Several gentlemen of the land deed alliance arrived one after another in the afternoon of the next day. These people are close to the county seat of Shanghai, and the farther ones are nothing more than in Songjiang, dozens of miles away from eating melons on the boat.

After arriving at the Xu family's mansion in Shanghai City, the Qing guests brought by the lords naturally formed a lively tea party in the warm pavilion. And the old man came to the big study to attend the meeting with his personal think tank.

At the beginning of the meeting, a Qingke of the Xu family read out the latest loss report in public.

The old man already knew about this news yesterday, and this will start a discussion about it. Soon, in the analysis of everyone's gossip, the consequences of the destruction of the garden and the next steps of the opponent were deduced by everyone.

The tenants of this era, heavy debts and huge living pressures are standard for them. Therefore, for those destroyed mulberry orchards, unless the landlords spend a lot of capital to buy adult mulberry trees in the spring, if they plant mulberry seedlings, the tenants will not have the resources to support the investment in the reconstruction of mulberry orchards in the past few years, and they will inevitably go bankrupt and go into exile.

The same is true of the fish ponds around the mulberry garden.

Mulberry fish pond is an agricultural model that combines mulberry and silkworm cultivation with pond fish farming. Mulberry trees are planted around the pond, silkworms are raised with mulberry leaves, silkworm sand and silkworm pupae are used as bait, and then pond mud is used as mulberry fertilizer to form a mutually beneficial production chain to achieve the effect of fish and silkworms.

This method was quite common in ancient times, especially in the warm Pearl River Delta Plain, and until later generations, it was the main agricultural model of silkworm farmers in the Pearl River Delta. In the 17th century in the Yangtze River Delta, although the mulberry fish pond was not so popular due to the cold climate, there were still many mulberry gardens that adopted this method.

So when the farmers found that the mulberry trees had been burned overnight and the fish had turned their bellies, it was not surprising that someone hanged themselves on the spot - anyway, the next fate was that the whole family starved to death on the side of the road, leaving early and surviving.

Burning mulberry orchards and poisoning fish are very low-cost behaviors, which can be done with only a little kerosene and a little industrial scraps. Of course, for well-known reasons, the specific names of the chemicals will not be mentioned here.

This is the first wave of Xiong Dao's counterattack method of four or two thousand pounds, so that the opponent will mess up first.

The consequences of things are far from simple.

Soon the tenants will learn the truth, which is certain, because the murderer will spread the real reason for the burning of the mulberry garden), and then the head of the gentleman will be on fire.

Finding that they had become cannon fodder in the struggle between the landlord and the port, the tenants were bound to ask the landlord for an explanation. And the tenants who know the truth are not so easy to be fooled into going to the port to fight and die.

In short, whether the landlords appeased or forcibly cleaned up the tenants, it was a huge price to pay.

In the days before the mulberry tree grows, the landlord not only cannot collect arrears and rents, but also has to support the gang with rice grain. This is a large amount, and the landlord's family has no surplus food!

If you are tough, you will take the tenants and give them back the rent, sweep the tenants out of the house, and even sell their children to pay off their debts, many of whom have worked for the landlord's family for several lifetimes, so that the title deed alliance will suffer a huge loss in terms of reputation.

And this is also a palliative treatment that drives away the old man, and he always has to call new people, right? Recruiting new people, the landlord also had to pay a huge price to rebuild the mulberry garden and fish pond, and also had to advance funds to support the new people.

In addition, the tenants were not all lambs. In the case of large-scale tenants, the landlord must also organize a large number of people to fight in groups, otherwise, how can it be so easy for tenants to leave honestly?

It is important to know that there is a dynamic balance between tenants and landlords, and the reason why many landlords subcontract the rent collection procedure to the tenant stack is because the tenants are difficult to deal with and cannot collect rent.

And at this moment, sitting in the Xu family's big study, named Pintea, who was actually discussing countermeasures, soon saw two more terrible consequences from the above deduction.

First, if the fish pond in the mulberry garden is restored in the future, what should I do if it is set on fire and poisoned by those thieves who have come and gone without a trace? You can't mobilize the tenants of the whole village to surround the mulberry garden day and night as guards, right?

Second, if a large number of people are mobilized to clear the field and seize the tenants, wouldn't it be bad if those rebellious tenants mixed in with Xiong Dao's men and flew over a few poisonous smoke cannons?

These gentlemen, who have been robbing people's property all the year round and have almost infiltrated their intrigues into their bones, took less than half an hour to deduce the situation after Zhuangzi was set on fire and poisoned in the big study of Xu Mansion today, and they also guessed Xiong Dao's backhand.

However, it is useless to just guess, you have to find a countermeasure.

"For today's plan, Xu Tu is already the next policy. There are still a lot of mulberry garden fish ponds in those Zhuangzi at hand, and if you sit back and wait to be killed, you will be destroyed and burned by those Qiu Ba one after another! ”

After a moment of collective silence, the first person to speak in support of radical policies was a chubby, middle-aged man in his forties.

