Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1071: Afterimage of the Evil Dragon ([-])

The dead are not necessarily more useful than the living, the key still depends on who is dying.

For example, in the history questions of later generations expressing the development of Jiangnan industry and commerce, such a sentence is common:

Lizhong (Shanghai Jinshanwei Fengjing) has many layouts, and many dyers and calenders are employed in the bureau, all of whom are from Jiangning, and they come and go in groups.

That's where it ends.

Just looking at this half sentence, it reflects the development of industry and commerce, the flow of population, and the popularity of the employment system in Jiangnan.

But if the full text of the second half of the sentence is also written, it will be a horror story.

Harassing Luli, the people were burdened by it, and the accumulated anger was unstoppable. They corrected the crowd and collected huge sums of money, closed the door and gate, and planned to kill hundreds of people.

That is to say, some Nanjing people were hired to work in Shanghai, and the conflict between the locals and the outsiders was increasing day by day. The locals combined to block the inner gate and the water fence, mostly by blocking the door and setting fire to smoldering. Hundreds of people were directly slaughtered.

This is not even a ring in history.

Because those who died were low-level hired workers from other places, like those who died every year in famines, villages fighting for fields, and floods and sea tides, there are always tens of thousands of 10,000+, but no one cares at all.

It is not a big deal for a small scholar to be beaten to death.

But whether the matter is big or not, the key lies in whether anyone wants this matter to become big.

The salt merchants in Yangzhou are the most powerful group of people in the entire Yangzhou Prefecture.They wanted to make a big deal out of it.

And those who can take the imperial examinations are obviously the easiest group of people to organize in Yangzhou.

Salt merchants funded academies and supported literati.

The academy gave back to the salt merchants.

This system has been in use for 300 years. Starting from the Meihua Academy in the Jiajing period of the previous dynasty, there are countless academies funded by salt merchants in Yangzhou Prefecture.

Guangling Academy, Hanyang Academy, Anshi Academy, Mingdao Academy, Leyi Academy, Zhuhu Academy, Huachuan Academy, Wenzheng Academy, Zhaoyang Academy, Mingxing Academy, etc...

These academies can be supported, many of which are supported by salt merchants, and tuition fees are set up in the academies to subsidize those poorer children so that they can study with peace of mind.

The head of the academy, Shu Xiu, has 400 taels of silver, and 600 taels of firewood, rice noodles, and silver.

Poor students can also get financial aid from salt merchants by entering the academy, and they can also receive one or two taels of silver every month.

As for where did the salt merchants get their money...

It's meaningless to say that. Parents are corrupt criminals, and it doesn't prevent children from thinking that parents are the kindest people in the world.

In short, Yangzhou has given birth to a very delicate old culture by virtue of the two industries of water transportation and salt industry.

But these old cultures... how should I put it, if one day the country is strong and the people are healthy, it may be very meaningful to dig it out; It is time for human beings to work together to map Venus transiting the sun and measure the distance between the sun and the earth. These people nestled in the academy and made these things. It is really... tasteless to eat, and it is a pity to discard them.

In any case, the old culture is also a culture, and even they are the orthodox scholars, while those who learn new learning are the marginalized people.

With the help of literary clubs, clubs, etc., it is easy to organize these students who have nothing to do.

These organized students have long been dissatisfied with Liu Yu, and the reform of the salt administration was motivated by Liu Yu. This matter can be said to have made these Yangzhou students have accumulated grievances for a long time, and they finally have a chance to vent. .

Liu Yu's reputation in Yangzhou is very bad.

The reforms he carried out in southern Jiangsu directly broke Yangzhou's two legs.

The water transportation was abolished, and the sea transportation rose, and Yangzhou's position was too embarrassing.

Huaibei promoted salt and Huainan promoted reclamation, and Yangzhou's position was even more embarrassing.

The prosperity of Yangzhou culture stems from the fact that salt merchants suck blood from the whole country. The so-called prosperity is almost all around the salt merchants.

Industry and commerce... I have heard of Songjiang cloth, Nanjing cloth, and Husi.

Yangzhou is a cuisine, lean horse.

It should be said that this is a standard "service industry" city.

It has nothing to do with whether Dashun is open or closed. It is indeed unrealistic to expect them to study such things as industrial and commercial development in a city with a pure service industry.

If shipping is to develop, Yangzhou will decline; if Yangzhou remains prosperous, shipping will not be able to develop.

Waiting for the incident of the abandoned canal to happen, in Liu Yu's view, the abandonment of the Grand Canal and the development of shipping are good things no matter what.

