latelenovela Chapter 523 Gratitude
Chapter 523 Gratitude
Shen Sui'an read the visiting cards again after the Chief Secretary had screened them, and then asked the housekeeper to deliver them to each household.
She called all the managers in the mansion to come and listen to her instructions.
"This is the first banquet held by the palace. It concerns the prince's reputation. You should warn the people below not to be lazy and slack off. You should be careful with your words and actions at all times. No matter whether the palace matters are big or small, you should be careful about what you should and shouldn't say to the public."
Shen Sui'an instructed them one by one about the things that needed to be paid attention to and prepared, and then reprimanded the stewards, asking them to go back and take care of the servants under them, and then let them go back to work.
Half a day passed like this.
She took Chao Ge'er to have dinner with the Empress Dowager.
Seeing Xue Jingshu beside the Empress Dowager, Shen Sui'an asked gently, "Is Miss Xue's injury healed?"
Xue Jingshu quickly bowed to Shen Sui'an. She had been locked up in the cellar for too long, and even though she had been recuperating for a while, her face was still as pale as snow.
"I've met the princess."
"No need to be so polite." Shen Sui'an raised his hand.
Ruan Zhaoxia had been brought back to the royal capital, and Xue Jingshu stayed in the palace to recuperate. After the Empress Dowager heard about her life experience and met Xue Jingshu, she let her live in her own courtyard.
Now that Xue Jingshu has recovered from her injuries, she accompanies the Empress Dowager in copying Buddhist scriptures every day.
Xue Jingshu was a quiet and introverted girl. After paying her respects, she stood quietly aside.
She knew in her heart that she was able to survive and no longer have to worry because the Regent Princess saved her. She only regretted that her ability was limited and she could not repay her in a better way.
"Ms. Xue, your uncles are in Salt Lake City asking about your whereabouts. Would you like to meet them?" Shen Suian looked at Xue Jingshu gently.
Xue Jingshu's pupils trembled slightly, and her face seemed to turn three points paler.
She clenched her hands, trying to control the trembling of her shoulders, "Princess, can I not see them?"
"Okay." Shen Sui'an's voice was firm, "As long as you don't want to, then don't meet."
The Queen Mother asked, "How does your uncle treat you?"
"Replying to the Empress Dowager, my uncle treats me well." Xue Jingshu said in a low voice.
After her parents died, she went to live with her uncle. Her uncle took pity on her background and took good care of her. But the way her cousin looked at her made her feel particularly uncomfortable, and her aunt and cousin's wife hated her even more.
My cousin wanted to bully my cousin's wife when she was not at home, but she accidentally hit him.
Later she was sold to the Lu family as a saint and was imprisoned and tortured in a salt warehouse.
No matter how much affection I had for my uncle, it was completely worn away by the suffering in the salt warehouse.
She was a little worried that the Empress Dowager and the Princess would think she was heartless and ungrateful.
"If I really treated you well, I would not allow your cousin to sell you to the Lu family." Shen Suian said calmly.
Xue Jingshu knelt down and said, "Princess, you took me in as a maid. I have nowhere else to go."
Shen Sui'an asked her to stand up and talk.
She wanted to keep Xue Jingshu, but Xue Jingshu was not a maid, so there was no point in assigning her any task.
The Empress Dowager laughed and said, "You are not going to open a shipyard. She is literate and can work for you."
"This will inevitably require us to be in the spotlight..." Shen Sui'an looked at Xue Jingshu.
Xue Jingshu kowtowed immediately and said, "I am willing."
She lives like a duckweed. Survival is already difficult for her, so what is face?
"That's not urgent. We still need time." Shen Sui'an said with a smile, "You should serve the Empress Dowager first and take good care of yourself."
Xue Jingshu was filled with gratitude and knelt down to kowtow to Shen Sui'an, "Princess, you are my lifesaver. I am willing to go through fire and water for you in this life."
Shen Sui'an said, "You are all citizens of the Southern Dynasty. How can the prince just stand by and watch when you are treated unfairly?"
"Okay, serve the princess well in the future, and she will protect you. Go and treat the wound on your forehead, and don't kowtow at every turn." said the Empress Dowager.
"Thank you, Empress Dowager, and thank you, Princess." Xue Jingshu finally smiled with relief.
She seemed to be able to finally touch a ray of light, and the road ahead was no longer dark.
Shen Sui'an talked to the Empress Dowager about holding a banquet.
"I am old and don't like this kind of occasions. There is no need to invite them to pay their respects to me when the time comes." The Empress Dowager waved her hand.
"Yes, my granddaughter-in-law has remembered this." Shen Sui'an knew that the Empress Dowager did not want people to think that she was the one in charge of the Regent's Palace and wanted to hand over all the dominant power to her.
……
Shi Qing has already found out the owner of the wasteland in Yingzui Bay, and even found out the whole story.
"The Wei family's side branch found an excuse to measure private property and enclosed all of Liu Laohan's 20 mu of good farmland. Liu Laohan's family protested their injustice on the farmland, and the Wei family gave them the wasteland near Yingzui Bay."
"Otherwise, I won't give Old Man Liu even an inch of land."
"In order to prevent Old Man Liu from causing trouble, they also had his son beaten up. Old Man Liu was so angry that he hit his head against the wall. Fortunately, someone rescued him, but both the father and son were injured, and the women in the family did not dare to seek justice from the Wei family."
"The villagers couldn't stand it, so they went to the wasteland to look for the Wei family, but were beaten back by the Wei family's servants."
Shen Sui'an frowned when he heard this, "The Wei family wants to measure their private property, so do they have a land deed?"
"Without the land deeds stamped by the government, the Wei family can take over as much land as they want. Why don't they take over the entire Southern Dynasty?" Shen Suian said coldly.
"This is just one of the insignificant evil deeds done by the Wei family." Shi Qing said, "Since they learned that Suzhou became the prince's fiefdom, many noble families have enclosed the land for their own use. The prefect at that time was a member of the Wei family, and they all passed the official seal."
"Any land deed is in duplicate in the government, one copy is kept in the Suzhou government office, and the other copy is kept in the Ministry of Revenue. I have asked the Ministry of Revenue to send the archived private land deeds of the Suzhou nobles to me." Fu Jinyuan walked in from outside.
Shen Sui'an asked, "You also know about their private enclosure of land?"
"They all treated me as a fool, thinking that they could enclose all the fertile land and claim it as their own, and then they lied about the population numbers and evaded taxes." Fu Jinyuan snorted coldly.
The nobles were exempt from taxes, but they were greedy and wanted to take all the good farmland in Suzhou for themselves, leaving only the wasteland for the Regent's Palace.
He really treats the court and the regent as fools.
The first thing Fu Jinyuan did when he arrived in Suzhou was to investigate the enclosure of land for personal use.
"The government has issued an official order, requiring the nobles to hand over the land that does not belong to them. Those who do not hand it over by the time the deadline comes will be punished for the crime of forcibly occupying official land and stealing and selling it."
Shen Sui'an: "What will happen then?"
"Exile three thousand miles away." Fu Jinyuan said lightly.
The amount of land belonging to the royal palace in Suzhou is fixed, and the noble families cannot just enclose land as they please.
He takes himself too seriously.
"There is no rush for this matter. Let's issue an official order first and see how those wealthy families and gentry respond." Fu Jinyuan said.