Chapter 58: Zhao Qixuan
Zhao Qixuan, the sixth son of the outer house, is actually a strange person in the Zhao family.
The Zhao family has only three internal houses that are of the same ancestry and bloodline, while the nine external houses are all attached. Some are distant relatives who separated from the clan over a hundred years ago, but most can only be considered as people with the same surname, seeking shelter and attaching themselves to the clan. They didn't even take their names according to the order of the internal three houses, but by the time they reached the "water" generation, in order to strengthen family ties, they unified their naming.
When the nine houses were cast, they also threw their land property into the name of Zhao's second house. With the power of Old Master Zhao, life was still not bad, much better than before. It's just that the second house has been in Beijing for a long time, and the family affairs are decided by the ancestral house, so over time, the relationship with the second house is not as close as before, and communication often needs to be mediated by Master Rong of the ancestral house, but there has never been any intention of opposing the second house.
The two houses were at odds, and they couldn't tell who would win. Seeing that the old master's stance was ambiguous, they were influenced by it, either becoming fence-sitters or onlookers. Zhang Shi was dissatisfied with their attitude, and after losing in the small hall, she became distant from her clansmen. These clansmen only began to regret and tried every means to curry favor, seeing that the ancestral house had sent over Qing Jie as a companion for Zhao Xiu. Zhao Yun and Shen Shi both received Zhang Shi's favor, thinking there was some underlying reason, hastily sending their own sons and daughters to accompany Zhao Xiu, even the youngest one who wasn't even a year old yet, simply using the children as playthings for Zhao Xiu. Zhao Xiu was fed up, and Zhang Shi knew their intentions, politely declining them all, leaving only Qing Jie behind, or else it would have been a big mess.
However, Zhang's financial support for the clan's children to study and take imperial examinations has earned her respect and fear from the clan members. In contrast, the people of Xiaochang House have not returned home for a long time, their reputation is bad, they used to be arrogant when they were in power, now that they have fallen, they don't think about being polite, who would want to get close to them? On Zhao's family territory, the prestige of Xia'er House far surpasses that of Xiaochang House. Zhang's ability to bring her grandson to the capital with peace of mind, leaving only one younger granddaughter at home, is not only due to her trust in Zhao and his wife but also an important factor in her trust in the clan members.
It can be seen that the Zhao family still has a strong dependence on Xiaofang, and if it weren't for Zhang's wife, the county magistrate, and Zhao Wei's title, outsiders might have long since stopped taking the Zhao family seriously. Nowadays, whether reading books or doing business, farming or doing business, they all rely on Zhang as a backing and financial support. Even families with average or slightly poor economic conditions in the clan still need to visit and curry favor from time to time.
This outer sixth house was not originally in the list of autumn winds. The previous owner of this house was a clever person, who made a living by renting out land because he couldn't read books. His days were quite rich, but unfortunately, he had bad luck and encountered a disaster year, suffering heavy losses, while the elderly at home were seriously ill, and several sons and daughters needed to prepare for marriage, urgently needing money. In order to get money in a short period of time, he gritted his teeth and endured others' ridicule, becoming a merchant selling cotton. The cotton grown on the clan's land was basically all bought by him if it was to be sold outside. The three prefectures of Suzhou, Songjiang, and Jiading had always been abundant in cotton but scarce in grain, so they didn't worry about the sales route for cotton. Over twenty or thirty years, he became one of the top merchants in Fengxian County.
The head of the household had passed away a few years ago, earlier than Old Master Zhao. By generation, he was the brother of Zhao Kuang and Zhao Jiong. His son would be the paternal cousin of Zhao Xun. He had four sons, all born to the same mother. The eldest son inherited the family business, the second son assisted him, the third son branched out on his own after splitting from the family and started a grain trading business - after all, the Zhao clan also grew grains in their fields - and they were all doing very well. However, there was one youngest son, this Zhao Qixuan, who was an unmanageable character. He looked down on the honest grain and cotton trade of his father and brothers, and aspired to become a more high-end, elegant, and upscale businessman than his late father, wanting to do business with extremely high profits.
His father was alive, and he disliked this youngest son for being too ambitious and refused to let him go out and cause trouble. But after his father's death, several older brothers were busy with their own businesses and small families, who had the energy to take care of him? As a result, he was given 1,000 taels of silver as capital to go out and really start a business. His eyesight was still good, and he directly took a fancy to the medicinal materials outside the pass, wanting to use the prestige of the Duke's military power to sell ginseng, antler and other things into the pass.
The county lord didn't care about him, the Liaodong garrison was his direct subordinate, and they would smuggle medicinal materials from the Qing people's territory to sell for money to supplement their military expenses. This was originally a welfare that the military tacitly allowed the Northeastern garrison, and after he retired, he himself had not touched this business again. What kind of person is an outsider like Zhao Qixuan? Without the county lord's support, Zhao Qixuan naturally couldn't do this business, and all the money he spent on entertaining people, bribing them, buying horses, and buying cars was wasted. He could only sell some local products from Beijing in the south to recover his costs.
The second time, Zhao Qixuan set his sights on the pawnbroking business. He partnered with several friends in Jiading and opened a pawnshop, thinking he would make a fortune. However, Jiading was a place where one might encounter one or two noble relatives at any time. One of his partners offended someone, which implicated everyone else, so they had to close the shop. Zhao Qixuan returned home once again, feeling defeated.
