Xianggong, Please Divorce Me!

Ch. 14: A Lot of People and Little Money Spells Trouble

Translator's comments:

There was a mistake in translating Song Shi An's salary in the previous chapter which has been corrected.
I'm unfamiliar with bookkeeping so hopefully the phrasing for those things makes sense.
[1] The arithmetic was odd but it does come to about 20 servants per person.

[2] 文钱; money with letters imprinted, or copper coins.

[3] 走出去都不敢跟同行打招呼; The meaning came to me after the chapter was published, so the text has been changed.

[4] 拨浪鼓; drum shaped rattle.

[5] 姑爷 ; Gu ye, an address for a man (Song Shi An) which is used by his wife's family.

[6] 通房丫鬟; Tong fang yatou. A maid servant whom, generally with the permission of her mistress, is given to the master to be used as a sexual play toy. A 通房丫鬟 has a very low status, lower than a concubine.

[7] 落花有意流水无情; The falling flower has its' own ideas (but) the water flows on without feeling. The image is the river water continues to flow onward without regard for the flower petals falling into it. This conveys that the woman is willing while the man ignores her.

Ch 14 – A Lot of People and Little Money Spells Trouble

Su Tang put down last month's revenue account book and picked up the expense account book, with her face bearing a puzzled look. Ordinarily these two are close to 1,300 taels, how can the account total only have that little? She rummaged through a few more pages. The more she looked, the more confused she became. "Why are there expenditures for this many people?"

Uncle Song was a person who was in the habit of carefully observing people's words, expressions, and body language. Seeing Su Tang tightly frown more and more, he thought deeply and explained, "These things you're looking at are the monies drawn by shao ye's military underlings."

"Why, don't officers and men in the armed forces have imperial government issued salaries?

"It's this way shao furen, these last years the state of affairs was tense. As the chaos of war continued, quite a lot of officers and men were either wounded or dead. The royal court granted money showing consideration, though finally that was utterly inadequate. Shao ye was benevolent. He took in these disabled officers and men who live in difficult circumstances and don't have a family. He supported and took care of them in an outside village. They then had a family to belong to and every month were paid enough money. Moreover, shao ye gave preferential treatment to these tenants. The rent and taxes are all extremely low. You can see that every month the sum of money is such a small amount, which compared with other manors really falls far short. What's more, even though we receive these rents, everywhere we also use more. Every month we exactly balance. Occasionally there is some money left over which goes into the manor's account."

Su Tang's head nodded, also having previously heard that Song Shi An received the love and esteem of the armed forces commanders and fighters. In particular, he single-handedly established the black riders. Each and every one is loyal, brave, and with integrity. They follow him regardless of life or death. Now it seems it also is actually not unreasonable. Not every general would be able to take one's own silver to cover daily needs and expenses for his underlings, to say nothing of 10 years yet as one day without any change.