The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 300 Asking for Manuscripts

The Fujian government and Jinyiwei searched all over the land in Changle County. In the end, they only found out that a group of people robbed Gao Yin's team on the official road, and then this group of people went to sea. How does this look like? This is the way Japanese pirates behave.

Everyone in Fujian actually wants to blame this matter on the Japanese pirates. After all, this is the easiest choice.

Even the thieves were Japanese pirates who came from the sea. They grabbed a handful and ran away without disturbing other people in the area. This completely shows that these Japanese pirates heard about Gao Yin's escape and came specifically to target him.

So the person who should be responsible for the whole process is Gao Yin himself. Even though he escaped from Fuzhou, he actually brought so much money with such arrogance, and even went to the villages along the way to snatch cattle and horses to transport money. This would be strange if he was not targeted by Japanese pirates. .

Although the case has not yet been concluded, the outcome is probably determined internally.

As for Wang Yu, who led the Zhusheng Rebellion.

In the original history, Gao Yin successfully escaped from Fuzhou and ran to Zhangzhou, and then he went to visit Wang Yu one after another. He wanted to kill Wang Yu with all his strength. Wang Yu could not stay in Fujian, so he asked someone to borrow a gun. The money went to the Imperial Academy in the capital to study, but it turned out that he was safe and was not pursued further.

The bottom line is this: Emperor Wanli's purpose in helping the tax eunuchs to punish them was to prevent these local forces from preventing the eunuchs from collecting taxes.

Wang Yu had already gone to the capital, so there was no way he could stop Gao Yin from collecting taxes.

Since his own interests would not be harmed, Emperor Wanli was naturally unwilling to deal with Wang Yu and cause more civil servants to backlash.

Gao Yin originally caused public dissatisfaction in Fujian. Before his death, the emperor was watching over him, and he could recruit a group of party members to speak for him below, and the Fujian civil servants could not defeat him.

The books written by Gao Yin flew towards the capital like snow flakes. Each of them had eight characters clearly written on them: "The crime deserves it, and the death deserves it."

Originally, the eunuchs dug deep into the ground when collecting taxes. In addition to making profits for themselves, they also hoped to get more tax revenue for Emperor Wanli to make him happy. However, the eunuchs who came to Fujian to collect statistics on Gao Yin's family property did the same. Same logic.

The officialdom and the people showed no mercy when it came to liquidating them.

This is really cruel.

In order to be able to copy out figures that satisfied Emperor Wanli, the eunuchs who came from the capital to take charge of the matter dug deep into the ground and tortured Gao Yin and his accomplices, using all possible means. Finally, they sent a tax of 130,000 gold to the capital. .

The big thugs saw that the limelight was not right and ran away quickly. The little thugs who stayed in the city reacted quickly and took the initiative to donate their property to the powerful. For those who were really unable to donate, they would rather hang up a rope and go to the Yamen to surrender. After all, they surrendered. Being imprisoned is better than being beaten to death by the common people.

After the Zhusheng Rebellion ended, Wang Yu was not punished and continued to go back to Fuzhou to study. This even left a great reputation among Fuzhou scholars, and he might be admitted to the imperial examination one day.

In the Fujian market, the fate of Gao Yin's gang members was not so good. Once Gao Yin died, these former eunuch minions instantly changed from the arrogant local emperors in the past to fallen dogs.

And when he died, his followers would naturally be dispersed. Emperor Wanli no longer had to fight against hundreds of officials for such a dead man, and Fujian officials no longer had any scruples.

Then the trick came. One of Gao Yin's nephews was also killed by Wang Wenlong. This family was completely extinct, so Emperor Wanli sent eunuchs to Fujian to copy Gao Yin's inheritance to the inner treasury.

Emperor Wanli was stunned when he saw the numbers. He did know that his tax eunuchs were greedy for money, but he never expected that they would be so greedy. This Gao Yin's family property was greater than the three years of mining taxes he collected in Fujian. many.

The situation is similar in the tide;

In this time and space, even Gao Yin himself was dead. No one in the court could speak for Gao Yin. The other eunuchs were seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, let alone supporting him. Emperor Wanli naturally had no intention of holding Wang Yu accountable.

Those who were arrested by the government were good fortune tellers, but the worst thing was that they were retaliated by the people. This group of people aroused public anger. At this time, they lost their protective umbrella. The people who had been harmed by them were also beaten to death with a hoe. After beating people to death The common people swarmed over easily. You get a stool, I get a tea cup. Hundreds of people can rob a family of all their property in less than half an hour. Moreover, because there are so many people involved, the government cannot arrest them afterwards. .

