Dragon Sea Empire

After Mai Xiaoliu found the clue of the Xie family in Yuyao, he immediately mobilized all the eyeliners of the Zhonghua company in Zhejiang, and followed the vines to track down. The Xie family and Yin Feng's Zhonghua company have been against each other several times. An ambush was laid to trap the company's shareholders. Therefore, the business affairs department of the company set up a lot of hidden eyeliners around Xie's family. However, Xie's family has lived in Yuyao for more than 300 years since the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Several Beijing officials came out of the Shang family, and the combination of officials, gentry and businessmen controlled the local government and ran rampant in the countryside. There are secret operations lurking in such places, so the Xie family's small tricks on the rehearsal of the imperial court's new army have not been discovered.

Mai Xiaoliu thought that with the strength of the Xie family, it would be impossible to go to Macau to buy cannons. The financial resources needed to train a new army of firearms were not something a wealthy businessman could afford. In the early days, there were only a thousand people, but they had to gather the strength of hundreds of businessmen who fled from Manila, plus the sacrifices of myself and the Zeng family that almost went bankrupt, plus the millions of taels of silver obtained from robbing Japanese Zhuyin ships several times, to establish Rise up a firearms unit.

Therefore, Mai Xiaoliu concluded that besides the Yuyao Xie family, there must be other officials, gentry and wealthy businessmen involved in this matter.

He used those business contacts among the Zhejiang merchants who belonged to the company's secret shareholders and had a good relationship with the Xie family to trace this clue throughout Jiangnan. Over the years, the business models of banks and banks established by Zhonghua Company have spread all over Jiangnan, and many merchants The circulation of large sums of funds in China is handled through banks and bank accounts. Although the banks directly under the Zhonghua Company have been seized, there are spies from the Zhonghua Company lurking everywhere in the banks run by Zhejiang merchants who partnered with the company alliance.

Soon, through the bank of a wealthy businessman in Suzhou, Mai Xiaoliu found out about the transfer of a large amount of funds from the Xie family, as well as the sources of funds that flowed to the same direction as the Xie family: salt merchants from Lianghuai and Shanxi merchants headed by the Qiao family from Shanxi. After discovering some of the funds of Zhejiang merchants, Mai Xiaoliu found out through the detailed work of the business affairs department in Nanzhili that after some circulation, these funds were finally exchanged into white silver at the Xie family's business in the north of Jinling City, and entered the Yingtianfu's treasury was nominally donated by the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, and it was assigned to the Ministry of War in Nanjing for its exclusive use.

Mai Xiaoliu chased all the way to Nanjing, spent a sum of money in Nanjing to bribe a treasury official of the Nanjing Ministry of War, and got a list of treasury transfers from him.

In the end, it was Xiong Tingbi, the Nanjing manager who was in charge of the military training affairs of the new army, who finally took the money and shipped it to Zhejiang. .

When Mai Xiaoliu arrived in Nanjing, it had been a month since he left Zhenjiang. Lin Xiao, who was also investigating the case, encountered a group of gentlemen besieging the Chinese company's business hall as soon as he arrived in Nanjing, and was burned by a group of gentlemen. , Therefore, he was busy mobilizing manpower to evacuate the business hall from Nanjing, and he had no time to investigate the matter.

When Mai Xiaoliu came to Nanjing, those gentry who were clamoring all day long even demonstrated in front of the mansion of Xiong Tingbi, the manager of Nanjing, demanding that he send troops to recover Zhenjiang, Susong and other places, and drive away pirates. Those who escaped from the Chinese Army's control area besieged the Zhonghua Company-Huaxing Lianhao Shop in order to retaliate and provoke.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River were given a severe lesson by Zhu Yuanzhang for their uncooperative attitude towards Zhu Yuanzhang. Public discussion, taking up lawsuits, going in and out of public offices, colluding with subordinate officials, interfering in administration, arbitrarily arbitrarily ruling the village, and manipulating public opinion are their basic social images. Illegal; wantonly enslaving the villagers; accepting donations, slavery is a common practice; extravagance and prostitution, drunken life and death, in view of the bad habits and bad behavior of the students, Gu Yanwu, a great Confucian in another time and space, even compared the students with the township officials and servants to "the world". There are three kinds of people who believe that "abolishing the world's students will make the government clear; abolishing the world's students will make the people miserable; And use the materials of the world, "

Like Dong Qichang, who appears to be sanctimonious on the surface, but in fact he is a tyrant in the local area, connivance of evil servants to do evil, and as a result, scholars and common people rise up and attack. There is the so-called "civilians copied Dong Qichang". Officials originally enjoyed the privilege of keeping slaves, but the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River abused this privilege and kept slaves far beyond the law. There are thousands of domestic slaves who take refuge with them. On the surface, those who take refuge are voluntary, but most of them are because the gentry are the only ones who enjoy the privileges of preferential treatment and exemption. The heavy burden of taxes and labor falls on the small people. They had to rely on powerful families for protection. For example, Dong Qichang was "a rich hectare, but only three cents of taxes, and a hundred cruise ships, and most of them took refuge in him." Dong Qichang's house was burned by villagers and his family property was looted.

