Lu Ming

Chapter 399 Title Deed Alliance
Several gentry from the Land Deed Alliance arrived as promised in the afternoon of the next day.These people are as close as the county seat of Shanghai, and as far away as Songjiang, where they can reach melons on a boat a few tens of miles away.

After arriving at the Xu family's mansion in the city of Shanghai, the Qing guest entourage brought by the masters naturally formed a lively tea party in the Nuan Pavilion.And the master came to the big study to attend the meeting with his personal think tank.

At the beginning of the meeting, a clearer from the Xu family read out the latest loss report in public.

The gentlemen already knew the news yesterday, and this meeting has begun to discuss it.Soon, in the analysis of everyone talking about it, the consequences of the destruction of the garden and the next steps of the enemy were deduced by everyone in close agreement.

For the tenants of this era, heavy debts and great living pressure are standard configurations for them.Therefore, for those destroyed mulberry orchards, unless the landlord spends a lot of money to buy adult mulberry trees in the spring, if the mulberry seedlings are planted, the tenants will have no resources to survive the mulberry orchard reconstruction investment in the past few years, and they will inevitably go bankrupt and go into exile.

The same is true for the supporting fish ponds around the mulberry garden.

The mulberry fish pond is an agricultural model that combines planting mulberry and raising silkworms with pond fish farming.Plant mulberry trees around the pond, use mulberry leaves to raise silkworms, use silkworm excrement and silkworm chrysalis as bait, and then use pond mud as mulberry tree fertilizer to form a mutually beneficial production chain to achieve the effect of both fish and silkworms.

This method was quite common in ancient times, especially in the warm Pearl River Delta Plain. It has been the main agricultural model of silkworm farmers in the Pearl River Delta until later generations.In the Yangtze River Delta in the 17th century, although mulberry fishponds were not so popular due to the cold climate, many mulberry gardens still adopted this method.

So when the farmers discovered that the mulberry trees were burned overnight and the fish turned their bellies, it was not surprising that some people hanged themselves on the spot—anyway, the next fate was that the whole family starved to death by the roadside, leaving early and being born early.

Burning mulberry orchards and poisoning fish are both very low-cost behaviors that only need a little kerosene and a little industrial waste.Of course, due to well-known reasons, the specific names of the chemicals will not be mentioned here.

This is Xiong Dao's counterattack method in the first wave of four or two: make the opponent mess up first.

The consequences of things are far from simple.

Soon the tenants will learn the truth (this is for sure, because the murderer will spread the real reason for burning the mulberry field), and then the head of the gentry will be set on fire.

Realizing that their family has become the cannon fodder for the struggle between the landlord and the port, the passionate tenants must seek an explanation from the landlord.And the tenants who know the truth are not so easy to be fooled into gang fights at the port and die.

In short, no matter whether the landlord is to appease or forcefully clean up the tenants, he will have to pay a huge price.

To appease, in the days before the mulberry tree grows, the landlord not only cannot collect the debts and rent, but also has to feed these people with rice.This is a large amount, and the landlord's family has no food left!

If it is tough, it is to seize the tenants and withdraw the rent, sweep these tenants out, and even sell their children to pay off the debts-many of them have been tenants who have worked for the landlord's family for several lifetimes. to huge losses.

And this is a temporary solution rather than a permanent solution: After driving away the old people, we must call in new people, right?When recruiting newcomers, the landlord also has to pay a huge price to rebuild the mulberry gardens and fish ponds, and also advance money to support the newcomers.

Also, not all tenants are lambs.To withdraw tenants on a large scale, the landlord must also organize a large number of people to fight in groups. Otherwise, how could it be so easy for the tenants to leave honestly?
We must know that there is a dynamic balance between tenants and landlords. The reason why many landlords subcontract the rent collection process to renters is because the tenants are difficult to deal with and cannot collect rent.

At the moment, sitting in the Xu family's big study, called Pinming, is actually a group of gentry discussing countermeasures, and soon saw two more terrible consequences from the above-mentioned deduction.

First: If the mulberry garden and fish pond are restored in the future, what if they are set on fire and poisoned by those thieves who come and go without a trace?We can't mobilize all the tenants in the village to guard the mulberry field day and night, right?

Second: If a large number of people are mobilized to clear the field and seize the tenants, wouldn't it be bad if Xiong Dao's subordinates were mixed in among those rebellious tenants, and then a few poisonous smoke and firecrackers flew over?
These gentry, who have seized people's property all the year round, and have almost infiltrated their schemes and tricks into their bones, took less than half an hour today in the big study of Xu Zhai to deduce the situation after Zhuangzi was set on fire and poisoned. Xiong Dao's backhand also guessed nine out of ten.

However, guessing is useless, you have to find a countermeasure.

"For today's plan, Xu Tu is the worst strategy. There are still a lot of mulberry gardens and fish ponds in the villages you have in hand. If you continue to wait for death, they will be destroyed by that group of Qiu Ba one after another!"

After a collective silence for a while, the first person to speak out in support of radical policies was a chubby middle-aged man in his 40s.

