In the early morning, it was still dark in the room with the window closed, Li Cunyi opened his eyes and shouted a few times to bring tea. But no one answered for a long time, and after a while, he remembered that most of the servants and slaves in the family had been dismissed.

The room was quiet, and there was a bleak feeling.

He had to get up on his own, go to the table to the side and pick up the teapot, which was empty. Putting down the teapot, he sat back on the bed. If it was this time in the past, as soon as he woke up, there would be a girl on night duty in the room to bring tea for him. The tea will still be hot, even if you wake up in the middle of the night, there will be hot tea.

When he gets up in the morning, he doesn't even have to put on his own clothes, so naturally a girl helps him put them on. Even sometimes if he is in the mood, he will call the young and beautiful girl to his bed for the night. In the past, there were a lot of girls in the house, and the girls in his courtyard were all young and beautiful, so many big girls and little girls, first-class, second-class, third-class, fourth-class girls, almost none of them were not played with by him.

Some of them are good, and when they are happy, they will give him a few taels of silver or one or two pieces of jewelry. Occasionally, one or two girls will be promoted to be concubines, but most of them are very satisfied as long as they are promoted to the first class, the fourth class to the third class, and the third class to the second class. Some of them were tired of playing, so they simply sent them to the outer courtyard, or simply promised to marry the male servants in the house, and most of them were allowed to give birth to children in the family. Occasionally, some, simply let people take their teeth out and sell them.

Think of how happy you were then.

But looking at the present, Li Song sighed.

Dressing himself, haphazardly tying his hair and putting on his crowned hat, he pushed aside the bed tent and opened the door.

It was a hazy morning, the east was reddish, and the wind was blowing the treetops in the courtyard.

He glanced at the unpopular courtyard and let out another long sigh. He won't be able to live in this empty yard for a few days, and soon, this yard will be public property.

But he was secretly glad again. Although the slave is gone, and the courtyard is gone, at least he can stay in the city of Beijing, and he doesn't have to go to the mess of Tamna Island in the Korean Concession or Tsushima Island and Hirado Island in the Japanese Concession.

Li Cunyi used to be the son of a nobleman, and his father Li Guochen was the son of Li Mingcheng, the third generation of Wuqing Marquis of the Ming Dynasty. Li Guorui, the fourth-generation Wuqinghou, is his uncle, and Li Cunshan, the fifth-generation Wuqinghou, is his cousin.

His father Li Guochen was the grandson of Chongzhen's great-grandmother Empress Dowager Xiaoding's elder brother, the first generation of Wuqing Marquis was Li Wei, and Li Wei's daughter was the biological mother of Emperor Wanli of Mingshenzong and the concubine of Emperor Longqing of Mingmuzong. After Wanli ascended the throne, his biological mother Li was the queen mother, and his maternal grandfather Li Wei was Wu Qingbo. Later, he was promoted to marquis.

It has been five generations when it was passed to Chongzhen.

However, Li Cunyi's father Li Guochen once fought with his brother Li Guorui for property, because Li Guorui inherited the marquis and became the fourth generation of Wuqing Marquis, Li Cunyi's father Li Guochen did not fight for Li Guorui.

After the failure of the fight for family property, Li Guochen once reported to Chongzhen, who was short of money at the time, that his father had an inheritance of 400,000 taels, half of which was specified as for him. Now he is willing to donate this half to the imperial court.

This move is undoubtedly to take revenge on Li Guorui, since you don't give it to me. Then I'll give it directly to the court, and no one can think about it.

At that time, Chongzhen was anxious about the matter of military salaries, and he was of course very happy to hear that Li Guochen was willing to donate 200,000 taels to the imperial court. Give Li Guorui an order immediately. As a result, Li Guorui is a master who only enters but does not leave.

Li Guorui is an iron rooster who does not pull out a hair.

In order to resist the emperor's will, he not only cried poverty everywhere, but also demolished houses. Take the furniture of the family to the streets of the capital and sell it to show poverty.

This move made Chongzhen very faceless, so he ordered to cut off Li Guorui's marquis, and Li Guorui died of fear in prison. The relatives of the emperor took the opportunity to spread rumors, saying that the queen mother had been incarnated as the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, and they were very angry at Chongzhen's mean treatment of relatives, and the princes would die, and the first one was the fifth son of the emperor.

Soon, the fifth son of the emperor, Zhu Cihuan, really died, Chongzhen was very frightened, and immediately named Li Guorui's seven-year-old son Li Cunshan as the Marquis of Wuqing, and returned the money and goods that the Li family had paid.

It's like a farce.

