In the Caoyun General Military Mansion, in the meeting hall, all the immortals expressed their worries in their hearts.

"If they abolish Caoyun, our Governor's Mansion and the Commander's Mansion will definitely be abolished!" Officials in both provinces shivered coldly. "Those of us who are officials are okay, the court has to arrange a place to go. But the hundreds of thousands of Cao workers in the Governor's Palace, the tens of thousands of Cao Ding in the General Military Office, the tens of thousands of craftsmen in the Qingjiang Shipyard, and their small families, who will feed them? The imperial court or the Jiangnan group?! ”

They are certainly the hardest hit and the most immediate.

"Yes, we, the counties along the river, have prospered for hundreds of years by relying on the canal." Officials from Xuzhou and Huai'an, as well as officials from Linqing, Jining, Dezhou and other places in Shandong, also sighed:

"If this is stopped, the canal will soon be silted, and our dozen or so state capitals will also be scattered and all industries will wither. The hard days of the people are coming......"

The fly in the ointment is that the officials from Yangzhou did not come, and the officials along the Yangtze River south of the Yangtze River did not show up. It is said that the Jiangnan Group drew a big pie called the 'Jiangnan Economic Mutual Aid Zone', and bewitched those short-sighted guys.

What a bunch of idiots who only care about the present, don't you know that the canal is the hardcore crop that can be eaten from generation to generation?

What, people are three-year officials? Well, I wish them an early removal from their posts and investigation.

However, Cao Ke, the Tianjin military station, not only did he not come, but also did he not send a representative over.

Oh, Tianjin Wei is the terminal of shipping, and in the future, the grain by sea will be transshipped at Dagukou, so Tianjin will be completely prosperous. If he dares to come to participate in the Baocao Alliance, he will have to let the Tianjin fathers and elders slap their mouths to death when he goes back......

Selfish and timid. Phew, disgusting!

~~

"Damn, the kid surnamed Zhao is really too deceitful!" After Caoyun and the local officials finished complaining, it was the turn of the nobles to make speeches.

"We are listening to the scenery, but the court doesn't treat us as human beings at all, and we are not allowed to attack the lord at the age of twenty-four or five, and we will be punished for any reason. A large family of hundreds of people depends on the subsidy on the transport. The surname Zhao is going to take away our little income, this is to force us to death! "Nan and Bofang should be together, such as mourning Kaoyandao.

"That's it, his Jiangnan Group is so rich, and he wants to take food from our mouths! Could it be that the tiger doesn't bite, does he think that our Nanjing Xungui is a sick cat? Dong Ningbo's surname is Jiao Wenyao, and he said angrily.

The Ming Dynasty began to transport grain to the north in the first year of Yongle, and the Cao Yun system was set up by Xungui and has been held to this day.

The first chief military officer of Caoyun was Chen Xuan, the Pingjiang Bo in the Yongle period. He was the governor of Caoyun for 30 years, and single-handedly built all aspects of the Ming Caoyun. After that, Chen Xuan's children and grandchildren successively served as two Caoyun commanders. Now his seventh grandson, the contemporary Pingjiang Bo Chen Wangmo, also serves as the deputy chief soldier of Caoyun, and after the retreat of Gu Huan, the Marquis of Zhenyuan, it is time for him to take over.

Before Gu Huan, the general army of Caoyun was also controlled by Xungui, to be precise, Nanjing Xungui, without exception.

Because of the Battle of Jingjing, the noble group of the Ming Dynasty was divided into two factions: the north and the south. Most of the northern factions were born in Jingnan, and they went to Beijing together after Zhu Di moved the capital.

The southern faction is mainly those of Taizu Feng, and the nobles who stood on the side of Emperor Jianwen in the Jingjing. Zhu Di naturally didn't want to see them, but no matter how he said that they were also loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty, and everyone was related to each other, Zhu Laosi was not a good killer.

So after moving the capital, they all stayed in Nanjing, and they couldn't see it. This group of Nanjing nobles was headed by the Xu family, the Duke of Wei, and lived their small life in Nanjing peacefully. In addition to the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies in Nanjing, the Caoyun General Military Mansion can be regarded as another piece of self-reserved land for the imperial court to acquiesce to them to settle their children and make extra money.

Now that the Jiangnan Group has actually reached into their own land, can the nobles not jump their feet? Therefore, as soon as the General Military Office issued an invitation, they hurled from Jinling to Huai'an.

The same fly in the ointment is that the old man Xu Pengju is seriously ill, and his son Xu Bangrui refuses to come under the pretext of serving the sick. This inevitably makes them a little less confident.

~~

But fortunately, the Fengyang garrison eunuch Qiu Gonggong also came, which completely offset the adverse effects of the absence of the Wei State Mansion, and also boosted everyone's morale a lot.

In addition to serving the imperial mausoleum, taking charge of the imperial city of Zhongdu, and training the soldiers and horses of the eight guards left behind in the central capital, the Fengyang garrison eunuchs are also responsible for monitoring the military and political affairs in the jurisdiction of the Fengyang governor.

Therefore, the Fengyang garrison eunuch also had the duty of supervising Caoyun for the emperor. The weight of its authority is second only to the Nanjing garrison eunuchs outside the capital.

In fact, like the Nanjing garrison eunuchs, the Fengyang garrison eunuchs were also the outriders of the ceremonial eunuchs. When the Nanjing garrison eunuchs became vacant, they were basically filled by the Fengyang garrison eunuchs.

Therefore, only the big celebrities who can speak to the emperor will hold this important position. Now this father-in-law Qiu who sits in Fengyang is himself a fictitious eunuch with a pen, and he is the brother of the master of ceremonies and the prince of Yinteng. He spoke for the Caoyun Yamen, and naturally it could easily reach the emperor's ears.

