Chapter 424: Chapter 420: Fake Decree_1
Yingbao was unaware that her two younger brothers were losing sleep and appetite over her impending marriage.

Since the day of their feast, her two brothers seemed to have abruptly matured. Their words and actions had been imbued with a profound calmness.

Then, the appointment letters for Jiang Wu and Huzi arrived. Huzi was given a position in Beijing’s Imperial Army, an official grade six military rank.

Jiang Wu was appointed as the drill master of Yuzhou, a fifth-grade official. He needed to leave for appointment early next year.

Mother and Yingbao were both happy and a little worried.

After all, Jiang Wu was still young, turning only fifteen after the New Year. He would have to travel thousands of miles away, with no possibility of coming home for several years.

Yingbao: “Mother, shouldn’t we arrange a marriage for Xiaowu? He is going such a long way; he should have someone caring for him by his side.”

Mother sighed: “Where can we find a suitable match so fast? Ah, if only your father was still here.”

Yingbao furrowed her brows in thought, “What if I accompany Xiaowu to Yuzhou?”

Beijing was incredibly dull. With the Xiao Family and Chen Tiantian constantly causing strife, and her inability to kill them, she might as well get as far away as possible.

After all, mother had Jiang Jie, and there were also Master Wu and his family to look after her. She could request the Emperor to permit her father to move to Beijing.

They could also bring grandfather, grandmother, and her second uncle’s family. With the four-season potted plant shop of the Jiang family, they wouldn’t need to worry about food and drink.

Mother shook her head: “No, you should stay home with me.” How could a young maiden be allowed to wander around aimlessly?

Seeing the firm opposition from her mother, Yingbao said nothing more. After a moment’s thought, she suddenly remembered Jiang Jie: “Mother, we should invite a matchmaker to the Luo Family as well.”

Even though the Luo Family expressed their intentions to have Jiang Jie as their son-in-law first, they must also show cordiality too. As long as Jiang Jie had no objections, they must hasten to finalize the marriage.

Mother nodded: “A few days ago, I already asked old lady Wu to help find a matchmaker. But since everyone is busy preparing for the ancestor worship, she asked us to wait.”

Yingbao was relieved, “We still have lots of silk and satin, let’s go to the jewelry shop to order some headwear and accessories. We also need to buy some jade items. When the matchmaker arrives, we need to have a decent betrothal gift to give.”

Mother: “Then let’s go to the market tomorrow. With the New Year approaching, we need to prepare some fabric to give the servants new clothes.”

“Yes, we also have to prepare new clothes for Xiaowu and Huzi.” Yingbao thought of buying some trendy fabrics and hiring a seamstress to make several fashionable robes for her two brothers and for Huzi and Jiang Quan.

They were often out and about, so they had to be elegantly dressed.

The next day, Yingbao and her mother, accompanied by a maid, took their carriage to the market.

First, they went to a jeweler and ordered six sets of gold-inlaid bridal headwear, two gold necklaces, several pairs of jade and gold bracelets, and assorted jade hairpins and ivory combs. For the men, they ordered several sets of leather belts and shoes. They requested the shopkeeper to deliver the items to Jiang Mansion.

Afterwards, they bought dozens of bolts of silk and satin, and cotton, linen, and hemp fabric for the servants.

They also hired several seamstresses from the silk shop to send them to Jiang Mansion.

Then, they visited a shoe shop, purchasing several pairs of shoes and boots for the brothers and cousins, and a pair of cotton shoes for each servant and maid.

The cost of all these was a few hundred taels of silver, making her mother frightfully worried, continuously asking her daughter: “Do we have enough money?”

All those purchases required only a deposit at first, and the remaining payment would be settled after delivery to Jiang Mansion.

“Don’t worry, Mother, we have enough.” The four-season potted plant business that Yingbao and her cousin started had, in just over two months, made a few thousand taels of silver. Even after deducting the expenses for buying pots, seedlings, constructing the greenhouse, and buying shop space, their net profit was still more than two thousand taels.

