“…… Your Majesty, the minister and the king, recently tested the cannon in Xuanfu, and the gunpowder was mostly mixed with mud and sand, and all of them needed to be replaced, once there was an enemy situation, the consequences would be unimaginable! And the official in charge of gunpowder in Beijing, there must be corrupt people, please Your Majesty strictly investigate, otherwise it will destroy my Ming foundation!

…… Xuanfu place, from the general army below are all concealed from it, the minister received a thousand gold and obtained its secret, to investigate this matter, it is related to the palace Da Jue Wei Gonggong, the minister does not dare to rashly speculate, specially inform Your Majesty, please Your Majesty to make a decision......"

After Zhu Houzhao watched Wang Shouren's secret recital, his expression became solemn:

"Wei Bin? This person is now in charge of the errand of the Gunpowder Bureau, but I didn't expect that he would dare to collude with the border army generals to engage in gunpowder adulteration!

In this way, there is no doubt that this Wei Bin is a corrupt official, I have been in the position for a long time, and it is inevitable that I can't see the darkness under the lamp, and the ministers of the court and the central government are not aware of it? Why do they recommend Wei Bin? ”

Zhu Houzhao had a hunch that he seemed to be being deceived by everyone, or that he was being used by everyone as a fool.

But in any case, Zhu Houzhao felt that he had to at least adhere to the principle of employing people without suspicion and suspicion, no matter who was more suitable to go to Songjiang Mansion to open a new weaving bureau, but at least he could not change generals now.

And the cabinet ministers persuaded themselves to change people on the grounds of improper employment, whether it was right or wrong, at least their recommended Wei Bin did not seem to be a better candidate, which shows that these cabinet ministers are either unclear or have a bad conscience, in other words, if the person who recommended Wei Bin is not stupid, then it is bad!

Zhu Houzhao called Wen Zhengming from the attendant's room: "Draft, tell Luo Xiang that before the spring list of the eighteenth year of Zhengde is revealed, if he can't start the new weaving bureau, let him hang himself!" You don't have to go back to Beijing to see me! ”

Zhu Houzhao gave Luo Xiang an ultimatum, he believed that even if Luo Xiang was a pig, he would be forced to come up with a way by himself.

Emperor Zhu Houzhao did not replace Luo Xiang, but only asked Luo Xiang by giving a death order, which made Wang Qiong, the first assistant of the cabinet, and others all taken aback, they were a little disappointed, disappointed that His Majesty did not follow the trap set by himself, but they did not find a way to stop the emperor, because for the gentry of Songjiang Mansion, they could only help here.

At the same time, they now had to seriously think about why the emperor had suddenly changed his mind.

……

Matsue Prefecture at this time.

Luo Xiang also knew that if he dragged on like this, it would not only cause Long Yan to be furious, but also give these gentry and the civil officials behind them the opportunity to frame themselves.

But Luo Xiang did not sit still.

In other words, the current situation of the Ming Dynasty did not sit still, and the form of the entire society was changing in flux.

In order to expose the lies made up by the gentry to the people of Songjiang Mansion, completely separate the two forces of the gentry and the common people, and for the credibility of his inner court, Luo Xiang took out 10,000 silver dollars, and said that the top ten who sold cotton and raw silk to the weaving bureau would receive a one-time reward of 1,000 silver dollars.

In the current Ming Dynasty, there is not much difference in value between silver dollars and old silver, and a thousand silver dollars are equivalent to a huge amount of money in this era, which can basically make people make a fortune directly!

Under this temptation, naturally there were people who dared to try to pull a cart of cotton and raw silk to the weaving bureau.

Luo Xiang paid the 1,000 silver dollars in full, and also gave them an extra silver dollar, asking them to spread the news of purchasing cotton at a high price for their Weaving Bureau.

Luo Xiang's way is quite a kind of city gate standing wood, but the effect of this is indeed obvious, as long as they are really convinced that the inner court is really going to buy cotton and raw silk at a high price, they also flock to it, and no longer care whether Luo Xiang is a eunuch or not, and even in order to get a reward of 1,000 silver dollars, they rushed to transport their own cotton and raw silk overnight.

Besides.

There are also ordinary people who have already sold cotton and raw silk to the gentry, or agreed to sell to the gentry, have also begun to change their minds, demanding that the gentry who bought their cotton and raw silk increase or return it, on the grounds that these gentry have deceived them! Fooled them into not believing that the Weaving Bureau was buying their cotton and raw silk at a price 50% higher than the market price.