From a slightly grander perspective, the canal is not abandoned, and even the Yellow River and Huaihe River cannot be managed, so they should be abandoned.

But from the perspective of Yangzhou, what is this?
This is South Jiangsu robbing them of their wealth and making the water transport go by sea instead of the canal. This is tantamount to directly turning Yangzhou, the original "north-south intersection" location, into a very embarrassing and insignificant existence.

Coupled with the reclamation of Huainan and the promotion of salt in Huaibei, this is tantamount to letting Yangzhou even have to give up the salt industry.

The problem is, if there is no shipping in Songjiang Prefecture, at least it will still be famous for its cotton textile industry.

Yangzhou Prefecture is a developed city relying on the service industry. It is a transit port similar to Batavia and Macau. Once the commercial route is changed, it will inevitably face many problems.

It is said that Yangzhou is magnificent, but what famous industry and commerce is there in Yangzhou?Does the service industry count as industry and commerce?
The so-called [Yangzhou salt affairs compete for extravagance, a wedding and funeral, hall meals, clothes and horses, costing [-] yuan at every turn], many people's livelihood, or this abnormal prosperity, revolves around the consumption of salt merchants of.

Now the reform of the salt administration has not completely decided to abolish Huainan salt, but the decline of Yangzhou has shown signs.

After Dashun abandoned the Grand Canal, the strategic position of Yangzhou, where the canal meets the Yangtze River, and the north and the south of the Yangtze River, suddenly disappeared.

Even the goods from the south of the Yangtze River are more willing to turn around in Zhenjiang, and then go to Songjiang Mansion along the river.From there, either go north or south.

This is a decline that is visible to the naked eye, and many locals can feel it.

Some businesses, shops, etc., which were originally prosperous because of water transport and the intersection of North and South goods, are now in a state of depression, or have closed down.

However, before this decline, Yangzhou was too rich.

The culture is prosperous, and salt merchants invest in academies, etc., making this place a cultural center.The cultural center needs money to support it. Once the money is gone, the sequelae will appear.

For example, a large number of scholars and students.

In fact, this number of people is far beyond the limit that Yangzhou, which does not have the status of a canal hub and a salt industry center, can accommodate.

The living standards of many students have indeed been seriously affected by the dismantling of the canal.

Not just millions of waterworkers, once the trade route is changed, the people affected and involved are huge.The waterworkers were only directly affected, so those who opened shops, hotels, and restaurants beside the canal, wouldn't they be affected?
Ordinarily, according to the tradition of students, if they are really dissatisfied, they can write an essay and express their opinions.

Those who roll out of class are dismissed, which probably means strike.

The essay is why we strike, what we want, and what we are dissatisfied with the officials or the court.

However, they couldn't do anything about the canal issue.

If you do this in Yangzhou City, what can you ask for?Complain about what?
Sue abandoned water transport?

This accusation is weak, and the righteousness is not on their side.

No matter how stupid the court ministers are, they also know the benefits of abandoning the canal, and this matter was enforced by the emperor. What's the use of opposing it?

In Yangzhou City, it is required not to use waste salt for land reclamation?

But Yangzhou City does not produce salt, it is just a logistics center.

What Liu Yu is doing is a poisonous plan to draw wages from the bottom of the pot, and directly reclaim the wasteland. The land reclaimed is not owned by the people of Yangzhou, but by the seaside salt households.

Even if Yangzhou objected, it was useless.

Otherwise, even if you write a paper and report it to the governor of Yangzhou, what can the governor of Yangzhou say?

Can say: OK, you go back, I've decided on this matter, the Songjiangfu harbor will be demolished tomorrow, the Weihaiwei naval base will be blown up, the Grand Canal will be dredged, and the Grand Canal will be used in the future.

However, he is only the governor of Yangzhou, so what he said doesn't count.

Shipping by sea is not the same as collecting taxes.

Tax increases and the like need to be approved by the local people.If the local students do not agree, you can submit the essay.

Shipping by sea does not require the approval of Yangzhou students: whether they approve or not does not affect the sea ship sailing from the Yangtze River Estuary to Tianjin Port.

These grievances have been simmering in the hearts of the students in Yangzhou Mansion for not a day or two, but they have never had a chance to vent them out.

Really let them rebel, rush into the Forbidden City, abolish the Academy of Sciences, smash the shipyard, destroy Weihaiwei, they must take the Grand Canal, but they dare not.

It's useless to write some sour articles, and the emperor doesn't care at all.

Now that it is so easy to seize such an opportunity, how can we not make full use of it?
Everyone knows that Liu Yu is behind the court's toss in Huainan.Now I am taking this opportunity to vent my grievances.

