Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 420 The Struggle of the Rich Family

Scholar, another scholar!
There are not many other things in the south of the Yangtze River. There are many creatures like scholars, and they are extremely domineering, and they are extremely difficult to mess with.

They were so difficult to deal with that the threats between the rich peasants in the country became "hire a talented person to beat you", to the extent that.

Moreover, they have penetrated into every corner of economic life. There are scholars who help in litigation, tax evasion by scholars, and even passing a banknote.

According to the banknote customs system of the Ming Dynasty, the Grand Canal would not only receive three to five million taels of silver each year.

It is impossible for every ship to go all the way to Beijing without paying a couple of silver. There are 200 grain ships traveling to and from the canal every year. It is impossible for civilian ships to be less than official ships. I can't take two.

Smart shipowners have various ways to evade taxes. There are three rules on the canal. The first is that officials do not accept fees. People who are qualified to be officials and can be called masters are not accepted, but scholars do not have this power, but scholars in the Ming Dynasty were too domineering, and they squeezed into this industry abruptly.

On the canal, some ship owners pretended to be official ships, and some made a pair of fake signs and erected them on the bow, with "Xiangfu" written on one side and "General Secretary's Hall" on the other side, pretending to be official ships; People sit on the boat as amulets, and when they pass through the money pass, if people ask for money, they let the amulets come forward to pay.

But the risk of pretending to be an official ship is too great. It is very safe to invite Jinshi or recruit people, but there are many merchant ships, and the number of Jinshi applicants is small. You must know that Jinshi is 100% able to be an official, at least a county magistrate, and rarely goes to merchant ships. Escorts make money, and the number of applicants is slightly larger, but it is not difficult to obtain an aide status, so it is rare for Jinshi to recruit escorts, and even if there is a asking price, it is not cheap.

So the ship owners began to entrust their business to scholars, and they were rewarded generously. In the Ming Dynasty fable "The Legend of Wen Madman", a scholar escorted two civilian ships at the same time, and took five taels of silver as a consultant fee.

A scholar can earn five taels of silver to pass the checkpoint. Let the ship owner pass the checkpoint first to avoid more taxes. There are so many checkpoints in one checkpoint. There are 33 checkpoints on the Grand Canal, and the tax evasion is hundreds of dollars. Calculated in two, until the final Grand Canal, experts of later generations will be able to support the golden trade channel of 30 railways, and only contribute a mere [-] taels of silver to the Ming court every year. What about travel expenses?

But this time the business of the scholars has expanded to fight against the warlord, to be precise, to fight against the warlord Yang Chao, but the warlord Yang Chao is too powerful, obviously one or two scholars can't fight against it, so the wealthy family invited a thousand scholars .

The Ming Dynasty had a total of more than 3 scholars on the list, and the Jiangnan region was indeed the top one. There were more than [-] scholars on the list. Excluding the old, those who couldn’t walk, the weak and sick, the wealthy family invited these [-] scholars, almost all the scholars in the south of the Yangtze River All are invited.

Of course, the wealthy families may not necessarily spend money to invite them, because each of them is a big family that produces talents. Except for the children of wealthy businessmen in a few cities, all the talents in the world are produced by the landlord class, so the biggest possibility is that Yang Chao’s Qingzhang land has been offended. Big family, so they sent their children to make trouble with Yang Chao, because these children have the reputation of scholars, and they are many and powerful, they believe that Yang Chao dare not kill all [-] scholars.

Yang Chao's [-] troops were at their doorstep, and they really didn't dare to fight these elite soldiers, but with [-] talented soldiers sent to Nanjing, they believed that Yang Chao would also have a big head.

Will Yang Chao have a headache? No, no, he is very welcome. Yang Chao, who is short of scholars in the army, is going crazy.

Huangfeng Mansion Qingzhang took away almost all the documents, recruited scholars among the refugees and trained them himself. Yang Chao’s literate soldiers plus officers and soldiers are still no more than 3000 people. The wealthy family sent Yang Chao [-] at once. How could he not welcome a famous scholar!

The trouble is that these scholars are so obedient that they have learned to protest peacefully. They just sit in front of the Confucian Temple, in front of the Taixue, and even at the entrances of various vegetable markets and water bridges. They are in any lively place, sitting on the ground and chanting The books of sages and sages, especially those pages that exaggerate the cruelty of Jie and Zhou.

Yang Chao couldn't find a chance when he wanted to do something. He wished he could teach them how to smash and rob.

Speaking of which, this was Yang Chao’s bad idea. Back then, he taught Erlishe how to help scholars. At that time, the scene of a group of scholars sitting at the entrance of Taixue, Confucius Temple and even Taimiao and reciting sage books was really impressive. Even the emperor was under pressure to punish the imperial relative Tian Wan.

But now it was Yang Chao's turn, but Yang Chao felt that they were not intense enough.

"We have to find a way to make these scholars make trouble!"

Yang Chao thought maliciously in his heart.

But this is easier said than done.

To solve the problem, we have to start with Huang Fengfu. Huang Fengfu was also from the Erli Society, and he was the think tank next to the Fourth Young Master. It was Yang Chao's idea to teach the Fourth Young Master through him to let the scholars recite the sage books silently.

This time organizing tens of thousands of scholars, these are not ordinary scholars, they are real scholars, the top students among scholars, I am afraid that they cannot be organized by the aristocratic family alone, without the organized group of young scholars like Erlishe, The local tyrants can't play well, so don't think that the organization behind the scenes must be the Erli Society.

