Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

The exhibition of Zheng’s fleet in Suzhou had a huge impact.

Before this, these Jiangnan gentry had never thought that the Zheng family, whom they regarded as country bumpkins, actually had such great power.

In particular, the captured Dutch warships and the nautical charts promoted by Xu Xiake all represent:

The Zheng family achieved the same status as the Dutch in Southeast Asia.

No wonder the emperor conferred the title of Earl on Zheng Zhilong and bestowed titles on a number of pirate leaders, otherwise these people would not have given up places like Xinjiangnan so easily.

"This Zheng family is now extraordinary."

"They defeated the Dutch and have become the dominant power in the southeast."

"Fortunately, the emperor surrendered early and asked him to give up New Jiangnan."

A visiting Suzhou gentleman exclaimed.

Another person who runs a maritime trade business is even more impressed:

"Your Majesty is far-sighted and far-sighted."

"If the Zheng family still occupies Dongning, I'm afraid it may be difficult to control them."

"But the emperor immigrated from Shaanxi and occupied Dongning Island. Even if the Zheng family is the overlord of the sea, it is difficult for them to control the entire southeast."

"Otherwise, why would the Zheng family leave the mainland behind and choose to establish a fiefdom on the island of Borneo?"

When this man talked about the emperor, he couldn't hide his admiration.

Only those who are familiar with maritime affairs can understand how far-sighted the emperor is.

Not to mention that Zheng Zhilong only defeated the Dutch. Even if he annexed the Dutch forces, he could only become the overlord of the sea, but it would be difficult for him to cause harm to the Ming Dynasty.

The key is Dongning Island. If the imperial court controls this island, it can control the route from Nanyang to the East China Sea.

No wonder the emperor designated Dongning Island as the prince's territory. In fact, this island is too important to the southeast ocean.

Other Suzhou gentry listened to his explanation and gained a deeper understanding of the emperor.

Is there any point in continuing to resist such a far-sighted emperor?
Who knows what else the emperor has in store? Just like the workers in Suzhou who are still on strike.

These people frowned when they thought of the current congested and smelly situation in Suzhou.

No one wants their hometown to become like this, but the servants’ demands are too excessive.

These lowly slaves want to be on an equal footing with their masters, but they are unwilling to do so.

However, listening to the Zheng family and other Fujian sailors talking about the wealth of Southeast Asia, and who had made contributions and received titles, or who had opened up new shipping routes and became rich.

These people were extremely envious of the fact that they could trade freely in Southeast Asia.

Some people even wondered: After going to Southeast Asia, should they switch to maritime trade instead of working hard to open up wasteland and farm?
In Jiangnan, where the business atmosphere is very strong, doing business is not discriminated against. Many wealthy families have business assets.

Especially since the current emperor advocates that all four classes of people are the root, and believes that scholars come from agriculture, industry and commerce and that they should run agriculture, industry and commerce, the status of merchants will be even higher and they can also become gentry.

Scholars such as Zhang Pu took the lead in running businesses, combining the dual identities of scholars and businessmen.

If we take into account the land owned by his family, he can be said to be a farmer as well.

Including the employment association he now leads, Zhang Pu also has the identity of a worker, and has the identities of the four classes of people: scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans.

Which category such people belong to during the election is also a question Liu Lishun is thinking about now.

He is exploring new electoral methods to ensure that parliament can express public opinion as best as possible.

Of course, these are all things for the future. Liu Lishun is more concerned about whether his new district has been replaced with official fields.

"The Emperor has allowed the establishment of a new district on both sides of the Wusong River."

"There are three new districts: Suzhou Prefecture's Wusongjiang District was changed to Wusong District, Baoshan District was changed from Songjiang Prefecture to Baoshan District, and Shanghai County was changed to Shanghai District."

"There are many wastelands in Wusong District and Baoshan District, and all the land has been exchanged for government farmland."

"The Shanghai district allowed private land, and even allowed the government land in Shanghai to be exchanged for Wusong and Baoshan."

"The Emperor intends to use these three districts to test which method is most suitable for the development of industry and commerce."

“These three districts are positioned as industrial cities.”

This was Zhu Youjian's response to Liu Lishun's idea, which was actually more complicated because it involved administrative division adjustments.

The three new districts will be redefined based on the principle of convenient transportation, with the Wusong River roughly as the boundary. The west and north will belong to Wusong District, the east will belong to Baoshan District, and the south will belong to Shanghai District.

The defense of the new area will be under the charge of the Yulin Guards, which will be renamed from Henghai Guards. This guard is one of the imperial guards and belongs to the ten guards of the crown prince.

