Chapter 24: Taking Over Jinan (17)
When Wu was in trouble, but the martial artists and nurses were much more sober than him, and the fact that the overseas Chinese exterminated An Luotang had already spread in Jinan, so everyone had to weigh it in their hearts, and they would turn their faces with the overseas Chinese, and the consequences would be quite serious.
Don't look at the time when Na Wu's house set off, the martial artists and nurses were all high-spirited, but they were actually making their own little calculations in their hearts, although Na Wu treated these martial artists and nurses well, but he couldn't really sell his life to Na Wu. Therefore, if you really meet overseas Chinese, you should be smart, and when it is really time to do it, you should slow down your movements, and it is better to let others go up first and see where the wind is going.
As a result, everyone had this idea, when Wu rushed up, no one moved, and two nursing homes also ran two steps with him, but when he looked left and right, no one followed, so he hurriedly closed his steps and retreated into the crowd, but Wu didn't know it, so he rushed up stupidly. When the KPA saw that only one person rushed up, they did not shoot, and several policemen went up and beat him up, and arrested Nawu. Almost in the blink of an eye, the other martial artists and nurses ran out, so the soldiers stationed in the smoke hall immediately reported to the Jinan government.
Wang Sheng couldn't help but be overjoyed after receiving the report, he was about to catch a few typical people who refused to ban smoking, but he didn't expect that Na Wu actually took the initiative to bump into his own gun, he was the biggest cigarette dealer in Jinan, and he was exterminated, which could not only shock the tobacco dealers in Jinan, but also greatly enrich the finances of the Jinan government. During this time, the Jinan government not only fought wits with the squires, but also the formation, integration, inventory, filing and other work of government departments have been carried out step by step.
There are many drawbacks in the local administrative system of the Qing court, one of which is that there is almost no concept of local finance, and almost all the taxes collected are handed over to the central government.
Jinan is already a large city in this era, but the storage of the treasury is extremely poor, after the cleaning of the traverser, the grain is only more than 300 stones, and most of them are rotten and deteriorated old grain, less than 3,000 taels of silver, and 5,000 copper coins, and then there are a bunch of other things, what cloth, wood, medicinal materials, etc., but most of them are also old things, basically no use. And this is not bad, in the three counties of Jiaozhou, Gaomi, and Jimo occupied by the traversers, there is nothing in the warehouse except for a few hungry rats.
However, the traverser is a modern management system, and of course it is necessary to establish a good local financial system, but it is easy to do something from the Qing court that has hardly inherited any wealth, and it cannot reach out to the East China government everywhere to ask for money.
Fortunately, on the first day of taking over Jinan, the Luo traversers arrested and executed more than 10 officials in a row, and raided the homes of 5 or 6 officials, so that they obtained a large amount of money and materials, although this batch of money and materials will not all remain in Jinan, and will be handed over to the East China government, but they will definitely keep a part of it locally, so it can also alleviate a considerable part of the financial pressure, at least in the early stage of taking over Jinan, you can suspend the financial urgency, otherwise you can't do anything to reorganize and integrate.
After the annihilation of Anluotang, the Jinan government will undoubtedly obtain a large amount of wealth and materials, and it is Jinan's huge wealth, if it is copied from Na Wu's home, even if it is handed over to a part of the East China government, Jinan's finances should be enough, but Na Wu is still stupid and took the initiative to send the opportunity to the door. Moreover, Na Wu has been operating an opium business in Jinan for many years, although he has made a huge fortune, but he has also made a very bad reputation, after all, it is impossible to have a good reputation when opening a tobacco house, so copying his home will only make the people of Jinan applaud.
Now that the Jinan government has seized Nawu's tobacco house, Wang Sheng immediately ordered Zhang Zhengjie to dispatch troops and immediately raid Nawu's home.
In fact, this order was given very timely, and if it was even half an hour late, then Wu's family property might have been divided. It turned out that after the martial artists and guardians of Nawu were scattered, most of them finally returned to Nawu's mansion. At this time, the house was already in chaos, Nawu's wife and concubine cried and cried, and although several sons shouted to save people with silver, they were all eyeing Nawu's property. And the martial artists and nurses are also greedy, Na Wu was caught by overseas Chinese, it must be more than lucky, it seems that there is no way to get mixed up here. And there are no capable people among Nawu's wives, concubines, and children, so it is better to grab a sum of money from Nawu's family and fly away.
So several martial artists took the lead in discussing, and more than 20 nursing homes were also willing to join, so everyone immediately took action, smashed open the warehouse, and started to rob. A few of Na Wu's sons and daughters naturally didn't do it, and brought some family members to stop them, but how they were the opponents of the martial artists and the nursing courtyard, they were all knocked to the ground, and Na Wu's wife and concubine could only cry at this time, and they couldn't do anything, and a few bold martial artists even had bad intentions and pulled Na Wu's two young and somewhat beautiful concubines to the room.
