please make me king

Chapter 1355 "Shares"

The summer harvest in the north is generally around the time of ear seedlings, from south to north, first in Nanzhi and Henan, then in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, roughly between the end of May and June.

It has been more than two months since the rebel army attacked Shanxi in early March.

In this short period of two months, the wheat, which was as tall as a leek, has grown to the height of a person; the green wheat seedlings have also turned golden.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, wheat had become the main crop in "Yan, Qin, Jin, Henan, Qilu and other roads", and the staple food of the local people "wheat accounted for half, while millet, millet, rice, and beam accounted for only half".

And in this season when the harvest of wheat is in sight, Han Cui, the prefect of the rebel army, Lei Chong, the magistrate of Pingyang, and Li Jingu, Li Baihu, the "Head of the State", are sitting in the lobby of the government office, waiting patiently for something.

"Report, the owners of the merchants have arrived!" At this moment, a disciple came in to report.

"Oh? Let them come in!" Han Xuan, Lei Chong and Li Jingu couldn't help but smile at each other before ordering.

Following Han Yu's order, the door immediately called out: "Kang's family in the mansion, Shizhuang Wei's family, Nangao Liu's family, Beichai Wang's family, and Nanzhao Yang's family."

As the door shouted loudly, rich and well-dressed merchants filed in one by one.

And the leader is none other than Kang Si Ding, "Kang Million" from the Kang family of the Great Ming Dynasty.

This person was young, and when he saw Han Xuan, Lei Chong, and Li Jingu, he just stepped forward to salute and then retreated to the side without saying a word.

According to his mind, this time Han Xuan, Lei Chong and others invited him to come here, just for "donation".

About tens of thousands of taels of silver, the right to send beggars forget it.

In line with the mentality of "dismissing the beggars", not long after, well-known wealthy businessmen and tycoons of Pingyang Prefecture gathered together, and within a short time, the entire government office was full.

"Crack!" Lei Chong, the magistrate of Pingyang, slapped the gavel suddenly, which made everyone fall silent, and then he opened his mouth.

"This time, I invite you to come here. I have nothing else to do, but I just want to talk to everyone."

"A few days ago, some merchants neglected righteousness when they saw profit, openly colluded with the Tartars, and opened the city gate, causing the city to fall. They are punishable crimes!"

"Fortunately, Zhang Sanbai, the general under the command of King Shun, used his life to destroy the Jian prisoner and behead his famous king Azige."

"In order to serve as an example to others and to warn against lawlessness, I would like to obey King Shun's order and spread it all over the world. Please take a look."

Following Lei Chong's order, a yamen servant brought up a box, put it on the table and opened it.

Someone couldn't help but stretched his head to look, and suddenly shivered with fright.

"Really?" Someone didn't dare to look at it, but couldn't help being curious, and couldn't help asking in a low voice by quickly teasing the person who had seen it.

"How do I know? I haven't seen the Empress Jinming King before?" The man wanted to gag, rolled his eyes when he heard this, and quickly suppressed the rising feeling in his throat.

"Who has seen this?"

"Hey, I've seen it! Give me a break, give me a break, let me see!" Don't tell me, although the Pingyang Merchant Gang is different from the Pingyao Merchant Gang and does more business in the mainland, but there are always exceptions.

The "exception" stretched out his head to study it carefully for a moment, and couldn't help saying: "It's really him!"

"How about it, is it Azig?"

"Yes, it is indeed. How many people in this three hundred have such abilities?"

"Oh, don't you have a granddaughter in your family who has reached the age of Jiji? Would you like me to ask someone to talk about it for you? If it happens, you will be on a high branch!"

"Hey, I can't afford it, I can't afford it!"

"Silence!" Lei Chong slapped the gavel again, this time everyone was much more honest.

"You already know about the beheading of the famous king of the Eastern Captives. I'm afraid there are some things you don't know, so let me remind you first!"

"Jiexiu Fan, have you heard of it? He has such a great reputation, but if he colludes with the Tartars, he will suffer a terrible death."

"Now, one hundred and twenty-seven members of Fan's family, old and young, have been beheaded. They have no family property or female relatives. Only Fan Yongdou and others have fled again. Zhangjiakou's property has not yet come to an end."

"Ah?" When everyone heard the words, a chill came to their hearts, and they felt a little bit sad.

Relatively speaking, this Fan family is also a well-known family of merchants, and Fan Yongdou is also a rising star of the Fan family, which once overwhelmed the other three Jiexiu families.

