Dominate the Country

However, can Chen Cong's "hope" really come true? Can the families of the nobles and important officials really be "safe and sound"? The private force in the hands of each family is not half exciting.

Shortly afterwards, the influence of an unexpected event swept across China like a hurricane...

Ningbo City was quiet. With the collapse of the Ye family, Ningbo, which was already in April, seemed to be swept by a winter cold wave, and the whole city was silent. The prosperity of the past seemed to be yesterday's yellow flowers. The whole city was almost trapped in a kind of autumn and winter bleakness.

The Ye family, who had been in charge of the Ningbo Merchants Group for more than ten years, has collapsed.

Ye Xinzhi, the old man of the Ye family, was the first Ningbo tycoon to pledge his loyalty to the Fu Han Army. In the past few years, the Ye family has often purchased national bonds and various land bonds with large sums of money, actively supported a series of policies in Nanjing, and the money thrown into the water was not two million taels of silver, but more than one and a half million taels.

When the emperor traveled south, he and his party passed through Ningbo and stayed in the Ye family's villa twice. When Ye Xinzhi passed away in the summer of the fourth year of Chengtian, the Ye family was given a benevolent archway by the emperor to commend the Ye family for their enthusiasm for public welfare and charity and their close support for a series of policies of the court in the past years.

At that time, the Ye family was extremely glorious.

Although Mr. Ye passed away, the Ye family is still one of the most wealthy merchants in Ningbo and still has a lot of say in the Ningbo business circle.

Who would have thought that such a wealthy family would be cut off from its roots overnight?

A batch of engineer shovels produced by the ironware factory under the Ye family broke out the bad news - some products had serious quality problems, and someone accused the Ye family of tax evasion and tax evasion, and used inferior products in the delivery of many military products in the past, such as compressed dry food, canned seafood, military shoes, and military uniforms, and the latter could not be verified because these were fast-consuming products and had been used long ago.

However, these things seem very reliable and convincing because of the actual existence of the military shovel incident.

Of course, these can only hit the Ye family hard. The court cannot wield the butcher knife against the Ye family because of some things without evidence. But these charges have hit the Ye family hard and ruined the reputation of the Ye family, especially the reputation of the Ye family ironware shop, which has been a high-quality brand for decades.

In addition to the above charges, the crime that put the head of the Ye family in prison is still to come.

Just when everyone thought that the Ye family’s affairs had come to an end, something fishy suddenly happened inside the Ye family. Someone sued the Ye family for concealing slaves and enslaving the Han people.

This charge is not a trivial matter.

Although this phenomenon is common all over the country, many slaves who have become free people in name are still busy in and out of the master’s house in the form of "employment". Their actual living environment has not changed much.

In every family, there are servants who hold the secrets and secrets of the master's family. In the past, these people were hereditary servants. Not only themselves, but also their descendants were tightly controlled by the master's family, so the master could tell them some secrets without hesitation, and even let them be responsible for handling some dirty activities. However, the world has changed, and the old rules have changed greatly. Han people are no longer allowed to be slaves. How should the master deal with these people?

There are two modes of handling.

The first is to publicly abolish the indenture, but to sign a harsh contract that restricts life, and one sign is for the whole family, which is the so-called slave contract. The court is now preparing new laws to crack down on this;

The second is to directly hide these people. When these people do not exist, that is, they have not entered the Chen Han nationality, they may even "transform" into foreigners, and their entire lives are controlled by the master.

These two modes can be said to be effective, but they are all illegal and will be severely punished by the Chen Han law. The person in charge must go to jail, and it is not something that can be fooled by paying a fine.

Many families have these things, and it is an open secret among the old wealthy families in China.

As long as the master can control the servants and prevent them from talking nonsense, it will be fine.

But what about the Ye family? The person who sued the Ye family was one of their hidden servants, so the patriarch of the Ye family, Ye Xinzhi's eldest son Ye Dezhong, must be imprisoned for reform, and at least three years.

There is also a high fine, but this "high fine" is really too small compared to the impact caused by the disclosure of many internal and external secrets of the Ye family. The latter has an all-round impact on everyone in the Ye family.

Ye Dezhong was also arrested and is expected to be sentenced next month at most.

The entire Ye family is completely collapsed - the brand is collapsed.

Although the remaining assets of the Ye family are still in operation, and although the members of the Ye family have no worries about food and drink, compared with the previous momentum of the Ye family, the Ye family is really finished.

The collapse of the Ye family made all the businessmen in Ningbo aware of the omen of the coming winter.

The Ye family has been operating in Ningbo for nearly fifty years.

