Chapter 53 The Mistress of Ziming Tower
Everyone was in awe of it. Not to mention 600,000 taels, even if we raise 300,000 taels now, we still have to fight the famine with the Guangdong vassal. As for the vassal treasury in Guangxi, the garrison in Guangxi itself has to rely on the Guangdong government for payment, which cannot be counted on at all.
Seeing that the atmosphere was a little low, Lu Yizhong quickly changed the subject: "How many men, horses, ships and cannons will be used can only be decided after the discussion between Master Tai, Master Futai and He Zhen. Let's put this matter aside and discuss other things first. "
At present, the staff were discussing where to mobilize troops, how to advance troops, how to cross the sea, how to contact the local garrison, etc. Lu Yizhong's mind was not on this. After some perfunctory talk, he excused himself as having urgent matters, entrusted the meeting to Li Xijue, and resigned first.
As soon as he left the Governor's Mansion, he felt relaxed all over, and he was in a very happy and excited mood. Because the long-awaited opportunity finally arrived.
He has been secretly planning this for a long time, just waiting for such an opportunity to come. Although he expected that the opportunity would come soon, he didn't expect it to come so quickly.
At this time, he looked calm on the surface, but he was still a little anxious in his heart. When he got into his four-person sedan, he stamped the sedan board impatiently:
"Ziming Tower."
Just as the bearer was about to get up, Lu Yizhong felt something was wrong and stamped his foot again: "Go back to the mansion."
He felt that it was not appropriate to go to Ziming Tower at this time. The news that he was going to attack Lingao had not spread yet. It would naturally spread after the meeting was over. When Miss Pei and Dongzhu Guo are in panic all day long, they will naturally come to invite him.
Thinking of this, he felt very proud of his idea. Let Dongzhu Guo hesitate for a while first, and he will naturally understand when the city is full of turmoil.
In addition, although Guo Yi has only been in Guangzhou for two or three years, he has a wide range of contacts. Basically all the wealthy gentry and officials in Guangdong and outside the city have passed through him. If there is some ruthless backer behind him who has not shown up, this knock on the mountain and shake the tiger will be enough to make the opponent show off. This also prevents me from being too hasty and hitting a wall in vain.
The nearly noon sun shines on the carved window lattice, and the glass inlaid on it reflects the light on the snow-white powder wall. The room is furnished with rosewood tables and chairs, and a gorgeous lacquered screen with flowers and grass; the most luxurious furniture in Guangzhou - a life-size crystal mirror mounted on a finely carved rosewood frame and covered with brocade. sets; two shelves of neatly packed thread-bound books; a Western enamel incense burner decorated with animal figures, spitting out wisps of sandalwood smoke, and a thin, faint fragrance floating in the room.
A hanging scroll by an unknown landscape painter hangs on the wall, which seems to express the owner's unique taste. Under the painting is a simple and elegant guqin. Looking at the simple patterns, you can tell that it is an authentic guqin from the Tang and Song Dynasties. Another thing worth thousands of gold.
This neat and comfortable boudoir is decorated with silk brocade and gold and jade utensils, making it look luxurious and magnificent. At this time, the owner of the room, Pei Lixiu, the hostess of Ziminglou, was leaning on the moon-hole-style door canopy bed hung with fringed tulle, sleeping soundly on the white satin and red flower soft pillow.
The nearly noon sun shines on the walls, and the originally dark and comfortable light in the room gradually becomes brighter. Finally, she opened her eyes, seemingly unaccustomed to such bright light in the room. She closed her eyes again for a while, and slowly stretched out a snow-white arm from under the red cloud satin quilt, and then stretched out the other one and stretched her body leisurely.
Although the skin color of the arms is snow-white, it looks a little rounded. Two twisted silver bracelets tightly hug the wrists. The bracelet has small emerald stones hanging from a thin chain.
"This annoying sunshine." Pei Lixiu muttered, slowly stood up from the bed, and yawned in an unladylike manner.
