During the Ming Dynasty, the three brothers of the Xu family in Chun'an, Zhejiang Province, divided their families, the eldest divided a tall horse; the second divided a shiny and slippery ploughing cow; the third elder had died, leaving only the third daughter-in-law Wang Shi and three daughters and two sons in the family.
The eldest and second elders bullied the third family without a man, and only gave their sister-in-law Wang a servant named Ah Ji. Ah Ji was already in his fifties at that time, and in ancient times when medical conditions were not good, he belonged to the elderly, and his physical strength naturally could not be compared with that of young servants.
Therefore, the third daughter-in-law, Wang Shi, cried and said: "The horses divided by the eldest brother can be ridden, and the cattle divided by the second brother can cultivate the fields, and my family has no men, but I can only get an old and frail servant, not only can not work, but also waste my family's rice soup." Are you such a bully, worthy of our orphans and widows? ”
The eldest and second brother knew that they were right and speechless. The old servant Ah Ji listened and said to Wang, "Master Mother, are you saying that I am inferior to cattle and horses?" I don't want to argue anything, you just look at my future performance. In this way, the three brothers completed the separation of the family, and Ah Ji became a servant in the Wang family.
A few days later, Ah Ji said to Wang, "Mother, if you believe me, I can do business to help you earn money, but you have to give me some silver as capital first." "Wang Shi has always known that Ah Ji is an honest servant and will not deceive herself, so she sold her hairpin earrings, got twelve pieces of silver, and gave Ah Ji as the principal, so that Ah Ji could go out to do business.
Ah Ji thanked the Wang family, took twelve silver principals, and began to go to the mountains to sell tung oil raw paint, and then went to the city to resell. A year later, he made three times his profits. After another twenty years, Ah Ji had accumulated the principal of twelve taels of silver to a huge amount of thirty thousand taels of silver. The Wang family has made a complete fortune.
During this period, Ah Ji helped his main mother Wang Shi marry three daughters, and also paid for the two sons to invite private school teachers so that they could study with peace of mind. After the two princes grew up, Ah Ji married them separately, and the bride price for each bride was as much as a thousand gold.
Later, the two sons entered the Taixue study, which was all the credit of Ah Ji. Although Ah Ji had done so many things, he did not dare to be proud of his achievements, he would respectfully salute when he saw any prince and lady of the Xu family; when he treated the master mother Wang Shi, he never dared to squint his eyes to show respect; even if he was around the Wang family, Ah Ji did not dare to stand with the other party to show the difference between respect and inferiority.
When Ah Ji was seventy-two years old, he was seriously ill and could not be cured for a long time, and he knew that time was short, and before he died, he took out all the account books he had handled and handed them all to the master mother Wang Shi, and instructed: "These property account books, you can hand them over to the two princes to manage, and they will be passed down from generation to generation, and the old slaves will no longer serve you in the future." ”
After saying that, Ah Ji died peacefully. Wang Shi was full of emotions and couldn't help but shed tears. Ah Ji earned tens of thousands of taels of silver for his mother's Wang family, but he did not covet the slightest ink, he did not hoard any property in his own family, and Ah Ji's wife and son were still wearing old clothes.
The Wang clan was grateful to Ah Ji for his hard work over the years, and gave Ah Ji's wife and children three thousand taels of silver so that they could live in the Xu family forever, and no longer regarded them as servants, but as relatives, in order to repay ah ji for his family's hard work.
I think that at the beginning, the eldest and second eldest of the Xu family deliberately squeezed the younger daughter-in-law Wang Clan when they separated the family, but their descendants fell out of the court because they did not do the right thing, and the family property was less than one percent of the Wang family, I don't know if they will regret it, when they split the family, they did not choose Ah Ji?