In the end, the emperor lost face and Li Guorui lost his life, but for Li Guochen, there was no good result. The emperor was angry that things started because of him, and the Hou Mansion hated him and complained to the emperor, and as a result, Li Guochen cut off contact with the Hou Mansion in the future.

But it's a good thing.

When the Hou Mansion participated in the rebellion of Zhou Yanru, Chen Xinjia and others, Li Guochen's father and son were not contacted to participate because they cut off contact with the Hou Mansion.

When Liu Qiao and others killed Zhou Yanru and Chen Xinjia, smashed their plans, and welcomed Liu Jun into Beijing as emperor, the families of those officials and relatives were liquidated by the new emperor.

Those who participated were cut off from their official positions, their family property confiscated, and even their collateral relatives were investigated, and they were all exiled overseas.

After that, the collection of tax arrears, the liquidation of the encroachment of land, the liquidation of contributions, the collection of deed taxes, etc., these families of the nobles and gentry were hit the hardest.

Li Xiaoyi's family was also liquidated, but fortunately, they all knew their relationship with the Marquis of Wuqing, and they also knew that they were indeed not involved, so the ending was much better.

Li Guochen was also exiled, and most of his family's property was confiscated.

However, Li Cunyi is Li Guochen's concubine, and he is still an outer house, so in the end, Li Cunyi was saved from exile, and the property belonging to his name was only after recovering the tax arrears, clearing the occupied land, paying contributions, and then collecting the deed tax, even if it was passed.

Li Cunyi managed to stay in Beijing.

He originally owned a lot of properties under his name, including Grange Houses and Shops, and the total value was no less than 100,000.

But now, after being liquidated, the family wealth has almost been dispersed.

In particular, the back tax arrears and deed exchange tax not only spent all the money he had in the bank, but he was also forced to sell a lot of his land in the end.

Now he has a grange under his name, but it only adds up to more than 100 acres. There are still a few shops, but the mansion in Jingli and the villas in Xishan and Changping are all in the name of his father Li Guochen.

It turned out that the group of slaves and servants in the family should also be dismissed.

Just a few days ago, the emperor issued another edict, saying that he would abolish the untouchable status, prohibit the sale of himself into slavery, and prohibit the sale of slaves.

Li Cunyi didn't quite understand why the emperor wanted to issue such an edict, prostitutes are prostitutes, can they be on an equal footing with others in the future? And this abolitionist even more does not understand, what is there to abolish here.

If you don't understand, you don't understand. The emperor's will must still be observed.

Besides, although there is still some industry in the family, the cash is basically gone, and I can't afford to support so many people. After sending those people, the house was also sold, and Li Cunyi bought a three-entry mansion in the outer city. In the eyes of others, this is a big house, but in Li Cunyi's opinion, this can only be regarded as a place to live reluctantly.

Moving from the inner city to the outer city was a last resort, not to mention the change from a mansion to a small house with three entrances.

But it can't be helped. If you don't sell your house, you can't pay your taxes.

The most hateful thing is that when selling houses and land, although there is no need to pay deed tax. But when he bought this house, he still paid a deed tax, and according to the tax law, the deed tax is paid by the buyer.

Going out, there was only one old family member standing there cleaning the yard.

When Li Cunyi passed by, he said to him loudly, "No need to sweep, anyway, it will be someone else's in a few days." It's not ours anymore. ”

The old family stopped, waited for him to pass, and began to sweep again.

Standing at the door, Li Cunyi sighed again.

The family's carriage was also sold. The coachman also sent away, and he said to himself that he had to keep a low profile during this time. Besides, now the family has to have a carriage and a license. Vehicle and vessel tax must be paid.

I walked a little way out of the house, and it was the main street. There was a newly erected wooden sign, and a group of people had been standing in front of it. He also stood there.

"Sell newspapers, sell newspapers, today's headlines, Tongguan is a great victory, Zheng Zhilong, the general of the expedition to the west, has captured Tongguan and has entered Guanzhong."

Seeing the newsboy shouting and waving the newspaper in his hand, Li Cunyi waved his hand to him.

"Bring me a copy of the Kyoto Times."

He pulled out a copper dollar, a new copper coin, similar to a silver dollar, without the round hole in the middle of the coin. The front also has the denomination written, half a cent.

Nowadays, there are no holes in circulation, and those copper coins are privately minted, with different thicknesses and adulterations.

Now the unified use of silver dollar coupons and silver dollars, there are also several kinds of auxiliary coins, such as silver dollars in addition to one dollar, there are five jiao, two jiao, one dime, five cents, two cents, one cent, silver dollar, there is also a copper dollar, there is only one kind of copper dollar, that is, this denomination of half a cent.

A silver dollar is ten cents, and one cent is equal to two and a half copper dollars. A silver coin of one dollar is equivalent to two hundred and a half copper dollars.

