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

In early August, Liu Cheng held a Shanren banquet in his mansion in Suzhou, and there were more than forty Shanren guests.

Shanren was a term for a technical profession in this era, and it did not only include scholars who did not take the imperial examinations. Anyone who could do medicine, divination, horoscopes, and martial arts, as long as they had outstanding skills and could work under a wealthy family, could join the ranks of Shanren.

In the past few months, Liu Cheng had taken in many mountain people who had returned to Suzhou from the capital. In addition to some scholars wearing Confucian clothes, the guests at this time also had many strange-looking figures: strong men with open arms. Han, sly-looking thieves, monks and Taoists, and even strange people who specialize in tomb robbing...

This kind of character can be useful under Liu Cheng.

Liu Cheng turned to Wang Qiwei and asked, "Where has Wang Wenlong been these days?"

Wang Qiwei said: "He left Suzhou the day before yesterday. I heard he went back to Nanjing."

One of Liu Cheng's staff laughed loudly when he heard this: "Mr. Jingguan, it turned out that he was scared away!"

"My father-in-law is mighty!"

Listening to the flattery from his subordinates, Liu Cheng stood up, walked to the table with a glass of wine, and said loudly:

"Although our family is not a wealthy family, we still have some skills. Those who dare to go against our family will never get a good deal. There are two things to do now. One is to completely bring down Wang Wenlong and make him stink. , do you want people in these four houses to know what the consequences will be if you go against our family? The second thing is that the day of the Holy Wanshou is coming. The prestige we have established by rectifying Wang Wenlong must be put to good use, so as to gain more for the Holy Lord. Tax……"

"My father-in-law said it well!"

After Liu Cheng finished speaking, all the Shanren staff present applauded and agreed.

Liu Cheng couldn't help but feel satisfied when he saw everyone in the audience "gathering together".

Liu Cheng and everyone had a banquet until noon. One of his staff came to him and whispered: "Ge Cheng from the Suzhou Weavers Guild sent a message saying that we had detained a group of people from their guild before and wanted to beg us." Let it go."

"Let go," Liu Cheng nodded and said, "This weavers' guild has some power, so don't offend them rashly."

"We don't need to be afraid of him." The staff member said with a proud look. "The weavers' guild relied on Wang Wenlong's "Suzhou Xunbao" to punish our brothers miserably. Now they are watching Wang Wenlong being driven away. , it’s because you’re scared that you posted a post begging for mercy, why not take the opportunity to squeeze more out of them?”

Liu Cheng shook his head and said: "Eunuch Sun was tricked by this weavers' guild before. Although Wang Wenlong has some reputation in Jiangnan, he is only a scholar after all. This weavers' guild can really support a group of young men with stronger strength than Wang Wenlong is a big man, so we can't attack directly yet. However, I heard that Wang Wenlong's "Suzhou Xundao" hired a large number of people from the weavers' guild to be informants, so it could be well-informed. In this case, we can ask them to submit a petition. .”

Liu Cheng smiled at his subordinates and said: "Tell them to cut off all cooperation with the Suzhou Xunbao, and then send people to other newspapers to say bad things about Wang Wenlong, so that the people they capture can be released to him." .”

After hearing this, the staff hesitated and said: "Those weavers have to boast about their loyalty, maybe they don't want to offend Wang Wenlong in this way, right?"

Liu Cheng smiled and said: "According to my arrangement, in less than two months, Wang Wenlong will be ruined in Suzhou, and his "Suzhou Xunbao" will gradually decline. Wang Wenlong will have no choice but to flee Suzhou. The Weavers Guild But they can't leave. Why should they give up their actual interests for the sake of loyalty? What's more, even if one or two of them are brainless, in such a large organization, smart people still make up the majority."

When the staff heard this, their eyes lit up: "In this way, maybe some guild leaders who are good friends with Wang Wenlong and the weavers' guild will have discord."

The Weavers Guild has always been a headache for Liu Cheng.

Although Liu Cheng's arbitrary tax collection during this period was cleverly designed to avoid harming the interests of the weavers, after collecting so much money, a considerable part of the final pressure from social operations was passed on to the Suzhou weavers. The weavers' guild has already made some changes. On the one hand, they contacted Liu Cheng and on the other hand, they also issued a statement in the name of the guild in the "Suzhou Xunbao", stating that if the tax supervisor continues to oppress, the Suzhou Weavers Guild will call for a break. This method had previously made Sun Long want to die. Liu Cheng was also afraid and could only comfort him as much as possible.

But in his opinion, these are just temporary measures, and the ultimate goal is to disintegrate the Suzhou Weavers Guild. Attacking Wang Wenlong and shutting down the "Suzhou Xunbao" left the weavers' guild without a mouthpiece to communicate with, and then gradually divided, this is the first step of action!

After a short break at noon, the banquet at Liu Cheng's house continued in the afternoon. Everyone served cold dishes and ice cream, and a big show was staged on the stage. All the Shanren staff who had just become Liu Cheng's minions were very satisfied with Liu Cheng's attentive reception.

There is also a two-way selection process between the mountain people, or diners, and the hosts. The more Liu Cheng shows that he is wealthy and values ​​talents, the more these mountain people feel that they have a future in Liu Cheng, and the more willing they are to serve him sincerely.

While watching the play, Liu Cheng continued to discuss with his staff how to deal with the Suzhou Weavers Guild. After performing three plays and giving out rewards, Liu Cheng returned to his home.

He had just been scrubbed by someone, put on his cool clothes and was about to rest, when suddenly he saw his staff running in in a hurry.

"Eunuch, Wang Wenlong has written a letter from Nanjing."

Liu Cheng laughed loudly when he heard this: "This Wang Wenlong is so stupid! How did he manage our family back then, and now he has the nerve to beg for mercy? How can our family let him go?" He pointed at the staff with his long nails and said: "Bring it here, first Let me see how a scholar like him can beg me."

Liu Cheng tore open the wax seal and took a few glances, but the smile on his face froze.

"Your Majesty, do you want to read The Wealth of Nations?"

What happened was that after Tian Yi, the eunuch in charge of the Li Supervisor, discovered that Emperor Wanli liked Wang Wenlong's books, he wrote to his old brother Sun Long in Nanjing, asking him to pay close attention to Wang Wenlong.

Before the letter was sent, Emperor Wanli wrote another note to Tian Yi from the palace, asking Tian Yi to go to Jiangnan to get him a genuine set of "The Wealth of Nations".

Although the book "The Wealth of Nations" has been circulated in Beijing, the number is very small, and most of them are reprints. The reprinted books these days are all manually copied. During the copying process, one or two words or one or two paragraphs are inevitably missed. The version Not the same.

One thing did not bother the two masters, so Tian Yi asked Sun Long to get a set of books from him when he made friends with Wang Wenlong.

Wang Wenlong had just arrived in Nanjing the day before yesterday and Sun Long came to ask for books, but Wang Wenlong had no books.

According to the law, the original books must be taken away and destroyed when books are seized in this era, and only the paper price is returned to the bookseller.

Of course, in fact, the price of the paper will not be given, and the bookseller can only return empty-handed and consider himself unlucky after being confiscated.

There were not many copies of "The Wealth of Nations" left in Shu Zhitang's inventory. Liu Cheng's men went to the bookstore and sealed all the "Wealth of Nations" like wolves and tigers. Wang Wenlong did have a few copies at home for his own collection. "The Wealth of Nations", but you can't give old books to the emperor, right?

The book the emperor wants?

Have.

It was detained by Liu Cheng and was about to be destroyed.

So Wang Wenlong forwarded this letter to Liu Cheng.

(End of this chapter)