When Min Yuanzhong was far away, he saw a lot of vehicles moving in the direction of Fucheng, most of them were wheelbarrows, dozens of cars followed by some people who looked like Lijia Baozheng, a large number of people rode horses to patrol from afar, these horsemen were obviously guests from Shandong, most of them wore bubble nail cotton armor and wore iron helmets, held riding spears or long knives, weapons were taken out and carried in their hands or crossed in front of their knees, or gathered in groups of three or five, or more than a dozen horses scattered to drive away the people passing by, and even rode horses to disperse the passers-by. When they saw the pedestrians in disarray, the cavalrymen laughed, and their arrogance was on full display.

The guest soldiers were stationed in Huai'an for a short time, but these Shandong guest soldiers from Linqing had a very bad reputation, in addition to urging grain and wages to force many deaths, blatant looting also happened from time to time, and this was still the case in broad daylight, stealing chickens and dogs in the middle of the night to loot houses, or raping women when they heard from time to time. Originally, Huai'an Mansion was considered a peaceful boundary, and the Caoyun Center was still rich, unlike Xuzhou Suining and other places that had encountered military fire, and the group of thieves in the mountains gathered, and there were many ringing horses near the boundary of Shandong, and there were many bandits like cattle hair, Huai'an was still peaceful here as a whole, and after the arrival of a large number of guest soldiers, it seriously increased the local burden, and also made the public security turn sharply, and everyone hated the guest soldiers to the bone.

Min Yuanzhong knew that the frequency of the soldiers had slowed down recently, and they had not expanded the scope, at least in the vicinity of the military households in the guards, there was no team of soldiers who went to the countryside to collect food.

The main reason is not that Liu Zeqing and his generals Tianliang attacked, but considering that the summer harvest will be more than two months away, and there will be much more grain at that time than the current harvest.

Moreover, the guest soldiers have requisitioned grain so far, robbed a number of wealthy households, obtained hundreds of thousands of stone of grain, and obtained more than 100,000 silver, Liu Zeqing's troops in Huai'an not only have not been weakened, but have grown a lot, so that Liu Zeqing has a long-term entrenchment, serious management of the two Huai places as a territory consideration and plan.

Compared with Shandong and Henan, which are constantly in turmoil, Lianghuai is not as good as Jiangnan, and it is much richer than Shandong and Henan.

Min Yuanzhong entered Wangyun Gate with the grain team, as soon as he entered the city gate, he felt extremely prosperous, and the endless stream of people poured into the city, and the street was full of signboards and banners, and the shops and shops could not be seen at a glance, and a large number of cars and horses were parked on both sides of the street, waiting for the goods to be loaded and shipped......

From paper shops, incense and candle shops to grocery stores, cloth shops, silk shops, hat shops, ready-to-wear shops, shoe shops, antiques, tea shops, restaurants, inns, pawnshops, money houses, silver horns...... There are all kinds of everything, from the cheapest and worthless bamboo weaving, to create exquisite gold and silver jewelry shops, the so-called five elements and eight works, that is, the five elements of the foot teeth of the car and ship shop, the eight works are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, wood, tile and stone, although this division may not be able to divide hundreds of shops on this long street clearly...... For example, there are many ready-to-wear tailors and hat shops, each with its own specialty, the paper shop is also focused on different, and the porcelain is divided into various kilns, and the cloth is classified into dozens of kinds, in addition to the top big shop, the general focus is on selling a few kinds, the cloth shop porcelain raw silk tea is all over the place, including a variety of service industries, such as bicycle shops and inns, the entire West Street is two miles long, all kinds of shops are almost one after another, dense, if the first time to come over the stranger who has not seen much, I'm afraid I won't be able to take my eyes off it for a long time after this!

Jiangbei is actually the second mansion, at this time Huai'an Mansion is part of Xuzhou in later generations, the whole Suqian and Lianyungang, plus the whole Yancheng City and part of Yangzhou, the area is large, the population is large, the business is developed, the descendants are unimaginable. In addition, it is the transportation center, or the largest shipbuilding base set up by the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty, the north-south thoroughfare trade center, and a certain political, military and economic status, Huai'an Mansion at this time can be called an important town, which is completely different from later generations.

