Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

() Wu Shigong listened to Li Lu calling himself "brother-in-law", but now the word "cousin" has been omitted, and he directly calls himself "brother-in-law. Such an affectionate and somewhat nasty person The title shows that Li Luxiang's matter of seeking himself must not be small.

So, Wu Shigong continued to ask with a smile: "We're all a family, there's nothing hard to say. Don't play charades, what's the matter? Tell me, little brother."

Li Lu and Wan Wendong glanced at each other, and immediately expressed their intentions to Wu Shigong: "Brother-in-law! You have been here to buy some iron materials from my brother-in-law a few days ago, and my brother will not lie to my brother-in-law. They were all taken from this Wan Yuanwai. This time my brother came to Runing Mansion to thank my brother-in-law with Wan Yuanwai."

"You're welcome! You're welcome! That's a matter of mutual benefit." Wu Shigong immediately said a few words politely, and then waited for Li Lu's next words.

To tell the truth, Wu Shigong passed Li Lu several times and bought a large amount of iron materials from Nanyang Mansion.And the price of those iron materials is indeed much cheaper than the official price of iron materials, which also saved Wu Shigong a lot of money.

You know, the Ming Dynasty implemented a monopoly on salt and iron, and the official price of this iron material was quite high.As Nanyang Mansion is an iron ore producing area, those large mines are managed by mine supervisors sent by the inner court, and Wu Shigong has no way to buy some cheap iron materials.

And Wu Shigong also found out from Yuan Xingshan, who was in charge of the specific affairs, that the iron materials he brought from Li Lu must have been mined from local private mines, which is why the price is so cheap.However, Wu Shigong won the benefits anyway, so he wouldn't care whether the source of these iron materials was right or not.Not to mention how much money Li Lu earned in this kind of transaction.

"This Wan Yuanwai owns several iron mines in my brother's residence." Li Lu introduced Wan Wendong to Wu Shigong, "Let Wan Yuanwai talk to your brother-in-law about this specific matter."

Then Wan Wendong immediately bowed to Wu Shigong and said, "Wu Shoubei, the villain is taking the liberty of visiting this time, because he has something to ask Wu Shoubei for!"

Then, Wan Wendong introduced their reason for coming in detail.

It turned out that Wan Wendong did occupy several iron-producing hilltops in Nanyang Prefecture and opened a private mine.As the owner of a private mine, Wan Wendong must be a black and white figure in the local area.

Let’s not talk about him, but Wan Wendong maintains a team of 600 to [-] servants in his family in order to compete with other private mine owners for land and to squeeze those miners better.And this situation is also very normal, which can be seen from the performance of those small private coal mine owners in modern times.

However, as a private mine, Wan Wendong's iron material sales channels are always somewhat inconvenient.And Wu Shigong purchased Wan Wendong's iron material through Li Lu, and also solved the problem of iron material sales for Wan Wendong.So after going back and forth, Wan Wendong also became acquainted with Li Lu.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were no such laws as the "Labor Law" and "Safety Production Law" to protect miners. In order to earn more money, private mine owners like Wan Wendong squeezed those miners viciously.How to describe it?The lives of those miners, even the lowest serfs of Wu Shigong, were living in dire straits.

But where there is oppression, there is bound to be resistance.But although those miners accounted for a large number of people, they used to be a mess.Under the threat of force from the servants like Wan Wendong, coupled with the recent drought that has caused a large number of refugees, the private mine owners of Wan Wendong can still easily suppress the resistance of those miners.

But this situation has been a bit wrong since the year before last.I don't know where a group of horse bandits came from. They first beat off the owner of a small private mine near Wanwendong, and occupied a private mine by themselves.

Then, the gang of horse bandits began to organize the miners in their own iron mines, improved their treatment, and conducted simple military training for those miners.

And when those horse bandits seized a private mine at the beginning, because they were unwilling to be the early birds, the nearby private mine owners like Wan Wendong just stood by and watched.And now the tiger is infested.