Who ever thought that the world would be fickle, but in the end, the Fan family, which was flourishing like a brocade, was defeated first.

Everyone couldn't help expressing their opinions: "Don't worry, my lord, even if we are killed by swords and smashed to pieces, we dare not have anything to do with the Tartars."

"Okay, that's good!" Lei Chong nodded with a smile when he heard the words, and then he said with a smile, "However, not only the Tartars, but also the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, you must not have anything to do with them, remember?"

"Ah? Remember it!" Everyone was stunned when they heard the words, and they couldn't help saying that they didn't mean it.

"The Jiexiu family, Ji family, Hou family, and Liang family are much smarter. Hearing that King Shun wanted to take the opportunity to investigate those who were in collusion with the thieves in the territory, he immediately wrote to His Highness, admitting that there were seven layers of shares that were former Ming Dynasty puppet officials. Everything has been dedicated to the rebels now." Lei Chong laughed again.

"It's commendable to think of taking the initiative to confess. His Royal Highness King Shun only accepted [-]% of the shares of these companies, and this time, we will distribute our logistics and transportation business to these four companies as encouragement."

"Ah?" All the merchants couldn't yell in their hearts when they heard the words: Straight mother thief, you are willing to lick the butt of the thief chief, go and lick it yourself, and why did you bring us out so casually?
A full [-]% of the shares, if you don't say it, I won't say it, once the dynasty changes, wouldn't [-]% to [-]% of it fall into your own hands, and the remaining [-]-[-]% will be used to manage the new dynasty's dignitaries.

"I don't know, do you have such a situation?" Lei Chong asked again with a smile on his face when he saw that the people were not crying when they saw the coffin.

"Ah? No, no, we definitely don't!" "Kang Wanwan" Kang Siding quickly took the lead, "Our Pingyang merchant gang is no match for the Pingyao merchant gang."

"They specialize in Tartar business, illegal business, and it is inevitable that they will collude with the puppet officials of the former Ming Dynasty."

"We are different. We are serious businessmen, how can we be like this?"

"Ah, that's right, that's right, what brother Kang said is true!" Seeing that they had the backbone, everyone agreed.

"Really? I happen to have a list in my hand. They are all the confessions made by the puppet officials of the previous court. Do I need to read it?" Lei Chong couldn't help sneering when he heard the words, "Wait for the government to read it out. 'Leniency for confession', but 'strictness for resistance'."

"Sometimes there must be something in fate, and there is always time in fate. Don't force it. Don't calculate too much. If you accidentally count yourself into it, when the time comes to 'collude with the remnants of the previous dynasty, ransack the family and exterminate the family', don't call it wrong!"

"Ah?" Sweat came out of everyone's foreheads when they heard this.

Take all precautions, and you never know that the "shun thief" still has this trick.

You said that the officials of the Ming Dynasty fell into the hands of the rebels. In order to survive, didn't they ask what to do?
Merchants look at me, I look at you, helpless for a while.

Lei Chong saw that the matter had come to this point, and these people still couldn't see the situation clearly, so he couldn't help but sneered and called out his names: "'Kang Wanwan', I don't want the half of the shares you gave to this house, you can give it to His Royal Highness King Shun!"

"Ah? Okay!" "Kang Wanwan" Kang Siding felt chills all over his body, and didn't know how to answer for a while.

Good guy, the good "hidden rules" have been exposed by Jiexiu and these idiots, and now I can't speak clearly.

How much stock you give to others, and how much stock you give to "the government", now you offend all those who should be offended and those who shouldn't be offended.

"I don't want the shares of the Zhang family, the Li family, and the Wang family. Please dedicate them to His Royal Highness King Shun!" At this time, Taifu Han Yu also had to take the initiative to express his opinion.

"Okay!" The three Patriarchs replied in embarrassment without being speechless.

"Idiot, what time is it, and you are still hesitating here, do you still want to have your family ransacked and your family wiped out?" Han Yu saw that they had no vision at all, and couldn't help cursing with hatred.

"I think back then, what kind of people Zhang Wenyi and Wang Xiangyi were, how could they have such descendants!"

Zhang Wenyi and Wang Xiangyi were Zhang Siwei, the chief assistant of the cabinet, and Wang Chonggu, the minister of the Ministry of War.

Among them, the Zhang and Wang families are the descendants of these two people. Han Yu sold his favor, so he made the point clear.