And the commercial houses with the most in front of Xichang Street are naturally salt shops.

The shop surface of the salt shop is not big, most of them are three-bay bungalows as the façade, and it is not like some big commercial houses use the five-door upper and lower buildings as the pavement, and the guise is hung up and down, and you can see it every few miles.

In the Chongzhen period, after the flooding of private salt, many salt merchants began to secretly collude with private salt dealers, buying and selling a large number of private salt, if all according to the rules of the imperial court, not only the purchase of salt needs salt introduction, the sale of official salt also needs to trade in the city specified by the government, at least it must be the county seat, the people in the market town and the countryside have to enter the city to buy salt, it is really hard for the people and money.

The salt shop in front of him is generally low-key and introverted, but everyone knows that the salt merchant is the richest person in the city.

Min Yuanzhong led the mule to the horse tether stone in front of the Zhu family's trading house, tied his mule carefully, and then walked to the store.

This time, the messenger who hit the front station was actually a punishment from Min Yuanqi.

Min Yuanzhong was responsible for guarding hundreds of villages, and the three arrow towers and mobile posts were under his control, and as a result, Min Qiande and Wang Sanyi and others were directly let in without transmission, although it was not a dereliction of duty to let outsiders into the salt pond, Min Yuanqi did not say it in person, and then deducted Min Yuanzhong's rations for three days, and handed over the errand of the front station to him, which was also a kind of punishment.

Min Yuanzhong was quite depressed about this, but whether it was the kinship relationship, or the authority of Min Yuanqi now, and the good days in the future were just around the corner, all of this made him unable to resist the punishment from Min Yuanqi, so he could only ride a mule honestly.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly on the journey, Min Yuanzhong sighed softly and walked quickly into the store.

……

Wearing a fat jacket and wearing Fan Yangli, Min Yuanzhong, who was in a hurry with a black and gray face, did not attract people's attention and attention.

In the firm, Zhu Renzhong, his eldest son Zhu Wanchun, and his second son Zhu Wanhe were sitting behind the counter talking.

The three of them were worried, and Zhu Wanhe complained in a low voice: "I thought that Caozhou Liu was to levy grain to raise soldiers, but now I see that he wants to occupy Huai'an without Yangzhou and Huai'an, and the local money and grain are afraid that there will be insufficient to raise soldiers, and he will extend his hand to the salt industry." ”

Zhu Wanchun said: "He wants to appease Yang Shili, which is nothing more than to master the stove households, and secondly, to master the private salt channels and obtain sales. It is not surprising that Yang Shili has more than 1,000 subordinates, at least more than 20 million catties of salt a year, and a net profit of more than 100,000 taels a year, my Zhu family has been a salt merchant for more than 200 years, and the accumulated family wealth is only a few hundred thousand. ”

Zhu Renzhong had been sitting with a heavy heart, and only then did he nod and said: "The boss understands things and understands them, and he has touched the minds of Caozhou Liu, Yang Shili and others. However, even if Yang Shili refuses to be this official, he has to take out the territory and benefits to share the profit with Caozhou Liu, saying that the strong dragon does not suppress the head snake, but it depends on how much difference between the strong dragon and the head snake is, Yang Shili can't bear it, and now there are more and more stove households controlled by Caozhou Liu, and each commercial house has to take out part of its stove households, and the channels for selling salt are also divided into part to the guest soldiers, so that he can get at least ten or two hundred thousand taels of silver a year, plus the income of Tian Fu, it is more than enough to raise these tens of thousands of guest soldiers. ”

Zhu Renzhong paused, sighed and said: "No wonder Caozhou Liu doesn't listen to the emperor's orders, the emperor doesn't send hungry soldiers, we are poor in the Ming Dynasty, but these soldiers can be scavenged and raised at will among the people, who still listens to the imperial court?" What a strange thing, a big strange thing! ”

As Zhu Renzhong said, the finance of the Ming Dynasty at this time was completely bankrupt, and the financial income during the Chongzhen period had a twist and turn curve, and it had been declining on the whole.

