Chapter 143: Hexian's Activities 1
It was obvious that Song Qingci's sincere advice sounded like a complete scam to Shan Huairen.
Therefore, he had no intention of accepting it, but continued to remain silent and adopt a strategy of passive resistance.
Since he had chosen to do this, he had already thought of the consequences of today. He had already arranged everything that needed to be arranged. Even if he died today, it would not be a loss.
"Okay, if you don't want to tell me, I'll tell you." Song Qingci said as he stretched out his hand towards Shan Xi.
Shan Xi has been in shock today. The things she saw and heard were things she had never encountered or thought about before.
For the first time, she realized that people could be so bad.
Facing the hand that Song Qingci extended, Shan Xi had no idea what it meant. She stared at Song Qingci blankly, her eyes filled with clear stupidity.
Yin Xing couldn't bear it anymore, so she walked forward, took the account book from the eldest lady's hand, and handed it to Song Qingci.
Song Qingci gave Yin Xing a look that said "well done".
Shan Xi, who had reacted, lowered her head in shame. She really couldn't do anything right. She didn't even understand her sister-in-law's simple intention.
Song Qingci doesn't have time to comfort this little cutie now, as she still has a lot of things to do today.
"Butler Shan, He County is your hometown, right?!" She opened the account book that recorded all the affairs of He County. "This is what you have done in He County over the past decade. Oh, by the way, not only you, but also your helpers in He County, your relatives before, such as your brother Zhang Wenqing, your sister-in-law Zhang Wangshi. There is also your nephew Zhang Tianbao, niece Zhang Tianhe, and you were called Zhang Wenyuan before entering the general's mansion. Right?!"
The contents of this account book are extremely explosive starting from the first page.
Ordinary account books would only record transactions of silver and money, but in the account book of He County, the transactions were not ordinary things but people.
Steward Shan sent people to his hometown Hexian County to engage in human trafficking in the name of the General's Mansion.
And his previous relatives were also his most powerful accomplices.
According to the records, this population business started fifteen years ago.
After a rough look, it was found that over the years, Steward Shan had dealt with more than a thousand people in He County alone.
In other words, about six or seven people are sold out by the single housekeeper in Hexian County every month.
He County was just a small county town with a population of only tens of thousands. Apart from the gentry and landlords, almost one in three ordinary families had had someone sold out by a single housekeeper.
There are both men and women among these people, and the age range is also very wide, but most of them are young people.
A careful look at the account books will make it very clear where these people have gone.
The women were basically sold to brothels in various places. They were also classified, and the good-looking ones were sold to other large cities besides the capital.
These women can be sold for a good price because of their good looks. Especially in Luozhou Prefecture, the brothels there offer the highest prices and are the most picky. Over the years, only five women have been bought from He County. But the price of each woman is more than two thousand taels.
Those who were not very good-looking were usually sold to towns far from Hexian. This type of women was the most numerous. The price of each person ranged from 200 to 500 taels.
Some women who were not even pretty were sold to more remote places, where there were no decent brothels but there were secret whorehouses.
The women there were the most miserable, receiving the lowest-ranking customers, living a life worse than pigs and dogs. They were often beaten and scolded. However, these were not what the housekeeper Shan and his people cared about.
A woman like this could be bought out for thirty or forty taels of silver, and her life or death had nothing to do with them.
Why didn't anyone suspect or make trouble after selling so many people over so many years? I can only say that Butler Shan is very smart.
He initially gathered all these people together under the pretext that the general's mansion needed servants.
Then we found a place in He County that looked very good and normal, and provided unified training to these women.
It is to teach them the various etiquette and rules of wealthy families.
As for those women with good looks, he would pick them out specifically, and then find some people who used to train girls in brothels to teach them some individual methods to please men.
The reason why these girls were willing to learn was because the people who taught them told them implicitly that when they entered the general's mansion in the future, with these means, they could compete for the position of concubine of the male owner of the mansion.
He County was a small county. Even if a girl from the best family in the county came to the general's mansion, she would only be destined to be a concubine.
Therefore, these girls were all brainwashed, all studied, and of course, sold out in the end.
Maybe they would know the truth only when they went to those brothels, but by then, it would be too late to say anything.
It is precisely because of this advance training that the price of Dan Guanjia's population business is higher than that of other companies. You get what you pay for.
The families of those girls would receive the first sum of money when the girls were taken to study together. It was not much, just a few taels of silver.
This is in line with the status of a servant.
Then, in the following months, they would gradually receive the "monthly allowance" ranging from a few coins to one or two taels. Later, the people on the side of Butler Shan would have a different story.
Some died of illness, some were arranged to marry by their masters, and some were sold because they made mistakes.
Anyway, different people say different things. The amount of silver that each girl's family can get in the end ranges from a few taels to dozens of taels.
Many families don't value their daughters, so it's worth it for a daughter to be exchanged for so much silver.
Many girls, after getting married, can only go back to their parents' home a few times in their lifetime. They think this is normal.
So, over the years, no one has ever thought there was anything wrong with this.
Later, when it was no longer convenient for Butler Shan to continue doing these things under the banner of the General's Mansion, his reputation of being able to help get daughters to work as servants in wealthy families had quietly spread.
Many people approached him privately, hoping that he could help. It didn't have to be a general's mansion, other high-ranking mansions in the capital would be fine.
As a butler, it is quite normal for him to know the butlers of other mansions so that they can share what they have.