Of course, there were also gold coins on silver coins, one gold coin was ten silver coins, and the denominations were two pieces, five pieces, ten pieces, and twenty, fifty, and one hundred pieces. However, such a large amount of gold coins cannot be used by ordinary people, and they will not be used in ordinary shopping transactions.

Prices are higher now than they were in the Ming Dynasty, but a newspaper is basically a copper dollar and a half. If it is converted into two copper coins of silver and two copper coins in the past, one and a half copper dollars is worth about five or six gold and copper coins.

When handing over the copper dollar, Li Cunyi couldn't help but think, this new dynasty's means of collecting money is really powerful, just such a small copper coin, not much heavier than the copper coins in the past, but one can be used as five or six gold back money, if it is some private money in the past, it can be used as ten.

The sound of a nail bell interrupted his thoughts.

"The public carriage is coming."

"It's a few roads."

"This is a five-way public carriage with a five-character sign on the front of the carriage."

When Li Cunyi heard that it was the No. 5 public carriage he was going to sit in, he hurriedly put the newspaper under his armpit and began to squeeze in front with the people. During this time, the roads in Beijing have become much better, there are more public toilets on the roadside, and there are more street lights, but the most commendable thing is that there are many more public carriages in the inner and outer cities of Beijing.

The public carriages are double-decker, each floor can seat 20 people, and the most unique thing is that this kind of carriage actually needs only two sturdy horses.

Because these carriages run on rails, the horses are only pulled, and the carts can be easily run, saving a lot of animal power.

However, this kind of carriage only runs in the capital division, because the track is only laid in the main street of the capital division, because there are tracks, so these carriages are fixed routes, according to different track routes, now the Beijing division is divided into nine routes, and the carriages of each route are called the first car, the second car, etc.

There are quite a few horse-drawn carriages on each route at the same time, and almost every once in a while, there is a horse-drawn carriage. Passengers who want to take the bus only need to wait in front of the bus stop sign on the side of the street.

Li Cunyi lined up to get into the carriage, he likes to sit on the upper floor, the upper deck of the carriage also has a canopy, but there are only four-foot-high baffles on both sides, and there is a large piece of space, sitting on the car, not afraid of rain or stuffiness, but it can't completely block the wind and sand.

But sitting in a car, especially on the upper floor, is a completely different experience from riding in a horse-drawn carriage and sedan chair in the past.

There was a police officer on the carriage, who was both collecting tickets and maintaining order.

When the police officer walked up to him, he directly took out a piece of paper, which was the monthly ticket for the Jingshi public carriage. With this, there is no need to buy a ticket every time you take the carriage, a monthly pass is five dimes and silver dollars, and you can sit for a month without limit. It's quite cheap, and if you don't have a monthly pass, you will be charged half a silver dollar each time, and if you sit from the starting station to the last station, it will cost one cent.

But it is also extremely convenient and cheap.

If you hire a sedan chair or a horse-drawn carriage, it will be more than ten times more expensive. Therefore, many people are now willing to take this public carriage if they go far away. It's cheap to save time, and after Li Cunyi sat twice, he decisively applied for a monthly pass.

However, now the guests in the public carriage are all men, and there are no women in the carriage, although the carriage does not prohibit female passengers, but few women are willing to squeeze into a car with a group of big men.

After a while, the police had already sold the tickets and checked them, and patted the carriage board at the driver in front of him, "Let's go!" ”

The coachman waved his whip, the bell jingled again, the car began to drive, the carriage running on the track was very stable, Li Cunyi retracted his gaze to look outward, took the newspaper in his hand and spread it out, and began to read.

It was a pleasant pleasure to sit on the second floor of the carriage and read the newspaper while riding the bus. The people who ride in the carriage have everything, but he found that the people who ride the car the most are the officials and merchants, they all have money and don't care about the ticket, but they are not very rich, and hiring a car and a sedan chair is still not as affordable as this.

The most important thing is that nowadays there are many public carriages, and the lines are uniform, so it is the most convenient to sit.

He read the newspaper and listened to the chatter of the passengers next to him, but he never mixed in.

"Guang'anmen, it's here. There are no passengers who get off the bus at Guang'anmen, Guang'anmen has arrived! ”

The carriage slowly stopped, the police began to shout loudly, Li Cunyi put away the newspaper, and saw that there were already seven or eight people waiting under the street stop sign.

"Line up to get on the bus, at the front door, under the back door, don't mess up the order. Take care of your belongings and avoid stealing. ”

Li Cunyi's destination is Guang'anmen, where he has a shop. After putting away the newspaper, he stood up and said, "Borrow!" "Go to the staircase in the back of the car. (To be continued.) )