Mr. Hongda himself is a civil servant, so he naturally knows that the imperial examination career is not that easy.
There are six levels in total including the county examination, prefecture examination, hospital examination, township examination, general examination, and palace examination. The further you go, the more difficult it becomes.
As for Shen Ying, her academic qualifications are already good, and she even passed one subject in the National Examination. Shen Qi's qualifications are much different from those of her elder brother. She was lucky when she passed the provincial examination, so it is normal for her to study and practice several subjects in the National Examination.
Therefore, Mr. Hong nodded and said: "What your Uncle Cang and the Six Clansmen said is exactly what you said. It is important to study, but you cannot become a bookworm who does not know the world."
The father and son were talking, and Mrs. Guo had already received the news in the backyard. She hurried to the front yard without waiting for her son to pass.
Like her husband, Guo was shocked before she was happy when she saw her son.
Shen Qi's words were able to deceive Mr. Hong. This is called "a gentleman deceiving others". Guo was a woman and a mother who cared about her three sons wholeheartedly. Shen Qi's rhetoric could not hide it from Guo. go.
It was just that her son was old and had to travel thousands of miles to return home. In front of Master Hong, Mrs. Guo did not reveal the matter.
After all, Shen Qi's smiling face is displayed here. If something big happens in Beijing, he will not be so relaxed.
Mrs. Guo listened with a smile as she listened to him tell the news about Beijing. The most important thing among them was not that Shen Quan entered the famous academy, but that the second mistress, Mrs. Jiang, gave birth to Shen Qi's eldest son at the 16th day of the first lunar month.
Shen Qi was in her twenties, and the couple had been married for several years. Mrs. Jiang had never been pregnant. Mrs. Guo and Mr. Hong were quite worried before.
Now after hearing the news, both husband and wife are only happy.
Although given Shen Qi and Jiang's age, even if the child is a daughter, it won't matter if it blooms first and then bears fruit. Maybe getting a boy at one stroke is a good thing after all, and Jiang will feel more at ease.
Mrs. Jiang was raised by the prefect's wife, and she was a woman of good temper and conduct. Mrs. Guo also truly loved her daughter-in-law. Her parents died at a young age, and she had a bad fate. Thanks to the upbringing of the prefect's wife, Zhuang, she also Only with Mr. Sun as matchmaker can she marry into a quiet family like the Shen family with five bedrooms.
When the couple nodded and inquired about this marriage, many female relatives in the clan gossiped about the fact that the Chiang family was tough and the dowry was not generous. They also ridiculed that the fifth family member was doing this to curry favor with the prefect of Chiang.
So what now? Magistrate Chiang is about to be promoted, and Magistrate Chiang's younger brother is also having a smooth career in Beijing. With these two elders in Shen Qi's wife's family, they will have more help when they become officials in the future.
If he had chosen a wife for Shen Qi from a wealthy family in Songjiang, the dowry would have been larger, but there was no shortage of money for the fifth house.
There are gains and losses, that's all.
Where can anything be perfect in this world?
Thinking of this, Mrs. Guo was even more grateful to Mrs. Sun.
No one was optimistic about this marriage at first, and even though Sun was the one who pulled the strings, Guo had hesitation. But Sun made it clear that since the fifth room of the Shen family wanted their children to study, and several of the children were angry, what about the relationship in the officialdom? Help is more valuable than real money.
Apart from the addition of her second son, the Guo family is most concerned about Shen Rui's heir.
Shen Qi then talked about the performances of the young men after arriving in the capital. Shen Rui had nothing outstanding, but there was nothing wrong with him either. His teacher was not an ordinary person, but was the number one scholar in Chenghua years, the emperor's teacher, and the Minister of Rites. son.
"My eldest brother and I had guessed that the second eldest uncle and aunt would choose Brother Rui, and sure enough," Shen Qi said.
Mrs. Guo frowned and said, "I asked Shen Quan to give you a message before, asking you to inquire about the relationship between Rui Ge's maternal family and his second wife. Have you inquired clearly?"
Shen Qi nodded and said: "After all these years, it's really hard to find out. Fortunately, my eldest brother has an official who was born in the same year in Beijing. He lives in the same building as the second-fang's old house and has friendship with the second-fang's family. I found out One or two... When my great-uncle was alive, he had a good friend named Sun. He was originally from the south. He later moved to Beijing and bought a house in the west of the Shen family. Mr. Sun lost his wife and only had an old daughter. He was afraid that there would be no one to educate him. , I was raised in the second room back then and was raised by my great-aunt. That should be Aunt Yuan..."
When Mrs. Guo and Mr. Hong heard this, they were both stunned.
There is no origin here, it is a deep origin.
No wonder there were no female elders in the Sun family when the second wife got married. Since the two families were well connected, it made sense for the second wife to take part in the matter. Although she was young at the time, she was only in her twenties, but because she was an elder Daughter-in-law, after all, is different from ordinary shy little women.
It’s just such an origin, why should we hide it?
Although Mrs. Sun had a reputation as a virtuous person during her lifetime, her life was not comfortable, and she suffered a lot from the anger of her fourth wife and her son. The reason why she endured it silently was because her mother's family had no heirs. With a backer like her second brother, it didn't matter. Coverable?
Mrs. Guo felt something was wrong, and Mr. Hong also noticed something unusual and asked: "The Sun family and the second wife have always been on good terms? When they are not on bad terms?"
Shen Qi shook his head and said: "I have never heard of this. The grandpa of the Sun family died outside. The family manager helped the deceased to Beijing. The blessed place was with his great-uncle. The funeral was held in the temple. Because it was Uncle Cang and his uncle. Niangchong was a filial son and a filial wife, which caused many people to talk about it, and only then did some people remember this old incident..."
