Lu Ming

Chapter 395

In the black box opened by Xu Jin, there was a stack of yellow deed papers.

Du Yaren, who was confused, looked up at Xu Jin, and with the encouragement of the other party smiling and nodding, he picked up the contracts and checked them one by one.

The deed is of course no problem.Du Yaren took a glance and knew that these were all serious red deeds that had been taxed in the yamen.

However, there is a problem with the content of the contract.Du Yaren is a gold-medal professional real estate agent. The location of every piece of land in Jiading and the surrounding areas is in his mind, so when he read these deeds, a "C" shape suddenly appeared in his mind.

If Lao Du was traveling through the crowd, then he would definitely shout at this time: "The first island chain!"

Yes, if the various farms, mulberry gardens, fish ponds, and cotton fields mentioned in these contracts are connected intermittently, they will just surround Xiongdao's Shanghai Port.

Having seen countless treacherous Du Yaren in his life, he already had a faint bad feeling at this moment.

Seeing Du Yaren's puzzled eyes, Master Xu Jin smiled first, then he snuffed out the cigarette butt in a glass ashtray, crossed his fingers, and put it on his lower abdomen, and then said to Du Yaren: " Since a Zhuangzi can be exchanged for a crystal mirror, how much can I exchange for so many pieces of land, Mr. Xiong?"

Dense beads of sweat oozed from Du Yaren's forehead, and a chill rose from his heart - he was aware of the other party's deliberate plans at the first moment, and then he felt strong malice.

"Speaking of these lands, they are not all owned by my Xu family." Xu Jin was still smiling at this time, but there was some inexplicable taste in the smile: "There are still some family properties of close friends here. Old Du , To tell you the truth, everyone gathered together to come out and planned to have a talk with Master Xiong and make friends."

Du Yaren's heart is clear at this moment.He understood the main point of Xu Jin's words: this was a conspiracy by some people of the same rank as Xu's family, and these people quietly gathered the land around the pier, and they wanted to use it to control Master Xiong.

Thinking back to the hardships that Mr. Xiong had when he took over the land, and then looking at the stack of land deeds thrown in front of him with ease by the Xu family, Du Yaren immediately felt the great strength brought by Xu Jinshen, and the transformation from it. heavy pressure.

So he asked a little dryly: "I don't know what Master Xu intends to do?"

"It's easy to say." Xu Jin stopped laughing at this time, and her long face turned cold: "The Xu family took these shares into Mr. Xiong's private port. From now on, every time there is a shipment of southern goods, the Xu family will take half of their own money." Sell. In addition, the Xu family will also hold half of the shares in those warehouses, wine shops and workshops."

After Xu Jin finished speaking, she returned to her calm look: "Speaking of which, your master still took advantage of it. The land on these deeds is much larger than that private port."

Seeing Du Yaren's face turn blue and white, Xu Jin said to him gently: "Old Du, this is a good thing. If your master wants to do business in Huahua Jiangnan, there must be someone to escort him behind the scenes, right? Half of the shares is not too much. Go back and tell your master, as for me, I will spend the winter in this house this year, and Master Xiong can come over and give me advice at any time."

Having said this, Xu Jin reached out to pick up the tea bowl, but didn't drink it; however, no matter what he thought in his heart, the knowledgeable Du Yaren must stand up and say goodbye on the spot.

Looking at the back of Du Yaren going away, Xu Jin put down the tea bowl with a sneer.

……

Now is the year of Chongzhen, and almost a sixty years have passed since the year of Jiajing when Xu Jie was the first assistant.

During this period of time, the descendants of the Xu family, although there have always been some people who have become officials and kept the family intact, but after all, there has never been a giant like Xu Jie, so the family business must have shrunk significantly compared to the past.

Of course, this so-called "shrinkage" depends on who you compare with.Compared with the hundreds of thousands of acres of land that shocked the world when Xu Jie was alive, it must be far behind; but compared with normal gentry families, the Xu family is still the top family in the Chongzhen Dynasty.

So when Xiong Dao and his private port became famous in the past six months, he ran to the Xu family to find out the details, and turned around to find out the reason why Du Yaren came to post the post.

This time the Xu family began to pay attention... For more than half a year, Xiong Dao thought that the flag had died down and felt aggrieved by it, but the Xu family and the other gentry who saw the fat were not idle.

Therefore, Xiong Dao, a dick from later generations, is still a little confused about the mentality of the top people-before he thought of win-win cooperation, but a real meat eater thought of how to kill pigs and sheep.

People who are used to predators, in this barbaric 17th century, how could they talk about cooperation with you, a shitty spokesperson from outside?Brother, when and what month did you win the list of emperors?How many people are on the list?

The half-and-half plan proposed by Xu Jin today is no different from robbery. In ancient times, there was a name called "contribution", and in later generations it was called protection fee.