It is said that the king does not see the king, and the father-in-law of Qiu generally stays in the middle capital city, and he will not come to Huai'an easily. This time, he also arrived rarely, and obviously he was also transported by grain, which ruthlessly touched his interests.

This is not difficult to understand, after all, Fengyang, Dao Fengyang, Fengyang is a good place. Since the emergence of Emperor Zhu, there have been nine years of famine in ten years. Looking at the jurisdiction of the eunuchs guarding Fengyang, this canal has the largest oil and water. The annual income of this one alone is almost equal to the sum of all the rest.

Although Gonggong Qiu has always remained silent, like the Marquis of Zhenyuan, as long as he sits there, he is a great support for the Cao Party.

~~

In addition, there were seven or eight big merchants, most of whom made their fortune from the canal.

Although the freight cost of Caoyun can be three or four times that of the regular grain, the troops still complained of misery and fled seriously. For the sake of the safety of the transport, the imperial court could only compensate the transport army and charter the cao ships to 'carry the tuyi and exempt from taxation'...... That is to say, ships are allowed to carry commercial goods, and they are duty-free.

Zhao Gongzi said that he also wanted it, but it was at sea.

As a result, the ship played the role of a merchant ship, and later even developed to the point where the main cargo and grain were also operated, and the cart was turned upside down. With the support of the terrifying capacity of its thousands of ships, the Grand Canal has become the most important commercial circulation artery of the Ming Dynasty, and the Caoyun Yamen has become the largest logistics group in the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the world has been suffering for a long time, and the world's businessmen have also been suffering for a long time. Year after year, not to mention the rising freight, it is necessary to send additional troops to Cao Ding to pay respect, otherwise the goods will be fallen, beaten, flooded and lost.

If this is opened, the merchants can have one more choice of north-south freight, and of course they can't ask for it. So at least most of the merchants are actually willing to see this situation.

However, these big businessmen here are different from the traditional sense of sitting merchants and merchants, but unique transportation contractors.

The so-called Cao Yun contractor is a businessman who acts as an agent for the right to allocate the capacity of Cao Ship.

Later, because the profits of this area were too high, it soon exceeded the oil and water of Caoyun itself, and Caoyun Yamen simply brought all the ships on the canal into its jurisdiction.

The Caoyun Yamen is extremely domineering, and without their permission, even if you have your own boat, you can't go on the canal. If you want to get the right of way, you still have to ask these contractors to buy it.

Those who can become 'Cao Bao' are all characters with hands and eyes, and they belong to the core layer of Caoyun interest groups. The difficulty of becoming a 'Cao Bao' is no less than becoming the chief salt merchant of Lianghuai.

Therefore, even if it is Wu Kee Che and Ma Xing, the business has been done in the north and south over the years, but it still has to be honest and spend a huge amount of money every year to buy the right of way of the canal from 'Cao Bao'.

Although most of this income had to be handed over to the Caoyun Yamen, the Caobao still accumulated a huge amount of wealth. They also relied on the great power brought by the 'right to issue contracts' to buy a wide range of industries along the canal, and their interests spread all over Tongzhou, Tianjin, Jining, Linqing, Huai'an, Yangzhou and other important commercial cities along the river.

If the canal were to be marginalized, their losses would be too great. Even the right to subcontract will become worthless. This is absolutely unacceptable to them.

~~

The leader of these Caobao merchants was surnamed Song and named Song Xiaoming. The detailed information about the Jiangnan Group was provided by him.

Even this alliance was only made possible by his vigorous encouragement. Otherwise, with the influence of these officials and eunuchs, even if they felt the threat of shipping, they would not have come together so quickly to discuss countermeasures.

The reason why Song Xiaoming is so active is because he has another identity in addition to Cao Bao - the largest money bank in the Ming Dynasty, the big shopkeeper of 'Hengtong Ji'.

Hengtongji has a history of 100 years, and the main shareholders are Caoyun Yamen and Nanjing Xungui, and Caobao also has shares in it.

The Grand Canal runs through the most prosperous economic area of the Ming Dynasty, and Hengtong Ji is backed by Caoyun Erfu to do foreign exchange and savings business, all of which have unique advantages. But it has always been half-dead, and scandals often break out, and the reputation is very bad.

If it weren't for the Caoyun Yamen's mandatory regulations, all the money transactions of the canal merchants would have to be recorded from Hengtong. I'm afraid this money bank has already gone out of business.

This is not surprising, just because those Cao Yun officials and nobles can increase the cost of Cao Yun to four times the urine of regular grain, it is no wonder that they can do a good job in such an oligarchic competition and extremely professional industry as Qianzhuang.

Finally, thirty years ago, after the Hengtong suffered serious losses, the Caoyun General Army and the Caoyun Governor finally made up their minds and dug up Song Xiaoming, the treasurer of the Huai'an branch of the 'Wanyuan' at that time, to take the helm of Hengtong.

This Song Da shopkeeper is a business wizard who is decisive in killing. Before taking office, he made a three-chapter agreement with the shareholders.

First, if you don't like yourself, you can withdraw yourself at any time. But as long as you use yourself for one day, you must give yourself absolute business decision-making power. Including the use of capital and the retention of personnel, there can be no interference.

Second, shareholders cannot borrow money from Hengtongji, and the previous loans must be converted into loans and settled within one year. After one year, you will go to the market and receive interest.

Third, the 'third master' is not allowed to enter Hengtong to take charge of affairs. The so-called third master is the 'uncle', 'aunt', and 'young master' of the shareholders. But if you rely on the business run by the shopkeeper, it is not good for these three masters to be mixed in.

If these three don't agree, he won't wade into this troubled water if he is given how much money or shares he has.