Chongzhen and I became partners

Chapter 140 Attacking Shanxi Merchants

In the early morning of the next day, just after dawn, Admiral Wang Chengen of the West Factory and Admiral Wang Dehua of the East Factory led a large number of men to dispatch suddenly.

The commanding department of the soldiers and horses of the five cities also received an order at the same time to block the gates of the city, allowing entry and not exiting.

Aiming at the houses, shops, warehouses, etc. of Shanxi merchants, groups of fanzi swarmed in like wolves.

On the street, officials who got up early and some businessmen suddenly saw this posture and were frightened.

In the past, Emperor Chongzhen ransacked his home on a large scale once, which frightened the officials of various yamen to go on strike.

How long has it been since the emperor came again?

Even during this period of time, those officials who were really well-behaved were frightened, fearing that the emperor would not keep his promise and start to liquidate because of the previous things.Not to mention those who still take advantage of the power in their hands to make illegal income after returning to work, they are even more frightened.

All of a sudden, everyone in the capital was full of rumors and panic, and they were afraid that Fanzi would rush to his home in the next moment!
Fortunately, at noon, a large number of people were arrested and sent to the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice instead of Jinyiwei Prison, which was different from before.

After a little inquiring, the truth came out.

This time, none of the officials were arrested, but businessmen, and Shanxi businessmen at that.

The crime is very simple, just two words: Tonglu!

For the people in the capital, Jianlu is definitely the sworn enemy!

In the past, Jianlu invaded Gyeonggi several times, and the people in the city were fine, but basically no one outside the city was spared.

Anyone who doesn't have seven aunts and eight big wives has more or less relatives and friends who have been brutally abused by the prisoner.Even those powerful and powerful, who had fields and manors outside the city, were plundered by Jianlu.

Therefore, there is no one in the capital who does not hate Jianlu.

Hearing that the Shanxi merchants arrested by the imperial court this time were accused of collaborating with captives, the fear of ransacking their homes in the capital immediately decreased a lot.

Some people, who don't think too much, directly scold these Tonglu Shanxi merchants for a terrible death!

Some people thought too much, so they inquired about the specific situation, wondering if it was the property of the merchants who were jealous of the imperial court, and made up a crime to charge these merchants.

Fortunately, these businessmen are all locked in the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice, which is much easier to inquire about than in Jinyiwei Prison.

"What, those Shanxi merchants sold military supplies to Jianlu through Zhangjiakou? Damn it!"

"Give Jianlu a tip-off, revealing the truth in the pass? Is this news accurate?"

"I heard that he bought the book boy of Chen Xinjia, the former Minister of the Ministry of War, so he can know the important affairs of the military!"

"You don't need to think about this kind of thing, it will definitely happen. Look, Jianlu looted so much gold, silver and jewelry from the pass. Can they eat it? It must be turned into food and grass supplies? Who will buy it from?"

"Besides, the money that Jianlu robbed is the same as what was picked up on the ground. It must be very generous, so these Shanxi merchants most hope that those Jianlu can enter the customs and grab more gold, silver and jewelry!"

"That's right, if no one tipped off the news, how could Jianlu have traveled such a long way to attack the pass!"

"Damn Shanxi merchants, where's the conscience, has the conscience been eaten by dogs?"

"..."

As the news spread, the capital's anger towards Jianlu was all concentrated on these Shanxi merchants.

Although there is no public interrogation by the Ministry of Criminal Justice, everyone already feels that this must be the case.

In this way, those Shanxi merchants and their families will be out of luck.

It is naturally impossible for the prisoners in the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice to give them good fruits to eat.

There are even people from outside who pay money to people in the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice so that they can go in and beat Shanxi merchants to vent their anger.

For a while, Shanxi merchants were shouted and beaten by everyone.

Those Shanxi merchants who were so frightened that they were not arrested, some quickly closed their doors to avoid the limelight, and some put up signs, yelled slogans, knocked down Jianlu, and expressed their positions with Jianlu.There are even some clever ones who want to donate money to the court to fight Jianlu.

This is the case on the capital's side, but on the Jin side, it was Wang Dehua who led the fans to arrest people in the end.

In addition to his status as the admiral of the East Factory, he also has the status of the eunuch in charge of the ceremony, which is equivalent to the chief assistant of the outer court. Unless there is a rebellion in the local area, he will never dare to go against his will.

The Shanxi merchants who communicate with the captives are mainly concentrated in Zhangjiakou, and of course there must still be people in their hometown.

The will of Emperor Chongzhen is the will of the nine clans for the eight major Jin merchants.

Therefore, after Wang Dehua arrived at Xuanfu, he mobilized Xuanda's troops to search and arrest the eight major Shanxi merchants.

No one in the local area dared to rebel, but tipping off the news was inevitable.

In addition to the eight major Shanxi merchants, other smaller smuggling merchants, mainly concentrated in Zhangjiakou, fled to the outside of the customs.Running along with them was Zhangjiakou's garrison.

It's easy for others to say, but Zhangjiakou's defense can't escape the responsibility no matter what.If you don't run, you have to wait to die!
In the end, in this arrest, four of the eight Shanxi merchants escaped, namely Fan Yongdou, Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, and Liang Jiabin, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, and Huang Yunfa. The child was intercepted.

