The old lady is reborn

Sure enough, when the Sixth Princess received Tie Feiyan's reply, the Sixth Prince learned that the He family silk shop had no intention of taking on the military uniform business. This made the Sixth Princess and the Sixth Prince standing behind her feel like they were stepping into empty air.

The Sixth Prince naturally had no good face towards Rong Ruozhi. He was embarrassed by the situation. Rong Ruozhi and Tian Anran sat together, and they could not help but blame each other.

According to their original plan, they had already successfully taken over the imperial merchants and the military uniforms business, and Tian Anran was doing well in the circle of noble ladies. The next step was to get rid of He Jiabao and let Rong Huaishan and Tian Anran recognize each other. In a few years, they could get rid of Song Ying, who had supported the Marquis's mansion for a lifetime.

But now every step has been frustrated, and Song Ying has adopted her biological son as her adopted son.

The two had a quarrel and parted unhappily.

Not long after, Song Ying's Xiufang Garment Store got an opportunity to participate in a military uniform business inquiry meeting.

Rong Ruozhi had originally looked down on Song Ying, wondering how she could answer those questions. But because he valued the military uniform business and wanted to know who would win the bid next, Rong Ruozhi took the initiative to ask Song Ying to go with him.

At the inquiry meeting, Song Ying answered all questions fluently regarding the requirements for clothing and shoes, the supply of raw materials, cost estimates, quotations, samples, construction period, and the amount of manpower required, and successfully entered the second round.

At the second round of inquiry meeting held not long after, Song Ying unexpectedly won by inviting several veterans who had tried on different ready-made clothes and shoes to talk about their feelings about trying on the clothes. Finally, he brought out the improved samples and successfully made it to the final round.

At the third round of inquiry, Song Ying's offer was close to that of another company. However, Song Ying took out a thick stack of documents, which were letters of commitment from fifteen cloth and garment shops, including the He Family Silk Shop, and three banks, stating that they would jointly participate in the military uniform business that Song Ying had taken over, with Song Ying as the leader.

This greatly increased Song Ying's strength and he took over the military uniform business in one fell swoop.

The Sixth Prince smiled at Rong Ruozhi and said, "With such a capable wife, why are you still looking for another cloth shop?"

After Tian Anran found out, she blamed Rong Ruozhi for helping Song Ying secretly. She had already made up her mind to help Song Ying get the order. Was she just playing tricks on her? !

Rong Ruozhi blamed Tian Anran. He took the risk to bring her to the Winter Banquet, but she couldn't even appease Manager He, and her first step was ruined.

She had worked in a silk shop for decades. If she could talk as eloquently as Song Ying and hold her own, she could have replaced He long ago. But she could not do this or that.

The two had another big fight.

Song Ying was surprised to find that after she took over the military uniform business, the Sixth King sent someone to look for her.

The Sixth Prince cares so much about this business, it must be not just for profit. Song Ying slowly deals with him and builds trust with him, wanting to see what the Sixth Prince is going to do.

While he was busy, he divided the military uniform business among 16 cloth shops including his own.

In order to ensure the quality, Song Ying purchased the raw materials. Rong Ruo knew the Sixth Prince's order and showed his goodwill to Song Ying recently.

The housekeeper, Wu Siyu, the daughter-in-law, has been having a hard time lately. In the past, the mansion had a lot of expenses, but Song Ying often used his own private property to subsidize the expenses without making a fuss.

The rice, vegetables, fruits, chickens, pigs, geese, ducks, etc. produced from the farm and fields that were part of Song Ying's dowry were sent directly to the big kitchen all year round.

The cosmetics shop, embroidery workshop and clothing store under Song Ying's name almost covered the daily necessities of the marquis' mansion. Not to mention the clothes the masters needed to add every season, even the four sets of clothes for the servants a year were covered.

Song Ying's calligraphy and painting studio provided the family with all the paper, ink, brushes and inkstones. Song Ying would also buy charcoal and ice for the family every winter and summer.