Naturally, the gentry would not agree, and they took out the contract.

This caused a rift in the relationship between the gentry and the common people.

She Kaide also found Zhou Jiansheng, and begged: "Zhou Xianggong, you will return my order, how about I return the deposit, originally you said that you will suffer a loss if you accept my cotton and raw silk, and now since the Weaving Bureau really wants to collect cotton and raw silk at a price higher than the market price of fifty percent, it is better to sell these cotton and raw silk to the Weaving Bureau, anyway, they will suffer losses, so that you will not lose money, you say!" ”

This She Kai now regrets that he believed the words of this week's prisoner, and agreed to sell his own cotton and raw silk to this week's prisoner at a price half higher than the market price, and now that the weaving bureau is indeed purchasing at a price higher than the market price of fifty percent, he naturally came to find this week's prisoner.

However, he couldn't directly say that Zhou Jiansheng had deceived him, so he only begged Zhou Jiansheng euphemistically, hoping that Zhou Jiansheng would be merciful.

And how could Zhou Jiansheng give up a large number of cotton and raw silk orders that had been signed, and he didn't agree to this:

"Uncle She, you have signed it in black and white, and you have also pressed your fingerprint, how can you say that you regret it, you don't want Zhou to lose it is your kindness, but the transaction has to be in accordance with the contract!"

This She Kai knew that he couldn't provoke this week's prisoner single-handedly, so he had to leave the prisoner's mansion in anger, but he immediately took a group of villagers to the Zhou ancestral hall to make a fuss, asking the Zhou clan to preside over the public discussion and return the cotton and raw silk that were deceived from the villagers.

The people of the Zhou clan were naturally reluctant to pay it back, after all, they had a contract in their hands, and they were also busy entangling the clansmen, and even said that they would move the county magistrate of Huating to bring people to suppress the peasants who were making trouble.

And She Kai waited for the peasants to naturally not want to stop there, and they also came to the government to complain, and they also came to the Yamen of the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture.

Like the peasants such as She Kaide, in other counties of Songjiang Prefecture, many common people and small landlords who did not want their cotton and raw silk to be deceived by the gentry with merchant backgrounds also had disputes with their local squires and even the squires of the same race, and even many of them directly engaged in armed fights, and even injured people's lives.

Of course, there are many people who come to the Yamen of Songjiang Prefecture to complain.

Time.

Because Luo Xiang's new weaving bureau purchased cotton and raw silk at a high price of 50% higher than the market price, it directly led to the relationship between the gentry and the common people in Songjiang Mansion suddenly changed from glue-like paint to incompatible!

All of a sudden, the gentry and the common people were divided.

Even the contradiction between the gentry and the common people intensified, and some gentry relied on their clan rights to prohibit the common people and small landlords of the same clan from selling cotton and raw silk to the weaving bureau, while the common people and small landlords were naturally unwilling to lose the opportunity to make money, so they naturally stood up against the clan.

In Songjiang Prefecture, where urbanization has been highly developed, most of the common people and small landlords have some shadows of modern citizens, and after the popularization of education has increased, these common people and small landlords and gentry are not on par with each other, and the gentry can unite with the government to suppress them, and they can also force the government to suppress the gentry.

At this time.

The biggest headache is the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture, Xiong Hu.

Now he is in a dilemma, on the one hand, he is threatened by the six departments of Nanjing, and even the nobles and gentry of the nobles and gentry who have asked him to send troops to suppress some troublemakers, and on the other hand, he is strictly ordered by the governor and even the capital not to provoke the people to be properly handled.

Xiong Xun didn't expect that the relationship between the gentry and the common people would suddenly become so bad.

But he could only appease both sides, on the one hand, he arrested the squires and commoners who had committed criminal cases, and on the other hand, he also strictly ordered the counties to release the commoners and squires who had been detained in the class room for no reason.

At the same time, Xiong Hun could only increase the strength of the police officers first, and set up police stations in all towns and villages in Songjiang Prefecture, and even set up two or three in some large towns, so as to maintain law and order and avoid further large-scale armed fights.

In this way, invisibly, the grassroots controlled by the gentry clan was further withdrawn into the hands of the imperial court, and the control of the grassroots management of the imperial court was strengthened.

Because of their selfishness and mercenary nature in the commodity economy, the gentry group began to gradually lose its credibility among the common people and small landlords, and gradually lost its control over the grassroots, so that the government continued to strengthen its power to intervene in the control of the people.

