the first lady

Chapter 31

To put it simply, things are definitely not that simple this time.And according to Qiao Yishu, all the gold is lighter, that is to say, even if the suspicion of one or two royal workers cutting corners is ruled out, there must be manipulators behind the scenes.

It is not yet possible to make a conclusion as to who is behind the scenes, but it is not ruled out that it is Emperor Wu; and then there are people who were related to Uncle Chen or the Queen.

The queen was suspected because of her elder brother Chen Guojiu, because Chen Guojiu was the supervisor of the official gold refinery, and he got a lot of benefits from it, as did the people who followed him.Such a great God of Wealth was killed by the prince, and the trees fell and the monkeys scattered, so naturally there would be people who held grudges.But to be able to control it so precisely, and all gold is the same, I am afraid that it is beyond the reach of ordinary people.Naturally, one can think of Uncle Chen's strong backing—the empress!
"Brother-in-law, this matter is not trivial." After a long silence, Qiao Yishu opened his mouth seriously.

Zong Zhengyi frowned slightly. He was also the prime minister after all. Although he didn't have any experience in making official gold and appraising it, he was involved in a lot of relationships, especially now that the Qiao family was also involved.As a subject, he should serve the imperial court, but whether it is a conspiracy or something else, there is no way of knowing!

When Qiao Yilin proposed to ask Zongzhengyi to tell the emperor clearly, other people including Zongzhengyi rejected this idea. They didn't know whether the matter was controlled by the emperor, so if it is reckless to ask at this time , I am afraid that the people behind the scenes will be angered and then do even more bewildering things.

The original return was a bit serious at this moment. Zong Zhengyi, Qiao Zhan and others said that they needed to find a way to prove that the official gold was light, and the method of weighing was rejected at the beginning.

Eight cents and five cents, this number is too small, the weight of a copper coin may be weighed by the scale of the pharmacy, but the weight of the official gold cannot be accurate.Especially in ancient times, it is impossible to be accurate to the position after the decimal point, and there is no way to be accurate to milligrams, which is especially annoying.

When Qiao Linger and Zongzheng Yi returned to the Zongzheng government, they ran into Zongzheng Yan who was about to go out, holding a gold bar in his hand, and frowning.

"Yan?" Zongzheng Yi called out, but seeing that Zongzheng Yan didn't hear it at all, he and Qiao Ling'er looked at each other, and shouted again: "Yan!"

This time Zongzheng Yan heard it, and stopped in his tracks. He looked at Zongzheng Yi and Qiao Linger who got off the carriage with a little surprise, and smiled: "Second brother, second sister-in-law!"

"Uncle, aren't you afraid of being robbed with gold bars?" Qiao Ling'er teased, who would dangle gold bars on the street in broad daylight?

"Hehe..." After being said by Qiao Linger, Zong Zhengyan touched his nose in embarrassment, and was about to hide the gold bars.Moreover, this "uncle" is really...

Seeing this, Zongzheng Yi deepened his smile and couldn't help asking, "Yan, where are you going?"

"Qing sent someone to inform me that there was something wrong with the official gold refined recently. I was going to go to him to see if there is any way to know that this batch of gold has been lighted." Zong Zhengyan recovered frivolously but mixed with A little serious face.

"I also know about this." Zong Zhengyi said in a low voice.

"?" Zongzheng Yan opened his eyes slightly, a little puzzled.

"When we were at Qiao's house today, Mr. Feng was also there, so father and elder brother told us the reason." Qiao Ling'er saw him puzzled and explained.

Zong Zhengyan quickly realized that both the first family and the second family were responsible for Guan Jin's identification. Since the Feng family already knew about it, the Qiao family was no exception.

"Master Qiao, is there any way?" Zong Zhengyan asked.

Both Qiao Linger and Zong Zhengyi shook their heads. Qiao Linger was actually very moved by the backward technology in ancient times. In the 21st century, the era she lived in, not to mention the problem of light identification, but the identification of the inside. It doesn't matter how much other substances are mixed.

That's all, there's nothing left to think about, this place is already ancient, what can she do?You can't ask her to travel back to the 21st century to bring an identification instrument here, can you?

When the few people didn't speak for a while, the conversation of two children walking next to them caught their attention——

"Brother, why is my wooden doll not as heavy as your clay doll?" A child who was only about three years old tied a braid with a red string, and with one hand pulled a little boy who was about five or six years old walking in front. Holding a wooden doll in his hand.

"Stupid, of course because my doll is made of clay, and yours is made of wood. Do you understand that wood is very light?" The five or six-year-old boy replied with a mature look, holding the clay figurine in his hands to change its appearance. .

"Why is the wood so light?" the little doll behind him asked in a fluttering manner.

"..."

Seeing this scene, Qiao Ling'er couldn't help but smile at first, then a flash of inspiration flashed in his head, and his eyes lit up, then turned to Zong Zhengyan, who was fiddling with gold research, and asked with a smile: "Uncle, can I ask you a question?" ?"