The income from the shops and farms in the mansion was only used to pay for various cash expenses. Both the father-in-law and the husband had some private property in their names, which was almost their own small treasury.

Originally, housekeeper Wu Siyu lived a good life. She got some benefits from time to time, and her mother-in-law would give her some pocket money every now and then.

But after returning from the winter banquet, Song Ying stopped using private property to subsidize the public. Because the clothes had just been made, and the kitchen had collected a large batch of vegetables and meat before winter to make dried meat and smoke it in the cellar, and each room also had paper, ink, brushes and inkstones. It was not until these few months that the public had to take money for everything, and it gradually became tight.

Wu Siyu had no choice but to go to Song Ying again to test the waters. This time, she brought a soup she had cooked herself.

Song Ying asked her to sit down and asked her what was the matter.

Wu Siyu could only say: "In previous years, the charcoal used in the mansion in winter was purchased by mother. This year, seeing that mother is busy, I decided to use the remaining charcoal in the storehouse first.

Later, when it was not enough, I asked the accountant and went to the store where my mother often bought things to get some first. But a few days ago, that store came to collect the payment, and my wife realized that the account had not been settled yet.

Song Ying just said, "Then you should pay quickly. You have used the charcoal for such a long time, it is not good not to pay. This will ruin the reputation of the Marquisate. In the past, we can only pay on credit because of our face and credit. If you refuse to pay once, you will have no money to save you in an emergency."

Song Ying had always used her own private savings to buy charcoal for the winter in the entire mansion, fearing that her husband and grandchildren would freeze in the winter. She felt sorry for all of them and loved them like a hen protecting her chicks.

But before she died, her husband and son used the charcoal she bought to heat the entire plum garden for Tian Anran, and laid the ground heating directly in the yard for her to enjoy the snow and plum blossoms in winter...

Wu Siyu returned empty-handed, so he had to pay the money from the public treasury and then pay out more to buy more.

However, this store said that gold-thread charcoal was in short supply this year and had all been ordered, so they asked Wu Siyu to buy from another store as they had no stock left.

Wu Siyu didn't take it seriously at first, thinking that she had been delaying the payment for too long and the company would not be willing to sell it to her.

As a result, the servants ran all over Kyoto and came back with the news that it was indeed out of stock, and judging from the situation, the second-grade ebony charcoal was also in short supply.

Wu Siyu had no choice but to ask someone to buy some quickly. In the end, only a small amount of ebony charcoal was bought, and the rest were miscellaneous charcoal.

She hadn't worried about this for so many years, but now she realized that gold charcoal and ebony charcoal are still not available for purchase.

Every room had complaints about the use of these charcoals. Compared with gold-thread charcoal, they needed twice as much charcoal to keep the house warm, so each room had to add two or three charcoal stoves in the house.

Not only does this charcoal produce smoke and ash, it is also much easier to extinguish than gold-thread charcoal. Especially at night, when it extinguishes and then ignites again, the room will be already freezing cold.

The servants were inevitably scolded and kept guarding the stove in fear. Even if the stove was not extinguished, the masters of each room would be choked by the smoke.

Rong Ruozhi also called his wife to ask about this matter. Wu Siyu wanted to put the blame on Song Ying, but everyone knew that the golden charcoal in previous years was purchased by Song Ying.

Even the batch of gold-thread charcoal that each household started using was leftover from last year. Last year, there was so much that it could not be used up and there was some left over, but this year there was no more, so they could only use ebony charcoal and miscellaneous charcoal.

No one said anything when the two sides compared, but they all thought how difficult it could be? Housekeeper Wu Siyu was not good enough to handle such a small matter.

Song Ying's courtyard was the only one in the mansion that still used gold-thread charcoal. If you asked, it was given to him by others. Indeed, from time to time, a beautiful carriage would come to the mansion to deliver three or four baskets of gold-thread charcoal to Song Ying.

Song Ying said: "I have had this chronic cold leg problem for many years, and I just complained about why coal is so scarce this year.

These ladies know about this, and they all have good intentions. I will have to rely on others to help me with charcoal this winter."