However, the original reason for all these changes was that it was only because Luo Xiang came to Songjiang Mansion to set up a weaving bureau and brazenly purchased cotton and raw silk at a high price of 50% higher than the market price, that the gentry lost the power of market monopoly, and the common people had a better channel to sell the value of their surplus labor, that is, they could no longer rely on the gentry to obtain wealth.

However, now, Luo Xiang and his weaving bureau, which led to all these changes, did not have any more turmoil, and successfully established the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture, and officially began to use steam spinning machines to spin and reel silk production activities, in just a few days, the entire Jiangnan Weaving Bureau began to spin new yarn and reel new silk.

The nearby people also began to transport cotton and raw silk to the Weaving Bureau, and even from Huzhou, Suzhou and other places, for no other reason, the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau purchased high prices.

The gentry also knew that they had lost the war over the market for textile raw materials, and even because of this war, the relationship between their gentry and the common people of the same clan or village began to deteriorate, and gave the court fishermen the opportunity to profit.

But what they don't understand is why the New Weaving Bureau, which represents the interests of the royal family and the imperial court, dares to purchase cotton and raw silk at a price 50% higher than the market price!

"Don't they want to make money from the Weaving Bureau?!"

Zhou Jiansheng had such a question at this time, he did not understand why the New Weaving Bureau should raise such a high price.

"Your Majesty's house slaves raise the purchase price of cotton and raw silk, which is nothing more than an attempt to take away the cotton and raw silk from us, and the people will not live according to us from now on, but live according to them, so that the imperial court and government can naturally manipulate us gentry at will!

However, in this way, the old man does not believe that he can make more money in the weaving bureau, and the price of cotton and silk exported has been reduced by half this year. ”

At this time, Zhou Yong, the secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of Industry, sat in front of Zhou Jiansheng and sneered.

"As my brother said, their weaving bureau has raised the price of cotton and raw silk by fifty percent, and then lowered the export price by half percent, and their weaving bureau is only afraid of losing money! Even if His Majesty the Emperor does not pursue it, how can the officials who are His Majesty not pursue it, as long as the elder brother asks the inspector to check the accounts of his Weaving Bureau according to the imperial history, if he makes little or even loses, he will participate in the Weaving Bureau, and then see what Luo Xiang will do! ”

Zhou Jiansheng also said with a sneer.

"I'm afraid that there is no need to be so troublesome, the princes in the court are afraid that they have already persuaded Your Majesty to transfer this Luo Xiang back to Beijing, and when the time comes, the new palm print of the Weaving Bureau will naturally be the same as our scholars," Zhou Yong said.

"So better, if the new palm print Da Jue comes, how the weaving bureau purchases cotton and how to export, naturally we still have the final say, as long as the new father-in-law is willing to understand the current affairs, he can naturally understand that no matter how good the weaving bureau is, it is the emperor's family after all, and only what falls into his own pocket is the real silver!"

After Zhou Jiansheng said this, he said goodbye to his brother, and then immediately rushed back to Songjiang Mansion.

Coincidentally, on the way back to Songjiang Mansion this week, the prisoner also met the eunuch in the palace, and he thought that it was the will of the imperial court to transfer Luo Xiang home, so he couldn't help laughing:

"It must be the matter that the imperial court wants to transfer him Luo Xiang back to Beijing, so it seems that my brother guessed correctly, and the princes in the palace persuaded Your Majesty! Let this unsympathetic gelding go back to the capital! Let's go, go to the Yamen of the Weaving Bureau to have a look, and look at his father-in-law's gray face, it's exciting to think about, hahaha! Zhou hasn't seen the lost appearance of the eunuch yet! ”

This week, the prisoner came to the yamen of the Weaving Bureau, and at this time, he heard the news that His Majesty the Emperor only issued an order urging Luo Xiang to open the Weaving Bureau as soon as possible, but did not want to transfer Luo Xiang back to Beijing.

"How can this be the case, the princes of the court and the central government failed to get His Majesty to transfer Luo Xiang back to Beijing?"

Zhou Jiansheng was very disappointed in his heart, and suddenly the whole person was in a bad mood, and he was depressed for a while and only wanted to hit the wall three hundred times.

