I don't know when the towns in the world have the saying of "four gatherings", that is, four metropolitan towns that gather people, money, and things. The four towns are located in the four corners of the world, with Beijing in the north, Foshan in the south, Suzhou in the east, and Hankou in the west.

In other words, Hankou Town, which is not even a county seat, was once prosperous and comparable to famous capitals such as Beijing and Suzhou. At this time, the prosperity of Hankou Town was centered on Hanzheng Street, which was close to the Hanshui Wharf, and there were more than 70 streets and alleys in an area of two or three square kilometers from the Hanshui Wharf to the Yuangong Embankment. At its most lively, 100,000 merchants come in and out here every day, and the transactions made can reach hundreds of thousands of taels.

And such a good place to make money every day and make money is rolling in money, and now it is also a scene of the end of the world. All the shops in the entire commercial port were emptied, and many of them were on fire and were burning.

Those profiteers with a lot of money and the gentry and landlords who had fled from the nearby Xiangyang, Shenyang, De'an, Chengtian and other prefectures, as long as they did not have time to escape, were all detained and confined on Hanzheng Street by the wolf-like Dashun generals. There are also some unlucky people who just look more decent, but in fact, the inside has long been empty, and because they live in Hankou Town, they are also encircled together on Hanzheng Street, which is surrounded by the Dashun samurai who are strong and stubborn. They all look like lambs to the slaughter!

Because he was betrayed by Jin merchants and Shanxi scholars during the Battle of Shanxi, now the Dashun army is not as polite to merchants and scholars as in the past!

In the eyes of many "old camp warriors", none of these scholars wearing scarves and robes and profiteers wearing foreign clothes are good, and they should all be killed!

Only by killing these two types of people can the world of the Great Shun Dynasty be peaceful...... Therefore, many "old camp warriors" have already unsheathed their sharp knives and sharp blades in their hands, just waiting for the emperor Li Zicheng to give an order, and they will start.

And these people who were encircled also felt that something was wrong, and the cries and shouts were mixed together, becoming more and more noisy, and occasionally the shouting and scolding of the "old camp samurai" sounded, which was really noisy and noisy to the extreme.

A black-faced strong man in his thirties, dressed in a simple linen robe, hugged an empty big back basket, and was also crowded in the crowd. But he seems to be a person who is not afraid of death, everyone else is squeezing in, so as to stay away from those fierce and vicious "old camp warriors", but he tries to squeeze out, muttering to himself while squeezing back: "No more life, no more life, nothing left, what is the strength of life?" ”

Behind him, there was a dirty mother-in-law with a dirty face, dragging him like crazy, crying: "The family, the family, you can't die, you are dead, how can our mothers live?" ”

"What are you still living, what are you living, are you starving to death...... this man is too strong, he can't hold it at all, but he was dragged out of the crowd all the way.

The head of a white-bearded "old camp samurai" led someone to stop him and shouted, "What person? Don't want to live anymore? ”

When the man heard this, he laughed wildly, and looked like he was crazy, "No longer alive, no longer alive...... I'm Jingshan Ye Jiaxin, I've been harmed by you, what are you going to do? Come on, you old thief, kill me! ”

This man turned out to be a rich peasant from a small county called Jingshan under Chengtian Mansion - of course the peasants are also rich! Although the general agricultural environment at the end of the Ming Dynasty was terrible, not to mention the chaos of the army, there were still a bunch of gentry and landlords who were following the feudal route of the postal system, constantly disrupting the normal market order.

But there are still some peasants who will get rich, or temporarily...... This man named Ye Jiaxin is a farmer who can still farm and get rich in the troubled times in the late Ming Dynasty, he is strong, shrewd, his ancestors have a little shade, and there is an uncle in the family, who has always taken care of him, and he also married a mother-in-law who is very capable of running the family. So before the Dashun Heavenly Soldiers hit his hometown of Jingshan, he slowly became rich and became a rich peasant.

He has 20 acres of paddy fields in his own house, all of which are in the name of the uncle who raised people, and he also rents 30 acres of paddy fields, and the rent paid is not high, so there is a certain profit margin - the level of rent is actually related to the strength of the tenants. A rich peasant like Ye Jiaxin, who has the strength to ensure that he pays rent on time, can of course rent land at a lower price.

Of course, he can't plant 50 acres of paddy field alone, so he hires people to farm the land, and although he also participates in labor, he is mainly responsible for business management. In addition to operating 50 acres of paddy fields, he also sold rice and bought white rice in Jingshan County for Yao Daqiao, a large grain merchant in Hankou.

In addition, he was engaged in loan sharking...... In his own words: It's not to make money, it's to help the villagers, it's to accumulate virtue and do good!

As a result, he will be rewarded with evil for "good"!

As soon as the soldiers of Dashun arrived, the county seat of Jingshan and all townships and towns immediately posted a notice of "counting the land and exempting debts and interest."