"Ah? Us. Our two families also dedicated to King Shun. His Royal Highness the fifth floor!" The three families couldn't help but stuttered when they heard Han Yu's words.

"Fifty percent?" Han Yu was laughed at by them. King Shun asked for fifty percent, so you will give fifty percent to send the beggars?

"Ah? Seventh floor, seventh floor, a slip of the tongue, a slip of the tongue!" The heads of the three families replied with blood dripping from their hearts.

"You guys, aren't you robbing?" Seeing that Han Yu is now "greedy", some people couldn't help but stood up and shouted loudly.

"Oh? 'Kang Wanwan', right?" Li Jingu couldn't help standing up and sneering as soon as the man finished speaking, "It is said that when the Shaanxi rebels passed by, 'Chuang Jiang' had saved a large sum of money in Pingyang, I don't know Do you know, or don't you know?"

"Ah?" "Kang Wanwan" was sweating profusely when he heard this, and he didn't dare to utter a word.

It turns out that this Kang family is also a rising star compared with the others.

In recent years, a force suddenly emerged and became a wealthy businessman with a fortune of tens of millions in one fell swoop. Therefore, there have always been rumors that "the Kang family swallowed Li Zicheng's wealth in the Kang family alone, and only then was he able to make a fortune".

Regardless of whether this matter is true or not, and if Lei Chong, the magistrate of Pingyang, and others follow this line of thought to investigate, the destruction of the Kang family will not be far away.

"I, our Kang's family recognized it, and we also handed over [-]% of the shares!" Seeing that "Kang Million" couldn't deny it, he gritted his teeth and reported "[-]%", "But this [-]% cannot be dedicated to the rebels, only It can be dedicated to His Royal Highness King Shun."

This "Kang Million" has a good plan, the country is the country, the country is the country, and the family is the family. Since it is also bleeding, it is better to please the "King Shun" directly.

"Ah, yes, then our family will also dedicate [-]% to King Shun!" Seeing that they even recognized "Kang Wanwan", they couldn't help but imitate.

Seeing that things were almost over, Li Baihu and Li Jingu stood up and comforted him: "Everyone, I am also a merchant. Although I am not as big as your family, I know a little bit about the market anyway."

"Business without an official is uneasy, and an official without a business is not rich. What should be yours is yours, and what should not be yours, don't reach out."

"I know that the 'employees' behind you all have energy. But no matter how powerful they are, can they compare with His Royal Highness King Shun?"

"His Royal Highness is the most precious in the world, precious treasures, women's goods, everything, everything, and you are the only one who lacks hundreds of thousands of taels of silver?"

"His Royal Highness once told me that these shares and money are ill-gotten gains and bad governance from the previous dynasty."

"Now that everyone is presenting, His Royal Highness wants to set up a separate department of commerce to manage the accounting, payment, and expenditure of these shares, so as to ensure that every penny is taken from the people and used for the people, and no one dares to misappropriate it. It can also be used for other purposes."

"And everyone who pays is named a 'senator', tentatively designated as the seven-rank, no rank. The use of these share dividends needs to be notified to you every year and subject to supervision."

"If the imperial court wants to attract business, the priority is to choose from the 'members'. What do you think?"

"Ah? Is there such a good thing?" All the merchants were originally dismissed because of the resentment of "being robbed", but all of them smiled happily.

You know this Shanxi merchant, what kind of merchant is he doing?

It is nothing more than buying and selling salt, tea, iron, grain, silk and so on.

Since ancient times, salt and iron have been mostly monopolized, and even if they are not monopolized, they are deeply controlled by the government.

The rise of Shanxi merchants only relied on the implementation of the "opening of China" in the Ming Dynasty, and they were able to get the moon first.

Now these merchants have just changed to another "owner". Not only can they get [-]% of the shares, but their value has doubled, and they can deeply participate in the future business of the imperial court as an "official".

In this way, not only did everyone not suffer too much damage, but they got on the "new thigh". How can they not be happy?

Thinking of this, everyone couldn't help but let go of their resentment, and they all praised: "King Shun is benevolent and righteous, I dare not refuse!"

　The story of the "employee" behind the Shanxi Merchants is fabricated by the author, and it is the words of a novelist.However, judging from the fact that most of these businesses in feudal society needed to deal with local officials, the support of officials must be indispensable behind these merchants.From the sale of salt in the east of the river, the development of the tea ceremony for thousands of miles, and the smuggling to Mongolia and Houjin, if there was no in-depth participation of Ming Dynasty officials, how could each merchant have such abilities?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)