This old man's surname is Huang, his name is Huang Shaozhou, he is a Jinshi in the Wanli period, a native of Hangzhou, and now Zhishi is at home, and like Xu Jin, Huang Lao Ye also spent the winter in Shanghai County this year.

In fact, Mr. Huang only "joined the party" today and joined the land deed alliance.

As for the reason, that's a long story.

Originally, Master Huang also had a small village near the port. As a result, what was good was that among the three mulberry gardens burned by Xiong Dao's men last night, there was one of Master Huang's.

Master Huang, whose property was burned inexplicably, quickly figured out the reason behind this matter - the war between the alliance and the port has already spread in the past two days, not to mention the case in the county office yesterday, which made the burning of the mulberry garden known to everyone.

After that, the thunderous Master Huang immediately found the Xu family. The title deed alliance is not a secret in high-end circles, and Master Huang, who is a member of the gentry, easily met the main owner, Xu Jin.

After the two sides met, Master Huang, who felt humiliated by a group of Qiu Ba, asked to join the title deed alliance on the spot after scolding a group of white-bodied grass people in Xiong Dao, and fought side by side with all the masters, striving to win Xiong Dao as soon as possible, swallow his industry, and everyone share a piece of the pie.

To tell the truth, if it was before today, when Master Huang asked to join the alliance, Xu Jin would definitely have to think about it. After all, the shares of all shareholders have been distributed before, and if you add a new person, all the shares will have to be redistributed, which is quite troublesome.

However, yesterday's lawsuit and the overnight arson that followed completely changed Xu Jin's mind.

completely does not follow the routine that the gentlemen have been familiar with for thousands of years, the shot is both weird and ruthless, and there is a big backer behind the bear road, which has made Xu Jin feel a little untouchable.

Therefore, Xu Jin welcomed Master Huang to join as soon as possible, and now the distribution of benefits is not important, and it is already thankful that Xiong Dao can be taken down. Xu Jin urgently needs the addition of new forces, and Master Huang has come just in time.

After expressing his welcome, Xu Jin also recalled the scene of Du Yaren's visit, and then couldn't help but rejoice - Xiong Dao's news about Zhuangtian in the hands of the gentry came from the rote memorization of Du Ya people when they read the land deed that day. And the mistake and omission came out here, and the mulberry garden of Mr. Huang's house was burned by mistake.

After thinking about the cause and effect, someone suddenly felt a secret refreshment in his heart, and he wished that Xiong Dao would burn a few more innocent mulberry gardens and push those landlords to the side of the alliance.

After that, the other members of the alliance who came to the Xu family one after another also welcomed Master Huang, and everyone felt the difficulty of Xiong Dao, and their mentality was the same as Xu Jin.

Master Huang quickly figured out the background of everyone in the alliance. It is too easy for the gentlemen to build a relationship, and all kinds of relatives and friends of the same year can always get a relationship.

Mr. Huang, who is familiar with his colleagues, soon made a hawkish remark at the next meeting, "For today's plan, Xu Tu is already the next policy." ”

And Master Huang's remarks were also agreed by most of the people present.

There is no way, under the strange means of Xiong Dao, all the masters feel that the initiative of the matter is slowly slipping away from the hands of the alliance.

You must know that in the Yangtze River Delta region at the end of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the cotton fields with the widest planting area, there were more mulberry gardens and fish ponds. Therefore, there are still a lot of mulberry gardens and fish ponds in everyone's hands, so if Xiong Dao makes trouble according to the frequency of setting off three fires every night, the mulberry gardens and fish ponds that the old man has on hand will really have big problems.

When the time comes, once there is a civil unrest, Xiong Dao can read jokes or run away by boat, and these big landlords who are sitting there will have to jump to their feet.

After seeing that most of the members agreed with the strategic choice of a quick solution, the host Xu Jin immediately symbolically organized a vote. Then, under the principle of the minority obeying the majority, Xu Jin announced that the previous strategy of Xu Xu Tu had been overturned again, and the next step for the land deed alliance was to return to the previous track and solve the Xiongdao gang by force at one time.

After the announcement, Xu Jin, as the executor, began a series of deployments.

The first step is about Matsue Prefecture.

Since Jiading County can't move, it is the turn of Songjiang Mansion. The alliance does not have high requirements for Songjiang Mansion, as long as it can suppress Xiong Dao a little in the last few days and delay a little time.

There was a Jinshi master who had a very good relationship with Fang Yuegong, the prefect of Songjiang, and immediately accepted the task of serving as a lobbyist.

The second and third steps are both killer weapons that really require the use of force. And the forces that need to be used in these two steps have been communicated by the alliance before, and now they only need to send envoys to determine the detailed steps.

All of this work, of course, does not need to be done by the new member Mr. Huang - there was a designated person in charge of these tasks before.

The meeting was held until the evening of the same day, when several people were dispatched, and all the work was carried out to the individual. And Master Huang also got his share of the alliance as he wished, as well as the 3,000 taels of "stake in the war funds" he promised on the spot.

That's it. After the meeting ended, Mr. Huang, with the assistance of a man who looked like a clear guest behind him, walked out of the door on crutches Mr. Huang had a foot disease and could not walk easily.