It is strange to say, in addition to the intention of Chongzhen to reduce some taxes in the first year, most of the time Chongzhen Dynasty was also on the road of levy and levy, but due to the continuous decline of control, the more the increase in revenue, the more the reduction in revenue, from miscellaneous income to the main item of field endowment, the annual income decreased sharply year by year, and many taxes could not be collected at all. To the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the financial has been bankrupt for many years, the poor emperor in addition to using up his own internal money, even the palace utensils have been taken out a lot, in addition to Chongzhen seven years ago to determine the location of the imperial mausoleum, the emperor has no money to repair the mausoleum for ten years, which is also the first time in the Ming Dynasty emperors such a situation...... For an emperor like Chongzhen, who has reigned for more than ten years, the imperial tomb should have been repaired a long time ago and repaired many times.

This makes Emperor Chongzhen hang himself after the emperor's tomb is not settled, the emperor's body was first placed on the door panel and carried to the palace gate, the lords and eunuchs and hundreds of officials did not dare to come forward to kowtow to worship, only Xiangcheng Bo one person came forward to bow, and then Emperor Chongzhen and Zhou Hou were placed in the willow coffin together, and after shabu with red paint, Li Zicheng decided to send the emperor and queen to the repaired Tian Guifei Mausoleum for burial, and Shuntianfu solved the matter.

Shuntianfu and Changping County have no money and grain, the treasury is poor and white, from the various records at that time it is really miserable, the national capital has no money, the county where the imperial tomb is located has no money and grain, the treasury has no money, the last record is around the beginning of April, advocated by Shuntianfu, a number of people have made up a few hundred taels of silver, set up a simple spirit shed, built the mausoleum wall, each family is more than a few dozen taels, a few counts, even dozens of dollars, put together silver money to bury the emperor and queen......

On March 25, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Ticket, the official of the Shuntian Mansion of the Dashun regime, ordered the officials of Changping Prefecture to "immediately move the official silver to urge the husband to quickly open the Tian Concubine and bury the first emperor Chongzhen and the queen of Zhou Zigong."

It was launched on the third day of the fourth month of April and buried on the fourth day of the first month. However, because Changping Prefecture was "like a wash" at that time, and the funeral period was very urgent, Zhao Yigui, who was the official of Changping Prefecture at the time, had no choice but to discuss with Xu Zuomei, the director of the funeral department, and brought Feng Chaojin, a staff member of the workshop, into Beijing to report to Shuntianfu. After repeated instructions, the government official Shi Zhu approved: "The donation and application of all shops in the state will be discussed after the matter is over." ”

After Zhao Yigui returned to the state, he immediately organized fundraising. Ten people donated money for a total of 35,000 wen (about 233 taels of silver). Among them, Liu Rupu has 6,000 essays, Wang Rupu has 50,000 essays, Bai Shen has 30,000 essays, Deng Ke has 50,000 essays, Xu Kui has 30,000 essays, Li Mou has 20,000 essays, Zhao Yongjian has 20,000 essays, Liu Yingyuan has 20,000 essays, Yang Dao has 20,000 essays, and Wang Zhengxing has 20,000 essays.

Almost only this little money completed the entire funeral ceremony of Emperor Chongzhen.

Among them, Yang Wen, the head of the hired husband, was responsible for digging and burying the tunnel, with 200 taels of silver; Build three thin sheds and two small sheds, and use four taels and five coins of silver; buy paper from a paper shop with silver one tael or eight penny; buy pigs from pig households with four taels of silver; buy two soup sheep from a sheep household, and use silver for one or two or six coins; Buy vegetarian food from the box shop for two tables, with one tael of silver; buy noodles and rice from a rice shop, and use one tael of silver; reward the husband's servant, with two taels of silver; Create a nail key to open the stone door of the Xuangong Palace and a stonemason to open the door, with silver five coins; Serving the salvo staff for wine and meals, etc., with five taels of silver; buy a thin rope with four coins of silver; The carpenter's wages were four pennies of silver; The man who cleans the mourning shed uses two coins and five cents of silver; The people who came to Shuntianfu used one or two dollars of silver for the meal......