Red House Shoufu

Chapter 14 Civil Revolt
On the way from the wharf to Suzhou Fucheng, Daiyu was full of anger.

Lin Shu looked at Daiyu amusedly, not just playing tricks on the angry little girl.

"Sister, look at this candied haws, this hawthorn is big and round!"

"Sister, look at this wife cake, there is no wife in it!"

"Sister..." Just as Lin Shu was about to continue joking, Dai Yu forcibly took the two strings of candied haws in his hand, and opened his mouth to bite hard.

After eating sweets, Daiyu's mood improved immediately, and she held another candied haws and handed it to his mouth: "It's really sweet, do you want to eat it, brother?"

Lin Shu accepted it with a smile, and it was really sweet and sour after eating one.Along the way, Fuquan continued to collect various snacks from street food stalls and sent them to the carriage.

The two brothers and sisters started to eat in the slow-moving carriage, admiring or making complaints from time to time.By the time they got home, the two of them were full of snacks along the way.

As soon as he entered the house, the butler Lin Fu whispered in Lin Shu's ear, "Geng Qianhu from the Yangzhou Qianhu Office of the Embroidered Garments Guard is here."

Lin Shu nodded to indicate that he understood, then patted Daiyu's small head and said, "Brother is going to see a guest, and sister is going to rest for a while, and I will go find you later."

Daiyu nodded obediently: "Then brother will continue to tell me the story of the Monkey King!"

"Okay, I'll tell you a few more chapters today."

In order to help Daiyu get out of the sadness earlier, Lin Shu told her stories every day.Yesterday I just talked about the self-proclaimed Monkey King, and I was looking forward to Lin Shu continuing to tell her.

Seeing Daiyu hopping away following Nanny Wang, Lin Shu smiled in relief, and then went to the main hall.

As soon as Lin Shu entered the door, he saluted Geng Xiangnan Jishou, but he asked bluntly: "The student paid homage to Mr. Geng, but he came all the way from afar. Why?"

Geng Xiangnan put down the teacup in his hand, he drank several cups of tea just to wait for Lin Shu who was going out.

"Lin Jieyuan, the matter is urgent, so I will speak bluntly. Yang Xueli, together with the eight major families of Shanxi Merchants, almost emptied all the salt stored in the salt field under the control of the Xunyan Yushifu in Yangzhou. Jiangnan salt merchants incited salt Households, attacking Yushifu. Seeing that the civil uprising is imminent, this official came to ask Lin Jieyuan for help today."

Geng Xiangnan's words almost made Lin Shu swear, not to mention Yang Xueli's fucking behavior, which is a civil uprising, what can he do with a small juren.

Seeing Lin Shu's pale face and full of reluctance, Geng Xiangnan explained: "Lin Jieyuan, more than half of those salt households were left by Mr. Zhong Zhenggong, who promised generous treatment to those salt households. The salt disaster has long been gone. Now Yang Xueli has abolished all of them on the grounds of the ancestral system. Those salt households had already lost hope of living, and they were provoked by the salt merchants in the south of the Yangtze River, and immediately rushed to the Xunyan Yushi government."

Although Lin Shu scolded Yang Xueli for being stupid in his heart, he also slandered Geng Xiangnan for being unkind.It's too late for others to hide from things like civil uprisings, and he still wants to get himself involved.

"My lord, even thousands of households of embroidered clothes and guards can't do anything about it. The student is a mere juror, what can I do to solve this matter?"

Lin Shu complained slightly: "According to past experience, didn't you arrest the person who caused the trouble first, and then send troops to suppress it? Why did you allow Yanhu to attack the government this time?"

The officials of Dachu never take Yanhu seriously.Attacking the government is the same crime as treason.It is often the first to take down the person who caused the trouble to quell public anger.

If it still doesn't work, send troops to suppress it, and the blood flowing down the river can basically quell the disaster.

But this time it was really different, Geng Xiangnan explained the whole thing to Lin Shu.

It turned out that Yang Xueli wanted to check the old accounts, and wanted to use this to repay Lin Ruhai for rejecting his grudge.But I didn't expect the accounts to be clear, but I fell into the muddy quagmire of Jiangnan instead.

The various forces in the capital kept reaching out to him for money, the Supreme Emperor wanted to cultivate a Taoist temple, the King Zhongxin wanted to build a garden... and so on, each of which he could not afford to offend.

But before Lin Ruhai died, he just sent all the money in the treasury to the Ministry of Households, and the Yangzhou Xunyan Yushi's mansion was empty. Where did he find the money?

It has to be said that officials supported by businessmen are often extremely sensitive to silver.He saw Yanhu's salary from the account book, which was several times higher than that of Taizu.

Now he has a way to make money, and just this month, he promulgated a new rule that the salary of salt households was restored to that of the Taizu grandfather, and each household had a monthly salary of one tael.

This can poke a hornet's nest, and the Yanhu Gate erupted immediately.A monthly salary of one tael could still support a family in the Taizu's place, but the price of goods today is no longer comparable to that of the past.

Lin Ruhai raised his monthly salary to three taels, and at the same time, according to Lin Shu's proposal, more pay for more work, which fully mobilized the enthusiasm of the salt households.

In this way, not only the living problems of the salt households were solved, but also the output of the salt field under the administration of the Yangzhou Xunyan Yushifu increased dramatically.

But Yang Xueli didn't care about these, it was one tael down, but the monthly salary reported to the center was still three taels.Two or two of them were put into his pockets or sent to various places in the capital.

In just one month, nearly 200,000 taels of silver were withdrawn from the [-] salt account.It was hard to fill his desires, so he sold all the Yanyin shares that should have belonged to the Jiangnan salt merchants at a low price to the Shanxi merchants who supported him.

How could the salt merchants in the south of the Yangtze River be able to bear it now, and began to publicize Yang Xueli's actions among the Yanhus, completely angering the Yanhus who were already dying.

Three days ago, tens of thousands of salt households gathered with their families from major salt fields to visit Yan Yushi's Mansion in Yangzhou. Fortunately, the salt households still had reason, and they just sat in and protested, and did not do anything excessive.

The officials in the Yangzhou government were frightened, and they tried their best to persuade the salt households to go back.

At this time, Geng Xiangnan, who was hiding aside, thought of Lin Shu, the nephew and heir of Lin Ruhai, the former inspector of salt in Yangzhou. If he wanted to come to Xie Yuangong and be taught by Lin Ruhai's words and deeds, there might be some way.

After listening to Geng Xiangnan's explanation, Lin Shu sat on a chair and remained silent.In fact, it is very simple to solve this matter: one is to restore the monthly salary and rules established by Lin Ruhai back then, and the other is to recover the stored salt that was transported out.

But there is an insoluble problem in the middle, that is the existence of Yang Xueli.The new Yangzhou patrol salt censor, he will definitely not follow this method.

The rules set by the great grandfather are still there, and the other patrolling salt censors have always followed this rule, even though the salt households are living in a difficult situation, and the output of the salt farm is getting less and less.

But the rules are the rules, and before the court issued new rules, Yang Xueli's actions really couldn't be said to be wrong.

As for the salt stored for sale, who is not selling it to?Can't you salt merchants in Jiangnan wait for the next batch of salt to come out?
No one dared to bear the responsibility of instigating a civil uprising, so Yang Xueli would never admit his mistake.

For a while, Lin Shu had no choice but to get Yang Xueli away, otherwise he would stand in the middle, and even if he persuaded Yanhu to come back for a while, there would probably be trouble again in a few days.

(End of this chapter)