Fortunately, at this moment, the People's Army rushed to Nawu's library and killed several martial artists and guards in a row, and the others did not dare to make any more trouble, so they honestly raised their hands and surrendered, and Nawu's two young concubines also escaped this catastrophe. However, after this demolition, Nawu's wife, concubines, and children also stopped, and they didn't dare to say no to the People's Army, so they all honestly listened to the mercy of the People's Army and were taken out of Nawu's mansion. And Nawu's home was also sealed, waiting for the traverser to come and clean up.
In addition to Na Wu, the other squires are very honest, and they stopped the business that should be stopped early this morning, and many people still want to wait and see the direction of the wind, because they are other people who open tobacco houses, and they also want to close the door for a few days, but they do not plan to hand over the opium, and wait for the wind to pass before reopening, but Na Wu's knot also makes them understand that in overseas Chinese, it is impossible to drag it by procrastination. Moreover, the time stipulated by overseas Chinese to hand over opium was limited, so they had to endure the pain of handing over opium.
At this time, no one in Jinan dared to oppose the Jinan government openly or covertly, but all honestly followed the requirements of the Jinan government, and closed the business, closed the door, and registered the registration. Therefore, it did not take long for all the shops in Jinan City to complete the registration.
However, after the time for paying opium had passed, the Jinan government received a total of more than 5,000 boxes of opium, and conducted a surprise inspection of the merchants engaged in the opium business, and as a result, it was found that six companies had more than 1,000 boxes of opium in private storage.
The Jinan government was also unceremonious, arresting all the merchants who secretly possessed opium, and confiscating all their family property, because in the matter of banning opium, the traveler had no room for accommodation, let alone any luck. Moreover, the Jinan government had already given them a chance, and since they were going to die, no one could stop them.
This shocked many people, because there are still quite a few people who secretly possess opium, so some people took the initiative to admit that they secretly possessed opium, and only hoped that the Jinan government would let them go! After deliberations, the Jinan government made a decision to set a time limit to hand over the opium in its possession and pay a considerable amount of fines. So more than 10 merchants paid more than 1,600 boxes of opium and fines of more than 50,000 taels.
At this time, the Jinan government confiscated more than 6,800 boxes of opium, totaling more than 50,000 kilograms. Wang Sheng also chose a date to publicly destroy this batch of opium on the outskirts of Jinan City, which also attracted tens of thousands of onlookers. Except for a small number of smokers, the vast majority of the people hate opium, because there are many people who have been killed by opium and their wives have been separated, so the onlookers have also applauded.
Moreover, this is also another large-scale drug sales operation carried out by China after the sale of tobacco in Humen in 1839. However, when Humen sold cigarettes, the Qing court was still a sovereign and independent country, but now China has been reduced to a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, and a large amount of sovereignty has been lost. Tianjin also sent reporters to make on-site interviews and reports, preparing to carry out a large-scale propaganda.
After destroying the opium, Wang Sheng ordered that more than 10 opium merchants including Na Wu be sentenced to death and executed in public, and then announced in public that the Jinan government's determination to ban smoking and opium would not waver, and that in the future, there would be people who sold and sold opium, and they would be sentenced to death at the same time, and the masses were welcome to report it. The whole cigarette sales campaign has just come to an end.
The cigarette sales action also made a decisive victory for the travelers in the struggle with the squires in Shandong, and although during this period of time, the Jinan government and the squires of Shandong fought wits and courage, and even opened a killing ring, but the behavior was quite restrained, whether it was the People's Army or the police, the action was only limited to the target squire, but the people of Jinan did not intrude, which was very different from the previous Qing army, if such a major event happened in the Qing court, it would have made the chickens and dogs in the city of Jinan jump and not live in peace.
In addition, after the Jinan government exterminated An Luotang, and strictly forbade the gang forces to infringe on the interests of merchants and residents, it was also a heavy blow to the gang forces in Jinan, although there was a gang that did not believe in evil, not only still collected protection money from businessmen, but also planned to take over the gap left by An Luotang, as a result, the Jinan government did not hesitate to take action, and destroyed this gang in one fell swoop, thus also defeating the illusions of other gangs, so they had to honestly endure and endure.
In this way, the order in Jinan City has suddenly changed greatly, the number of idle vagrants in the streets and alleys has been greatly reduced, there are many fewer fights and brawls, and the sense of security has also increased significantly; and there are fewer overlords and begging for good money in the shops, which is indeed a big problem for small shops. Therefore, people gradually feel that in fact, it is much better for overseas Chinese to manage Jinan than before.