Even after sharing with her second cousin, she could net over a thousand, which was more than enough to cover today’s expenses.

Chunniang couldn’t help worrying, but she also knew that these expenses were unavoidable.

Not only that, they had to prepare for New Year’s gifts, to be distributed to relatives, friends, and Jiang Jie’s colleagues.

Although they would indeed receive reciprocal gifts, these gifts were not in the form of cash. Hence, whatever was spent could never be recovered.

Being an official in Beijing was not easy. Despite her son’s seemingly sufficient stipend, it was a challenge to support a large family and maintain social relationships without some additional financial resource to provide liquidity.

Fortunately, her young daughter and her second cousin had a small business. Otherwise, they would not even be able to afford their servants.

After visiting the shops, they went to the grain store to buy grains, salt and spices. They also purchased several jars of soybean paste and rice vinegar.

Upon seeing that the soybean paste in Beijing cost a few dozen coins per catty, Chunniang couldn’t help but grumble, “If we had known earlier, we could have sun-dried several jars at home; it’s too expensive!”

Yingbao also found it rather expensive. A copper spoon alone cost more than a hundred coins which wasn’t worth it at all: “Next summer, we will sun-dry it ourselves.”

The soybean paste was essential for their cooking. Including the servants, their large family of almost twenty used several spoonfuls of it a day, let alone the rice, noodles, oil, and the daily meat like chicken, duck, and fish.

Yingbao roughly estimated that their large family spent about ten taels a day, which added up to three hundred taels a month.

This only accounted for food consumption. If we considered the costs of reciprocity, and the monthly wages of the servants, they would need at least five hundred taels a month to get by.

The mother and daughter finally finished their shopping and returned home in a carriage.

In no time, the stores had delivered everything to their home.

After Yingbao had checked everything once, she picked some boxes of beaded flowers from the other samples delivered by the shopkeepers and settled the bills.

The valuable jewelry and fabrics were kept in Chunniang’s room in camphorwood boxes with locks.

These were being prepared as betrothal gifts.

The rest was handed over to Weng Xiuxiu and a few newly recruited seamstresses, who were assigned to make clothes for the masters of the house.

The clothes for the servants were left to them to make. Yingbao distributed cotton, cotton fabric, and hemp fabric to each servant, enough for each to make two sets of clothes.

The clothes for the male servants and young boys were delegated to several maidens. Since they didn’t require any embroidery on their clothes, a few maidens could finish in a couple of days if they collaborated.

As for the rice, noodles, grains, oil, salt, and sauce, Yingbao stored them in a separate room and temporary entrusted the key to Magnolia. The kitchen staff had to account for every item they fetched.

After the Kitchen God’s Festival, two eunuchs suddenly arrived from the palace, claiming that they had been commanded by the Emperor to summon Yingbao.

Recalling what Master Zhou Wuchang had mentioned before, Yingbao questioned the two eunuchs, “My master told me that if he would summon me, there would be an imperial decree. Why don’t you have one?”

The two eunuchs seemed a little flustered, but they soon composed themselves and replied, “Yingbao, are you planning to defy and disrespect the imperial decree?”

Yingbao scrutinized the two men, “You had better tell the truth. Who ordered you, and why have you summoned me to the palace? If I hear a single lie, I will personally ask my master about it and hold you responsible!”

One of the eunuchs’ faces fell. “Yingbao, are you threatening us?” he asked.

“Faking an imperial edict is a serious offense. Surely, eunuch, you know this, don’t you?” Yingbao was not at all intimidated by the two eunuchs.

They were just the dogs brought up by the Imperial Consort; it was them who had lied before, claiming they were carrying the Emperor’s oral decree when in reality, it was the Imperial Consort who, taking advantage of her pregnancy, had falsely issued the imperial edict.