Officials from the Nanjing Wei Prefecture will be stationed here permanently to help the royal family control the new district.

It can be said that when Zhu Youjian was planning the new district, he had already realized its potential. He completely considered the new district as the future Shanghai plan and controlled it from the source.

To this end, he also used the lack of staff in Henghaiwei as an excuse to merge Wusongjiang and Baoshan into the Yulin rear guard, thus taking control of the area militarily.

Liu Lishun was an important general sent by him. He used this top scholar whom he personally selected after he ascended the throne to help him build and control the new district.

To this end, Liu Lishun worked extremely hard, even breaking the rule of not meeting candidates before the exam, and mediating the dispute between Zhang Pu's employees' association and Suzhou gentry.

After seeing the huge fleet of the Zheng family and the wealth of the Zheng family members, many families of Suzhou gentry have begun to consider sending their clansmen to engage in business at sea.

Not to mention those families who were originally engaged in maritime trade. After seeing the nautical chart, they felt like they had found a treasure and planned to go to the farther South Seas to expand their own industries.

The originally illusory South China Sea became clear with the arrival of Zheng’s fleet.

Many gentry in the south of the Yangtze River realized that there is a vast world overseas and there is a lot of potential for development!
This softened their attitudes even more, and under the persuasion of Liu Lishun, the chief examiner of the top scorer, many people cooperated by handing over official land and donating the title of knight.

The issue of releasing slaves also took a turn for the better. In order to develop overseas territories, many families directly promised their slaves that as long as they followed them to establish fiefdoms overseas and served as their military and civilian households, they could become citizens directly.

Moreover, there is more than one type of citizenship. While becoming citizens of the Ming Dynasty, they can also become citizens of a vassal state.

If you make merit when opening a domain, you can even become a hereditary sergeant, as their hereditary official -

Overseas, the status of hereditary soldiers is higher than in the Central Plains.

Because hereditary officials such as centurions could be transformed into hereditary knights.

Therefore, the status of hereditary soldiers under these fiefdom nobles was equivalent to that of hereditary officials in the past.

These hereditary knights who were able to establish one or several hundred households overseas planned to transform the capable and loyal servants in their families into their own hereditary officials.

As a result, the attractiveness of the Hirelings Association was greatly reduced. Fewer and fewer new slaves joined the association, and some even returned.

Zhang Pu did not stop this, because he did not intend to continue working in the Hired Workers Association. After the initial enthusiasm, the Hired Workers Association became larger and larger, and many talented people emerged. Some of them criticized Zhang Pu's leadership of the Hired Workers Association, believing that he was not a hired worker or a slave, but at most his mother had been a slave.

Zhang Pu was too lazy to argue with these people, and under Liu Lishun's persuasion, he turned his attention to the imperial examination. Soon, according to the collective decision of the employment association, he reached an agreement with the Suzhou gentry to resume work.

The strike, which lasted for several days, finally came to an end.
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“It’s a little regretful that I didn’t complete the task.”

“I don’t know if I will regret this in the future.”

Looking at the happy employees, Zhang Pu sighed.

Given his personality, he wanted to force the Suzhou gentry to agree to all the conditions he proposed.

But some people in the Hired Workers' Association were too weak to fight after seeing their former masters.

In the end, the eight-hour wage system, technical grade wage system, lifetime employment system, etc. were slightly discounted, and many clauses favorable to employers were added.

For example, the employer can forcibly dismiss a lifetime employee by paying a penalty. There is also a technical level assessment, which should be evaluated by the employer. If a slave becomes a hired worker, he or she will also need to pay more money to redeem the contract...

This made Zhang Pu dissatisfied but helpless, because many employees no longer wanted to fight.

Born as slaves, they were already satisfied with being hired workers and did not want to fight for the rights of hired workers any more.

The hired workers of the Ming Dynasty have not yet fully awakened.

The power they possess is far from enough to compete with their employers.

With this regret, Zhang Pu resigned from the position of president of the Employees Association.

However, as the founder of the workers' association, he was granted the status of lifelong general counsel.

The image of him waving a fan and fighting against Suzhou gentry was also widely circulated among the people, so much so that many societies set up the position of consultant and hired scholars to serve.

Most of these people imitate Zhang Pu and hold folding fans, also known as "white paper fans". They are military advisors in the society, and most of them are lawyers and tax accountants.

The societies of the Ming Dynasty were also one of the groups that obeyed the tax law the most. They might be protected by the local government if they did whatever they wanted, but if they evaded taxes, they would attract the attention of the Taifu Temple Taxation Bureau.