When those horse bandits established a firm foothold, they immediately began to expand.Under the internal response of some miners who were dissatisfied with the owner of the private mine, those horse bandits captured several nearby private mines one after another.

This situation was a bit wrong, and the private mine owners who felt the crisis immediately united, and they sent their servants to attack the horse bandits.

You must know that there are more than 1000 servants of the bosses of private mines like Wan Wendong. In addition, the food and training levels of those servants are not low. Bosses of these private mines in Wendong believed that their actions should be easy to grasp.

Unexpectedly, the gang of horse bandits had already trained the miners, and they had already trained an army.In addition, there are a large number of miners, the terrain is familiar, and there are also miners under the private mine bosses as internal support.After a fight, those servants were defeated, and the gang of horse bandits took advantage of the opportunity to rob several private mines.Even Wan Wendong's private mine was seized.

Now, Wan Wendong's private mine bosses are in a hurry.In desperation, they immediately collected money and asked the local garrison, that is, Li Lu and Li Shoubing for help, and asked Li Lu to lead troops to exterminate this gang of horse bandits.

And Li Lu has been in Nanyang Mansion for more than four years as a garrison, so he also knows the local situation. Of course he knows what those private mines are all about.

And those private mines, since they have become private mines, must be some mining areas that are inconvenient to mine and inconvenient to transport.Li Lu is not ignorant of the fierce struggle of the miners in these private mines, as the saying goes.Therefore, Li Lu was not willing to go to this muddy water at first.

But those private mine bosses collected a lot of money, and Li Lu also got a lot of money in the process of providing iron materials to Wu Shigong, so in the end, Li Lu still agreed.

In doing so, Li Lu relied on something.After the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society, he also seriously trained more than 400 soldiers. In addition, he temporarily recruited some people from refugees, and he also made up 200 people.

In addition, those private mine bosses recruited thousands of servants, and the private mine boss hired 3000 to [-] bandits and horse bandits. In this way, Li Lu also has more than [-] horsemen.

So, Li Lu led the army of the official bandit family and started to suppress the bandits.According to Li Lu's thinking, as long as his army arrives, those mud-legged miners will definitely flee.At that time, as long as Li Lu returns the recaptured mines to those private mine owners, he will be considered as having completed the task.

As for whether those private mine owners can keep the mine or not, that is not Li Lu's concern.It would be best if those private mine bosses couldn't keep it, then Li Lu could send troops again to earn such extra money.

But to Li Lu's surprise, those miners not only did not run away, but under the organization of the gang of horse bandits, they gathered almost all of the more than 4000 miners to fight Li Lulai.

This behavior made Li Lu amused at the time, because in the eyes of the officers and soldiers at that time, as long as the officers and soldiers came out, no bandit would dare not escape.Of course, the fighting power of the Ming army at this time was also much higher than those of the bandits.

But I didn't expect that when the battle was fought, those miners fought very well. Relatively speaking, Li Lu's army became a group of mobs because it consisted of several parts.In the end, Li Lu was also defeated.

If it weren't for those miners who were still a little afraid of the officers and soldiers, they would not have pursued Li Lu's army after they won the battle.Otherwise, the loss of Li Lu's army will be even greater.

The occurrence of this situation made Wan Yuanwai, the private mine owners and Li Lu worry.Because those private mines are illegal after all, it is impossible to go to the higher-level government to ask for reinforcements to uphold justice.And because Li Lu suffered this defeat inexplicably, he didn't want Shangfeng to know about it, so he would be punished inexplicably.

But the matter of the horse bandit occupying the private mine must be resolved.In the end, Li Lu thought of Wu Shigong, his brother-in-law, and the force in Wu Shigong's hands.When he brought up his idea with those private mine owners, those private mine owners of course agreed as if they had picked up a life-saving straw.Because no matter what, it is better than the private mine being seized and losing everything.

And at this time they heard about Wu Shigong's birthday celebration, so they sent their representative Wan Wendong, together with Li Lu, to the Runing Mansion with gifts to pay their respects to Wu Shigong.