On the bank of the Qinhuai River, in the Great Gong Fang.

The former Huguang Inspector Huang Shu and the former Admiral Cao Yun Zhu Guobi were following a handsome young man in a jade Confucian costume through a rocky path, and there were servants and maids walking silently everywhere. Huang Shu didn't have the heart to look around, he had seen too much of this mansion's sea-like bearing.

It's just the outside of gold and jade, and it's just rotten inside.

Of course, the decay wrapped in gold and jade does not mean that the owner of the Dagongfang Mansion is extravagant and empty.

Although Xu Da's descendants in this vein have squandered it in the tenth generation, the wealth of the public government has not been exhausted, but has become richer from generation to generation. When it was passed into the hands of Xu Hongji, the current Duke of Wei, it could no longer be described as a rich country. Because how dare Emperor Chongzhen, the lord of a country, be richer than the Xu family, the Duke of Wei? It is not an exaggeration to say that Wei Gong's wealth is ten times that of the country.

And the reason why the Xu family of Wei Guogong is richer from generation to generation is also very simple, that is, the Xu family in the southern capital of Shizhen is actually one of the real masters of the wealth gathering place in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty!

At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the bulk of a country's wealth was concentrated in the southeast along the river and the sea. And when the Age of Discovery came, the wealth gathered in the southeast coastal areas along the river, which produced silk and porcelain, which were the first international trade goods, was even greater.

At the same time, the Ming Dynasty abolished the Kaizhong Law and left the salt Dali that originally benefited the northwest in Huaiyang Erfu.

The benefits of sea trade, salt and the already rich southeast fertile soil are superimposed, making the southeast of the Ming Dynasty a cornucopia of gold.

If the Ming Dynasty could profit from the southeast cornucopia, the current world may not be a prosperous era of Qingping, but it can barely be maintained. However, the Ming Dynasty, like all feudal dynasties in history, slowly declined after the peak, and the area that the imperial power could effectively control became smaller and smaller.

This decline in authority is not only reflected in the loss of control over the northeastern and northwestern frontiers, but also in the massive loss of tax revenue along the southeast coast.

By the way, the so-called tax loss is not that the peasants and businessmen in the southeast do not have to pay money to the top - the southeast is not really ownerless, but is quietly changing hands!

The nobles of Liudu led by the Duke of Wei, the southeastern scholars with the Donglin Party as the backbone, and the southeastern maritime merchant forces represented by the Eighteen Zhi and the Haisha Gang are replacing the Ming Dynasty as the new masters of the rich land in the southeast.

This is the reason why the Ming Dynasty was poor and could not grab enough wealth from the southeast!

The Xu family of the Duke of Wei is not only the head of the nobles who stayed in the capital, but also has the hereditary right to garrison Nanjing, and can manage the affairs of the Nanjing Governor's Mansion, and has been rooted in Nanjing for ten generations. In addition to the lineage of the heirs, each generation will also divide a bunch of hereditary military attachés, and with the help of the descendants of Wei Guogong, these families of secular military attachés will encroach on the territory of the military tun of the Southeast Guard Station little by little. And the numerous command houses, in turn, became the basis of the power of the Wei Duke.

With power, you can naturally benefit. The three great interests of Juntun land, sea trade and salt flowed into the Wei Mansion in a steady stream, turning into cellared silver and magnificent gardens.

Dagongfang on the bank of the Qinhuai River is just one of the famous gardens owned by the Xu family!

In the "Records of Visiting Jinling Gardens" compiled by Wang Shizhen, an old minister of the Three Dynasties who died during the Wanli Dynasty, sixteen famous gardens in Jinling were listed, ten of which belonged to the Xu family of the Duke of Wei!

The wealth of the Xu family can be seen. And the Duke of Wei's Xu family is only one of the dozen or so dukes and counts who stayed in Nanjing!

If the wealth of these more than a dozen families is gathered, it will definitely make Zhu Cihong, who is entrenched in Yangzhou, crazy and kill for it!

Huang Shu, who has now become a giant of Donglin, can see this very clearly. In addition to the fact that the merchant forces in the southeast who had mastered the powerful maritime armament could cooperate with Prince Zhu, if the Liudu Xungui and the Donglin Shi Dafu wanted to continue to be the masters of the southeast, they had to defeat Zhu Cihong, the prince of the Fujun.

And if Zhu Cihong wants to grab the wealth of the southeast for his own use, he must also defeat the Liudu Xungui and the Donglin Doctor.