Probably the only fig leaf is the title deeds.

This is actually a display of power and a threat: the Xu family's old handicraft of seizing the land is still there, and it was useless before. It was because the family was gradually declining and they did not dare to arouse public anger on a large scale.But now with the support of other gentry, Xu Jin has easily settled the pile of land deeds in the past six months, and it is still silent.

This is power, and this is a naked threat: the title deed is just a slap in the face, if you don't accept it, there are still many ways to go.

……

Walking out of Xu's house, looking up at the glaring sun at noon, even though Du Yaren was used to all kinds of plundering, he couldn't help but feel helpless at Xu Jin's lion opening his mouth.

Fortunately, Du Ya was just a messenger from the beginning to the end, and the land deed matter had little to do with him, at most it was just a small commission.

So while Du Yaren sighed, he took his servant back the same way, boarded the ferry at the east gate of the county seat, and returned to his command across the river.

There was no need for Du Yaren to rush back to the port thirty miles to the north to return, because there was someone waiting for him at Yangjiadu.

Even in later generations, Yangjiadu, a transportation hub facing Shanghai's Dadongmen, still has customs and ferries. In addition, the Jiangdi Tunnel passes through here.

After Du Yaren got off the boat at Yangjiadu, he joined the two people who were waiting there.One of the two, the younger Du Yaren, is very familiar with them. They have worked together before... The young man's name is Liu Qingyun.

After the two parties met, they came to an inn at the ferry.In the upper room of the inn, Du Yaren narrated the content of his conversation in Xu's house in detail.

Then, under Liu Qingyun's repeated questioning, Du Yaren later expressed some of his views and judgments on this matter.

During this period, Duya was talking dry and drinking water, but he never noticed a blue handkerchief on the table.

After the two parties finished talking, the young man Liu Qingyun offered a silver coin as a reward to Du Yaren, and then sent someone to send Lao Du out of the inn.

As Lao Du went out, Liu Wang, whose alias was Liu Qingyun, lifted the towel, picked up a small Sony tape recorder, and handed it to the subordinates beside him: "Hurry up and send it back to the master to listen to."

"Yes!"

After that, Liu Wang went out again and turned into the side room of the small courtyard. As soon as he entered, he said, "Send the report, I have important information."

The telegram quickly spread to the Port Authority building dozens of miles away.

Naturally, it is impossible to go into great detail with the telegram, but even so, the content of the telegram is enough for Xiong Dao to understand what just happened in Xu's residence.

"Okay, okay, people hurt tigers, and tigers hurt people's hearts. I'm here to lure tigers out of their holes." Sitting in the office on the second floor of the Port Authority, Xiong Dao read the telegram before sneering: "No I thought, I didn't expect, these masters actually took over the surrounding land without humming, good skills, good skills, it's really a shame not to work in the demolition company."

After the emotion was over, Xiong Dao's face darkened, and he said to several subordinates standing in the office: "In this case, let's start it, follow the plan, and grasp the rhythm."

"Yes!"

……

In the afternoon of the same day, the commercial area outside the port first ushered in a wave of climax: the Port Authority released a large amount of inventory, and businessmen from all walks of life flocked to it immediately.

Some of these goods have a general agent in the local area. After the manifest is released, the general agent will be stationed in the shopkeeper in the commercial area. You only need to pay the payment for the goods before you can go to the warehouse area to pick up the goods.

Other goods that have not yet negotiated with the agent have started a public auction.

This time is the carnival of small and medium businessmen.These dick merchants, who are not qualified to represent certain kinds of goods at all, have started to form temporary groups at this moment, shouting quotations on the released goods with red eyes, and fiercely competed with the big merchants.

At the same time as the singing and selling started, the men of those big agents had already proficiently pulled the cash boxes full of gold and silver to the Port Authority to settle the bill.The scene at this time was very spectacular: the front of the second floor of the Port Authority was full of silver boxes brought by various households, a real version of Jinshan Yinhai.

Today, however, the mountain of silver piled up in front of the building is extraordinarily large - all the stocks in the warehouse have been taken out, none of them are kept, and all are sold.

In the evening, the hustle and bustle finally calmed down.In one afternoon, the merchants swept away all the released goods through carriages and boats.At this moment, the commercial area was finally empty, and a large number of merchants and guards left with their goods.

And the empty warehouse area also gave the guards convenience: in the future, they can reduce the manpower used for patrolling.Of course, the reduction in manpower does not mean that everyone has nothing to do - although there is no need to guard against thieves who set fire to an empty warehouse tonight, but everyone can still go to someone else's house to set fire, right?

So, in the middle of the night that day, a raging fire ignited in the Xujiazhuangzi located on the north side of the port... The locals in this Zhuangzi call it "Old Mulberry Garden" because there are several mulberry gardens in the Zhuangzi.

