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“The survivors of Mu State, we sincerely ask our superior country to uphold justice!”

This sentence does not need to be translated. Ba Dengding said it in Chinese, but he just said this sentence, or he was waiting for others to answer, or he just said something to see if it had any effect, and did not say anything more.

Hu Guang didn't know where Mubang was. From the literal meaning, it seemed that the vassal country wanted to ask for help. With such a meaningless sentence, he couldn't worry about his own affairs, so he ignored it and switched to work in Dongchang. team and asked Cao Huachun about the situation in Suzhou.

"Your Majesty, the Ma family is very powerful in Suzhou. The former Dongchang servant accidentally exposed his traces and was killed by him. His body has been found. The Yongchang bank branch of the Shanxi merchants has its branches, as well as the prefect and county magistrate of Suzhou. The slave girl found out that the Ma and Fan families cooperated with each other in the bank account and the salt industry. The slave girl led troops from Yingtian Mansion, and all the relevant people have been captured. For now, they have obtained as much as 11 million taels of silver, and the remaining fields, etc. Assets are still being counted..."

The big salt merchant is also a big fat sheep! After reading Cao Huachun's report, Hu Guang couldn't help but sigh. If before, Shanxi merchants were confiscated and then salt merchants were confiscated, they would really have made a fortune!

However, this is all I can think about. If the emperor confiscates anyone's house, the world will be in chaos, or if the world is not in chaos, the emperor has changed!

Shanxi merchants could be inspected before because Shanxi merchants caused too much public outrage. If the Shanxi merchants were inspected before the Jianlu invaded the capital, things might not go so smoothly. Many people from all walks of life would come out to oppose in different ways!

Even if the Shanxi merchants harmed the interests of so many people, they still involved the civil servants, military officers, and royal family members of the capital, so the inspections could only be done in moderation. Min Hongxue's analysis is the best evidence.

Those big salt merchants are different from Shanxi merchants and Tonglu. They may have shady methods in doing business, but they are far from the obvious harm caused by Tonglu. It can even be said that the methods of the big salt merchants are basically Not only salt merchants, but also businessmen from all walks of life use it. If salt dealers were raided on a large scale for this purpose, the backlash from all walks of life would be many times greater than what Min Hongxue analyzed before!

As for the Ma family in Suzhou, they still took advantage of the collusion with Shanxi merchants and the illegal things Ma Fugui revealed in the group. Hu Guang believes that many people are watching Suzhou. If there is a tendency to expand, even if Cao Huachun, the admiral of the East Factory, is here in person, he may not be able to control it.

Hu Guang was thinking about it when he suddenly heard that Yang He, the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi Province, had arrived urgently.

The situation in Shaanxi is one of the things he is most concerned about. For this reason, he had previously decreed that memorials at the level of governor of Shaanxi and above should be sent directly to the emperor.

Upon hearing this, Hu Guang quickly asked someone to present the memorial and read it.

Yang He mainly talked about five things. First, it is speculated from the current situation that the severe drought in northern Shaanxi will most likely extend to the whole of Shaanxi, and the disaster situation is not optimistic.

Second, with the spread of the drought in Shaanxi, there have been many large-scale civil uprisings with great momentum. For example, King Jiayin of Fugu captured Fugu County, etc. These civil uprisings that were originally going to be put down were because the elite border troops were transferred to King Qin. , leading to a resurgence.

Third, Yang He made it clear that these civil uprisings were out of necessity, and most of the people were victims of the disaster. None of them survived, and they had no choice but to follow the thieves.

Fourth, Yang He advocated appeasement as the main priority, and implored the court to allocate money and food to appease him, so as to show the goodness of God and the emperor's generosity and benevolence.

Fifth, the governor of Yansui died of illness, and Yang He recommended Hong Chengchou to take up the post. He highly praised Hong Chengchou in his words and gave examples of how, although Hong Chengchou was a civil servant, he could lead more than 300 troops to repel the invading bandits, etc. .

After Hu Guang read it, he frowned, thought for a while, and immediately convened the ministers in the Wenhua Hall to discuss the matter.

He first showed Yang He's memorial to his cabinet ministers and six ministers, and then asked: "What do you think?"

"I think Governor Yang's words are reasonable. Most of the thieves are victims of the disaster, so we should appease them!" Sun Yuanhua, the left minister of the Ministry of Rites and temporarily the minister, was the first to bow and say.

The reason why he was so active was because he was grateful to the emperor. After all, he was recommended by his teacher Xu Guangqi, and after an interview with the emperor, he was promoted without merit.

Others listened and agreed, even Bi Ziyan, the Minister of the Ministry of Finance, who was holding the money bag.

There is nothing that can be done about this. Just like generals must have military merit, civil servants must have reputation. Only in this way can we stand in the officialdom without falling. If the words of the emperor can be spread, it will only cost a little words, but it will gain the gratitude of the people of Qin. It is such a good thing, why not do it!

Seeing that all the ministers had the same attitude, Hu Guang couldn't help but wonder. Didn't later generations explain that one of the ministers wrote a poem to condemn the people for not staying at home and starving to death, but for coming out to cause trouble for the court?

Thinking about it more carefully, I guess it was a rumor, or one of the allusions to later generations of Manchu Qing and Heiming. If not, which minister would be so stupid!

This thought flashed across his mind. Hu Guang also agreed with the views of these ministers. In addition, he had inspected Shanxi merchants and felt confident, so he asked again: "What is the best way to appease them?"

At this specific level, the ministers below were silent at first, and then expressed different opinions.

Some people say that money and food will be allocated directly and censors will be sent there to allow the victims to collect money and food and return to their places of origin.

Some people immediately objected to this idea, saying that it was too unrealistic to transport the food there, and it could not be consumed on the road.

…

Hu Guang frowned as he listened. This matter is really difficult to handle!

The food will definitely not be transported, but if money is given out, even if it can be easily transported by converting it into banknotes, prices will definitely skyrocket after the victims receive the money. We have already been hit by a disaster and materials are in short supply. If we have more money, we will have money but no food. What’s the use?

He was troubled here, and far to the east on Pi Island, a large group of Ming army generals were also troubled, noisy and even very disharmonious.

When Yuan Chonghuan, the former governor of Jiliao, was good at killing Mao Wenlong, he divided the 28,000 Dongjiang soldiers into four associations. Wenlong's son Mao Chengzuo was in charge of the first association, and Xu Fuzhi was in charge of the third association. Liu Xingzuo was in charge of the guerrillas, and Chen Jisheng, the deputy general, was in charge. Two associations remain. Later, Liu Xingzuo went to Guanning, and his association was led by his younger brother Liu Xingzhi, the capital official.

Yuan Chong's original purpose of doing this was to keep them in check and balanced, so that no one could dominate, so that he could take control or other purposes.

As a result, the four generals in Dongjiang Town refused to obey anyone. They argued and fought with each other when things happened. They rushed to do the good things and no one wanted to do the difficult things. The scattered Dongjiang Town was actually in ruins.

The monthly ticket actually doubled, and I owe another update. I already owe two updates. Let’s see if I can pay off one update tonight.