Their relatives and friends are spread across all walks of life.

In fact, almost all the well-known merchants in Ningbo's business circle have a deep or shallow relationship with the Ye family.

The Ye family was a wealthy family in Ningbo a hundred years ago, but they really made their fortune after Mr. Ye Xinzhi came to power. The Ye family's secret to prosperity has two main points. The first is to be honest and trustworthy, and to be generous to others. Ye Xinzhi is known as the "best person" in Ningbo. In the course of Ye Xinzhi's prosperity, his honest and generous character helped him get rare opportunities at critical moments and to keep his head held high in the depression. In the Ningbo business community, the saying "Be like Ye Xinzhi" has been circulating.

Merchants in this era must be honest, which is the signboard of the family. The invisible value will be very high, and Ye Xinzhi is not a stupid person. He is honest, but he is also good at seeing the market trend and taking it accordingly. This allowed him to ascend the throne of "Zhejiang Iron King" at the age of 40, and the Ye family's business is getting bigger and bigger.

The second secret of the Ye family's prosperity is to be kind to others, help the younger generation, and support peers.

As long as conditions permit, then reach out and pull.

For example, the shopkeeper of the Ye family, who has worked for a few years and saved a little capital, wants to do some business on his own. The Ye family will never stop him, and will even encourage, subsidize and support him. Of course, the other party's return is gratitude and membership.

In this process, some people fail, and some succeed.

The losers often return to the Ye family and continue to work hard, that's for sure. The Ye family may lose a little money, but it will definitely gain a large number of people's hearts and loyalty;

And the successful ones, the Ye family also does not lose money.

The more you earn, the greater the benefits of the Ye family.

The Ye family has close ties with many merchants who have started in Ningbo in the past thirty or twenty years. The latter can even be regarded as the wings of the Ye family. It is also because of these people that the Ye family has never lost its voice in the Ningbo business community, even though Mr. Ye Xinzhi passed away.

And now the Ye family has been taken over by someone. The latter has always been doing business honestly. The means behind the scenes to destroy the Ye family can be used on a large number of merchants, and the same effect can be achieved.

As long as a few people are bribed, a batch of qualified products are replaced with inferior products before delivery, and the brand will be ruined. Then people will come out to bite randomly, involving the attention and energy of the whole family, and communicate with those who have "disappeared" in private. If they come forward to complain, it will be a sure thing.

This huge business group collapsed immediately.

Such a trick would make anyone wither, and the mastermind behind the scenes is too cruel.

The whole Ningbo and even Zhejiang, as well as many merchants in Jiangnan, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, felt a chill after hearing the news.

They are still scared, and they feel sad for the death of the rabbit.

Even a family like the Ye family can't escape the destruction of the villain, what should they do? Do they really have to do business and make money according to the policies of the court? That's nonsense.

Under panic, Ningbo merchants, in order to protect themselves, have started a self-examination.

So, the whole city of Ningbo became depressed on the day when foreign trade opened in the new year.

Even the entire Chinese business activities shrank very sharply.

This is because the Ye family's problems are very popular among the entire Chinese merchant groups.

This matter was published in newspapers all over the country. The more people knew about it, the greater the influence. Even many foreigners in the ports talked about it, especially the British merchants who had already docked at Ningbo Port.

Ningbo Port is a very important port, backed by the wealthy Zhejiang, and with Jiangxi as an extension. Although its domestic and foreign trade volume has been surpassed by Shanghai, it is still a big port.

For many years, merchant ships from Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia have come here. In the six months from April to October, there are more foreigners coming here, but most of the latter are British. With the disappearance of the French in the Chinese foreign trade market, the only European merchants who came to Ningbo are the British.

In April in the past, tea, silk, cloth, porcelain, etc., would be shipped to Ningbo by ship.

The entire water and land channel was crowded with cars and ships, and the economic taxation of the entire Zhejiang would also be on the fast track.

The Ye family alone has 37 workshops and factories of various sizes, engaged in silk, cotton spinning, hardware, matches, cigarettes, lamp oil, grain, cooking oil, salt and sugar, transportation, department store sales and other industries. The entire business group has hundreds of carriages of various sizes and dozens of ships of various sizes. The entire Ye family needs to hire thousands of workers and security to operate.

This is just one Ye family. There is also the entire Ningbo business group behind it. There are also giants in the business group that can compete with the Ye family. There are also newly established construction companies and real estate developers in the business group, and the number of employees affected is also the same.

Now because of the Ye family's affairs, the entire Zhejiang business circulation is stagnant, and it has also affected the whole world.

