Chapter 65 Private Affairs of Little Eunuch Tao Xiaosan
Tao Xiaosan was a young eunuch in the palace. When he was twelve years old, because his family was too poor to survive, he asked someone to join the palace as a chamberlain. In the blink of an eye, he had already been in the palace for five or six years.
Being a eunuch in the palace is a tragic thing, but it is also a kind of luck. Because if you enter the palace, you can at least survive. That is to say, in the few years when the situation in the Ming Dynasty was still passable, he had the opportunity to enter the palace. In the past two years, the palace
No one can get into the company, and there is no way to get into the civil service by cutting a job.
In people's influence, eunuchs are bad and greedy beings. But the fact is that most eunuchs are not qualified to do bad things at all. They even have the opportunity to come out only when they are old and can no longer do the work.
palace.
Tao Xiaosan is one of the most eunuchs. He has been living at the bottom of the palace since he entered the palace. He can't earn anything except to make ends meet. Logically speaking, the palace will give them about one tael of silver every month.
His monthly salary, there will be silver rewards on New Year's Day and other festivals, but he will never see the money. When the monthly salary is paid, it will be taken away by the steward. The silver rewards can be seen once, but most of them have to be filial afterward.
To the great lords. If you are not filial, you will not know how you died.
However, in the past few months, he finally saw the cash. The palace established an internal affairs office and an expert factory to supervise the affairs of the palace. This caused the small stewards to no longer dare to blatantly raise their hands. In addition to strengthening
In addition to supervision, the palace has also established several new factories. Most of these factories are profitable, and the monthly salary for working in them is much higher. However, because there is no relationship, Tao Xiaosan did not get a job in the factory.
Chance.
Fortunately, the recently established coal plant recruited him. The wages in the coal plant are not as high as other factory jobs, but after all, including factory jobs, the salary you can get for one month's work is about 20 taels. If you work as an errand in the palace, you will be in charge.
Come on, take another two taels of silver, it's actually not bad.
After working in the coal factory for a day, I was stained like a nigger, and I dragged my exhausted body back to the dormitory. The eunuchs did not have separate rooms, so a dozen eunuchs were crowded together in Datongpu.
"Brother Tao? I have something to ask you!" A fellow eunuch saw Tao Xiaosan returning to the dormitory and hurriedly came over.
"Fifth brother, why are you looking for me?"
"I met Supervisor Zhao before, and he said that your family brought you a letter from outside the palace. The letter said that your mother is sick!"
"My mother is sick? What disease is she suffering from? It doesn't matter, I can't leave the palace, what can I do?" Family is a luxury for eunuchs. Tao Xiaosan was excited when he suddenly heard the news about his family. That year in
When he was at home, his mother felt most sorry for him. In the blink of an eye, it had been many years since he had seen her face.
"Whether it's serious or not, I didn't say clearly in the letter. I just said I was bedridden!"
"I'm all bedridden. He must be seriously ill. I'm afraid my mother won't be able to survive this moment! Alas! My son is useless. It's now this time and I can't go back to see my mother." Tao Xiaosan said.
I burst into tears.
"What's the point of crying? You just go back, and your family can treat you as a filial son? Let me see, if you want to show your filial piety, just bring some money back to your family. Maybe your mother will be lucky enough to use the money to treat the doctor.
, no matter how bad it is, your family can use money to make the funeral better."
Money? After being reminded by his companion, Tao Sande suddenly thought of what he could do for my mother. He was not willing to spend the money he had given out in the past few months, so he saved it all in his hands. He saved more than four taels in total, and this amount
Although the money is not much, it can be useful to bring back home.
That night, Tao Xiaosan was too anxious to sleep and kept tossing and turning on the bed.
"Tao San, if you can't sleep, get up and put a piece of coal on the stove. You're tossing and turning so much that others can't sleep." The eunuch in the same bunk was so disturbed by Tao Xiaosan that he couldn't sleep.
I scolded him loudly and asked him to go to the stove and be alone.
Getting off the bed, Tao Xiaosan replaced the coal on the briquette stove, and then sat quietly next to the coal stove and thought about his thoughts.
Seeing the fire slowly rising up as the fire door was opened, the stove surface was roasted red. Tao Xiaosan's heart slowly calmed down, and he began to recall the days he spent with his mother before entering the palace.
His memory of that period of life is clear and fuzzy. The clarity means that he remembers many details very clearly, but his overall memory of family affairs is fuzzy.
As he was thinking about it, he couldn't help but think of how he had suffered a lot in the first few years after entering the palace, but now he felt that his life was manageable because the emperor, the old man, had been very considerate of them, the servants. Outside.
The situation had become such a mess, but the emperor did not short-change the people in the palace, and even got a lot more. Take the coal stove in front of him, there used to be no fire in their dormitory in winter.
I had to rely on my body to get through it. I didn’t expect that this year the palace was equipped with a coal stove for the little eunuch’s dormitory. Although it wasn’t very hot, it was better than nothing, right? After all, a fire was lit, and the room was filled with frost.
If you don’t have ice, you can use a clay pot to boil hot water for drinking.
After thinking about a lot of things, he took a nap and arrived the next morning. After Tao Xiaosan woke up, he quickly tidied up and took out the more than four taels of silver he had saved from under the bed. He went straight to Supervisor Zhao.
Go to the office.
Supervisor Zhao is a small supervisor in the new agency in the palace that specializes in managing the daily internal affairs of eunuchs. He is now mainly responsible for the contact between the eunuchs who cannot leave the palace and outside the palace. To put it bluntly, he just receives letters and sends letters home.
, bringing something and sending money. He also has another identity, a small manager of the palace business of Minsheng Bank.
After Minsheng Bank completed its mission of lending money to the Ministry of Household Affairs, Zhu Youjian did not let it sit idle. Instead, he instructed Wang Chengen and others to start the business of sending money to their families by eunuchs and maids in the palace.
Let them start this business, mainly to make it easier for the salaried people in the palace to take care of their families. In fact, it is to make it easier for the money sent out to flow into the hands of ordinary people. The families of these eunuchs and palace ladies are generally ordinary people.
The common people are the ones who are short of money. On the contrary, these people in the palace do not have much consumption needs because they only care about food and accommodation.
Sending money is not for nothing and there will be a 5% handling fee. Minsheng Bank can make a lot of money by starting this business. At least it can cover daily expenses.
"Mistress, this is the voucher for the money you sent. You have to keep it. As you know, the factory is keeping a close eye on us now. Maybe it will be traced to me during the audit that day. If you keep the voucher, I will also
Proof of innocence." Supervisor Zhao kept urging him while handing the voucher to Tao Xiaosan.
"Supervisor, when will the money I sent arrive at home? You also know that my mother is seriously ill, and the family is anxiously waiting for where the money will go."
"Your home is in Nancheng, and you can get the money into their hands within two or three days at most. You also know that Minsheng Bank never shortchanges people's money, so you have to worry about it. If the emperor asks the palace eunuchs
This bank is a rare example of good governance! How much more convenient has it become for us people with this bank? In the past, how many weeks did it take to send money home? I was afraid that I would make someone unreliable and stop me halfway.