But the Xu family, as the head of the nobles in the capital, has unlimited scenery on the outside, but there is no one in it who can really lead troops to fight, this is the real decay!

I don't know how long I walked in the Xu family's Dagongfang, and even Huang Shu's legs and feet began to ache, and then I came to the front of a somewhat quaint and old hall.

A violent coughing sound suddenly came from inside the hall, and the young man who led the way for Huang Shu and Zhu Guobi frowned, and asked loudly outside the door, "My lord, are you okay?" The child has already invited Funing Hou and Huang Yushi here. ”

The coughing in the hall easily stopped, and then I saw the door opened, and two elderly men and a middle-aged man with extraordinary bearing were sitting inside. One of the old men had a sick face, and the two maids were beating his back and chest, which should be the terminally ill Duke of Wei Xu Hongji. The middle-aged man is Zhao Zhilong, the leader of Nanjing Jingying, and one of the most trusted nobles of Emperor Chongzhen.

The other old man, although he was also old, was energetic, sturdy, and looked like an old man, sitting there with an anxious face, and one hand was still holding a folding fan and flashing desperately. Seeing Zhu Guobi and Huang Shu coming in, he shouted in a loud voice: "Funing Hou, you and Shi Kefa have made our Wei Mansion Xu family miserable!" ”

This person turned out to be Xu Yongji, the cousin of Xu Hongji, the Duke of Wei who had just run from Yangzhou to Nanjing.

The middle-aged man who looked quite generous coughed: "So far, what are you talking about?" Chang Yanen didn't say it, what the prince wants is the land that your family has passed down from generation to generation! Are you willing to give? ”

"I ......," Xu Yongji stomped his foot, "where do I have any land now?" It's all fucking lost in Yangzhou Mansion! ”

"Seventh brother!" Xu Hongji coughed a few times, shook his head and said, "What people want is the property of the Wei Mansion!" ”

"What about Wei Guofu?" Huang Shu said, "All the nobles who stayed in the capital, as well as the commanders, fellow intellectuals, servants, and thousands of families of nearly 100 guards in the southeast, are all unlucky!" A doctor from the southeast like Huang couldn't run, but he was unlucky first and then unlucky...... This prince is going south with tens of thousands of hungry wolves, if they don't eat us, can they have a good life? ”

"Humph!" Xu Yongji snorted, "The strong dragon still doesn't suppress the head snake!" They are just lost dogs who came from the wilderness, and they dare to rob our family business! Big brother, it's better to do the opposite! ”

"Again?" Xu Hongji glared at his cousin, "Do you want to be the emperor?" ”

"I, where am I done?" Xu Yongji slapped his face, "But you can't just give away the family business passed down from your ancestors, right?" Now the prince has taken Yangzhou Wei, and he has also copied the homes of four Yan Zong who do things for our family! ”

Huang Shu interjected on the side: "The four Hui Gang Yan Chiefs were also taken down by him...... was not arrested, but he was forced to contract two Huai salt affairs, and he had to give 6 million taels of silver a year! ”

"What? 6,000,000 taels a year...... Uh-huh, uh-huh, cough-......" Xu Hongji Xu Old Man coughed angrily, and the two waiting maids were about to go up and beat their backs and chests, but they were pushed away by him, "It's really insatiable!" Insatiable! ”

"Yes, the number one princeling is greed!" Huang Shu said sharply, "He was greedy when he was in Beijing, and when Beijing was about to fall, he didn't think about serving the country, he only knew greed, and finally fled with millions of taels of people's fat and ointment!" After running to Shandong, he seized the property of many people in Denglai Erfu! Now that he has arrived in Yangzhou, he has intensified, and he is simply the first greedy lord of the ages! ”

"Don't be greedy," Zhu Guobi said, "not filial piety!" mutiny at Huangjimen, and the imprisoned father seized power...... Unfilial piety! ”

"And lewdness!" Zhao Zhilong added, "In the besieged city, I didn't want to serve the country, I was blindly lewd, and I robbed Wu Xiang's daughter as a concubine, which is really absurd!" ”

"And murderous and tyrannical!" Huang Shu gritted his teeth and said, "He once went on a killing spree outside the noon gate, executed hundreds of officials and civilians who opposed him at one time, and killed his lecturer Xiang Yu with his own hands!" Now the officials of the dynasty, no one is afraid, no one is afraid, everyone is welcome to protect themselves! In the long run, the Ming Dynasty will die!

However, the greatest fault of the prince is not greed, immorality, unfilial piety, murderousness, cunning, and tyranny, but evil! ”