The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 373: Zhejiang Party's vicious schemes
The craftsmen actually dared to gather and cause trouble outside the government office!

This is extremely abnormal.

Because the status of craftsmen was very low, they were not even qualified to live in the same room with scholars with official titles.

This time they actually dared to cause trouble in front of the official who was a Jinshi!
To be honest, this is really unbelievable.

However, there were still many bizarre and strange things happening in the Ming Dynasty.

Some people will do anything for profit.

It is not surprising that the Zhejiang Party would do something bizarre in order to regain the benefits of overseas trade.

The key now is to find out why the craftsmen dared to gather outside the government office and cause trouble.

This is not far from rebellion.

If we don't figure it out clearly, it's possible that craftsmen will kill officials and rebel!
Wanli doesn't have much time to deal with this matter at the moment.

He also has to quickly prepare a new issue of the Japanese tabloid.

Li Yuansheng's good relationship with Tokugawa Ieyasu is the key to his destruction of Japan. He also has to take advantage of the opportunity of Li Yuansheng's delivery to Edo to completely help him sever his relationship with the Japanese tabloids, so that Tokugawa Ieyasu will not have any suspicion of Li Yuansheng.

As for the incident of the craftsmen gathering to cause trouble, he could only ask Luo Sigong to order the secret guards in the Suzhou area to secretly investigate the cause first.

At 9:00 p.m. that morning, Li Tingji and others finally finished the article for the new issue of the Japanese tabloid.

He hurried to the side hall of the Hall of Mental Cultivation and picked up a few articles to read carefully.

The content of this issue of the Japanese tabloid is actually very simple. It introduces the war situation in the vassal state of Korea and continues to flatter Toyotomi Hideyoshi, making everyone in Japan believe that Toyotomi Hideyoshi is really incompetent and cannot even deal with the remnants and rebel forces of the vassal state of Korea.

In fact, the tabloid's lethality is not that great. If it were not for the purpose of clearing Li Yuansheng of any connection, they would not have gone to so much trouble to publish such an issue.

However, this tabloid did have some effect, at least it made Toyotomi Hideyoshi even more unable to afford his defeat.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi must have known very well that if he lost this battle, most of the Japanese daimyos would turn to Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Who would want to follow this incompetent man who can't defeat the remnants of the vassal state of Korea or the rebel army?

Li Tingji and his colleagues' articles are really well written, and anyone who reads them will be furious.

Wanli took a closer look and then said decisively, "Let's leave it at that for this episode. Hurry up and translate it, and get it typeset and printed. Yuansheng is almost done with the show."

He was just arranging to print a Japanese tabloid when Li Xuancheng suddenly poked his head in the door and said, "Your Majesty, Luo Sigong requests an audience."

Have the reasons for the disturbance caused by the craftsmen been found out so quickly?
This matter is actually very important. If the craftsmen in the southeast rebel, it will be a disaster.

This time, the Zhejiang Party seemed to want to incite the craftsmen in the southeast to rebel.

Wanli quickly raised his hand and said loudly: "Announce."

Soon, Luo Sigong walked in quickly.

After the emperor and his ministers exchanged greetings, he explained in detail: "Your Majesty, the cause of the unrest among the southeastern craftsmen has been investigated.

It is true that they had not received their wages for more than a year, and they had long been unable to bear it. Just then, someone told them that they could borrow money and grain from some local tyrants and gentry, so they went to borrow.

Everything was fine at the beginning, and the local tyrants and gentry did not urge them to pay back the money and grain. But last month, the local tyrants and gentry suddenly started to urge them to pay back the money, and they did so very urgently.

Those local tyrants and gentry all said that if the money was not repaid, they would have to sell their houses and even their wives and daughters to pay off the debt!
They were forced into a corner and had no choice but to ask the workshop owners for money every day. The workshop owners told them that most of the money had been taken away by wealthy maritime merchants and government officials.

This wealthy maritime merchant family is notorious in the southeast for its ruthlessness. They even dare to kill officials of the imperial court. The craftsmen dare not go to them, so they can only go to the officials in the government to ask for compensation."

The Zhejiang Party is so poisonous!
These evil schemes keep coming one after another!

In fact, he should have thought of it long ago. Those local tyrants and even officials often use such despicable means to annex land.

That is, they designed to cheat farmers out of all their money and grain, and then pretended to lend them money and grain to make ends meet. In the end, the farmers could not pay back the money and grain, so they had no choice but to mortgage their land to them to repay their debts.

There are many cases of such despicable means of annexing farmland. Local tyrants, gentry, and even officials and noble families all find ways to cheat farmers. When the farmers' livelihoods are in trouble, they annex the farmers' land by lending money at high interest rates.

He was still a little careless and did not consider the livelihood of the craftsmen.

The profits from overseas trade are so huge, and with so much goods shipped every year, there must be many craftsmen who make a living from this.

Originally, those craftsmen should have lived a pretty good life.

After all, the huge profits from overseas trade simply come from selling huge quantities of goods overseas to make money, and craftsmen are the ones who produce the goods. It is impossible for the Zhejiang Party to be so stingy that the craftsmen lose their motivation to work, or even quit their jobs and go to other places to work and make money.