Luo Xiang was also in a bad mood at this time, although Zhu Houzhao did not transfer him back to Beijing as the civil officials and doctors wished, but the will to apologize for his sins with death as soon as possible also made him feel the anger from Emperor Zhu Houzhao, and also made him guess the pressure from the princes of the imperial court, and a group of civil officials from the foreign dynasty secretly framed him.

Luo Xiang didn't hate Zhu Houzhao, he hated that the entire civil official group actually wanted to transfer him back to Beijing, and then it was good enough to succeed in their conspiracy, Luo Xiang knew that the new weaving bureau he opened this time must be opened well, and he must realize huge profits through the use of new steam engine technology, only in this way can His Majesty believe in himself, so that the civil officials and doctors who tried to assassinate themselves would not dare to speak out even if their interests were damaged.

The depressed Zhou Jiansheng and other gentry were still unwilling to let Luo Xiang and his new weaving bureau nail in Songjiang Mansion like a magnet nail, and almost sucked up the cotton and raw silk in Songjiang Mansion, so they continued to fight with the new weaving bureau in the textile market.

Zhou Jiansheng and other gentry directly united and directly lowered the price of textiles going to sea by half, hoping to monopolize the entire export market through price wars.

"Godfather, the prices of textiles exported by major commercial banks in Songjiang Prefecture to the sea trade company have been reduced by half compared with last year! They are deliberately targeting our Weaving Bureau! Diao Yong was busy reporting this phenomenon to Luo Xiang at this time.

Luo Xiang looked at the entire workshop, which was blazing with fire, boiling hot water and steam, and said with a smile:

"These guys who only know how to make money, buy land, and buy women know what is called the advantage of technology, this official has already found the business administration students hired from Beijing Normal University to calculate, according to the level of the steam engine of our weaving bureau, even if it is more profitable to reduce the export price by seventy percent, this is still the result of the accounting after we raise the price of cotton and raw silk and the salary of workers, you inform the sea trading company, the price of cotton and silk and other textiles of our weaving bureau has been reduced by two percent compared with the export market price last year!"

"What, cut down by three percent! What is he Luo Xiang doing! Does he really want to fight to the end with the gentry of our Songjiang Mansion, does he really bully me All the gentry of Songjiang Mansion dare not fight, anyway, we are all giants on the rich side! How can we be bullied by him as a gelding, and if we don't make money this year, we will fight to the end and continue to reduce the export price by 30%! ”

Gentry like Zhou Jiansheng were completely angry, they didn't expect the Weaving Bureau to dare to play like this.

And Luo Xiang is now relying on his technical advantages in steam engines, continuing to reduce prices, announcing that the export price will be reduced by 40% compared with last year!

The gentry had to grit their teeth and descend again, down to forty and a half!

Luo Xiang already knew that his weaving bureau had a steam engine, and even if the export price dropped to seventy percent, he would be able to make a profit, so he simply continued to lower the price to fifty percent compared with last year's export price!

Zhou Jiansheng and other gentry tried their best to reduce the wages of the workers in their own businesses to fifty and a half.

But Luo Xiang's weaving bureau also continued to reduce the price to sixty percent.

At this moment, the gentry did not dare to descend anymore, so they had to stop.

And Luo Xiang's weaving bureau also won the price war this time.

But.

The gentry were waiting to see Luo Xiang's jokes, waiting to see Luo Xiang's losses, and even some gentry had contacted the imperial history to prepare to impeach Luo Xiang for not operating the Weaving Bureau effectively, resulting in the loss of the Weaving Bureau.

But in fact, Luo Xiang's bottom line is that it can still be profitable if it is reduced to 70%, and now it is only reduced to 60%, and the profit is naturally still higher than the profit of the gentry who exported textiles last year.

Of course.

The gentry and civil officials were still unclear, and they only thought that Luo Xiang dared to reduce the price so much, and he must have fought at the cost of causing the Weaving Bureau to suffer huge losses.

Thereupon.

Nanzhili Patrol according to the imperial history Hu Shi sent troops on the fifteenth day of the first month of the eighteenth year of Zhengde, and suddenly surrounded the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau! The reason is to check the accounts!

The patrol of the imperial history has this power, as long as it is within the jurisdiction of Nanzhili, he can check almost anything in the imperial history.

Luo Xiang didn't stop the inspector from checking his account books, but only sneered: "Hu Patrol is really quite bold, no matter how the Weaving Bureau says it's also a royal industry, the East Factory hasn't checked much, you dare to check it." ”

"This official also got a report, the people of your Weaving Bureau indiscriminately operated the Weaving Bureau, causing huge losses to the Weaving Bureau, and it is precisely because this is a royal industry that this official feels that this matter cannot be underestimated!"