According to the rules of wealthy families in the Ming Dynasty: when a mistress like her gets up, she does not need to be summoned. As long as there is the slightest noise, the personal maid outside will immediately show up, chatting with the Master to please her while serving her to change clothes and wash herself. . But Pei Lixiu's boudoir enforces a strict no-entry policy. No servant is allowed to enter her boudoir without being summoned.
She sat on the bed blankly for a long time, and then she seemed to suddenly wake up. She lazily got out of the bed, dragged a pair of embroidered slippers, and walked slowly to the bathroom.
The bathroom is completely decorated in a modern style. Except there is no shiny stainless steel - but the ones used here are much more luxurious than stainless steel, all the plumbing hardware is made of bronze.
She hastily took off her clothes, took out a plastic cover that had been used many times from the drawer, and carefully put it on her head. He looked in the mirror again and again to see where his head was, and then stood in the bathtub.
The pointer of the copper bell, which is used to indicate the status of the roof water tank, is a bit like a car clock on a ship. It is shown at 7o. The water in the water tank is enough for her to take a comfortable shower. Otherwise, she would pull the handle of the bell. The servants below will quickly bring out the cattle, drive the cattle to run and use the animal-powered pedal machine to fill the water. This filling process takes at least fifteen minutes. Although there are modern bathroom equipment, the supporting facilities are still too backward.
After taking a shower, she sat in the dressing room outside the bathroom. Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, her eyes were swollen—yesterday she just socialized a little between the boxes and was already very drunk. It's all thanks to the success of Zi Ming Lou's rum cocktails. Rum, mixed with kvass, various fruit juices, and distilled liquids of flowers, fruits, grasses, and leaves made this fashionable drink ever-changing, and it suddenly fascinated the dignitaries in the city of Guangzhou. Everyone who comes to Ziminglou is proud to have a drink.
Fortunately, my head no longer hurts. The effect of sobering up soup is quite good. Pei Lixiu noticed some slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes - she frowned secretly and reminded herself to make a cucumber or fruit facial mask at night, or use the method introduced to her by Su Ai, Gao Shunqin's favorite concubine. Mix egg white with pearl powder and apply it on your face.
Pei Lixiu thought about this problem for another ten minutes, until the mahogany floor clock in the room struck eleven times. She suddenly woke up. Today was the day for a "salon", or according to this time and space, it was called an "elegant gathering".
This gathering is specially organized for the female relatives who come to Ziminglou for recreation. Pei Lixiu got to know many concubines of local dignitaries and eunuchs. Most of these concubines are famous in Guangdong, and many of them are famous ones whose masters measured pearls in the south of the Yangtze River and returned them. Regardless of appearance, body shape, or talent and knowledge, she is hundreds of times stronger than ordinary women. This kind of woman is mostly smart, cunning and quick-thinking. I have seen various scenes. I have been staying in the mansion for a long time. Although I have fine clothes and fine food, and I call my slaves and maids, my heart is very empty. Ziminglou, a place full of new things, became a magnet that attracted them.
Pei Lixiu took advantage of the opportunity of following Guo Yi to "build relationships" and "find connections" and met many such women. Although Pei Lixiu knew nothing about poetry and poetry, she still won the favor of many people by relying on her status as the hostess of Ziming Tower and her cheerful and bold personality. As time went by, I got into relationships with many people's concubines, and they became handkerchief friends.
The relationship leading to the inner house is very useful for Guangzhou Station. First, it is to attract deposits. The concubine of a wealthy family has some savings on hand, hoping to make money in a wealthy business. Pei Lixiu used her connections to attract a lot of deposits for Delong Guangzhou Branch. When something was difficult to handle at the Guangzhou Station, Pei Lixiu held her handkerchief and asked them to look for opportunities to blow pillows, and almost everything went wrong.
Because her work is very effective, Guo Yi basically responds to her various applications. There is an endless stream of new gadgets at Ziminglou - many of which are specially made in Lingao and Zizhenzhai. Pei Lixiu has made this "elegant gathering" gradually become more and more famous, so much so that recently, the wives and young ladies of some families are also thinking of ways to squeeze in in order to build some relationships with their husbands and fathers. This invited list.
