The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 427 Killing

On August 15th of the first year of the Wuding reign, there was no trace of festive joy in Linqing Prefecture. During the Mid-Autumn Festival of that year, more than 3,000 businesses in the city, big and small, were spending it in agony and fear.

For all those who intentionally or unintentionally threaten the Great Qi Empire, Emperor Wuding is not only their god of death, but also the source of their fear.

The murderous Kaiyuan pacification soldiers were like a hurricane, searching from the shops on the street all the way to the hidden cellars.

Not only the local wealthy merchants, but also the eight major Shanxi merchants including Qiao Chang, Cao Hou, Qu Kang, had their power in the North Grand Canal eradicated. Before the Shanxi merchants had time to escape, all their properties in Linqing were taken over by the Great Qi.

Tang Hexin, a businessman from Datong, was left with nowhere to go. He left an ancient poem "The melons on the yellow terrace are no longer worth picking" in front of the screen wall of his mansion, and then jumped into a well with his concubine and died.

The pacification soldiers found more than 50,000 stones of rice in the Tang family's cellar, half of which was moldy.

This Shanxi merchant, who loved reading Tang poetry and usually called himself a Confucian businessman, would rather let bags of grain rot in the cellar than sell them at a lower price to the hungry people in the city.

Under the personal command of Zhang Dong and Pu Gang, the pacification soldiers confiscated all the grain, cloth, gold, silver, jewelry, silks, tea, porcelain, illegal salt, pepper, spices, ebony and other goods that had been hoarded by these rats for generations. Lu Xiangsheng led the civil officials to register the mountains of stolen goods one by one and put them all into the treasury of the Great Qi.

From August 15th to 20th, for a full five days, horse-drawn carriages carrying goods came in an endless stream, and the North and South Streets were blocked by carriages and pacification soldiers. Two thousand five hundred soldiers took to the streets to maintain order and suppress the merchants' riots.

Due to the shortage of transport horses, Emperor Wuding had to requisition war horses from the cavalry battalion and hand over the fat and strong war horses to the civil officials to be used as miscellaneous horses to transport goods.

During the cleanup operation in August of the first year of the Wuding reign, the 81 largest trading companies in Linqing were unable to pay the miscellaneous taxes owed to the former Ming Dynasty (a fine of 100,000 taels), and their properties were confiscated and their goods were confiscated into the national treasury.

After the eighty-one families were squeezed dry, the military emperor ordered the beheading of all the shopkeepers, shop assistants, and servants of each family. More than a thousand heads fell to the ground. In late August, the city of Linqing was littered with corpses.

In addition to the 81 wealthy merchants, many local ivory merchants could not escape the slaughter of Emperor Wuding.

Ancient commerce was born with original sin. In troubled times, there were certainly righteous businessmen like Xian Gao (Note 1), but most merchants hoarded goods and committed all kinds of evil. In Marx's words, they came into the world with every pore from head to toe dripping with blood and filth.

There are differences in commodity prices, business traditions, language habits, etc. in different places, making commodity transactions difficult. Therefore, between merchants and regular merchants, there emerged people who acted as mediators and introducers of transactions. These were called brokers.

After the mid-Ming Dynasty, the value of Baochao depreciated, and the tax bureaus were short of staff and funds, leading to large-scale layoffs. The responsibility of collecting commercial taxes gradually shifted to the illicit merchants.

The emergence of tooth traders was a historical necessity, but their negative role in commercial activities was also very obvious.

The business relationships between various merchants, craftsmen and brokers are particularly eye-catching.

Brokers and agents often perform errands, assigning labor services or purchasing goods from merchants in related shops. They often take advantage of merchants in a disadvantaged position and demand goods from them to satisfy their own selfish desires.

Merchants transport goods over long distances and are unfamiliar with the local customs and practices, so they have no choice but to rely on local brokers. Brokers often use this as an excuse to withhold payment for goods or even embezzle it, leading to disputes between merchants and brokers and even loss of life.

The brokers use their power, collude with others or act with malicious intent, to arbitrarily suppress and raise prices, harming merchants and the general public.

In addition, in lawsuits between merchants and grain transport ships, police officers, and thugs, brokers also acted as industry representatives to file complaints with the government. The government would also take care of them when collecting taxes from businesses, which made brokers even more fearless. In simple terms, this was the so-called collusion between officials and businessmen.

If the eighty-one families in Linqing are big rats, then the various pawnbrokers occupying the thirty-six lines and seventy-two streets are the buzzing flies.

Since we had killed the rats, we had to swat the flies as well. The city was densely populated with yamen traders, at least eight hundred if not a thousand. Emperor Wuding, adhering to the principle of "better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one go," ordered a massacre.