Then these mulberry orchards were poured with expensive "kerosene" in the middle of the night and burned down.At night, the flames were so bright that anyone twenty miles away could see them.

Chapter 396

Laomulberry Garden is a Zhuangzi with a long history.The land in this village mainly produces mulberry leaves and cotton.

In the era before Emperor Jiajing, rice was mainly grown in the manor. After that, the land was gradually transformed into mulberry gardens and cotton fields, and no one grew rice.

So the fire last night directly put the tenants in the village into a desperate situation.

Four mulberry gardens ignited a raging fire at the same time, which was originally impossible in Ming people's consciousness.Even if the weather is dry in winter, the mulberry trees in the mulberry garden are not lit at one point, and there is still a distance between each tree. How can they catch fire at the same time?

This kind of strange thing that had never happened before caused the tenants who got up from the bed in a daze to be puzzled.However, there was soon no time for them to be confused, and the first thing everyone reacted was to run to put out the fire.The mulberry garden is the lifeblood, without these well-tended mulberry trees, would everyone have to beg for food?

But fighting a fire is useless.The fire ignited by kerosene completely ignored the laws of nature. In a short period of time, a large area of ​​mulberry trees was burned to the ground. Heat waves and fire debris scattered and ignited the remaining plants.

When people came running with wooden basins, all they saw were tree stumps braving sparks.

Unlike those tenants who were sitting on the ground crying and crying, the steward in charge of Zhuangzi quickly figured out what happened.

The steward's surname is Xu, and he is a distant relative of the Xu family.When the fire broke out, Guanshi Xu rushed out after hearing the sound of the gong to see the situation, and then grabbed the night watchman Yu Ding and asked him, he knew that the fire was man-made.

As for who Fang Sheng came to light the mulberry garden, Guanshi Xu also knew it well-ordinary thieves came and went in the middle of the night, it was all for money, why did they go to the mulberry garden if they had nothing to do, pick mulberries and eat them?It's winter now!

So this thing can't escape because of the gang of foreign country bumpkins in the private port in the south.You must know that in the past few months, Guanshi Xu has been assigned by the master to monitor the private port, and every once in a while, he will go to the master to report.

So Guanshi Xu, who is very aware of the dirty things between the Xu family and the private port, immediately guessed the murderer from the motive.

"Wait until I report to the Patriarch tomorrow, and then we'll see where the thieves go!" Standing outside the bright fire field, feeling the free warm wind, Steward Xu stared at the dark night in the south and began to swear.

However, the world is unpredictable... No need for Guanshi Xu to catch the thief, the thief came to the door early the next morning.

……

When the sun was just rising and the tenants in the village were still cleaning up the mess, a port construction team of 200 people came from the south.

These people lined up in a long queue, walking neatly, carrying high-priced kiln-made steel tools on their shoulders, and shouting slogans, they arrived at the junction of the port and Xujiazhuangzi, and then started construction work.

What kind of work do you do?Barrage and diversion.

Between the port and Zhuangzi, there are two small rivers that pass through the land of both sides, and one of them is the natural boundary river between the two sides.

The mission of these migrant workers today is to cut off the two small rivers and divert the water to other places.In short, the purpose of the construction is to cut off the water in Xujiazhuangzi... If the ancients didn't have electricity, even the electricity would be cut off.

Of course, the activity of hundreds of people working was not small, and it was in full swing, so the tenants quickly figured out each other's intentions.

Furious, Steward Xu ran over in a hurry, rushed across a small wooden bridge on the river, and then found several supervisors on a small mound by the river.

Steward Xu, who has been in charge of monitoring the port for a long time, knew very well that these short-haired men in training uniforms were in charge of the other party, so after he ran up the mound, he yelled at the other party on the spot: "What do you want to do?"

The supervisor obviously also knew Guanshi Xu.Seeing the steward running up to him panting and furious, several people burst into laughter.Then one of the burly men stood up and said with a bit of Hangzhou dialect: "What are you doing, do you have to report it to you?"

"Bastard!" Manager Xu yelled, "This river is shared by two families, how dare you change the waterway?"

"This river was made by God, I can dig it however I want!"

"Okay, you gang of pirates!" Manager Xu now fully understands one thing: the other party came to make trouble on purpose today.So he stretched out a finger and pointed at the group of people opposite, and said through gritted teeth: "I did a big thing last night, and today I came to Duanhe again, and told the surname Xiong that I offended the Xu family. !"

"Fuck you..." The next moment, a well-polished cowhide boot that had been meticulously cared for at first glance kicked Guanshi Xu's abdomen.

After the sound of "Ouch", Guanshi Xu rolled from the mound into the river amidst laughter.