Guo and her husband looked at each other in shock.
It seems that the second wife and the third wife had an unusual friendship with the grandson of the Sun family back then. For the eldest son and the eldest daughter-in-law to be filial sons and wives, it is not something that ordinary people can do.
Since there is such a friendship, for Sun Taiye's only daughter, why did the Third Taiye not marry her to Beijing, but to marry her to Songjiang?
Guo was really attentive and asked: "Besides these, have you heard anything else? In what year did the second wife and the second master get married? What kind of family is the Yue family?"
Shen Qi looked at Mrs. Guo in surprise and said, "Has Mom thought of this too? My eldest brother and I also said in private that based on the friendship between my great-uncle and Mr. Sun, in order to take care of Aunt Yuan, the most appropriate way was to Just by getting married, the two families became one family...Uncle Cang had already married, and Uncle Run was still a child, but Uncle Zhou was only one year older than Aunt Yuan, and they were childhood sweethearts."
Mrs. Guo frowned and said: "I heard that the second wife and the second master are related to each other. In this case, it is not difficult to guess. Even if the third master wanted to take care of the daughter of his old friend, the Sun family is a merchant family. Listen, It is said that the third old lady is the daughter of a high-ranking family. She must not look down on the Sun family and have another marriage.
Shen Qi thought for a while and said: "Maybe my mother guessed it right. My eldest brother also mentioned something in the same year, that is, Uncle Zhou got married in a hurry and was separated after the marriage... Until My great-uncle passed away and my great-aunt fell ill, so the couple moved back to the old house to take care of their illness, and then they never moved out again..."
Mrs. Guo snorted coldly: "No wonder your Aunt Yuan covered this up. With her character, if Brother Rui hadn't been there, she wouldn't have asked for a second wife even after she died..."
Mr. Hong had always had a good temper. When he saw his wife being angry, he quickly advised her: "No matter what happened back then, now that Sister-in-law Yuan has been gone for several years, her anger is still white. Whether this matter is true or not, it is difficult to uncover it." explain."
Mrs. Guo let out a long breath and said, "If things were really like this back then, then when Brother Rui will be in trouble in the future, he will be glad that the second master of the second house has separated from the eldest master. Although they live together, they are two families after all..."
Although thirty years have passed, there are always traces of what happened back then. The second master of the second house didn’t know it yet. He had just set foot in Songjiang, and the family of three of the fifth house had already pieced together the old events.
Master Hongda and his wife were close to the Sun family, so they naturally had prejudices against the second wife and second master.
However, after receiving the invitation from the clan clan and knowing that the clan clan would host a banquet for Shen Zhou to receive his blessings that night, the couple went anyway...
Tomorrow is Shen Juren's wedding day, and the wedding tent has been set up on this day.
After meeting the housekeeper and Hao's mother who had returned from the capital, and knowing that Shen Rui had been chosen as the eldest son of the second bedroom, only one word "double happiness" flashed through Shen Juren's mind.
He had previously disapproved of Zhang Lao'an's utilitarianism and felt that having a legitimate son would bring disgrace to his family. However, in the past few months since Shen Rui was away, he occasionally imagined what would happen if Shen Rui gave birth to a second wife.
The second bedroom is the eldest, the elder is the minister, and Mrs. Xu is the daughter of the prime minister. Unless Shen Rui is as stupid as a pearl, his future will be prosperous.
He is his biological father, and Shen Jin is Shen Rui's biological brother. It seems that there is a flat road leading straight into the blue clouds in front of Si Fang.
Maybe some people will ridicule him for this, but so what?
Seeing that the second wife’s eldest wife returned to Beijing last year, and all the brothers willingly sent their legitimate children and grandchildren there, we knew that everyone was concerned about the position of the second wife’s heir.
It's just that Shen Rui is his direct son after all, and Shen Juren can't show too much joy, otherwise it will appear to others that he is an unkind father.
Compared with his joy, Zhang Laoan was annoyed.
"What? He's actually the heir of the eldest son?" Zhang Lao'an didn't feel happy at all after hearing the "good news" from Hao's mother. Instead, his face turned pale with anger: "Isn't Shen Jue here? How could the eldest son choose this? Shen Rui?"
Mother Hao was obviously shocked by Zhang Lao'an's reaction. Is this old lady confused? Wasn't she looking forward to having her grandson as a successor before? Why did she change her mind now?
"On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, we all arrived in Beijing. The next day, the eldest son of the clan house picked up Master Rui, the eldest son of the fifth house picked up Young Master Quan, the number one scholar also wanted to take his second brother, and the eldest son of the second house, But the eldest lady didn't let him... Ever since the second brother came over, the eldest master and the eldest lady over there have valued him very much..." Hao's mother thought about it and replied.
"How could the eldest master and the eldest lady over there be like this? How dare they let Shen Rui be the eldest son of the Xiaozong?" Zhang Lao'an said to himself: "Don't they know the identity of the Sun family?"
Mother Hao's ears froze when she heard the profound meaning of these words.
After spending several months together with Shen Rui, she could tell that Shen Rui was really kind and not trying to conquer him.
Zhang Lao'an in the fourth room has become old and confused, and Shen Juren is getting more and more ridiculous. She would rather "be in Cao Ying and be in Han" and serve as Shen Rui's eyes and ears in Songjiang.
Zhang Laoan only said this sentence and stopped talking. He just looked very confused, as if there was something he couldn't figure out...