Changsheng: Peak at the Beginning

In the generation of Molan of the Youyang Sheng family, even Sheng Wei's eldest son Sheng Changsong, who took over the family business, relied on the influence of his sisters Shulan, Pinlan and Molanrulan to thoroughly develop the eldest branch of the Youyang Sheng family. When his children were born, except for the youngest son who took over the family business because he was not good at either literature or martial arts, the other two sons both passed the imperial examinations and were later appointed officials and changed their family status.

As for Sheng Changwu, who followed Gu Tingye's path as a military man from the beginning, although he had a brief difficult time due to the death of Gu Yankai and Gu Tingye's expulsion from the capital, Gu Tingye later transformed himself into the new emperor's confidant and returned home in glory. Of course, he also benefited from Gu Tingye's achievements on the battlefields of Western Xia and Liao, especially in the battlefield of recovering the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, where he made contributions second only to those of General Gu Tingye. Therefore, in the later years of Emperor Zhao Ceying, Sheng Changwu replaced Gu Tingye, who had angered his old father to death, and was enshrined in the Taimiao.

However, Sheng Changwu's health was damaged by his long military career, and he only had a daughter when he was over 40. Of course, this Miss Sheng was later hired by the emperor Zhao Ceying as the crown prince's principal wife. After the emperor's death, she first became the queen. Later, after serving four dynasties, she was given a new title, the Supreme Empress Dowager. She died at the age of 98, a rare long-lived person in the royal family.

This supreme empress dowager greatly protected the rights of women during her lifetime. During her lifetime, combined with the laws promulgated by Emperor Yingzong Zhao Ceying, women obtained relatively complete labor rights and inheritance rights. Even because of the taxes paid by women, the dynasty lasted for more than a hundred years, becoming the second dynasty in history to last for more than 400 years.

After his fiftieth birthday, Sheng Hong wrote a letter to the emperor begging for his rebirth in order to make way for his two sons. After consulting Changbai, Changfeng and Shiying, the new emperor agreed to Sheng Hong's request and granted him a honorary title of the second rank, skipping two levels. Sheng Hong was content to take Wang Ruofu and Lin Qinshuang on a tour.

Strangely enough, after their children grew up, Wang Ruofu and Lin Qinshuang's relationship suddenly improved. They later got along like real sisters, and sometimes they were so close that even Sheng Hong became jealous.

Changbai served as prime minister twice, and later served in six ministries and thirteen provinces, and even went to the battlefield in person. If it were not for his brother-in-law Shi Ying, who had a closer relationship with the emperor, he would probably have enjoyed the honor of being enshrined in the Taimiao.

It's just that Changbai neglected his children too much when he was young. His three sons and one daughter were of mediocre talent. It was not until his grandchildren that one finally emerged as a talented person. At this time, he had time to teach him well. It was a pity that his sons were too cunning. In the end, his family only lasted for two more generations before it completely became a family of farmers and scholars, with the highest caliber in the family being only someone who passed the imperial examination and became a scholar.

Chang Feng, on the other hand, had a very good relationship with his wife Liu, and they followed Mo Lan and Shi Ying's example and only had one son and one daughter. Chang Feng and Liu had carefully educated their children since they were young, and although his experience and official position were not as good as Chang Bai's, he himself retired safely from a high position of the second rank, and was granted an honorary title of the first rank by the government, without any regrets.

As for Chang Feng's son, although his qualifications were mediocre, he was a good candidate for doing practical things. After he entered the officialdom, he failed to enter the Hanlin Academy. He went to the southwest to gain experience for more than ten years. Later, he was transferred to the capital for a post with a good reputation. He was promoted to the third rank of Censor of the Censorate.

He also followed his father Chang Feng, with only his wife and no other women around him, and only had two children, but both were boys. However, he had no regrets, and he and his wife also followed their parents' example to carefully educate the two children, but the two children were not very interested in being officials, so they simply teamed up to open a bookstore, copied all the books in their home and put them in the bookstore for people to read and copy.

As the saying goes, "an unexpected success has led to the establishment of a forest of trees." Thanks to this bookstore, Chang Feng's descendants were able to maintain a certain influence in the Xin Dynasty more than 200 years later, continuing the glory of the Sheng family. They were considered the most promising descendants of the Sheng family.

As the eldest sister among her peers, Hualan married a nobleman because of a momentary change of mind in her family, which indirectly affected the good reputation of the Sheng family. If Changbai, Changfeng, Molan and Rulan had not later married into families of civil officials, the Sheng family would have been disliked by both civil officials and military generals.