But Pei Lixiu knows that it is not enough to attract them with endless modern gadgets and the like. They are all well-informed, and they will naturally get tired of this little clever trick after a long time. Generally speaking, they are very similar to the literary young women of the twentieth century. There must be something that attracts them that makes them feel higher than ordinary people.
Poems, songs, calligraphy and painting are of course their weapons that make them proud of most women in this time and space, but this aspect is Pei Lixiu's biggest weakness.
Pei Lixiu knew that if she didn't have a mysterious identity as an "Australian woman" and was the hostess of Ziming House, which was full of new things, these talented women would not even look at her.
Pei Lixiu knew that her knowledge was limited, and she might not be able to achieve any results if she had to study these things in a surprise attack. They have to make articles based on things they don't understand.
The first thing I feel most confident about is dressing, makeup and taking care of myself. But she was almost at a disadvantage when it came to dressing, because she could only follow the locals and wear Ming people's women's clothes. Modern women's clothing, whether it is skirts or jeans, is acceptable as "boudoir fun", but it would be "immoral" if worn seriously.
As for the secret recipes for makeup and skin care, the ancients were no less good than modern people in this regard - almost every woman from a wealthy family has her own secret methods for makeup and skin care. They are just more limited by materials: some cosmetics have toxic ingredients, while others have less obvious effects. The biggest bottleneck of ancient cosmetics and skin care products is that they are inconvenient to use and easy to deteriorate. The lipstick sticks, eyebrow pencils, perfumes and other items sold by Zichengji that are made with modern methods and techniques are very popular largely due to their ease of use.
After careful consideration, Pei Lixiu decided to start from this aspect and open a beauty salon or the like. Engage in pure natural beauty care. The Time Travel Group has a wealth of information available on this subject. Especially when someone has a full set of video tutorials for beauty salons stored in their computer. In addition to a full set of beauty care courses, there are also ear candling, breast care, full body massage, medicinal bath, aromatherapy bath, chest massage, etc., and even beauty enema.
After seeing it, she felt more confident and immediately started purchasing equipment, training personnel, and ordering various new gadgets from the Ministry of Light Industry. The arrival of Zheng Shangjie made her even more powerful. Zheng Shangjie is eloquent and has better adaptability than her, but she has a husband after all, and she is too old according to Ming Dynasty standards, so it is difficult for her to become famous, so she has to provide backstage support and make suggestions for her. Remuneration can also be solicited when necessary.
But not everything is in place yet. It is really difficult to communicate with people from the Ministry of Light Industry. Because they are all men, and they are all men studying science and engineering. It was difficult for her to explain to them exactly what she needed. Because she neither knows the ingredients nor the structure of these things. It can only be described with some emotional words. As a result, either the other party didn't know what she wanted, or the sample she produced simply didn't meet the requirements.
A few days ago, Zheng Shangjie made a special trip to Lingao and made a list of what she wanted. Zheng Shangjie said that as soon as she returned to Lingao, she went to the big library to look up information and found out the pictures and structure of everything. If necessary, go directly to the workshop to describe.
"I wonder how things went?" Pei Lixiu muttered. I lazily changed into clothes. Today she chose a pink chiffon dress with a purple lining, and underneath was an eight-piece Hunan skirt with purple floral piping on a white ground. She was dressed very elegantly. As for her hair, she did not dress up according to the Ming Dynasty's custom, but wore a low-shaped antique style that is common in costume TV dramas.
Finished dressing and dressing. She just pulled the bell rope. Her personal maid Chun Liu tiptoed in from the door. Guo Yi bought this girl from the market a few months ago. Because she was so beautiful, she almost fell into the hands of the old madam. Because of her outstanding appearance and "quick wit", she was assigned to the intelligence corps. She recently returned from Lingao to serve as Pei Lixiu's personal maid and secretary.