The news was quickly sent back to the capital on a fast horse. For this, Emperor Chongzhen ordered Wang Dehua to be severely reprimanded.

On the surface, it seems that Emperor Chongzhen had an old love for Wang Dehua, escaped the four imperial convicts, and finally retained Wang Dehua's post as admiral of the East Factory, but in fact, it was Emperor Chongzhen who took the opportunity to attack.

He knew Wang Dehua's history, and he always held a grudge in his heart.I hate him so much for trusting Wang Dehua, but he doesn't want to be loyal to the king and serve the country. Instead, he colludes with corrupt officials, making Dongchang a decoration. I hate Wang Dehua as a domestic slave. foot.

This time, Emperor Chongzhen knew that some Shanxi merchants would definitely run away, so he sent Wang Dehua instead of others, and then took the opportunity to dismiss his ceremonial supervisor from the position of eunuch.

As for retaining Wang Dehua's position as the admiral of the East Factory, he just wanted to use him to bite someone, otherwise this time, he would be killed in one fell swoop!In addition, Wang Dehua was also warned to work hard, otherwise even the admiral of Dongchang would lose his job!
Others don't know about his thoughts, but Wang Dehua himself knows it well!
Emperor Chongzhen punished him, but he was relieved, thinking that a shoe had already landed, and he probably knew it in his heart.

For this reason, he did not dare to be sloppy in other matters.

On the confiscation list reported to Emperor Chongzhen, he basically counted and detained them himself.The number of them was so large that Emperor Chongzhen was a little bit happy from ear to ear!

Among the materials confiscated by the eight major Shanxi merchants, the cash alone amounted to 500 million taels, which was more than the many officials he had confiscated before!
To be honest, just seeing the money, Emperor Chongzhen suddenly felt that the power of this house raid was better than science.

No matter how powerful the science is, can it bring so much money at once?
It's just a pity that there are still too few such rich businessmen!
Thinking of this, he asked Wang Cheng'en, the eunuch who believed in the supervisor of ceremonies, "Are there any rich merchants like Shanxi merchants?"

As soon as he heard his words, Wang Chengen knew what he was planning.

So, he quickly replied to Emperor Chongzhen: "Long Live Lord, the salt merchants in Yangzhou are also very famous. It is said that they have more wealth than Shanxi merchants!"

"Oh?" Emperor Chongzhen immediately showed great interest when he heard it, and ordered Wang Cheng'en, "Tell me, how do they get rich?"

As soon as Wang Chengen heard it, he told Emperor Chongzhen a few things he had heard.

"The tumblers made in Suzhou are very exquisite and valuable. A Yangzhou salt merchant spent 3000 taels of silver to buy all the tumblers in the Suzhou market, and then poured them into the river for fun, which once caused the river to be blocked."

Just for a fun, spent 3000 taels of silver?Emperor Chongzhen frowned when he heard this, very unhappy.But I still don't agree in my heart, how rich is this?
"There is also a salt merchant who invented the way of eating Youcai, that is, every time you eat, you have to prepare dozens or hundreds of dishes. If you are not satisfied with the dishes served, you will immediately remove them and replace them with new ones. The total number of dishes remains the same. !"

Hearing this introduction, Emperor Chongzhen was obviously angry. The level of such extravagance far surpassed him as an emperor, which is really unreasonable!

"There is also a salt merchant who is said to want to spend a lot of money, so he sent someone to buy gold leaf with ten thousand taels of silver, then went up to a tall building, threw the gold leaf in the wind, and laughed when he saw the people downstairs robbing the gold leaf ..."

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen was extremely angry and shouted sharply: "Enough!"

Wang Chengen knew that his anger was not directed at him, so he immediately shut up!
"It's really unreasonable, it's unreasonable!" Emperor Chongzhen said angrily, and Long Yan was really furious.

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he should be the richest man in the world, but he was so poor that he secretly asked the queen to sew and mend his underwear before wearing it.

He has already reached this level, but the result is not as good as those damn salt merchants, it really irritated him!
After being furious for a while, Emperor Chongzhen then looked at Wang Chengen, stared at him and asked, "How rich are those salt merchants?"

"Back to Long Live!" Wang Chengen replied cautiously, "According to rumors, there is a ranking of salt merchants in Yangzhou, and those on the list are all worth more than tens of millions. Those who are only worth a few million are not on the list at all!"

Emperor Chongzhen was dumbfounded when he heard that, according to what he said, he wouldn't even be on the list!
When he came back to his senses, he couldn't help being curious, and immediately asked, "Why are these salt merchants so rich? Could it be that they are so rich just by selling salt?"

Logically speaking, salt and iron are monopolized by the imperial court, and the imperial court has collected taxes on the salt sold by those salt merchants. Since those salt merchants have so much money, the imperial court should also have a lot of taxes!
However, the fact is that the silver income of the salt department today is just over 100 million taels a year, about a quarter of which is used for local defense and is directly given to the military towns, and the rest is turned over to the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Such a comparison, the gap is really big!

(End of this chapter)