Fu Quan and Shou Quan carried out their orders and quickly obtained results, which matched exactly what Swallow Holding Branch had said.
With the results in hand, Madam Bai naturally showed no mercy. She singled out all the servants with poor character or those who secretly served other masters.
Since these were all hereditary servants, Madam Bai firmly believed that “if the upper beam is crooked, the lower ones will follow.” She decided to remove their entire families as well—after all, a family should stay together, neat and tidy.
Madam Bai’s words sounded particularly noble and pleasing to the ear: “Separating flesh and blood is, after all, a sin. Letting a family leave together, united and whole, is a good deed!”
For Madam Bai, it was indeed a good deed, but for the servants involved, it was anything but.
They lamented bitterly. Although they were slaves whose lives and deaths were not in their own hands, the rules in the Marquisate were lax, and being a slave in the Marquisate was far easier than being an ordinary commoner.
Specifically, while commoners struggled to secure three meals a day, as privileged servants of the Marquisate, they never had to worry about food. They also received fixed clothing and monthly allowances each season.
Especially those second- or third-generation hereditary servants, with parents and grandparents backing them, always managed to secure easy tasks. They did little work but reaped the most benefits.
Moreover, these second- or third-generation hereditary servants did not live within the Marquisate—they had their own homes.
Even as slaves, they could purchase servants to attend to them. When these young men and maids returned to their own homes, they lived a life of luxury, commanding servants themselves.
Such a comfortable life depended entirely on clinging to the Jingyuan Marquisate and continuously leeching off it.
If they left, they would lose their steady stream of income. Relying on themselves was not so easy.
If they truly had the ability, they wouldn’t still be slaves for two or three generations.
As soon as Madam Bai spread the news that she intended to release people from the household, some immediately came bearing gifts to plead their case, hoping to stay.
Many even volunteered to reduce their monthly allowances, as they didn’t rely on them for their livelihoods anyway.
Madam Bai accepted gifts until her hands grew tired. Honestly, it was the first time she realized that some servants were so wealthy.
Could they live so well on just their monthly allowances?
Clearly not!
However, Madam Bai couldn’t delve too deeply into the reasons. The rules of the Jingyuan Marquisate had existed for decades, and as a junior, she couldn’t immediately declare them flawed.
Since the rules had worked without issue for decades, if Madam Bai criticized them, she would be negating the managerial abilities of previous matriarchs, easily earning herself the accusation of being unfilial.
Don’t forget, there was still a watchful Madam Wang in the household. Madam Bai couldn’t afford to leave any mistakes that might cause trouble for herself.
No matter how agitated the servants became, Madam Bai firmly insisted that releasing them was to accumulate blessings for the Marquis. Anyone who caused trouble in this matter would be harming the Marquis’s fortune.
Riding on the Marquis’s authority, Madam Bai quickly drafted a list and began releasing people in batches.
The first batch of servants left with their entire families, neat and tidy. Although reluctant to leave, Madam Bai not only allowed them to take their accumulated wealth but also gave each household five taels of silver as a resettlement fee.
With money in hand as their confidence, and the thought of holding their heads high as free people in the future, those who left, however unwilling, eventually departed.
After releasing the first batch, Madam Bai began arranging the second. This time, it wouldn’t be so easy.
Because someone went to beg Madam Wang to take them in, and Madam Wang actually agreed.
As for the reason, when Madam Wang first married into the Marquis’s household, she was a second wife. With in-laws above and a stepson below, in order to quickly establish her footing, she had done no small number of favors, using the Marquis’s household’s money to build goodwill and never strictly regulating the servants’ behavior.
It was through the benefits the servants received that Madam Wang quickly gained a firm footing and even earned a reputation for kindness. Having benefited from this for many years, she was truly reluctant to let go of the connections she had painstakingly built.
She even went so far as to ask Madam Bai to let her keep some servants by her side: “Honoring the Old Master is filial piety, but isn’t honoring me also filial piety?
Leave these people with me. With so many servants being let go, the workload hasn’t decreased. Just assign them some tasks, and everyone will be happy.”
Madam Bai, of course, had no intention of going along with Madam Wang’s words. She immediately went to report to the Marquis, explaining that Madam Wang already had her usual servants but had also taken in two stewards and their families to serve her.
Altogether, Madam Wang now had fifty or sixty people serving her. To put it plainly, even a princess consort wouldn’t have such a grand entourage. What does the Old Master think should be done?
The Old Master naturally refused. Thus, after Madam Bai left, Madam Wang was summoned to the Hall of Peace and Tranquility, where the Old Master gave her a stern reprimand.
Swallow Holding Branch, who had accompanied her mother to see the Old Master but did not leave with her, witnessed the entire process. Madam Wang’s face turned pale and flushed with anger.
The Old Master intended to teach Madam Wang a lesson and had his steward, Yan Tang, spread the word that the two stewards who had sought refuge with Madam Wang had stolen the household’s property and deceived Madam Wang into supporting them. Such treacherous servants would not be tolerated in the Marquis’s household, and Madam Bai was instructed to deal with the matter swiftly.
Madam Bai, who understood the underlying message, immediately grasped the Old Master’s intent and followed his instructions by confiscating the property of the two stewards.
Indeed, a large amount of stolen goods was uncovered—silver, jewelry, and spices, totaling thousands of taels.
The two stewards naturally cried injustice, but Madam Wang, under the Old Master’s watchful eye, dared not acknowledge them. Without Madam Wang’s support, the two stewards were branded as household thieves.
In the presence of all the Marquis’s household servants, the two stewards and their families were beaten with boards and then handed over to a slave trader to be sold.
This act of making an example of them left all the servants trembling with fear. No one had expected that seeking refuge with Madam Wang would lead to being the first to be expelled from the household.
Their lifelong dignity was gone, and servants sold off in such a manner would not meet a good end.
The servants became obedient, no longer daring to seek patrons. However, those on the list knew they were destined to leave, so they not only slacked off in their work but also increased their petty theft.
Seeing this, Madam Bai called Nanny Li over and gave her a few instructions. That evening, Nanny Li brought some wine and snacks and chatted, drank, and talked with a few other nannies her age.
By the next day, all the servants in the Marquis’s household had heard a piece of news: the reason Madam Bai was letting servants go was, first, to accumulate blessings for the Marquis, and second, to send away those servants who had “deceived” Madam Wang and the second branch.
No matter where you go in the world, there are always clever people, even among slaves, and this was no exception.
As soon as this rumor spread, some knew exactly what to do.
Immediately, some people, in order to avoid leaving the Marquis’s estate, went to Madam Bai to report, saying that so-and-so had been deceiving Madam Wang all these years, receiving many rewards from her and living a prosperous life.
Others reported that so-and-so had been flattering and currying favor with Madam Wang, but in reality, they were tricking Madam Wang’s maids into marrying them, and so on.
Madam Wang was naturally not so easily deceived, but clever people understood the underlying message. They directly framed Madam Wang’s efforts to win over the servants as the servants deceiving Madam Wang.
This preserved the Marquis’s dignity and allowed Madam Bai to smoothly eliminate her rivals. According to the rules, those servants who had “deceived” Madam Wang faced consequences: for “minor deceptions,” half of their property was confiscated, and they were expelled.
For “major deceptions,” such as “tricking” Madam Wang into selling ancestral land, “tricking” her into using public funds for private gain, or “tricking” her into lending money at high interest rates, and so on—
not only were all their assets confiscated, but they were also beaten with boards and sold off.
Every word Madam Bai spoke was framed as being for Madam Wang’s own good, leaving Madam Wang unable to voice her grievances while Madam Bai achieved her goals.