The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Chapter 217 Giving birth

In July of the following year, Qin Ruozhi gave birth to a boy, and Chen Cui became a grandmother.

This was the first time Chen Cui saw such a young child. His body was red and wrinkled, like a little old man.

However, when she held the child in her arms, she felt extremely soft in her heart.

She handed the child to Changping: "Here, hold your son!"

Seeing Changping holding the child in his arms tenderly and gazing at him deeply, Chen Cui felt very relieved.

However, she did not neglect her daughter-in-law who had just given birth, but took even better care of her.

Now that there are so many servants in the house, Chen Cui doesn’t have to do anything. She just needs to give orders.

In the hot summer, confinement is not a comfortable experience. Even if Qin Ruozhi wipes her body with a wet towel every day, she still feels that she has a bad smell all over her body.

Especially her hair, which was very greasy because it hadn't been washed for a long time. When her husband came to see her, she didn't even want him to get close to her.

Chen Cui did not dare to ask her daughter-in-law to take a bath and wash her hair without her permission. It was already a bold move to allow her to wipe her body. If she asked Qin Ruozhi to wash her hair and take a bath, if her daughter-in-law had a headache in the future, it would probably be blamed on her.

Qin Ruozhi tried the method that Chen Cui taught Zhang Ruomei. After the child was born, she fed the baby herself for a few days before handing the baby over to a wet nurse. Then she drank barley tea to stop producing milk.

When the weather cools down completely in early October, Qin Ruozhi's son Xuan Ge will also be able to turn things around.

At this time, after several months of recuperation, her body recovered and she returned to the management of the clinic.

After more than a year of planting and development, the high yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes has been fully verified.

The yield of sweet potatoes per mu reached 1,100 kilograms, and the yield of potatoes per mu was more than 500 kilograms. Despite the presence of new crops such as corn, the yields of these two crops still surprised the people on the farm.

Among them, sweet potatoes planted in spring have a higher yield, which can reach more than 1,300 kilograms. The yield of those planted in summer and autumn is slightly lower. As for potatoes, the yield in each season is not much different.

Chen Cui sorted out the planting experience and data of the year and gave them to Wang Hengzhi along with the seeds that had been harvested.

In the past two years, Wang Hengzhi has worked hard to come up with many ways to promote corn, and finally the corn planting area in several northern provinces has exceeded 30,000 acres, which has greatly improved the lives of local people, saved many people from hunger, and greatly increased the grain reserves in government warehouses across the country.

Especially in terms of military food and fodder reserves, corn has made great contributions. Both corn kernels and corn stalks can be used as reserve food for livestock, and corn cobs can also be used as firewood. Corn is simply a treasure from head to toe.

The emperor had always admired Wang Hengzhi's pragmatic spirit and approved of his achievements. He intended to promote him to a higher position. With the recommendation of sweet potatoes and potatoes, he was directly promoted to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and continued to be responsible for the promotion and cultivation of new crops.

As his right-hand man, Changping was also promoted to the sixth-rank official, which was a relatively fast promotion among the Jinshi of the same year.

Of course, as the first person to discover and experiment with planting, Chen Cui also received due rewards. Her imperial title was upgraded to Fifth Rank Yiren, which was a higher level than her son's.

Changping looked at his mother's imperial robes and felt a little depressed.

The speed of his promotion cannot keep up with his mother's promotion path. When will he be able to ask for a title for his mother with his own ability?

Chen Cui had already expected that she would receive an award, so she was not too surprised. However, she was still very happy to have a higher status and receive the reward. However, something else made her even happier recently.

That is, Chang'an and Changfu both passed the provincial examination this year and are about to set off for the capital!

Considering the timeliness of the letter, the two children might already be on the way. After receiving the letter, Chen Cui immediately asked someone to clean up the house and buy some things for their room, making sure that the sons would live comfortably after they arrived.

In early November, before the weather turned completely cold, the two brothers finally arrived in the capital.

For people who have lived in Beijing for a long time, it is not considered cold now. It is not even nine o'clock yet. It is just the beginning!

But for the Chang'an brothers who had just arrived in the capital, the freezing cold was unbearable. White steam came out of their mouths when they spoke, and their noses and ears were frozen red. It was too cold!

However, once you enter the house, it's a completely different scene.

The room was as warm as spring. I couldn't even wear my cotton-padded jacket. Even after taking off my thick coat, I was still sweating. It took me a while to get used to this world of ice and fire.

The next step was for the family members to meet and greet each other, mainly for Qin Ruozhi and her two brothers-in-law to get to know each other, and also for the two uncles to meet their nephews whom they had never met before.

Brother Xuan is almost five months old. He is fair and cute and loves to laugh. In addition, a small baby tooth has just sprouted recently, so when he smiles, he is so pleasing to the eye.

Sui Sui proudly held his little nephew in his arms and showed him to his two brothers: "Look how much Brother Xuan looks like me. Mom said I looked like this when I was a child. How cute!"

Chang'an and Changfu looked at each other. Although Suisui was raised by them, they loved their sister very much and had a strong filter for her, but they had not forgotten how dark and yellow she looked when she was a child.

Thanks to their powerful memory, they remember very clearly what Sui Sui looked like when he was a child.

This girl has been dark and yellow since she was a child, with little flesh on her body and sparse hair, which is very different from her current fair and lovely appearance. This situation did not improve until she was one year old.

However, facing their cute and confident sister, the two brothers couldn't bear to tell the hurtful truth, so they could only nod sincerely: "Yes, yes, you were as cute as Brother Xuan when you were a child!"

Chen Cui was having a hard time holding back her laughter, and Chang Ping couldn't help laughing either. Only Qin Ruozhi didn't understand what was going on. What was so funny? It was normal for the son to look like his aunt, wasn't that normal?

After dinner, when they returned to their room, Changping told his wife the reason for their laughter: "At that time, our family was poor, and Sui Sui gave birth prematurely. She was born dark and thin, with few hairs, and there was nothing good to eat. It was not until we started burning charcoal that the situation gradually improved. There was no resemblance between her childhood and Brother Xuan now!"

Qin Ruozhi thought of the reactions of her two brothers-in-law and mother-in-law just now, and thought of what her husband said about her sister-in-law being dark and thin when she was a child, and she couldn't help laughing.

After laughing, Qin Ruozhi gently held her husband's hand, stroking the calluses on his fingertips from writing, with a look of pity on her face.

Chang Ping knew what she meant and held her hand instead: "That's all in the past. Now I have you and Brother Xuan. How lucky I am!"