Qiao Linger's eccentric tone almost made Zongzhengyan smash the gold in his hand, and Zongzhengyi couldn't help looking at her, raising his eyebrows slightly, waiting for her question.

"Second sister-in-law, if you have any questions, just ask, you're welcome!" For some reason, Zong Zhengyan felt a little creepy when he saw Qiao Linger's smile.

Qiao Linger asked calmly, "Which is heavier, a jin of iron or a jin of gold?"

Originally thinking that he would ask some serious question, Zongzhengyan answered it as a matter of course after hearing it: "Of course gold is heavy!" Did he really think he had never seen iron and gold?Do you still need to ask such a simple question?

"Wrong!" Lan Feng said coldly from the side.

"Uncle... Alas!" Qiao Linger lamented with regret.

Ning Xiang, who was at the side, originally had the same answer as Zong Zhengyan, but when she heard Qiao Linger sigh, she had a flash of inspiration and said, "Miss, iron and gold are both a catty, so they weigh the same, right?"

"My family, Ningxiang, is smarter!" Qiao Ling'er finished pinching Ningxiang's cheeks.

But what Ningxiang said next made Qiao Linger overturn the previous praise immediately, she asked: "Miss, who would weigh gold with gold, what a strange person!"

"..."

The corner of Zongzheng Yan's mouth twitched suddenly, what a jin of iron and a jin of gold, he hated iron and gold!

"Uncle, since you didn't answer correctly, just give me the gold in your hand!" After going around in circles, Qiao Ling'er finally revealed her purpose.

"Linger..." Zongzheng Yi smiled helplessly.

"Miss..." Ning Xiang and Lan Feng smiled speechlessly.

"..." Zongzheng Yan looked at the sky speechlessly, and just wanted to shout at Zongzheng Yi: Second brother, your wife is a miser!
I'm sorry, although Qiao Ling'er is a thief by profession, she doesn't have any interest in ordinary things like gold. Moreover, her status in this life: the fourth lady of a dignified second-born family, doesn't it mean that she doesn't have money to rob my uncle? gold?

The answer is naturally no, but if you want to ask her what she wants the gold for, Zong Zhengyi and the others will know soon.

A teapot, filled with clean water, level with the spout; a bowl, placed in front of the spout of the teapot, and the paper and pens that were ordered to be prepared.

Qiao Ling'er visually measured the length of the gold bar, and then took a look at the water in the teapot. Even if the gold was completely put in it, there would not be a little bit of it exposed.

Zong Zhengyi and others didn't understand why, especially when she carefully put the gold into the teapot, the water from the spout slowly overflowed.Qiao Linger embeds a small patch on the spout in advance, so that even if the water flows out of the spout, it will not slide down the body of the pot, and it will all fall into the bowl.

Zongzheng Yan raised his eyebrows and looked at this weird move. Didn't he really think that Qiao Ling'er was okay to show them that putting the gold in the teapot for tea would make the gold cry!
Qiao Linger was very careful. If the gold was put in all at once, the water from the spout would either spray away or splash out from the spout, so she was extra careful. Fortunately, these were her specialties, so it was no problem .

When the gold was completely put in, there was a lot of water in the bowl. She was not in a hurry to take out the gold, but just took the water and asked Zongzhengyan, "Uncle, can you fill the bowl with the volume of water?" Record it?"

"...volume?" Zongzheng Yan frowned slightly upon hearing this unfamiliar word.

Qiao Linger couldn't help being speechless, she forgot that there is no concept of volume in this world!And she didn't know what could replace it, and suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed in her mind, and she said, "Just like when weighing rice, one liter or one bucket." Both liters and buckets are ancient volume units.

"Miss, it's like putting on oil..." Ning Xiang asked weakly from behind.

The corners of Qiao Linger's mouth twitched, yes, she should have said oil, at least they were all liquid.

Immediately handed the bowl to Zong Zhengyan, and said: "Just record it as oil, and record it in this place!"

As for the paper, it was also divided into three columns.In Qiao Linger's modern language, the left column is used to record the mass, which is the weight of gold; the middle column is used to record the volume, which is the volume of gold, which is of course the same as the previous stone; the last column It is used to record density, physical chemistry is her favorite, the ratio of mass to volume is density.

Zongzheng Yi smiled with great interest, and asked, "Linger, do you need anything else?"

"Well, I still need some gold, preferably in different sizes." Qiao Ling'er was very happy with Zong Zhengyi's understanding, and then said to Zong Zhengyan: "And uncle, you are in the first place." Correspondingly fill in the two catties of gold in the column, and each size of gold must correspond."

Zong Zhengyan struggled for a while, and suddenly felt that he was playing house with his second sister-in-law, but he was too embarrassed to say goodbye, and he was a little embarrassed.

(End of this chapter)