This master's surname is Huang, and his name is Huang Shaozhou. He was a Jinshi in the Wanli period, and he is from Hangzhou.

In fact, Master Huang just "joined the party" and joined the Land Deed Alliance today.

As for the reason, this is a long story.

Originally, Master Huang also had a small village near the port.As it turned out, among the three mulberry gardens burnt down by Xiong Dao's men last night, one belonged to Mr. Huang.

Mr. Huang, who had his property burned inexplicably, quickly found out the reason behind this incident - the war between the alliance and the port has been widely spread in the past two days, not to mention the case in the county government yesterday, which made people Everyone knows about the burning of mulberry fields.

After that, the furious Mr. Huang immediately approached the Xu family.It is no secret that the title deed alliance is in high-end circles. As a member of the gentry, Mr. Huang easily met the rightful owner Xu Jin.

After the two sides met, Master Huang, who felt humiliated by a group of Qiu Ba, asked to join the Land Deed Alliance on the spot after scolding Xiong Dao and his group of white-bodied grassroots, and fought side by side with all the masters, striving to win Xiong Dao as soon as possible, and swallowed his Industry, everyone shares a share.

To be honest, if Master Huang asked to join the alliance before today, Xu Jin would definitely have to think about it.After all, the shares of all shareholders have been allocated before, and if newcomers are added, all the shares will be redistributed again, which is very troublesome.

However, the lawsuit yesterday and the subsequent overnight arson completely changed Xu Jin's mind.

He didn't follow the routines that the gentry had been familiar with for thousands of years. The attack was weird and ruthless, and Xiong Dao, who was backed by a big backer, made Xu Jin feel a little tired.

So Xu Jin immediately welcomed Master Huang to join: Now the distribution of benefits is not important, and it is thankful that Xiong Dao can be taken down.Xu Jin urgently needs new forces to join in, and Mr. Huang came just in time.

After expressing her welcome, Xu Jin also recalled the scenes of Du Yaren’s visit, and then she couldn’t help but be thankful—Xiong Dao’s information about Zhuangtian in the hands of the gentry came from Du Yaren’s rote memory when he was looking at the land deed. back.And here lies the mistake: the mulberry garden of Mr. Huang's house was burned down by mistake.

After trying to figure out the cause and effect, a certain person felt secretly relieved, wishing that Xiongdao would burn down a few more mulberry gardens of innocent families and push those landlords to the alliance.

After that, other members of the alliance who came to Xu's house one after another also welcomed Master Huang. Everyone felt the difficulty of Xiong Dao, and their mentality was the same as Xu Jin's.

Master Huang quickly figured out the background of everyone in the alliance.It is really too easy for gentlemen to build relationships. All kinds of friends and relatives of the same year can always be connected.

Mr. Huang, who got to know everyone well, quickly made a hawkish statement at the next meeting: "For the current plan, Xu Tu is the worst strategy."

And Master Huang's remarks were also approved by most of the people present.

There is no way, under Xiong Dao's weird attack method, all the masters feel that the initiative of the matter is slowly slipping away from the alliance.

We must know that in the Yangtze River Delta region at the end of Ming Dynasty, in addition to the cotton fields with the most extensive planting area, there were more mulberry gardens and fish ponds.So everyone still has a lot of mulberry gardens and fish ponds in their hands. In this way, if Xiong Dao makes troubles according to the frequency of setting three fires every night, those mulberry gardens and fish ponds on hand will really appear. big problem.

Once civil unrest breaks out at that time, Xiong Dao can watch jokes or run away by boat, but these big landlords sitting here will have to jump their feet.

Seeing that most of the members agreed with the strategic choice of a quick fix, the host Xu Jin immediately organized a symbolic vote.Then, under the principle that the minority obeys the majority, Xu Jin announced that Xu Xutu's strategy had once again been overthrown, and the next step for the Land Deed Alliance was to return to the previous track: to use force to eliminate the Xiongdao gang once again.

After the announcement, Xu Jin, as the executor, began a series of assignments.

The first step is about Songjiang Prefecture.

Now that Jiading County can't do anything about it, it's Songjiang Prefecture's turn.The alliance's requirements for Songjiang Mansion are not high: as long as they can suppress Xiongdao a little in the past few days and delay for a little time.

A jinshi lord who had a good relationship with Fang Yuegong, the prefect of Songjiang, immediately took the task of serving as a lobbyist.

The second and third steps are the trump cards that really require the use of force.As for the forces that need to be used in these two steps, the alliance has communicated before, and now it is only necessary to send envoys to determine the detailed steps.

All these tasks, of course, do not need to be done by the new member, Mr. Huang - there were designated persons in charge of these tasks before.

The meeting lasted until the evening of that day, before all the teams were assigned, and all tasks were assigned to individuals.Master Huang also obtained his share in the alliance as he wished, as well as the 3000 taels of "share/war funds" he promised on the spot.

That's it.After the meeting was over, Mr. Huang walked out of the house with the help of a man who looked like a guest behind him, leaning on crutches. Mr. Huang has foot problems and cannot walk flexibly.

(End of this chapter)