Northern Dynasties

Chapter 1336 Yixing Cloth Market

The area west of Taihu Lake belongs to Yixing County, which is half hilly and half plain, unlike the flat land of the Three Wus.

In addition, Yixing is close to the capital of Danyang, and there are no powerful families in the area. Many dignitaries in the capital are keen to come here to enclose the mountains and swamps, build gardens, and enjoy the beauty of mountains and rivers, but they often only come here a few times a year, so there are many quiet places in the mountains and swamps that are enclosed and sparsely populated.

In the early years, Chen Qian ordered people to transport goods from Wuzhong to the capital to participate in the mutual trade, and a considerable part of the profits were kept in the area near Taihu Lake. Among them, there were several gardens and villas in Yixing County for storing money and materials. Before, his confidant Hua Jiao was captured, so he told Wu Mingche all these locations, hoping to exchange them for his life.

Previously, Wu Mingche and Xu Du worked together to suppress the rebellion in Wujun, but were blocked by the Wuxing brigade along Songjiang River. Since there was no further order from the court, Wu Mingche stayed there. After that, the Tang army did not move south in large numbers, and Wu Mingche was bored, so he dispatched troops to the west of Taihu Lake to sweep away the strongholds where money and goods were hidden one by one, and made a lot of money.

These monies were not directly seized on the battlefield, and the Southern Chen court did not directly announce that the Prince of Linchuan was a traitor, so they were not considered stolen goods. Therefore, Wu Mingche did not hand them over to the court, but directly took them into his headquarters and distributed them to his soldiers as additional subsidies and rewards.

Most of his troops were from Jiangbei. The Jiankang Brigade had been recalled to the capital, so it was naturally inconvenient to carry so much money and goods with the army. If they wanted to transport them to Jiangbei, they had to go through Jingkou.

The Tang army did have a problem with insufficient supplies when crossing the river. Among this batch of money and goods, there were materials that were suitable for the time being, so some of them were directly withheld by Feng for use by his troops, and converted into money to pay the families of those soldiers directly in Jiangbei, thus saving the trouble of transporting them back and forth. The soldiers under Wu Mingche were naturally delighted. They were still on the journey, but their families had already benefited first, and they no longer had to worry about the future.

In view of the different customs and sentiments in Jiangdong, the Tang army has been discussing and formulating subsequent attack plans after crossing the river. Although the Tang army is absolutely strong at the moment, the people of Jiangdong still have a lot of resistance to them, even including the Jinling Jingkou area where Xu Du took the initiative to surrender, the people are also dissatisfied with the arrival of the Tang army.

Therefore, if the Tang army wanted to advance straight into the Three Wus, it had to ensure the stability of its rear route and guard against the people from all over the country harassing the rear route while they were fighting hard on the front line.

Therefore, during this period of time, the Tang army has not taken any further action. On the one hand, it was waiting for the supplies from the Heluo area to be transported southwards, and on the other hand, it was continuing to gather the divisions and brigades from Shannan, Huainan and other places to the front line of the Yangtze River, and waiting for the troops fighting in Lingbiao to return to their positions.

At present, Wuzhong only thought that the Tang army was waiting for the opportunity to attack, but in fact, in a wider space, the personnel and materials of the Tang army were being rapidly mobilized. Now, the Tang army divisions and brigades gathered from Hefei East Gate to Jingkou have reached a total of 100,000 people.

Among them, Quan Jingxuan and Ruoyue Feng respectively led their troops to guard the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while Shi Ning led his troops into the Xuancheng area.

The Lingbiao Division led by Li Xun had just finished the battle in Guizhou and captured and killed Chunyu Liang, the governor of Guizhou. Therefore, its journey was slow. It has just arrived in the Gan River Basin and will have to wait until February or March of next year to reach the upper reaches of Zhejiang and launch an attack on the troops of Liu Yi, the prefect of Dongyang, who were entrenched there.

Although no direct offensive has been launched at the moment, the big net woven around the Three Wu regions has actually been set up, and is becoming stronger and tighter.

It was Xu Du who suggested buying hemp cloth from the people of Jiangdong. He was well versed in the customs of the people of Jiangdong and the ways of business, and had a deep understanding of this: "The people of Wuzhong all have a desire for trade. The scholars seek profit through trade, and the common people seek a living through trade. The former have a backlog of cloth that is difficult to sell, and the common people have nothing else to sell.

Now that the king's army has crossed the river, people are not yet convinced. If you explain the righteousness to them, they may not believe it. If you first explain the benefits, people will be happy. Moreover, there is a shortage of money in Jiangdong, and the people are in a difficult situation. If you can alleviate it, people will be able to understand and understand. If you then explain the benefits and disadvantages, people will be convinced and the bandits will be difficult to separate! "

The reason why Xu Du made such a proposal was that, on the one hand, he felt that this would help ease the resistance of the people of Jiangdong towards the Tang army. On the other hand, it was also out of guilt and he hoped to help the hard-working people of Jiangdong.

Although doing so is no different from directly throwing money away, and the Tang army does not need to lower its posture in its current strong state, it does not mean that doing so is meaningless. In the short term, it can ease hostility and make the actions of the royal army in Jiangdong less hindered by public sentiment. In the long run, it is also conducive to rebuilding a healthy order of commerce and people's livelihood, allowing the Jiangdong region to recover quickly after the war.

  When Ruo Ruofeng reported this suggestion to the court, Li Tai also expressed his approval after reading it. He never regarded the people of Jiangdong as enemies. If he could win them over, he would definitely do his best to win them over. No matter how powerful the Tang Dynasty's soldiers are, the Red County of Shenzhou is not a place to show off their power. There are merits waiting to be chased away!