The third deal was introduced by one of Zhao Qixuan's partners when he was running a pawnshop, buying and selling antiques. Zhao Qixuan himself had no ability to identify genuine items, but he was very careful in his dealings. Unfortunately, the person he considered a friend had bribed his servants to secretly swap the real antiques with fake ones. As a result, he spent 800 taels of silver on a fake item and offended the seller, which led to a lawsuit at the government office. In the end, it was his brothers who saw that things were not going well and personally stepped in to mediate on his behalf, thus avoiding imprisonment and recovering the silver. However, they did not return the money to him, but instead gave it to his wife, fearing that he would squander it again.
Zhao Qixuan has been at home for two years and often goes out to socialize with friends, eating and drinking, talking about who has a good way to make money, which store can be invested in, which friend has a good deal, and so on. His wife is not moved at all, not giving him a single penny, and the monthly allowance she hands over to him is limited. Zhao Qixuan can only endure the reputation of being under his wife's strict control, living a dull life.
It is said that he thought he had a good eye for business, but lacked capital and didn't have any backing, so he couldn't make it happen. Therefore, he strongly supported his son in studying for the imperial examination, and on this one thing, he reached an agreement with his wife. He fawned over the Eighth Old Master of the Third House because the Eighth Old Master was originally the only living scholar in the clan, and had also taught another scholar, whose learning was very solid. If the Eighth Old Master could take his son as a student, then his son would have no worries about not making a name for himself. Therefore, he often sent gifts to the Third House, and those Western books were something he had casually obtained from a friend's hands, originally thinking that the Eighth Old Master loved books and would also be interested in these foreign books, but unfortunately, the other man only loved the classics of the sages.
Zhaoyao's impression of this person ended there, and she only had a little understanding of the gossip in the clan from Zhangshi and Shenshi, as well as Luma. She remembered that Zhao Qixuan and his wife used to follow the clan members to curry favor, but since they didn't look good and their ways of pleasing people were not as exaggerated as others, her memory of them wasn't deep. On the other hand, she had seen his wife more often. It was Zhangshi who had mentioned Zhao Qixuan before, saying that he had some insight and wasn't stupid, but unfortunately, his luck was too bad.
If Zhao Qixuan had been more steady in his youth and not suppressed by his father, he would have joined the medicinal materials business when Lao Jun Gong was still in the Liaodong army and become rich early on.
If Zhao Qixuan carefully selects his partners and they don't offend the imperial relatives, then his pawnshop really has great development potential.
If Zhao Qixuan hadn't chosen the wrong servant, or if he had been more cautious and not let his "friend" succeed in their scheme, that antique business would have made a handsome profit, and he would have gained a powerful backer with wealth and influence. He could do whatever business he wanted without worrying about anything.
Unfortunately, there aren't that many "ifs" in the world. Zhao Qixuan is just a good-for-nothing in the eyes of his clansmen. Even his wife and son look down on him. His brothers all consider him a burden.
Zhao Xuan was a bit hesitant. She didn't have a very good impression of Zhao Qixuan, but if he had managed to get these foreign language books, maybe he had some connections and could find more.
She needs these books, not for getting any useful knowledge from them, but to find a reasonable origin for the knowledge that shouldn't exist in her mind in this era.
At first, she was afraid and angry, and exposed her language ability beyond her age. Although afterwards she used "my grandfather patted my head and I suddenly understood" to cover it up, her grandmother, younger brother, and Akira all believed it, and even the current Crown Prince Guangping didn't show any suspicious expression at that time. However, that was fake. If Ruyunpeng hadn't intercepted the spirit car at the city gate and made everyone believe in Zhao Laojun Gong's spirit, someone would have already questioned her by now. Fengxian is not a very developed place yet, and the villagers' views are not as open-minded as those in big cities. Being a child prodigy here isn't easy. In these five years, every year there were relatives and family friends who didn't know the inside story and saw that she could speak fluently at a young age, with mature thinking, and showed surprised expressions, privately gossiping nonstop.
Zhao Xuan rarely goes out and doesn't like socializing, with very few friends. She hopes to downplay her "prodigy" image, so people won't think she's unusually intelligent or talk about the ghost incident, labeling her as "unlucky".
Zhaoxuan thought and thought, decided not to give up on Zhao Qixuan after all, so she made a slight probe to Qing sister: "Are you very familiar with Yuansister? Often play together with her?"
Qing's sister smiled and said, "The two of us are often together, her mother is also from Songjiang, and my mother is a fellow townsman. They often chat with each other on ordinary days. Her mother is very kind, when I go to their home to play, she even makes me delicious tea and snacks."
Zhao Xuan heard that Shen Shi and Zhao Qi Xuan's wife were on good terms, and she felt a bit more at ease. Since Shen Shi could get close to the other party, it was likely that the other party's character was still trustworthy, right?
Qing Jie saw Zhao Xuan silent, and thought she was thinking about the evaluation of her father in the clan, so she said: "Aunt don't mind what others say, actually Qi Xuan uncle is a humorous person, he knows many interesting things, and it's very interesting to listen to him talk. He loves his daughter Shan the most, and they often play together." She thought for a moment, "Yesterday I heard Shan say that Qi Xuan uncle asked a friend to buy a music box that can sing songs, how interesting! I've been wanting to go see it, but mother won't let me. Good aunt, will you go with me? If you're willing to go, I'll accompany you, and mother won't scold me."
Zhao Xuan's eyes lit up and she sat up straight: "Great, you're so interesting, I really want to broaden my horizons!"
That's great! This music box must have been obtained by Zhao Qixuan through some Western goods channels!