This is a non-violent non-cooperation movement against Yang Chao's tyranny, which is run by Erlishe with money and people from the wealthy family.

And with the background of Huangfeng Mansion, it is almost impossible for the Erli Society not to find him, and they also hope to instigate Huangfeng Mansion's rebellion.

"Feng Mansion. We all know that you are an aide of Yang Thief, and you really have no choice. Now that the Holy Majesty is suffering in Fuzhou, Yang Thief is domineering in the south of the Yangtze River to search for the people's anointing. As the seeds of reading, we should be responsible in our hearts. You It's time to recognize right from wrong this morning, and cast aside the dark and turn to the bright!"

Mao Bijiang stepped forward and lobbied Huangfeng Mansion several times.

Huang Fengfu sighed: "I also know that Dudu Yang's actions are unpopular, but the governor has always acted arbitrarily, I really can't do it!"

The scholars have been meditating in Nanjing for three months, and it's almost the end of the year, but the old god Yang Chao is here, doing what he should do, clearing up the land, suppressing bandits and training soldiers, and seems to ignore the scholars at all.

The method used to put pressure on Emperor Chongzhen was completely useless on Yang Chao. Although the movement of scholars has been launched to the whole south of the Yangtze River, and Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang are all supporting them, it is useless to Yang Chao. .

Back then, out of the emperor's face, Chongzhen still cared about these scholars suing in front of Confucius and the ancestors of the Zhu family in the Taimiao, but this Yang Chao is not a shameless guy at all. in spite of.

Even if he scolded him, he never responded. I heard that he told his friends triumphantly, what kind of enlightened dictatorship is this, that is, "you say what you want, and I don't object, and I do mine, and you don't object."

He is simply a shameless scoundrel, the fourth son really has no choice, so he plans to instigate against Yang Chao's first staff member, their former think tank, Huangfeng Mansion.

To this day, the four masters don't think that Yang Chao is a resourceful person, and they attribute the miracles on Yang Chao's battlefield to the Huangfeng Mansion in their hearts. The flood of the Seventh Army, who knows how to fart night raids and secret warfare.

Is this all a strategy that literati like to play? How tall and how the generals play it, so everything is Huang Fengfu's idea, which can explain the past. Don't you see when Huang Fengfu was not by Yang Chao's side? Well, Yang Chao is a small general, and Huang Fengfu went to serve him as an aide. In just a few years, he has become the governor of Nanzhili with power all over the world.

If he can instigate Huang Feng's mansion against him, the fourth master thinks that Yang Chao is a fart, and he will have to be beaten back to his original form in the future.

But the most important thing right now is how to get them to move Yang Chao. They really want to knock Yang Chao down with their own hands. As for what will happen if Yang Chao loses Huangfeng Mansion in the future, they can't wait.

The fourth son has a reason to hate Yang Chao, if Yang Chao didn't let that stinky bastard Ge Nunniang tore their clothes, drove them to pick them up, and then chased them from the other side of the street to pour shit on their heads, Chasing them all the way to the other side of the street made them really stink to the extreme. Now the fourth young master should still be in the Qinhuai River, enjoying the reputation of a romantic talent, but now he is like a rat crossing the street, with nowhere to stay. They are really not interested in studying at home with peace of mind.

But they figured out a way. Hou Fangyu couldn't even persuade Zuo Liangyu to go to Qingjun's side. Zuo Liangyu's army of more than 20 men came aggressively, but in ten days they were eaten by Yang Chao without even the dregs left. People were made to do hard work by Yang Chao, and now they have no human form, and they wept when they saw the sad ones.

This time, if Yang Chao hadn't been too anxious to search for the people's fat and people's anointing, offending the entire gentry class in the south of the Yangtze River, the Fourth Young Master really couldn't find a chance to cause trouble for Yang Chao.

However, the vigorous non-violent non-cooperation movement has not had any effect after three months. On the contrary, the emperor of Fuzhou said that he sympathized with the scholars, but the emperor could not restrain Yang Chao, a big warlord.

"Fengfu, I don't ask other questions, you just say, where is the Achilles' heel of Bandit Yang?"

Mao Pijiang realized that he could not instigate Huangfeng Mansion against him, so he had to settle for the next best thing. If he could get Yang Chao's weakness from Huangfeng Mansion, that wouldn't be too bad.

Nanjing.

The situation in Jiangxi made the small imperial court in Fujian terrified. Jin Shenghuan and Wang Tizhong had hundreds of thousands of soldiers. At the beginning, their attack direction was mainly Zhejiang. Obviously, the rich Zhejiang was more attractive to them. But after the arrival of the Eight Banners soldiers, the attack direction was immediately adjusted. Now, the troops of Jin Shenghuan and Wang Tizhong were mobilizing on a large scale towards the border of Fujian.

So, no matter how much he hated Yang Chao, the Fujian court sent envoys to discuss with Yang Chao the plan of a joint attack on Jiangxi by Zhejiang, Fujian and Nanji.

Among the people who came were a servant from the Ministry of War in Fujian, Zheng Hongkui representing the Zheng family, and an eunuch representing the emperor. Zhejiang sent a military officer.

If it wasn't for these people coming, Yang Chao really didn't know how to deal with the scholar. When these people came, Yang Chao immediately had an idea.

However, their request must be met first, Yang Chao specially invited these people to the palace for discussion, the reason is that there is only a complete map of the Ming Dynasty in the Nanjing Palace.

(End of this chapter)