Because the marriage itself was awkward, Hualan was disliked by her in-laws for a long time, and her parents' family was unable to support her. It was not until the Sheng family became rich that Hualan finally ended her nearly twenty years of hardship.

But at that time she had completely seen through the hypocritical nature of her husband Yuan Wenshao, and was unwilling to flatter him, so she just focused on raising her children and grandchildren.

It's a pity that the girl Zhuang Jie'er was able to marry a clean civil official and live a prosperous life with the help of her two uncles and two uncles-in-law. However, Hualan's son was not talented in either literature or martial arts, so in the end he could only rely on Yuan Wenshao's face to become a fifth-rank official guarding the city.

However, Hualan's grandson had been quite clever since he was young. Hualan gave up her pride and sent this grandson to Changfeng for education. Later, this child ranked in the top ten of the high school B list and also earned a pleasant imperial decree for Hualan, which finally gave Hualan some comfort.

Molan and Shi Ying have only one child, Xiao Yuanxiao. The child's name is Shi Xin, taken from the "Xin" in Jiang Xinxin's name, and his courtesy name is Changqing. The "Qing" here means "long love", which means Shi Ying prays that Molan's love for him will remain unchanged and their feelings for him will last forever.

This child was loved and taught wholeheartedly by his parents. He lived a free life in the first thirty years of his life, until he suddenly saw the remnants of the evil and ignorant old customs in the Tubo land. He decided to take root in such a remote area and work hard to liberate the suffering people. So he took part in the spring examination as a juren and achieved a good result of third place. However, he turned around and refused the government's retention, and continued to serve in remote places in the court.

Although Shi Xin had married two wives, both of them died young because they could not adapt to the harsh environment of the frontier. Out of guilt, Shi Xin never remarried and did not leave any children. He finally died on the way to build a road in the mountains. Shi Ying and Molan were nearly eighty years old at that time. The two old people went out personally to collect his body. Later, Rulan's great-grandson took care of the couple until their death.

During this period, Molan and Shi Ying organized and compiled medical books on the treatment of women's diseases. They also opened a clinic specifically for women, trained generations of female doctors and more professional obstetricians, and fully supported the bookstores opened by their two nephews. The couple was enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and both of them left their names in history.

Rulan and Zhang Zhe's life was no worse than Molan and Shiying's. Especially Zhang Zhe, although he looked taciturn, was actually very talented. He liked lively and knowledgeable women like Rulan. For health reasons, they only had one son and one daughter, and they both raised their children carefully.

The only small trouble is that Zhang Zhe has to ask his elder brother, who is as greedy as Yang Wuduan, for help from time to time. Fortunately, Rulan is broad-minded and is willing to spend her husband's money, otherwise Zhang Zhe's elder brother, who is famous in history, would not have a good life.

Minglan seemed to be the best-married girl of the same generation in the Sheng family. Qi Heng later became the Duke of Qi and was a legitimate imperial examiner. He eventually became the Censor of the Censorate. Even the problems between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were resolved after she gave birth to two sons for the Duke of Qi.

But the relationship between her and Qi Heng was similar to that between Hualan and Yuan Wenshao. They could be said to be a love affair, and it's not that they didn't love each other, but they had both become more mature, and their needs for love were different. After the passion faded, they treated each other with respect all their lives. The children were also more or less suppressed by the influence of their parents. Later, except for the eldest son who inherited the title and stayed in the capital, the other children all worked in other places and rarely returned home.

Minglan still remembered Old Madam Sheng. Later, when Sheng Hong took Wang Ruofu and Lin Qinshuang out for a trip, Minglan simply took Old Madam Sheng out for a trip as well. It was not until Old Madam Sheng passed away that Minglan finally returned home. However, at this time she had completely separated from her husband and children. In the end, it was Pinlan who pulled her out of her self-pity. Since then, she has been working to improve the status of women. She used her dowry to support several charity organizations and was commended by the court.

She even took this as inspiration and paid for the construction of bridges and roads in Wei Xiaoniang's hometown. With the permission of the government, she erected a monument to commemorate her. The monument mentioned the name and deeds of Wei Xiaoniang, Wei Shuyi, which was considered an explanation to Wei Xiaoniang.

But at that time, the Wei family no longer existed, and even her aunt's house had disappeared.