This government office, which was directly under the Ministry of Revenue of the imperial court, did not care about the twists and turns of the local government. They worked with the Weiwei Temple to establish the Tax Police Corps and worked very hard to uncover cases of tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Therefore, trade unions and other associations in the Ming Dynasty like to hire tax accountants as consultants to avoid tax loopholes and attract the attention of the tax police.

The two major obligations of paying taxes and serving in the military gradually became a consensus in the Ming Dynasty, and even a culture of despising those who evaded their obligations was formed.

There are already signs of this happening in the Workers' Association. In order to obtain citizenship, many slaves have taken the initiative to join the army and join the engineering camp specially set up in the new area.

They only need to work there for three years to obtain citizenship. The guards will help resolve disputes with the master, and they will agree to pay in installments and gradually get their indentures back.

You can even get a loan from Sihai Bank with the guarantee of the Employees Association and redeem your indenture directly.

Many slaves were thus freed from their status as untouchables and cried for joy.

They devoted themselves to the construction of the new district with great enthusiasm, and the new district gained its first batch of permanent residents.

Liu Lishun was delighted by this. After handing over the matter to Gu Yanwu, who was in charge of the engineering camp, he went to Nanjing to preside over the provincial examination.

The date for the Jiangnan County Examination was finally decided, and it was scheduled for late October.

By then, the results of the provincial examinations in various places would be announced, and the scholars from the southern provinces would have enough time to rush to Nanjing to take part in the provincial examinations on law and mathematics.

In response to this, people throughout Jiangnan breathed a sigh of relief.

This incident in Suzhou caused a lot of controversy, and many people were worried about major changes.

Now that it has been resolved peacefully, how can we not be happy?

When the Women Workers Association held a foot contest, many Suzhou gentry participated, selecting beauties for the emperor in the name of the entire Suzhou.

The whole of Suzhou was restored to peace. The people had their gains and losses, but all benefited.
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But for Prince Jingjiang, that would be a loss.

In particular, Zhu Hengjia, the prince of Jingjiang who was in charge of establishing the fiefdom, was so angry that he smashed several bottles and cursed the emperor for being unfaithful and the Jiangnan gentry for being unjust after he learned that the Lancang River Delta promised to him by the emperor was taken away by the Jiangnan gentry.

In order to establish the Kingdom of Jingjiang, he traveled overseas and laid down roots in this wild land.

Unexpectedly, just when we were about to reap the harvest, the most fertile land was taken away by others:

"Too much deception! Too much deception!"

"Is the little emperor in the capital making fun of me? I followed his orders and went to Jiangnan to recruit people, but I didn't expect that even my fiefdom would be taken away by others."

"One day, I will teach these people a lesson. Anyone who bullies me will have to pay the price!"

The angry voice was not concealed at all and many people heard it clearly.

These people didn't know whether their prince wanted the Jiangnan gentry to pay the price, or wanted the emperor to pay the price as well. If it was the latter, it meant that the Prince of Jingjiang was likely to rebel.

Some people began to get scared. Even Zhu Hengjia's confidant Sun Jinding hurriedly said:
"My Lord, be careful with your words!"

"Have you forgotten that one?"

"When I was in Jiangnan, I heard some people mention that the throne should be passed down according to the eldest son's succession system."

This made Zhu Hengjia even angrier, and he shouted angrily:
"What is that one?"

"The throne belongs to me and my father. The little emperor in the capital recognizes it."

"What about the primogeniture inheritance system? That's all bullshit!"

These words were even more reckless. On the one hand, he relied on the emperor's approval as his confidence, but on the other hand, he added the word "little" in a contemptuous manner, showing that he did not care about the emperor.

On the other hand, he openly denied the system of primogeniture established by the emperor and his ministers, and expressed his disapproval of the inheritance etiquette.

It's simply a contradiction. He only chooses what is beneficial to him.

But the people in Jingjiang Palace were used to it. They all knew that their young prince was such a person.

Sun Jinding knew his character well and advised:
"If the gentry in Jiangnan support Zhu Hengxun, it will be troublesome in the end."

"Please be patient for now, my Lord, and don't fight with them."

"The Emperor has also promised that the fiefdom of Jingjiang Kingdom is a thousand miles, and the lands of Annan and Champa are all up to the prince to choose."

Zhu Hengjia snorted and acquiesced to this, but still said with dissatisfaction on his face:

"What do you want to choose?"

“The best piece of land has been taken away, how else can I choose?”

"One day in the future, I will definitely take back the fiefdom and make everyone take Jingjiang seriously." (End of this chapter)