heard that they wanted to put some belongings in the house!" Wang Xifeng looked around and said softly.

Since we were discussing important matters in the house this time, all the maids and grandmothers around were sent away, so there was no need to worry about being overheard.

"Don't get involved in the Jiangnan Zhen family's affairs, it will be a big trouble!" Jia Mu quickly shook her head and said.

No matter how ignorant she is, she still knows how difficult it will be for the Zhen family in Jiangnan without the old concubine.

Seeing that the Zhen family in Jiangnan are preparing to send their belongings to their relatives for safekeeping, it can be seen that the Zhen family also feels the crisis.

"Actually, we can secretly take over this batch of wealth and use it to build the provincial residence. Even if the Zhen family recovers, as long as the wedding is over and Concubine Xiande's position in the palace is consolidated, it can be easily solved with a little wealth. Yes!" Wang Xifeng explained.

Jia Zheng frowned and said nothing. He didn't like this method, but he felt that he could get a lot of money in this way.

He felt that as long as he didn't speak, he could ensure his innocence.

Mrs. Wang, Jia She and Mrs. Xing's eyes shone. The Jiangnan Zhen family's belongings would be such a huge fortune.

"That's all, just contact the Zhen family and ask them to quietly deliver the goods!" Jia Mu thought about it for a long time and said helplessly.

The construction of the provincial residence was too important. Even if there would be trouble taking over the Zhen family's belongings at this time, considering Yuanchun's status in the palace, even if this happened, it would not be a big deal.

With the conclusion of this discussion, a few days later in the evening, people from the Jiangnan Zhen family sent several large carts of goods.

The Provincial Courtyard in Rongguo Mansion is still under construction, and large sums of money are being spent as usual.

Jia Qiang went home that night and didn't encounter anything on the way.

After this trip, all the girls were very happy, especially since each of them had a small long-haired rabbit, which made them not tired at all along the way.

Jia Qiang came to the study, and a strong guard sent him the information he ordered to investigate.

As Wu Zicang controlled the capital camp for a longer period of time, Jia Qiang placed many 100% loyal warriors in the capital camp and almost controlled the nine guards of the capital camp.

The Jingying Nine Guards are responsible for many security matters in the capital, and they have a complete system for intelligence in the capital.

Whatever Jia Qiang wants to investigate in the capital, he can easily investigate it through the Beijing camp.

The people killed in the two carriages were officials from the Ministry of Industry's Camping and Renovation Department, which was responsible for the construction of the palace.

"Interesting!" Jia Qiang looked at the information in his hand. Based on the information, he guessed a lot of things.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry has lost a lot of building materials.

These building materials are not ordinary building materials. They can be used in palace construction. Whether they are wood or stone, they are of the best quality in Daqian.

As far as he knew, the families of several of Emperor Jingwen's concubines had sent people to prepare provincial residences, which needed a large amount of top-notch wood and stone.

Normally, the demand for this level of wood and stone is very small, and large-scale demand is unlikely to occur.

Jia Qiang even wondered whether Emperor Jingwen was making money in this way.

As for the deaths of several officials from the Battalion and Maintenance Department, there may be others who took this opportunity to make a fortune, but Liu Xianglian was afraid of being defeated and silenced these officials.

Jia Qiang smiled. He didn't have time to think about these things. He picked up the information and looked at the time outside. It was not too late. He went to the Lin Mansion next door through the small door.

Lin Ruhai hadn't rested yet. The murders of several officials from the Battalion and Maintenance Department had a huge impact.

"Brother Qiang, why are you here!" Lin Ruhai asked in surprise when he saw Jia Qiang arriving.

"Teacher, this is the information I got. Let's see if I can help you investigate the case!" Jia Qiang said as she handed over the information in her hand.

Lin Ruhai took the intelligence. After reading the contents, he couldn't help but look up at Jia Qiang.

"Do you have such channels in the capital?" He was quite surprised and asked.

Even Dali Temple's intelligence channels in Beijing are far from complete. There is a lot of extremely secret information in it. It's hard to imagine how it was obtained.

"This is sent from the Beijing camp!" Jia Qiang explained to Lin Ruhai without hiding anything.

Lin Ruhai didn't know much about the situation in Beijing Camp. He knew that Jia Qiang had served as the military governor of Beijing Camp, so he took it for granted that it was normal for Jia Qiang to obtain information from Beijing Camp.

"This case is related to the palace construction materials lost by the Ministry of Industry. I am afraid that the homes of several imperial concubines will be traced!" Lin Ruhai and others, after reading the information, he immediately thought of the imperial concubines and had a headache. said.

If you check the imperial concubine's natal family, you will most likely be retaliated by the imperial concubine.

Don't underestimate the energy of any princess, sometimes blowing the pillow is more powerful than anything else.

Besides, behind every imperial concubine, there is a huge network of relationships.

"Teacher, it's best not to check this line. If you check it, you will probably find the person in the palace!" Jia Qiang promptly reminded.

"You mean that one is short of money?" Lin Ruhai took a breath, lowered his head and asked.

"It's not bad, the eight million taels of silver I transferred from the big salt merchant in Jiangnan this time will be the tax money for next year!" Jia Qiang shook her head and explained.

"Selling materials from the Ministry of Industry to the imperial concubine's natal family in the way of building a provincial residence is really a huge amount of money!" Lin Ruhai sighed.

Jia Qiang was also particularly convinced. You must know that the time Emperor Jingwen gave his concubines was only about half a year from planning to construction.

It seems like a long time, but when you consider that from design to construction, half a year is very short.

If the materials for building the provincial residence were sent from all over the country, they might not arrive for half a year, and the Ministry of Industry had almost a monopoly on such materials in the capital.

Therefore, the only way for several imperial concubines' natal families to build provincial residences on time was to purchase materials in the capital.

(End of this chapter)