He is not very afraid of Jikou Juntian, he himself has 20 acres of land, a husband and wife, and two children, and 5 acres per capita. The fields here in Huguang are wide, and the per capita arable land is almost this amount. At most, thirty acres of rented land have been confiscated, and it has little to do with him.

But a "debt-free and interest-free" forced him to be anxious, and he had a lot of "debts" outside, and if they were to be forgiven, he would have worked in vain for many years!

In addition, lending money to poor households and letting them repay them with rice is also Ye Funong's way of purchasing rice. As soon as the "debt and interest exemption" came out, he could no longer continue to buy and sell rice.

Therefore, he had a sense of resistance to the Dashun Heavenly Dynasty, and was bewitched by his uncle of the same clan, so he ran to Hankou with his wife and children and the silver he had accumulated over the years. originally wanted to change his career to do some business, but he only arrived on the front foot, and Li Zicheng's soldiers followed.

And robbed him of all the fine!

He has almost nothing left now, so what is he going to do?

The white-bearded "old camp warrior" saw that he was really looking for death, so he didn't get angry, but he didn't kill him with a knife - while enclosing the land and dividing the fields, Li Zicheng was also grasping military discipline, and now the discipline of the Dashun army has become more and more strict, and you can't cut people casually, and you can't rob people casually.

Before, I robbed in Hankow, there was an order! Li Zicheng's purpose in doing this was not to get much money, but to crack down on the gentry and industrial class to the greatest extent - the feudalization of the Dashun Dynasty was achieved in two steps, one was to enclose land and grant land to create "feudal warriors"; The second is to calculate the land and exempt debts and interest so as to crack down on the gentry and industry and commerce, and at the same time help the lower peasants.

What Li Zicheng needed was a relatively simple feudal society - the top level was him, the emperor, the upper level was the noble and high-ranking officials of Dashun, the middle level was the soldiers who granted land, and the lower level was the peasants of Juntian. In this way, the hierarchy can be strict and a hole can be sharpened.

The white-bearded old battalion soldier said loudly: "Someone, tie him up...... When it's time to kill later, he's the first one! ”

"Whoa!"

Several Dashun soldiers had been waiting beside them for a long time, and after answering loudly, they pounced on him, tied him up with hemp ropes, held him aside, and killed the first one when the order came.

There was a little man under the "white beard" who looked stunned, probably not married a wife yet, so he went to catch Ye Jiaxin's mother-in-law who was crying and grabbing the ground, but he didn't do anything wrong, just persuaded her: "Sister, don't cry, when the man who kills you, you can follow it." There are sixty acres of good land in Meteoric Mansion, and there is a big house, but there is no mother-in-law. You follow the forehead, and keep it without suffering......"

When Ye Jiaxin's mother-in-law heard this, she cried even more fiercely. And the gentry and profiteers who were watching nearby were also infected by her and cried.

When he was crying, he roared: "Ruhou Liu Ye has arrived!" ”

Then I saw more than a dozen knights, riding horses from the direction of Yuan Gongdi, and the soldiers of Dashun along the way all stood solemnly to greet each other.

It was Liu Zongmin who came to convey Li Zicheng's order.

"Wang Laoshun!" Liu Zongmin recognized the "white beard", so he pointed at Ye Jiaxin, who was tied to the ground, and asked, "Who is this person?" What's wrong? ”

Then he saw Ye Jiaxin's wife again, "What's the matter with that woman?" How does it look like robbing a people's girl? Not now! ”

"It's not robbing, it's not rob......bing" Liu Zongmin's words startled the stunned old battalion soldier, and quickly pushed Ye Jiaxin's wife away, and stammered in defense, "Ruhou don't misunderstand, the small one is not robbing, it's ......."

What is it? How so? Proposing to a widow-in-waiting?

"Master Hou," the "old warrior" of Dashun named Wang Laoshun stepped forward to explain, "This strong man is a profiteer, and he was copied by us, and he didn't want to live, so he let people take him, and he will be the first to be killed when the order comes down." The woman was his mother-in-law, and she was taken by the second stunned, and wanted to wait for her to be widowed and ask her to go back to be a lady, but she really didn't rob the people's daughter. ”

"So that's the case," Liu Zongmin shook his head and said, "Then this thing is going to be yellow!"

The emperor has a decree, and the profiteers and gentry detained on Hanzheng Street will not be killed, and they will all rush to Wuchang Mansion to eat the big family of the little prince of the Zhu family! ”

Wang Laoshun was stunned for a moment, "Master Hou, are they all released?" There are more than 10,000 men in charge here, plus 30,000 or 40,000 mothers-in-law and children, all of whom are sent to Wuchang to eat big households? ”

"yes!" Liu Zongmin said with a smile, "The emperor just wants this group of bad people who can eat but can't fight to eat the little prince of the poor Zhu family!" ”