Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Wu Shigong was completely unaware of all the disturbances that happened in the capital around the incident of him beating Yu Zilian.In fact, he had already forgotten about the beating of Yu Zilian.What he wants to do most now is to show his muscles to those ignorant merchants in the town.

One day, all merchants in the small town received a notice from Qianhusuo: Qianhusuo would conduct firecracker shooting training.However, because the site of Qianhusuo is relatively small, Qianhusuo will place an empty boat on the river with targets on it for firecracker shooting training.

In order to prevent accidental injury, it is hoped that the ships of the majority of merchants will not approach the shooting training place.Otherwise, do so at your own risk.

Before there was any reaction from these merchants, Wu Shigong arranged a weekly patrol and led the newly recruited soldiers to the river.After placing the empty ship and the target, "Crackling" began to shoot with firecrackers.

The place Wu Shigong chose is very mysterious, it is the only way for ships on the river to approach the pier.With such a shot from the soldiers' firecrackers, the boats on the river could not approach the pier, and the boats on the pier could not get out.After all, no one dared to try whether the firecracker would really hit someone.

Now, these merchants are in a hurry.Now is the peak time for goods to come in and out before the end of the year, and after a while, the river will freeze.These merchants gathered on the pier, watching Wu Shigong shoot with fully armed guards to protect the trained soldiers, no one dared to come forward to negotiate.

Until Yao Yuanwai got the news and rushed over, seeing this situation, he came to Wu Shigong.

Member Yao shook his beard and shouted angrily at Wu Shigong: "Wu Qianhu, why did you shoot the firecracker on the river? Are you not afraid that we will sue you for obstructing the passage of civilian ships?"

Wu Shigong glanced sideways at Member Yao, and said calmly: "I am training soldiers on the land of my thousand households, what do you care about? Sue me? Then you sue. It's really incomprehensible." wonderful."

Yao Yuanwai was taught a lesson by Wu Shigong's words, he almost vomited blood.However, the issue of the ownership of this land is still really unclear at this moment.

Member Yao had no choice but to hold back his breath, and asked in a low voice, "How long will Wu Qianhu train for?"

"Of course, the training is until these soldiers have fully mastered the shooting of firecrackers." Wu Shigong said confidently, "I guess the training is until the river is frozen, and I guess it will be almost the same."

This is simply too much, this is naked blackmail.Member Yao didn't want to pay any more attention to Wu Shigong, he wanted to wait a while to discuss with those merchants: it may not be that Wu Shigong shot firecrackers on the river day and night.The big deal is to wait until night, order more lanterns, and load and unload the cargo on the ship at night.

As if he knew Yao Yuanwai's thoughts, Wu Shigong said leisurely from the side: "From today until the end of the soldiers' training, this section of the river will be set as a military restricted zone. If any ships enter, the ships will be detained and the goods will be released." It will be confiscated and the personnel will be imprisoned. Folks, if you don’t believe what I say, you can come and have a try.”

Now, these merchants were in a hurry, they all gathered around and pleaded with Wu Shigong one after another.Wu Shigong listened for a while, seemed a little moved, sighed and said: "I'm soft-hearted, forget it, let those ships come over later. But there is a wharf usage fee, five taels of silver per ship. "

"Wow--", these merchants were in an uproar.They all thought in their hearts: "This new Wu Qianhu's heart is too dark."

But people have to bow their heads under the eaves.Let's deal with the difficulties in front of us first.Some merchants bargained with Wu Shigong, wanting to pay less money.

Wu Shigong became angry all of a sudden, and he shouted angrily: "What do you think of the glorious army of the Ming Dynasty? Are you still bargaining with the army? You can either pay the money to dock, or not pay the money and just float on the river. You make your own choice. Ben The officer is busy with military affairs, so excuse me."

After finishing speaking, Wu Shigong left some guards to maintain order, and asked Zheng Zhen to be responsible for collecting the dock usage fee, and then walked away by himself.

"This Wu Qianhu is probably crazy about money." After Wu Shigong left, Yao Yuanwai said to the merchants around him, "I will do as he said today. But the Ming Dynasty has the king's law." The old man immediately went to the old parents and asked him to comment on this reason for us."

Yao Yuanwai's hands and feet were very fast. In the afternoon, the county magistrate Qi sent two yamen servants to Wu Shigong to deliver a letter: Let Wu Qianhu gather at the county yamen tomorrow morning. Qi county magistrate has something to discuss with Wu Qianhu .

After receiving the letter from Magistrate Qi, Wu Shigong smiled knowingly.He thought in his heart: "These merchants are really scumbags. After beating them, they know that they should talk to me obediently."

County magistrate Qi has been magistrate in this county for five years, and he will move to another place next year.County Magistrate Qi guessed that his evaluation in the Ministry of Officials in the past few years is still good, and as long as he is active at that time, he may be promoted to Zhizhou.Therefore, I don't want to make extravagant problems at this juncture.