The small river in winter was very shallow, so Guanshi Xu got up quickly after rolling into the water.At this moment, Guanshi Xu was covered in muddy water, standing in the river only knee deep, he was climbing up with the help of Yu Ding, and shouted: "Rebellion, rebellion, pirates rebellion, call people, call people! "

As a result, the villager fighting incidents that occurred almost every day in the Ming Dynasty were staged again soon.

After learning that setting the fire and breaking the river were the work of the private gang, all the tenants in the village were outraged.Hundreds of people quickly gathered on the bank of the river with hoes and dung forks, and the two sides began to scold each other across the river.

Cursing and cursing, after finding out that the migrant workers were not involved in this matter, the tenants in the village uttered a cry, and rushed over in a mighty manner stepping on the river.

Then a firecracker with white smoke exploded above the heads of the crowd.A certain force has accumulated rich experience in responding to the extremely common armed riots in rural areas in this era: capsaicin tear gas bombs lead the charge, and then sticks are enough to serve them.

The battle was soon over.

Dozens of port "security guards" easily defeated hundreds of tenants, and then the victors unceremoniously began to "whip the corpses"—even the old man who lost his combat effectiveness and was lying on the ground coughing was severely beaten. Hit two sticks on the lone crutch.

……

There is a saying that hits you, hurts my heart.

The miserable howls of hundreds of tenants lying on their beds resounded through the sky, reaching Xu's house thirty miles away.

Xu Jin, Master Xu, didn't wait for lunch when he saw Guanshi Xu, who was riding a fast horse with his head wrapped in a white cloth and his face covered with bruises to report the news.

After asking about the situation, Master Xu, who felt that he had suffered a major provocation, was furious, and immediately used the common tactic of scholar-bureaucrats: take my film to the county government, and arrest that bastard surnamed Xiong to speak for nothing.

Then the Jiading county government sat down.

To be precise, all the fast-track government servants who came from the main hall of Jiading County to Fang Wei and below had all died.

Before coming to the county magistrate, he had contacts with Xiong Dao, so the magistrate came to have a certain understanding of someone's strength.Although I don't know what happened to the General's Mansion in Fujian and Guangdong, even the dealers who support Xiongdao at the moment are not something that the county magistrate can afford.

You must know that there are also many poets and books among those dealers.The Xu family and Xiong Dao faced each other. Perhaps everyone was not able to intervene because of the situation. However, he came to the county magistrate as a third party. Talk!

Lai Xianye was a county magistrate in Fujian at the beginning, and he is not a fool in the officialdom.So when he saw the post from the Xu family, and asked a few words about the slaves sent by the Xu family, he came to the county magistrate and felt that he was going to sit down today. The Laoshi army will support it.

The Xu family's post ignores this fact, trying to use the inertia of the power of the gentry for hundreds of years to deal with the White Body Xiongdao.However, this method with the lowest cost can usually only deal with grassroots people on the street... The county magistrate who figured out the situation now has a splitting headache, because he is caught in the middle of two huge forces, and if one is not good, he will be killed. Eat melons.

Lai Xianzun had a premonition: he would not be able to do well in this matter anyway, it was nothing more than a matter of how much he lost.

After yelling at the Xu family who cheated him in his heart, the county magistrate finally issued a check.

This is impossible.First of all, the county magistrate is an official scholar-bureaucrat after all. Even if there are people behind Xiong Dao, he is a white body after all. On the spot, Lai Xianzun couldn't turn a blind eye to that post, even if he hated the Xu family deeply now.

Secondly, although the people don't raise officials and don't investigate, but after all, Xujiazhuangzi had a case of fighting and arson under the jurisdiction of the county.Now that Ming Dafang has sued the court, according to the law, the county magistrate also needs to summon the original defendant and others to the court for questioning.

Then it's time for the fast class head catchers to have a headache.

After the county magistrate issued the check, he had to arrest the head to execute it.However, the headhunters had lent their manpower to participate in the demolition of Xiongdao in private. Besides, in the past six months, everyone was very familiar with that private harbor, and everyone had benefited there, so the headhunters were more Starting from the magistrate of the county, he understood more clearly what a terrible task he was facing.

In the end, Butou Bian, one of the top three catchers in the fast class, lost to the other two in the dice roll, so he had no choice but to admit that he was unlucky, and picked up a few cronies under his command, and they all set foot on the road to the port in desolation. path of.

Butcher Bian didn't bring many people this time, not a single one of the white handymen: Master Xiong who was summoned had fast guns under his command, and he brought so many people there, it would be bad if he was misunderstood.

However, Catcher Bian was finally shot: when the group arrived at the commercial area outside the port in the evening, they found that the intersection of the empty commercial area had already been set up as a horse.The next moment, Bian Tutou was hit by a row of lead bullets from a musket, and then he was so alive that a ricochet went into his apprentice's calf, bleeding profusely on the spot.

"Who is coming?"