Chapter 25: Women's Dowry
In the Zhou Dynasty, the wives of noble families were not in an absolutely weak position facing their husbands as in other dynasties, but enjoyed a relatively high status in the family.

Not only because of their parents' families, but also because they have the confidence of generous dowries.

According to the customs of the Great Zhou.

Before a girl gets married, her family will prepare an exceptionally generous dowry for her, which includes valuable assets such as jewelry and land deeds. Otherwise, it would be a disgrace to the family. Some people even sell their property just to get a full dowry for their daughter.

No one can touch a woman's dowry, and the ownership of it belongs only to her.

Even if the husband unfortunately dies young, the woman can take the dowry away intact from her original home if she remarries.

The only daughter of the Yongyi Marquis, now Mrs. Sheng, was going to marry the third place winner of the imperial examination in the Sheng family. The old marquis had only this daughter, so naturally he loved her very much. He almost regarded the entire marquisate as a dowry and let his daughter bring it into the Sheng family.

This is also one of the main reasons why the Yongyi Marquis Mansion declined.

After all, the later Marquis Yongyi was adopted, and was naturally separated from the old Marquis Yongyi. Naturally, he could not inherit all of the old Marquis Yongyi's connections, and the family property also went away with Old Madam Sheng.

Such a huge marquisate is only supported by the title of marquis.

In addition to Sheng Hong's own efforts, the dowry from Old Lady Sheng also played a decisive role in Sheng Hong's current success.

At the beginning, Old Madam Sheng spent a huge amount of money and used connections to send Sheng Hong to school. He once went to the private school in the Mansion of Duke Lingguo. Although he eventually dropped out of school because he could not bear the debauchery in the Mansion of Duke Lingguo, Old Madam Sheng later found other connections to allow Sheng Hong to continue his studies.

The coming and going were all supported by the generous dowry from Old Lady Sheng.

Because of this, although Old Madam Sheng was not Sheng Hong’s biological mother, Sheng Hong had always been quite respectful to her. It was only in recent years, when his official career became more successful, that he began to neglect her and was not as respectful as before.

But now that the Sheng family has arrived in Bian Jing, it is equivalent to entering Old Lady Sheng's home turf, so Sheng Hong has returned to his original state, his attitude is even more respectful and polite, and he discusses and considers almost everything with Old Lady Sheng before making a decision, and has become a filial son again.

Different from this relatively perfect ending.

In contrast is the Ningyuanhou Gu family.

That year, the Gu family was found to have embezzled 800,000 taels of silver from the national treasury. If they could not pay it back within half a year, they would be stripped of their title.

The Gu family naturally could not just sit there and watch the title disappear, so they began to investigate the whereabouts of the missing money, hoping to recover it and make up for their mistake.

After the investigation, it was discovered that the deficit of 800,000 taels of silver was not entirely due to the Gu family's squandering, and the origins of several sums of silver could be clearly traced.

Fujian shipping, southwestern border trade, and the purchasing of the Imperial Household Department were basically all things done for the emperor, and the money was also spent by the emperor.

However, the emperor at that time was extremely tyrannical and would not listen to anything. The officials who could explain the whereabouts of the silver were involved in palace disputes and were either beheaded or exiled and their property confiscated. No one dared to stand up.

There was no other choice, the Gu family could only repay the debt themselves. As a result, after counting all their belongings, there was still a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. After some searching, they set their sights on the Bai family, one of the richest families in Yangzhou at that time.

Mr. Bai came from a prominent family, but was expelled from the family at a young age. He is a lonely man with only one daughter, and all his future property will definitely be left to his only daughter.

When the Gu family saw this, they thought, wasn’t this exactly the Yangzhou replica of the only daughter of the Yongyi Marquis’s Mansion?
He immediately sent someone to contact Mr. Bai, hoping that the fourth or fifth branch of the mansion would come to the Bai family to propose marriage, in exchange for the dowry of the Bai family's daughter to fill the vacancy in the Marquis' Mansion.

But Mr. Bai was not stupid. Seeing that the fourth and fifth wives were unteachable, he naturally could not push his only daughter into the fire pit, and then he said, "My daughter cannot be a concubine!"

In addition to the fourth and fifth rooms, the Gu family only had Gu Yankai from the eldest room... Daqin was pregnant and weak. There were rumors in the mansion that marrying Bai's daughter would solve the mansion's problems. She thought the Gu family was going to divorce her, and she was so worried and sad that she eventually died of dystocia.

The ending of the story is that Ningyuan Marquis' Mansion welcomed Bai as the mistress and used Bai's huge dowry to fill the hole.

Gu Yan was unhappy.

He believed that it was Bai who forced his original wife to death, so instead of being grateful to Bai, he felt resentment towards her.

After the marriage, it took three full months to consummate the marriage, making the Bai family a laughing stock in the entire city of Bianjing.

Once, Bai heard that Xiao Qin was trying to sow discord between Gu Tingyu (Da Qin's only son) and herself, so she went to argue with Gu Yan, but was ignored. In the end, they had a big fight and Bai died of hemorrhage.

The dowry was gone and the person was dead. The only son Gu Tingye was plotted against by Xiao Qinshi since he was a child, and he and his father Gu Yankai were disgusted with each other.

If it weren't for Xiao Qin who poisoned Gu Tingyu since he was a child, causing him to die young.

If Gu Tingyu had not been smart and had not adopted Xiao Qin's grandson, but let Gu Tingye inherit the title, the Bai family's decades of hard work would have been in vain.

Jiying Lane.

Parked on the street in front of the Sheng family's door was an exquisitely decorated carriage with a sign of the Yu family hanging on it.

Mrs. Yu, the wife of Lord Yu, and Mrs. Sheng had been friends since childhood. When she heard that Mrs. Sheng had returned, she hurried to visit her, and with her came her granddaughter, Yu Yanran.

In Shou'an Hall, Old Madam Sheng and Old Madam Yu were talking together.

"I heard that Master Zhuang is coming to your house to teach? That's a pity. I was thinking that if your family didn't have a good teacher, I would let your child go to my private school and have more exchanges between the two families. Now that Master Zhuang is coming, there's no need to bother."

Old Madam Sheng smiled and joked, "Don't I know your personality? They said that the two families would interact frequently. I'm afraid you're bored staying at home alone, and your eldest daughter-in-law is selfish and neglectful. You don't like talking to her, so you thought of me going to your house to keep you company."

Old Madam Yu glared at Old Madam Sheng and said in a feigned anger, "Okay, I was thinking about you with good intentions, but you ended up teasing me. You're really not a good person."

Then the conversation changed.

"But you are right. My eldest daughter-in-law who married into my family as a second wife is a really stupid fool. She is only respectful to me on the surface, but she beats and scolds Yanran at home without caring about her dignity at all. But my silly son is soft-hearted and lets her do whatever she wants..."

Old Madam Yu sighed and shook her head. "I am too old to take care of her now. I am too lazy to do so to avoid annoying my children and grandchildren. The only thing I can do is to raise Yanran with me and find a good family for her when she grows up."

Old Madam Sheng felt the same way and nodded, saying, "Children and grandchildren have their own blessings. If they don't want us to take care of them, then let them be. They still have to live their own lives. If they regret it in the future, it has nothing to do with us."

"After all these years, it seems that you are still the one who lives a clear life."

Old Madam Sheng lowered her head and sighed deeply.

"How can I not be clear-headed now? If I don't want to be clear-headed any more, I'm afraid I won't be able to survive for another day!"

"I have to be transparent!"

(End of this chapter)