Besides, in this county, land disputes between Qianhusuo and local areas are a long-standing and difficult problem left over from history.Originally, it was because of the long history of this problem, and the military households were in a weak position in the environment of the entire Ming Dynasty.So, this problem is not too prominent.

However, after Qianhu was forced to commit suicide by Li Bingbeidao, the entire Henan officialdom knew about this problem.The county magistrate Qi wanted to finish his term peacefully and let his successor solve this problem.

In addition, although Wu Shigong's thousand-household office is located in this county.However, County Magistrate Qi can't control any affairs of Qianhusuo.At most, orders can be given to thousands of households in the thousand households during wartime.Therefore, County Magistrate Qi didn't want to accept this hot potato at all.

However, Yao Yuanwai is the leading figure in the county, and many government affairs of Qi County Magistrate need the cooperation of Yao Yuanwai and other gentry in the county.And Yao Yuanwai was very filial to the county magistrate in his usual days.Therefore, when Yao Yuanwai asked Qi County magistrate, Qi County magistrate was too embarrassed to refuse.

Therefore, when County Magistrate Qi summoned Wu Shigong for a meeting, he mainly wanted to be a middleman. It would be best if Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai could discuss a satisfactory solution by themselves.

However, the talks between Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai and their several merchants almost collapsed at the very beginning.

That Yao Yuanwai did not agree with Wu Shigong to charge any fee at all.In fact, among the 15 or [-] merchants in the small town, Yao Yuanwai, the twenty or so merchants engaged in shipping trade, did not pay attention to the annual fee of [-] taels of silver at all.

But Yao Yuanwai didn't think about this problem.He was worried: If Wu Shigong was paid this time for the land rental fee of this small town.On the one hand, it proves that the land in the town is owned by Qianhusuo; on the other hand, these gentry still own the farmland of Qianhusuo.Is it necessary to pay Qianhusuo land rent in the future?Therefore, Yao Yuanwai's attitude was not to give up an inch.

Seeing Yuanwai Yao's resolute attitude, Wu Shigong completely pretended to be crazy.He yelled at the county government office: "You have killed one thousand households. Do you still want to kill the second one? Anyway, if you are about to die, then this official will die with you."

Wu Shigong's words made County Magistrate Qi's scalp numb.County Magistrate Qi was not sure whether Wu Shigong, a household of [-], would really take the risk.Therefore, the county magistrate Qi hurriedly persuaded him from the sidelines and carried out arduous mediation work.

In the end, businessmen such as Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai finally reached an agreement.The content of the agreement is: Wu Shigong will not mention this fee or that fee here.And Yao Yuanwai will be responsible for integrating all the merchants, and pay Wu Shigong 750 taels of silver as a labor fee every year.Wu Shigong will no longer charge additional fees to these merchants.

Wu Shigong is still very satisfied with this agreement.In fact, Wu Shigong didn't care about the name of the fee at all, his main purpose was to receive money.

Although the fee of 750 taels was not much, Wu Shigong didn't want to exhaust the merchants in these small towns.

If violence is really used, more money may be charged.However, the town's business environment will also be disrupted.This is actually not good for Wu Shigong.

Moreover, Yao Yuanwai and these gentry are all local figures. As an outsider, Wu Shigong, it is not good to push these local people into a hurry.After all, Wu Shigong wanted to use this place as his base.

However, Wu Shigong was satisfied, so Yao Yuanwai was not satisfied.When he left the county government office, Yao Yuanwai complained to the county magistrate, "It's difficult to do business in the town. The county has to collect money from the merchants, and now it has to pay labor expenses, and even the green-skinned rascals have to be blackmailed. "

Hearing this question, the county magistrate of Qi expressed the expression that one thing is worse than one thing, but Wu Shigong took his heart.

After returning to the small town, Wu Shigong called Yao Yuanwai and asked him to talk about the situation of those green-skinned rascals in the small town.

It turned out that with the prosperity of this small town, there have been more green-skinned rascals who have been tricked and abducted in the small town.Some even formed a group to charge protection fees from those merchants.If any merchants do not pay, they will go to make trouble.In order to avoid trouble, all the merchants also paid protection fees to calm things down.

Wu Shigong didn't say much, and asked Yao Yuanwai to report the list of these green-skinned rascals, and Yao Yuanwai arranged for a few people who were familiar with the situation of the town to lead the way, and dispatched soldiers to arrest these green-skinned rascals.

After catching these people, Wu Shigong took them to the small town for a parade, and asked them to express their repentance in front of everyone.There was a Qingpi who was stubborn and refused to speak.Wu Shigong ordered people to beat him to death on the spot.The other green-skinned rascals immediately obeyed.

After these green-skinned rascals repented, Wu Shigong escorted them all to Qianhusuo Fortress to do hard labor.Wu Shigong also happened to be short of manpower to work here.

Wu Shigong's behavior shocked these merchants, and made these merchants look at Wu Shigong with admiration.They all thought: Although this Wu Qianhu asked for more money, he is not a person who does not do things.