In order to gain benefits from overseas trade, the Zhejiang Party still had to motivate the craftsmen.
If these guys could just squeeze a little bit of the profits from overseas trade through their fingers, those craftsmen would probably be able to live a good life.

Otherwise, those artisans would have already fled to Nanjing or even the capital to work. Now, because the Zhejiang Party lost the benefits of overseas trade, the artisans' good life has become unbearable. Who can bear it?
He was indeed negligent and did not consider the lives of the craftsmen.

Fortunately, raw silk is still being purchased and Jiangnan Weaving is still producing silk, so the profit has not been reduced.

Otherwise, the farmers who grow mulberry trees and raise silkworms and the silk weavers there will join in the trouble.

The Zhejiang Party must have planned this in advance, otherwise there wouldn't have been sudden local tyrants willing to lend money and grain to the craftsmen, and those local tyrants wouldn't have suddenly forced the craftsmen to sell their houses and wives and daughters to pay off their debts.

These guys are very familiar with this kind of tricks.

Originally, these guys had to find ways to make people's livelihoods in jeopardy before they could resort to usury. Now, he has helped the craftsmen in the southeast to make their livelihoods in jeopardy. For them, this is as easy as eating porridge.

How to break this series of vicious plots?

Did he pay back the money and grain to the craftsmen and then pay them wages to do the work?

It shouldn't be a problem to pay the craftsmen to do the work. After all, the goods made by the craftsmen are originally for overseas trade, and they need to increase the production of these goods.

The key is the money and grain owed by the craftsmen.

He had a pretty good idea of ​​how much goods were needed for overseas trade each year. Without the assistance of water wheels, it would take at least 100,000 craftsmen to produce so much goods.

And the more than 100,000 craftsmen and their families mean at least 400,000 to 500,000 people. Even if these 400,000 to 500,000 people only need food for a month, they would need 400,000 to 500,000 dan of grain. What's more, it is impossible for them to just eat dry rice.

And, more importantly, since the Zhejiang Party had planned this a long time ago, the interest on the money and grain borrowed by the craftsmen must have been very high.

The interest on the money and grain borrowed by so many people is estimated to be over 10 million taels. Can he be the one to be sucked in and pay back the usurious loans to those craftsmen?
That’s definitely not possible. It’s been more than a year, and the principal and interest are estimated to be more than 20 million taels.

If he took out more than 20 million taels at once, then the war with Japan would be impossible to fight.

The Zhejiang Party is really poisonous.

If he doesn't spend money to solve the problems of those craftsmen, those craftsmen may really be forced to rebel. Then there will be chaos in the southeast, and he will have to send troops to quell it.

If he spent money to solve the problems of those craftsmen, he would have no money to fight against Japan, and this great opportunity to destroy Japan would be missed in vain.

How to break this series of vicious schemes?

I can't be a sucker and pay high-interest loans to the craftsmen. What should I do?

A man of small mind is not a king, and a man without viciousness is not a man!
I killed all those local tyrants and gentry who lent money at high interest rates and confiscated their homes!
This way I can make a lot of money!

Suddenly, a strong murderous intent burst out from Wanli's eyes, which scared Li Tingji and others beside him.

He's going to kill someone!

This time he wanted to kill quite a few people, including the local tyrants and gentry who lent money and grain to the craftsmen, numbering probably in the tens of thousands.

The problem is, he can't just kill them all for no reason.

If he really did that, there would probably be chaos in the southeast.

The local tyrants and gentry are all local tyrants. Killing a few of them for no reason is not a big deal, but if thousands of them are killed, can the relatives and friends of those local tyrants and gentry just watch it happen? Can other local tyrants and gentry just watch it happen?

If he caught those local tyrants and killed them all without any reason, it would definitely provoke the local forces in the southeast to fight back desperately.

So, what's a good reason?
Are you saying they are loan sharks?

There is no such crime these days. Borrowing money is like Zhou Yu fighting Huang Gai, one is willing to fight and the other is willing to be beaten. There is no such thing as capital punishment for lending money at high interest rates, and there is no such thing as property confiscation.

So, what crime could lead to confiscation of property and execution?

Are they accusing them of rebellion?

This is a bit difficult because there are too many people, and they are not from just one province. It is almost impossible to implicate all of them.

By the way, they were falsely accused of colluding with the Japanese pirates!

This is actually not pure slander, because the Zhejiang Party did collude with the Japanese pirates. They listened to the Zhejiang Party, which meant they were at least indirectly colluding with the Japanese pirates. Some of these local tyrants and gentry even had direct collusion with the Japanese pirates.

It is not unfair to say that they were secretly colluding with the Japanese pirates.

However, if they want to prove this crime, they will have to use some tricks.

Wanli thought about it carefully, looked at the honest appearance of Li Tingji and others, and then waved his hand and said, "Sigong, let's go and look at the map first."

It would be better not to let Li Tingji and others learn these dirty tricks in secret.

(End of this chapter)