The unconscious behavior of the merchants made them realize for the first time that they also have such power!

Looking at the desolation of Ningbo City and the deserted situation of Zhejiang waterways and land roads, countless people's hearts are beating.

Li Kun's eyes finally released a ray of relief. The emperor did not expect him to be able to run a big scene in business.

After countless pieces of information were fed back to Nanjing and the cabinet, Chen Cong could not help but explode.

This kind of thing was very obvious, there was a mastermind behind the scenes deliberately making trouble, and he said not to cause too intense "influence", did they listen to his words? Isn't this called an intense influence?

"The Ye family can pay two to three million yuan to the country every year, and can also take out four or five hundred thousand yuan of net profit for charity [normal situation]. If such a benevolent family is still doing this, why not do it to the Li family?"

Chen Cong's face turned red with anger.

Affected by this, it is really unlikely that taxes will not decline in April.

You know, the war between Britain and France has become more intense this year, and the French India Company in Paris has publicly announced that it will stop trading with China. Moreover, France has declared war on China to a certain extent.

And merchant ships from countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden are also likely to be unable to reach China. The British blockade has too much impact.

There is already a bad external environment, and now there are more things happening to itself. It would be strange if the tax data in April can be beautiful.

And the Ye family's affairs, in the final analysis, are because of North America. The Ye family is one of the strong supporters of the Shen family [Shen Guozhen], one of the supporters of Wang Huizu's Wang family, and at the same time, the Ye family is also an important partner of the Queen Li family.

And to say it again, Wang Huizu and Shen Guozhen both support Chen Ding, the eldest son of the emperor.

Because both of them are supporters of the orthodoxy theory, and Chen Ding is both the eldest and the legitimate son. In their view, it is natural for Chen Ding to inherit the throne.

"Your Highness, who is behind this? I have sent people to investigate. I believe there will be news soon." Chen Guang wiped his forehead. In fact, there was no sweat on his head.

Chen Guang was nervous when facing Chen Ming, but he was just so-so when facing Chen Cong. The National Security Bureau he led had no direct connection with the cabinet. As the most important intelligence department in the country, the National Security Bureau has always been controlled by the emperor.

"Ye Dezhong is about to go to court, and you National Security Bureau has not figured out the mastermind behind the scenes. What is the National Security Bureau in Ningbo doing?"

Chen Cong's anger was not fake. If he knew who was behind this, he would definitely take ruthless action. This incident has affected the economic development of the entire China, and the impact is too great.

But now the reply from the National Security Bureau made him so angry that he had no place to vent. This made Chen Cong feel like during the war, the enemy had already hit the doorstep, but the side did not even know how many enemies there were and who led the troops.

This incident had a huge impact in China. Many people were surprised to see the power of the industrial and commercial class. Many people hated the mastermind behind the scenes, and hated the Zhejiang Supervisory Censor on the other hand.

The Ye family is now in such a miserable state, and this is definitely due to the contribution of Liu Wenwei, the Supervisory Censor of Zhejiang. After the incident broke out, Liu Wenwei not only did not think about the influence of the Ye family and showed mercy, but was as ruthless as he could, and ruined the Ye family in one fell swoop. Liu Wenwei played a key role in the difficulty of maintaining the Ye family and the collapse of the Ye family.

When the Ningbo business group, realizing their huge power, continued to maintain the low-intensity operation of the business, intending to use this as a test to see how much pressure they could put on the provincial government, many people also looked at the Supervisory Office in Hangzhou City with gloating eyes.

Liu Wenwei resigned from Nanjing last autumn and was transferred to Zhejiang to serve as a Supervisory Censor.

Just like a child who suddenly got a powerful weapon, the child used the weapon to threaten others without realizing the profound significance of his actions, but only looked at the "adults" who had "oppressed" him in the past with a sense of pride.

This scene in Zhejiang was later recorded in Chinese history and praised by history textbooks two hundred years later as the "awakening of China's capital power". It has extraordinary significance in China's social development.

This is their "threat" to the provincial government. Fiscal taxes are an important benchmark for the current court to measure the performance of an official. When it comes to the issue of black hats, officials must also weigh the consequences of "intensification"! This is like Chen Ming's gpd in his previous life. However, this "threat" has no effect on Liu Wenwei, because Liu Wenwei is an old Confucian. Don't forget this.

As an absolute old Confucian, Liu Wenwei looked at the deserted Ningbo City, not only without any worries, but also quite relieved.

"That's great..." Liu Wenwei was so happy that he almost jumped up.