So after cleaning up the 81 wealthy merchants, Zhang Dong turned his attention to the brokers. In just three days, the pacification soldiers used almost the same charges to plunder and kill more than 850 brokers and agents of Linqing.

Since then, the old commercial system that had been entrenched in Linqing for many years was completely eliminated, and the commercial businesses on all streets in the state capital were taken over by the Kaiyuan Civil Administration. All shops had unified procurement, unified scheduling, and unified pricing, and more than 2,000 surviving businesses were under the control of the court.

The government began to gradually infiltrate the daily lives of ordinary people, affecting their food, clothing, housing and transportation.

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Not all merchants in Linqing lost; the only beneficiary was Mr. Dongfang.

Not only was Dongfang Zhu not pursued to pay the overdue "Qian Ming Ya Tax", the number of Bao'an Tang pharmacies under his name increased from three to six. Even the most famous Shizilou Tavern in Linqing had shares in Dongfang Zhu (all large-scale businesses in Linqing belonged to the emperor).

In short, in this bloody cleansing operation, not only did the great official Dongfang not suffer any losses, but the strength of the Dongfang family was further enhanced. At the end of August, Dongfang Zhu was appointed as the Supervisor of the Taxation Bureau of Linqing Prefecture in Da Qi (similar to the eunuch who supervised the army), and was officially whitewashed as the seventh-rank tax official of Da Qi, completing his immortal life counterattack as a late Ming Dynasty aphrodisiac merchant.

For this reason, the government posted a notice explaining that in the Battle of Linqing, Dongfang Zhu led his servants out of the city to stop the Ming bandits. All the servants died in the battle, and he himself was wounded in 36 places... He was promoted to the position of Supervisor to demonstrate the grace of our emperor.

Some people with good eyes questioned that the tax supervisors in the previous dynasties were usually eunuchs. Dongfang Zhu was a famous playboy in Linqing and even in the northern Zhili area. He had flirted with at least 800 women. How could such a man be in such a position?

Fortunately, our emperor was merciful and eliminated the power of "Little Knife Liu". Little Knife Liu was an old man from the Jingshifang. He followed Emperor Wuding on his southern hunting expedition and had no place to display his skills.

He was skilled in the technique, and with just one cut, Mr. Dongfang became Eunuch Dongfang.

Another question arose: Dongfang Zhu's family wasn't the only Linqing merchant family that sent servants to help defend the city. Many of the eighty-one families that were massacred also contributed money and manpower, yet they were all ultimately executed by the emperor. This suggests the so-called "going out to fight, losing all the servants, and being promoted to Supervisor" was just a lie. Well-informed sources quickly revealed the real reason for Dongfang Gonggong's promotion:

There is a rumor - this was spread by Li Guijie, the Eastern Zhu's good friend - that the official had a half-sister since childhood.

This girl was smart and studious since childhood. Due to her poor family, she was abducted and sold to Huaiyang as a maid. When she was young, she fell into Zhangtai (a brothel) and changed her name to Chen Yuanyuan. In the turbulent times, she traveled between Jiangsu and Zhejiang and Jinling. Later, she was captured by the traitor Wu Sangui (she is still innocent to this day). Emperor Wuding fell in love with Chen Yuanyuan at first sight and recently appointed her as a noble concubine, who is now Concubine Chen.

It is said that Concubine Chen and Empress Zhang who died in the capital looked exactly the same...

As the saying goes, when one person succeeds, his family members will also prosper. Dongfang Zhu was lucky enough to survive because his sister was favored by the emperor. Through forced (control) and castration (mistaken) he became one of the most prominent figures in Linqing. This also laid the groundwork for him to become the powerful Nine Thousand Years Old (Dongfang Bubai) later on.

If Mr. Dongfang could predict the future, he would be very pleased.

Why was Dongfang Zhu castrated?
Is Chen Yuanyuan really his sister?
How did Emperor Wuding suddenly visit Concubine Chen (five thousand words omitted here)?

What unknown secrets are you sure to uncover?
For the detailed details of the whole story, please listen to the next episode.

Notes:

1. Xian Gao, a merchant from the State of Zheng during the Spring and Autumn Period, frequently traveled between various states to conduct business. He saved Zheng during a time of national crisis. "When Qin attacked Zheng, Xian Gao encountered them at Hua. He rewarded the Qin army with twelve oxen, falsely claiming that Zheng was aware of the attack and promptly notifying Zheng. Qin then dared not attack." — Huangfu Mi, "Biographies of Eminent Scholars"

(End of this chapter)