All former maids, servants, stewards and other close personnel at Guangzhou Station have been transferred from the quarantine camp in Lingao in accordance with the regulations of the General Administration of Political Security. Former personnel have also been transferred back to Lingao in batches to undergo political review. Only when you are sure to be honest and reliable can you continue to serve in Guangzhou. Those who are considered to have potential temporarily join various short-term training courses to learn various professional skills. For example, Sun Chang studied administration and personnel management at Lingao. The indigenous personnel at Guangzhou Station have not yet been absorbed into Lingao's indigenous personnel system, but the Civil Affairs Committee is already preparing their personal files.
The concubines of Guo Yi and others do not enjoy such treatment. They have only been closely scrutinized to confirm that they are not dangerous. There will be no place for them in the future indigenous personnel system.
Chunliu brought breakfast to the hostess. There was only a bowl of white porridge and four side dishes on the lacquer plate. Although it was noon, she still prepared breakfast. The hostess seems to have a fear of eating, and she is meticulous about everything she eats.
Chunliu said with a smile: "Madam, you are awake. Did you sleep well?"
Pei Lixiu did not answer. She glanced at the rosewood desk in front of the window from a distance. I don't know when a Xue Tao note was placed on it.
There are no poems on Xue Tao's paper - no one here can sing with her, and everyone knows that Miss Pei doesn't understand these - Xue Tao's paper is her schedule for the day.
"Has Xia He come in?" Pei Lixiu asked angrily, still a little "angry".
"How dare you do this?" Chunliu said cautiously, "You brought it in before you went to bed last night. Maybe it was dark at the time and you didn't see it."
The schedule is written and sent in every night by Xia He, who is in charge of pen and ink next to her. Xia He also recently came to Lingao. She turned out to be the only daughter of a scholar. A robbery by bandits resulted in the death of both her parents. People in the clan forced her to sell her body to bury her relatives. Only then did it fall into the hands of Guangzhou Station. After being sent to Lingao for quarantine, he entered the administrative secretary training class because of his proficiency in writing. This time he was transferred back to Guangzhou to serve as Pei Lixiu's secretary. Not only was Pei Lixiu's calligraphy not elegant, it was even a bit ugly when shown to others. Xia He specially wrote letters and invitations for her, and translated elegant letters for her when necessary. The administrative secretary training class now also teaches some financial accounting knowledge, so Xia He also serves as Pei Lixiu's cashier. When visiting guests, Xia He must accompany him to prevent Pei Lixiu from causing any rudeness.
"Send her in."
Because of her heavy tasks and responsibilities, some people at Guangzhou Station jokingly called her "the maid holding the pen", while others called her "the maid in charge of the Ziming Tower".
Xia He is not pretty, and is even a bit clumsy - her father is just a poor scholar living in the countryside. She walked carefully to the room, gathered her clothes neatly, and said hello to the hostess.
"You're welcome. What do you want to do today?"
Xia He began to explain today's schedule.
Pei Lixiu spends most of her schedule in socializing. She wants to entertain not only the guests of Ziminglou. It also includes all the big shots connected with the entire Guangzhou Station. For weddings, funerals, favors, and birthday celebrations of these families, gifts must be prepared according to the closeness of the family, and they must either visit in person or send people to go. This was originally the most important thing for a wife from a wealthy family.
Guo Yi does not have an official wife, and since Pei Lixiu bears the title of his concubine, she must take part in these matters.
In the past, the scope of socializing at Guangzhou Station was limited and there was little need to take care of this aspect, but now it has become a heavy burden for Pei Lixiu. Every now and then, there must be some etiquette matter waiting for you to deal with.
…
"The third son of the magistrate of Nanhai County is enrolling in school in his hometown, so we must prepare gifts and congratulations."
"I beg you, one of your concubines has died, and I would like to send a memorial ceremony."
"Mr. Zhou's family, who is assigned to patrol the road, will have a wedding ceremony on the eighth day of the lunar month."
"Mr. Liu's family has suffered a disaster, and he needs to send someone to express his condolences."
...a! ~!