However, although being gentle and benevolent is one thing, it does not mean that we should accept all the accumulated problems of Jiangdong without discrimination. Therefore, based on Xu Du's proposal, Li Tai made some changes and regulations. When Jiangdong people bring cloth to sell, they need to provide their place of origin. The price of silk in Jiangbei will be based on the price of silk in Jiangbei within 100 pieces, and the price of silk in Jiankang will be based on the price of silk in Jiangdong if the amount exceeds 100 pieces.

Even though the people of Jiangdong were diligent in farming and weaving, if they could accumulate 100 bolts of cloth per year, they could be considered a well-off family. The limit of 100 bolts could take care of the ordinary people of Jiangdong to the greatest extent. As for those who had more than 100 bolts of cloth, most of them were powerful families with considerable industries and servants, so it was impossible to let them arbitrarily profit from it.

As for those powerful families distributing the cloth they had accumulated at home to their troops to sell in order to obtain higher prices and profits, this was nothing. At least the Tang army had obtained household registration data. In the next year, they would be added to the household registration system and their own household tax could be collected. Moreover, these cloths were only cheap, not worthless. As the Fubing organization expanded, a large amount of cloth was consumed every year for the supply of military uniforms. The household tax for equal land distribution in various places alone could not meet this demand, and silk fabrics such as silk and silk could not meet the military needs. The court also needed to purchase a lot of additional cloth every year.

Although Jiangdong's hemp cloth is a relatively backward production capacity and will lack competitiveness once the market is opened up and stronger commodity competition is introduced, the reason for its squeeze is that market demand is far less than production capacity. However, if Jiangdong is fully integrated into the Tang Dynasty, the demand from other places will naturally absorb the surplus production capacity.

From a long-term perspective, since the textile technology in Jiangdong and more remote areas such as Zhejiang, Fujian, and Lingnan still has a lot of room for development compared to Hebei and other places, in order to accelerate the integration of people's sentiments in these places, a subsidy system specifically for cloth products can even be established, which can be regarded as a fiscal transfer payment in the Middle Ages.

Through such institutional subsidies, coupled with the equal-field system that has been implemented in the north for a long time, the large estate economy that has existed in the Jiangdong region for many years will surely be dismantled relatively quickly, and the number of registered households will be greatly increased, leading to rapid development of people's livelihood.

Of course, these are all later stories, and they need to be implemented gradually after Jiangdong is completely pacified. At present, after the Tang army opened a cloth market in Yixing, the people of Wuzhong also reacted strongly, and there was an endless stream of Wuzhong villagers coming and going to sell cloth every day.

Hua Jiao, the surrendered man, was appointed as the cloth market supervisor because of his correct attitude and active cooperation, and was responsible for the transactions in Yixing cloth market.

On the one hand, he did have talent in this area, and on the other hand, it was naturally because he was Chen Qian's confidant and a celebrity in Wuzhong. Now he was openly working for the Tang Dynasty. In addition, his half-truthful and half-false publicity about the Prince of Linchuan's hiding of wealth immediately aroused more widespread heated discussion among the masses.

However, in the market right now, the people of Wuzhong Township are more concerned about their own interests. When they see that the old hemp cloth that has been piled up in their homes for a long time can finally be liquidated and exchanged for high-quality coins with good texture, good shape and good text, they are naturally extremely happy.

There were also extremely poor villagers who helped each other walk to the market. Seeing that this was true, but suffering from the lack of cloth to sell, some villagers were extremely distressed and hungry and thirsty. They took off the ragged clothes that barely covered their bodies and held them in their hands, asking in a dry and hoarse voice: "This is also a robe made of fine ramie cloth. Will the Tang army accept it?"

"Where did this disgusting creature come from to cause trouble? Get out of here and don't disturb the villagers selling their goods in the back!"

The Wuxiang people nearby were afraid that such actions might anger the Tang army and cause trouble for their business, so they began to curse and wanted to push these troublemakers out of the market.

"Wait a minute, as long as it's hemp cloth, the city will buy it!"

At this time, a lieutenant of the Tang army came forward, raised his hand to stop the shouting people nearby, took the tattered clothes from the villager, shook them in his hands, and then frowned and said, "Your clothes are too torn, and the size can no longer be measured, so it's really hard to estimate the price. I'll use my hands as a scale and give you fifty coins. Don't make a fuss here, go to the team to collect the money!"

When the villager heard the soldier belittling his torn clothes, his eyes dimmed. But when he heard the following words, he suddenly became excited again and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "No, no fifty coins, General, just fifteen or twenty coins will be fine!"

"Stop talking nonsense. We are here to spread the king's order and fight against the evil bandits. We are here to make achievements and to get titles for our wives and children. How can we do this to covet the hundreds of coins in your pockets?"

The lieutenant said angrily after hearing this. When he saw the villager with chilblains on his hands and feet, shivering and crossing his arms as he walked towards the place where the money was distributed, he stopped him again, walked forward and threw his clothes back, cursing with a smile: "Forget it, don't go there again. I'll count the money for you here. Just think of it as losing a pair of horse blankets. Go buy some rice and cook!"

As he spoke, he counted out dozens of coins from the leather bag at his side, strung them together with a hemp rope and handed them to the villager.

The villager took the clothes and money handed back by the soldier with trembling hands. After a moment of silence, he burst into tears and cried, "The King of Linchuan gathered people to defend the village, but the villagers were destroyed. The Tang army came to attack the village, and scattered money and rice..."