Another one, they are also depressed and confused.

A city that emerged with the help of a special geographical location, once the structure of commercial routes changes, and the interior is completely hollow, there is no decent industry and commerce, and these local students in Yangzhou do not know where their future lies.

Be an official?There are not so many official vacancies for being an official.

Dashun learned from the lessons of the previous dynasties and implemented a provincial quota system.Although there are many quotas in Jiangsu Province, even if Yangzhou has a prosperous culture, if you roll it up, you can't beat Suzhou, Changshu, Songjiang and other places in the south of the Yangtze River. Those are the real strong counties in the imperial examination.

There are not so many officials who can do this, and it is difficult to be a Jinshi.

The result happened to read and read again.

It was a good little day, and it was beautiful.

The blood sucked by the salt merchants leaks out from the cracks of the fingers casually; at the starting point of the north bank of the water transport canal, the business of any shop is booming.

The service industry is prosperous and prosperous, and I don’t want to be an unrealistic official. I read books, make paintings, study epigraphs, and research ancient books. Cold sunburn is enough, and the little days are beautiful.

Everything has changed now, these students are really hard to accept, and they don't know what to do in the future, the resentment in their hearts really cannot be added.

Relying on this resentment, with the help of clubs and academies, soon six or seven hundred students from Yangzhou Prefecture and its surrounding counties gathered.

All kinds of articles are circulated in the hands of these people.

Fortunately, there are still people in control, and these public opinion issues do not involve the sensitive canal issue.

Now Huainan salt has not been abolished, and the abandonment of the canal has caused many grievances among the people of Yangzhou.

But if the problem is drawn in this direction, then there is nothing wrong with it. If there is a trouble, I am afraid that the court will accuse him of "rebellion against Yangzhou" in the end, and the trouble will be serious.

The canal is a national policy, and it is decided by the emperor. If there is a commotion because of this, it is not good.

Today is not what it used to be.

In the past, if Yangzhou was a little bit chaotic, we had to try our best to appease it, so as not to cut off the water transportation and separate the north and the south.

Even if the sky is turned upside down now, I'm afraid it will not affect the imperial court's deployment of troops, tax collection, and food storage.

Therefore, the problem can only be directed in the direction of "controlling the people's property and sharing the grass equally".

These organized students, after paying homage to the Confucian Temple, wrote an essay to tell the sages why they wanted to strike.

Then he headed towards the county where the accident happened.

After entering the city, there were a lot of condolences, funerals, and grandeur. I don't know how many articles were written praising this person as a "righteous man".

Liu Yu watched coldly and let these people make trouble.

The conflict between him and the salt merchant is a conflict between salt or cultivation.

The problem among the salt households is just a simple dispute over property rights.

These people insist on thinking that they represent Yanhu's desire and plead for the people, so let them make trouble.The bigger the fuss, the better.

Liu Yu is leisurely and contented.

But this gang of students frightened some gentry and swindlers in the county first.

This group of students from Yangzhou, with their mouths up and down, "crack the soil and seal the border, the work of the king; divide the grass equally, and crack the soil."

It is necessary to fully restore the feudal system on Caodang and pass it on from generation to generation.

But the gentry and merchants in these county towns are about to curse in their hearts. They have tried their best to occupy these grasslands. As soon as these people talk about it, they will divide the grasslands evenly. Then why not give the shops in Yangzhou to the average separated?
It is not a trivial matter for students to encourage and write papers.If officials cannot withstand the enormous pressure and have to retreat, then there is nothing to change.

Now that the grass is in hand, it is simply a hot potato.

Fundamentally speaking, these local gentry and merchants don't really like waste salt to reclaim wasteland, and they really want to maintain the current state.

However, their power is too weak, and neither side wants to maintain this state.

Judging from the conflict between Liu Yu and Yangzhou salt merchants, he was forced to this point. If Huainan continues to produce salt, then the salt merchants can only advocate the system of enfeoffment of salt households; if Huainan does not produce salt, then Caodang will have to take it back Land reclamation.

These gentry and merchants don't like waste salt to reclaim wasteland, but they definitely don't like the fact that all salt households waste their salt.

The former at least has compensation and land.The latter, but a big loss.

Seeing that more and more students gathered here in the name of condolences, these gentry swindlers really had no choice but to ask to see Liu Yu.

Some people think that if it’s really not possible, let’s take a step back and distribute some soup to those salt households who sell the grass.

If the trouble continues like this, I'm afraid there will be a big trouble. The sloppy gains of my own are not justified in the first place, and it will be of no benefit to anyone if the trouble becomes big.

(End of this chapter)