Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 650 Letter from Beijing

Rong Jue and Xiao Yuan praised the food highly. They had good appetites and ate piece after piece. The two kids also had a mouthful of butter. Zhenzhu and Jiang Yunqi also ate several pieces in a row.

Jiang Yunqi discovered that Hualei was particularly good at making fresh food, and the taste was very good. Not only did the children like it, but even he, an adult, liked it.

While everyone was eating happily in the yard, Rong Jin took back the letter from Shangjing City from the official post station and handed the letter written by Hua Mancheng to Hua Lei.

He also gave Jiang Yunqi the letter from Pingyang Marquis Mansion. He also had two letters in his hand. One was sent by Old Marquis Pei, and the other was sent by Ruyi from Chengde Prefecture.

Hua Lei took her letter back to the study. The letter from Hua Mancheng was very thick. It said that they had picked a lot of tung seeds from the tung trees on their barren hill this year.

We have also pressed oil this year, and used the pressed tung oil to make a lot of oilcloth and raincoats. However, they are too late to be delivered this year, and have to wait until the beginning of next spring.

Because Hualei had done a great service in handing over the oilcloth, Emperor Shengwu did not take back the right to use it from Hualei. He allowed her to press the oil herself and make oilcloth and raincoats to sell to the people.

Moreover, when the Ministry of War was short of raw materials this year, they also bought a lot of tung seeds, tung oil, oilcloth, etc. from their own family to provide to the army. Therefore, a lot of the tung oil left at home this year was sold directly to the Ministry of Industry.

Therefore, this year, the family made a lot of money from the tung trees on Huaguo Mountain. In addition, after supplying the Imperial Hospital with sweet potato wine, the scale of the sweet potato wine brewery in the manor was expanded.

Moreover, the grapes on Huaguo Mountain have been carefully cultivated over the past few years. Now every autumn, there are already a lot of grapes to pick. The family has also set up a winery specializing in making wine.

Some of the medicinal herbs they planted were ready to be harvested, but unfortunately, they were originally intended to be sold to the Imperial Hospital. However, the herbs grown by the Imperial Hospital were enough for their own use.

Therefore, he politely declined Cheng Linsheng's door-to-door offer. Cheng Linsheng had no choice but to recruit retired masters from the Imperial Medical Bureau and set up a special medicinal material processing workshop to specialize in processing medicinal materials from Huaguo Mountain and sell them to other medicine shops.

The picking and processing of medicinal materials are now in charge of Cheng Linsheng. He also learned the methods of picking and processing medicinal materials from Grandfather Ni for a long time.

He and Ni Daya's house was not far from the primary school. The school had expanded its enrollment and now had 130 to 140 students. In addition to Hua Mancheng and the original Master Zhang, Hua Mancheng invited two more masters back.

Ni Daya has now become the cook of the primary school as she wished. Together with the former cook Li, she is responsible for the kitchen of the primary school. She is also in charge of the income and expenditure accounts of the primary school.

Mobao has also entered the primary school and is now studying in the small class. Mobao's sister Xuebao follows Yun Siwan every day and becomes a non-regular student in the primary school.

Yun had already recovered from her illness and opened a girls' class in the school, teaching girls common skills such as reading, arithmetic, and housework. Now there were more than 20 girls in the school.

In the past few years, the primary school has always maintained a balance between income and expenditure, and sometimes even had a small surplus. However, Hua Mancheng followed Hua Lei's wishes and did not take back the surplus, but instead divided it into two parts and gave it back to the school.

Part of it is used as scholarships to reward students with excellent academic performance and exempt their tuition and miscellaneous fees. The other part is used as subsidies to recruit children of disabled veterans free of charge every year and let them study in the same school.

Since the implementation of this plan, the learning atmosphere in the school has improved a lot. A good learning atmosphere has also been formed among the students. And Huaji School has been increasingly praised by farmers.

In the past two years, many nearby villagers have come to inquire about sending their children to Huaji School. Hua Mancheng is also considering the feasibility of this matter.

Before Hua Lei left Shangjing City, she and the Marquis' Mansion purchased several barren mountains. Because Hua Lei had planned them in advance, the general direction was to follow the preferences of Emperor Shengwu.

Therefore, every basin was planted with rapeseed, Emperor Shengwu's new favorite, and every hillside was left facing the sun, planted with corn, Emperor Shengwu's old favorite.

So everything went smoothly, and Hualei was told not to worry. By the way, in the letter, Hua Mancheng and his wife also asked about Jinnian's situation and Hualei's own affairs.

After reading the more than ten pages of letter from Hua Mancheng, Hua Lei was very happy. Everything was fine at home, and that was the best. She gave the letter to Xiao Yuan, who read it. Then Hua Lei picked up her pen and began to write back to Hua Mancheng and his wife.

By the end of the year, it was definitely impossible to reach the capital, but there was no rush. Hualei was not in a hurry. She carefully answered the questions in her parents' letter and also talked about her situation in Mobei.

He also asked Xiaoyuan to write a reply letter, and put both sets of letter paper into a large envelope, which would be sent to the government post office after a few days.

After reading the letters, Rong Jin also handed the two letters to Hua Lei. Hua Lei looked at them carefully and asked Rong Jin with a smile.

"Sister Ruyi said in the letter that my eldest brother-in-law might be returning to Beijing to serve as the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Works?"

"Well, it should be about the same. If nothing goes wrong, the Ministry of Personnel may have already issued the appointment notice." Rong Jin nodded.

"Grandfather did it?" Hua Lei asked in confusion. Logically, Tang Yuancheng should have to wait another year before returning to Beijing, but now he was promoted directly to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works a year in advance.

"It doesn't count as us doing anything, we just helped a little. If my brother-in-law comes back, he should normally be the right assistant minister.

However, it was a year earlier because my eldest brother-in-law and eldest sister were anxious to be transferred back to the capital city. This time, the right vice minister of the Ministry of Works suddenly fell into mourning, so my grandfather made some arrangements.

I went to the emperor to make some noise, and my brother-in-law is really capable. So I let him fill the vacancy of the right assistant minister in advance." Rong Jin said with a smile.

"Now my elder sister is happy." Hua Lei said with a smile, "Although I will return to the capital sooner or later, it is a good thing to be able to come back early."

"Yes, that's right. My eldest sister has suffered a lot following my eldest brother-in-law. My eldest brother-in-law started as a seventh-rank county magistrate and has come this far step by step. In addition to my eldest brother-in-law's own ability, my eldest sister has also made an indelible contribution.

Fortunately, my eldest sister's husband is also a caring person. He has seen and remembered my eldest sister's efforts. The two of them are living a good life now. Although my eldest sister's husband's family used to be humble and poor, the whole family has very good character and character.