After this Hu waiter said this, he shouted: "Give this official a careful review and see how much the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau has lost!" ”

The civil officials began to care about the profitability of the property under the name of Emperor Zhu Houzhao, which was also a strange phenomenon, but in fact, this kind of thing happened, and the inspector Hu Shi now seems to have become the most loyal person to Zhu Houzhao.

However, at this time, Hu Shi's staff ran over: "Master, the results have been found, the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau has made an export profit of 800,000 silver dollars, which is only a total calculation from December last year to February this year!" This profit has exceeded half of the total value of textile exports in Songjiang Province! ”

"What! How can you make so much money? This can't be, this can't be! ”

Hu Shi thought that the loss of the new weaving bureau was undoubtedly conclusive, otherwise he would not have dared to reduce the export price, and raised the price of cotton and other purchases before this, so after getting the instructions of the bigwigs such as Shangshu Zhouyong of the Ministry of Industry in Nanjing, he hurriedly rushed to search the weaving bureau.

But what Hu Shi didn't expect was that the Weaving Bureau did not lose money, but made a big profit! It was so earning that he couldn't even believe it was real.

"Go and check, keep checking", Hu Shou roared hysterically.

After a while, the results of the re-accounting came out, and the new weaving bureau still made a profit of more than 800,000 silver dollars from December last year to February this year!

"Why is this happening," Hu said dejectedly.

"This is a secret, without His Majesty's permission, our family can't tell you yet, but if Hu Xunji still doesn't believe it now, our family can take you to see the cash silver dollar that the New Weaving Bureau recently earned!"

Luo Xiang naturally guessed that Hu Shi must have been instigated by the entire civil official group behind his back to suddenly investigate his Weaving Bureau, so when he saw that Hu Shi failed to find out that his Weaving Bureau was losing money and was deflated, he couldn't help but be happy.

But.

The patrol press Yu Shi Hu can only leave the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in a gloomy manner.

"It's strange, how did this Jiangnan Weaving Bureau achieve so much profit! What the hell are they relying on to have nothing to fear! Zhou Jiansheng and other gentry had also learned about the soaring profits of the Weaving Bureau at this time, but because of this, they were also in a bad mood, but what he didn't expect was that there were still bad things happening.

In order to fight a price war with Luo Xiang and seize all the markets for textiles in this way, the gentry of Songjiang Province did not want to lose too much of themselves, so they shifted the profit margins that had narrowed after the price reduction to their own workers.

As a result, some workers began to strike and even petition in order to demand that the gentry bosses pay them the arrears of wages.

For a time, the gentry of the entire Songjiang Mansion had to be troubled by the workers after they had just been troubled by the people.

And the prefect Xiong Hu had to be tired of these things.

On the contrary, Luo Xiang has now completely established the leading position of the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in the textile industry in Songjiang Prefecture, by raising the price of raw materials such as cotton and so on, so that the people can profit and then monopolize the upstream raw material market, and then because of the high-efficiency steam engine, and it is a machine that does not require too much manpower, it completely monopolizes the textile export of Songjiang Prefecture.

"Bastards, these workers, what wages do they want one by one, if a few years ago, they could only be regarded as conscription now, and they still want wages for conscription, it's just delusional! I'll beat the worker who took the lead to death to my lord! ”

Zhou Jiansheng was completely angry when he saw that the workers of his firm were making trouble, he didn't expect the workers under his command to be so uncontrollable, so he could only reprimand a few words indiscriminately.

……

Zhou Jiansheng really let the leading workers be killed, but the group sentiment did not stop because of this, but became more intense.

The contradiction between the gentry and the common people intensified again, and the contradiction between the burghers and the aristocracy began to manifest itself in a concentrated manner.

But none of this has anything to do with Luo Xiang now, who is now relying on his steam power to frantically expand the scale of production, occupy the entire Haimao textile market, and try to transport more silver dollars into Beijing to make His Majesty happy, and at the same time slap the face of some people in the DPRK who slander him.

This is Luo Xiang's purpose.

But maybe the steam industry can really bring about a revolution, and now Luo Xiang is relying on this, and the gentry of the entire Songjiang Mansion are turned around, so that the gentry of the entire Songjiang Mansion are now hated by the common people.