He didn't care about the cause of Gao Yin's death and quickly urged the wealth to be transported to the capital.

Emperor Wanli then wrote another letter to the tax supervising eunuchs in each province. The letter contained two things: first, to explain clearly the process of confiscating Gao Yin's family property, focusing on the figures, as a warning to others; second, I am about to pass the Fourth It's the tenth birthday, and it's time for the guarding eunuchs from all over the country to contribute birthday gifts.

You eunuchs have made too much money. I want to increase the dividend ratio and hand over the money as soon as possible. When the eunuchs from all over the country saw the letters sent by the emperor from the capital, they all cursed Gao Yin from the bottom of their hearts: This guy is dead, why bother causing trouble to his colleagues like them?

Naturally, tax eunuchs everywhere were unwilling to take money out of their own pockets, and then added it to the people as soon as they changed hands.

Emperor Wanli wiped out Gao Yin's inheritance and even beat up the drowned dog. In order to please the Fujian Shilin, he specially wrote a letter to reprimand Gao Yin for his local misbehavior. Hong Kong tax eunuch.

In the midst of this chaos, Xu Xueju took office as a new official, but he was in full swing.

Xu Xueju had no high-level constraints above him, and he had trained his own team below. This governor was much easier to do than Zhu Yunchang.

Among the people, Wang Wenlong also used the Fuzhou "Xunbao" to cooperate with Xu Xueju. Under Xu Xueju's suppression and control, the Fujian people's liquidation of tax collectors lasted for half a month and then slowly subsided.

Then Xu Xueju began to implement various plans with great enthusiasm. The immigration of senior officials, which had been almost interrupted, became popular again with Xu Xueju's support.

The good news that Shen Yourong defeated the Japanese pirates also came from the senior officials.

Xu Xueju decided to take this opportunity to set up a garrison on Dayu Island to consolidate coastal defense.

Wang Wenlong also plans to set up a reporter station on Taiyuan Island to convey news about Taiyuan Island to the people of Fujian.

Several things were put in place at the same time. Xu Xueju was extremely busy. Wang Wenlong, who was cooperating with him, was also very tired. Naturally, he wrote to Nanjing to ask for leave. He didn't know when he could go back.

A few days later, while Wang Wenlong was reading the manuscripts of "Xunbao", Yao Lu suddenly came to visit.

Yao Lu was excited as soon as they met: "Jianyang, have you heard about it?"

"What did you hear?" Wang Wenlong asked.

Yao Lu said with admiration: "When you were in Xiamen, you said that the Dutch definitely wanted to plot Dajuan Island. After Gao Yin's death, you actually found evidence from his letters that he and the Dutch colluded to betray Dajuan. .”

Wang Wenlong nodded and said: "This matter is not difficult to guess. If the Dutch want to operate maritime trade with the Ming Dynasty, they will definitely make this move."

"It's not hard to guess, that's for Jianyang. If Gao Yin hadn't died, who would have known that the Dutch had such ambitions?" Yao Lv said: "Jianyang, have you finished writing your book "On Nation-States"? In recent days, more and more people have Understanding the world, I feel more and more that your idea of ​​a nation-state needs to be widely publicized. Europeans have all rushed to the Ming Dynasty. If we are still so ignorant, it will be too late."

Wang Wenlong laughed when he heard this and said, "Mr. Yuan Rong came to Fuzhou from Xinhua just to ask me for the manuscript?"

"Not really," Yao Lu said with a smile, "After reading "On Nation-States", I became very interested in the overseas colonization and cultural expansion written in Jianyang's book, but this time I went there at the invitation of Fuzhou Sea Lord. Take a trip to Taiyuan Island to see it for yourself.”

"Mr. Yuan Rong's personal actions are admirable." Wang Wenlong nodded.

Yao Lvdao: "Jianyang hasn't answered yet. Have you written the Theory of Nation-State?"

Wang Wenlong took out a copy of the manuscript of "On the Nation and the State" that Pan Xiu had copied for him and said with a smile: "This book will be on the market soon. I also ask Yuan Rong to help me with publicity."

"It's really finished!" Yao Lv was quite happy and said with a smile: "This time I will go to Da Yuan Island to read some books on the sea."

Wang Wenlong said: "The voyage is quite stormy, Mr. Yuan Rong needs to be more careful."

Yao Lu smiled and said: "Thank you Jianyang for your concern. I went to pay homage to Mazu and asked for a signature. I think it will be smooth sailing."

(End of this chapter)