(In another time and space, at the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the four prefectures of Taicang, Shanghai, Jiading, Kunshan, Shimen, Jintan, Liyang Guang, and Susong Changjia had slave rebellions, and Sochi killed the lord. The result of being a blessing is self-inflicted, the most violent slavery in the south of the Yangtze River in the late Ming Dynasty is necessarily related to the concentration of local wealthy families, the most prosperous slavery, and the harshest control,)

However, due to the urgent need of all kinds of labor in the areas under the Chinese rule, and there are also a large number of Japanese, Spanish, Dutch prisoners of war and indigenous people who can be used at will, there are very few wealthy businessmen who hold slaves. Yin Feng has no interest in using slave labor However, in view of practical factors, he is not opposed to using a large number of defeated natives and prisoners of war from various countries as coolies, and those servants in the Jiangnan family and Chinese companies are all treated as potential immigration targets, and farmers can be exempted from taxes for three years With the policy in front of us, those ordinary people don't need to bear heavy taxes, and they don't need to take refuge in those officials and gentlemen. As a result, many slave rebellions occurred in the areas ruled by the Chinese Army, and the attitude of the Chinese Army to this is not heard. Don't ask, if someone is killed, the master's house will be ransacked, and the slaves who have been murdered will be arrested and sent to overseas colonies to serve a few years of hard labor; the rest of the slaves will encourage them to leave the master's house and go to Taiwan, Ryukyu, Luzon, Borneo, etc. In places like Africa, Java, Sumatra, etc., there are large pieces of land waiting for them to cultivate, and there is no labor other than paying rent to the company. Therefore, a large number of slaves, tenants, and refugees have defected to the Chinese Army.

In the early days when the Chinese army entered the south of the Yangtze River, the gentry were suppressed by their force. Later, they discovered that the gang of pirates wanted to recruit security, and they did not kill people randomly. However, the Chinese army is not the Ming Dynasty government that must rely on the local gentry for local administration. They pay attention to the rule of law, and the gentry have no privileges. Taxes are the same as small traders, and if a murder case occurs, it must be punished by law. When the gentry go on strike, suspend business, and resist the administrative measures of the tutelary mansion, soldiers in black from the Chinese army will come to solve the problem by force: the Chinese army and the tutelary mansion do not need the financial resources and strength of the gentry to implement their own governance in the local area Measures, if the officials and gentry resist with force, it will be useless. The force of the Chinese army and the ability to mobilize the middle and lower classes can easily drown the resistance of the officials and gentry in a pool of blood.

After Chen Zhongji came to the Jiangnan Township Mansion, he also used strong means to implement the policy of not disturbing the people but not condoning crimes. He also took out a little carrot to win over the Jiangnan gentry: obey the ruler of the Chinese army, you can enter the town guard mansion bureau, you can The eloquence and literary talents of the gentry are used in the public meeting of the meeting, and they can express their opinions on anything, and they can recommend auditors to check the officials of the tutelary government. Moreover, all members of the meeting can accuse officials, but there must be evidence, and accusations without evidence The tutelary government will ignore it.

The intertwined and colluding forces of Jiangnan gentry are completely meaningless in the face of effective administrative institutions based on government violence.

Therefore, these gentry did not dare to make trouble in the area ruled by the Chinese army, but fled to Nanjing, which was ruled by the Ming Dynasty, to make trouble.

Moreover, through the trip to Zhejiang, Mai Xiaoliu found out a bunch of names of officials, gentry and wealthy businessmen in Suzhou, Songjiang, Zhenjiang and other places: these people have donated money and paid military salaries for the imperial court to train new troops.

Mai Xiaoliu saw the chaos in Nanjing and also saw that Lin Xiao was organizing the evacuation of the company's personnel from Nanjing. He thought that his task did not include helping Lin Xiao with trivial matters, so he left Nanjing and returned to Zhenjiang first. Lin Xiao returned to Zhenjiang three days later. He listened to Mai Xiaoliu's investigation report in Zhenjiang, and Chen Zhongji was also present. He knew about Mai Xiaoliu's investigation results three days ago.

Lin Xiao listened to Mai Xiaoliu's report very jealously, but he didn't express anything on his face, and said coldly: "It seems that the military salary of the new army was raised by various officials, merchants, gentry, salt merchants, and Shanxi merchants in the south of the Yangtze River. Yes, the main investor is a big official businessman from Jiangnan, and the initiator is the Xie family in Yuyao. It is understandable for Jiangnan officials to do so. These Anhui merchants and Shanxi merchants have close business contacts with our company. Damn, this is obvious Are you stepping on two boats?"

Mai Xiaoliu nodded: "These officials, businessmen and businessmen are united, and their power should not be underestimated. I found out that they raised as much as 100 million taels for the first military salary. I went to the investigation report, and the detailed report was also sent to Taiwan Port yesterday on the Sea Breeze.”

Lin Xiao's face darkened, he lowered his head and remained silent. He was very dissatisfied with Mai Xiaoliu's arbitrary use of the carrier pigeons of the Commercial Affairs Department under his jurisdiction. Due to the presence of Chen Zhongji, he tried his best to suppress his anger. He coughed a few times and lowered his head not to look at Mai Xiaoliu. Xiao Liu: "Hehe, Your Majesty has ordered that we only need to find out the source of funding for the new army, and there is no further action. What should we do now?"

Chen Zhongji, as the chief of the Jiangnan Township Mansion, also in charge of military and civil affairs, considered it more comprehensively. He said slowly: "This matter should not be rushed. I think His Royal Highness King Jinghai is unlikely to attack the new army immediately. The first thing to solve is Shanxi Merchants. , those in Huizhou merchants who violated the secret shareholder agreement,”