After thinking hard for a long day and half a night, Wei Zhongxian finally made up his mind and decided to get on Li Jin's boat to take the last risk of his life. Speaking of which, it was Li Jin's words yesterday that moved him by accumulating yin virtue for future generations.

Wei Zhongxian's life can be described as a big ups and downs, from a country gambler with a lot of debts and no way out to a nine-thousand-year-old under the Ming Dynasty, and then fell into the clouds because of the death of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, and almost had to go to the vegetable market. finally got a result sent to Fengyang to guard the tomb, I thought this was the final ending, but I didn't expect to come to Suzhou to enjoy my old age.

This kind of life like a roller coaster made Wei Zhongxian more and more convinced of the theory of gods and Buddhas, and felt that he could turn evil into good fortune every time, and it must be some yin virtue that he had cultivated in his previous life. Li Jin's persuasion made him waver in his heart, and finally made up his mind with the idea of accumulating virtue to save people in order to cultivate the blessings of the next life, and invited Li Jin to the weaving mansion again early the next morning.

This time, the two had a secret conversation in Wei Zhongxian's study for a morning, and finally discussed how to make these businessmen in Suzhou comply. So in the afternoon, Wei Zhongxian ordered Gao Yun to post a post to invite all the members of the Silk Chamber of Commerce in Suzhou City to the Weaving Mansion.

The Jiangnan Weaving Mansion manages the silk industry in the Jiangnan area, but this management is originally the same as that of the Yangzhou salt merchants, and the Weaving Mansion is only in charge of the capital and the most powerful silk manufacturers, and then these big businessmen manage the production of the whole industry from silk households, weavers to dyers.

Different from Yangzhou salt merchants, because silk weaving involves too many links, the people who rely on this industry to live are even more difficult to count, so the change of this industry is extremely moderate, until the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the silk weaving industry is almost no different from the past except for the emergence of a publicly traded raw silk market.

Although all aspects of silk production have been subdivided, the big silk merchants still follow the tradition, starting from the purchase of raw silk to the silk dyeing "color", they try to cover each production link, and rarely cooperate with their peers in production.

As a result, the big silk merchants were almost equal to the big landlords, and except for a few pure merchants, almost every big silk merchant was supported by one or several gentry families. Without the support of these gentry families, these big silk merchants would not be able to settle the bargaining of local silk households, nor could they cope with the unreasonable demands of the local government.

Because of this, the control of the big silk merchants over the following individual merchants, silk households, weavers, and dyers is unparalleled, even if it is the weaving house, sometimes for these united big silk merchants, they also have to make concessions and compromises, in order to achieve the smooth completion of the palace errands.

Of course, since the establishment of the raw silk market, and the capital injection of the production of all aspects of silk after the restructuring of the Jiangnan Weaving House, the weaving house, which is also a contestant and a referee, now has a much greater influence on the Silk Chamber of Commerce than in the past. This is also the reason why although Li Jin mobilized the weavers to surround the Weaving Mansion, he always hoped to be able to obtain the assistance of the Weaving Mansion peacefully.

A silk chamber of commerce united under the leadership of the Jiangnan Weaving Mansion, and a silk chamber of commerce without a leader, the resources that can be used by the two are not at the same level. Moreover, with the assistance of the Jiangnan Weaving Mansion, Li Jin also had a better understanding of the current situation of the silk industry and the intricate relationships between these merchants, so that he could come up with a more convincing solution.

Although the invitation was sent by the Weaving Mansion, when these big silk merchants entered the lobby of the Weaving Mansion, they found that Wei Zhongxian did not come forward, but only asked his close confidant Gao Yun to accompany Li Jin to preside over the consultation.

didn't see Wei Zhongxian's appearance, which suddenly made these silk merchants a little more courageous, and because they had already been connected before, they were still relatively tough in the talks, and vetoed several propositions put forward by Li Jin one by one. In the end, only a few silk merchants were worried about ruining the face of the weaving house, and offered to donate some money and grain to help the hungry, but the amount of donations was not much, ranging from a few hundred yuan to a thousand yuan.

Looking at these silk merchants who didn't eat oil and salt, Li Jin reluctantly gave Gao Yun a look and made a last move. Gao Yun cleared his throat and said to the following businessmen with a straight face: "It seems that everyone's opinions are not unanimous enough, but the purpose of this meeting is to solve the problems faced by the silk industry this year.

You are all representatives of the Suzhou Silk Chamber of Commerce, and it is naturally your responsibility to solve these two problems and set an example for the good operation of the silk industry. The Jiangnan Weaving Mansion is entrusted by His Majesty to supervise the Jiangnan silk weaving industry, so naturally it cannot turn a blind eye to these problems that endanger the development of the silk industry.

Therefore, Father-in-law Wei has already said that if a solution is not proposed to the problem, the meeting will not end for a day. During this period, the whole weaving house will work together with you, day and night, until a solution is found.

Since you don't agree with Prosecutor Li's proposition and can't come up with your own solution, I think it's better to rest for half an hour first, sort out the thoughts in your head, and then let's continue..."

It was the first time that these pampered silk merchants had encountered such an unbearable meeting. In fact, in their eyes, this was not a meeting at all, but an interrogation every half an hour, at first Gao Yun and Li Jin would "appear" from time to time, and then only a little eunuch from the Weaving Mansion came forward to ask.

In the past three days, not only have they not been able to get a good rest, but even the food standards they eat have dropped sharply. On the first day, there are white flour steamed buns and hot porridge, on the second day, there are only bud rice wotou and hot water, and on the third day, there are only rancid wotou and clear water.

During these three days, businessmen were constantly called out of the lobby alone. Some people come back and become silent; Some people come back with a face full of resentment; Others dodged when they returned, and they didn't dare to make contact with anyone else. Under the double oppression of spirit and **, on the third day, most people finally reached a consensus, expressing their willingness to follow Li Jin's proposition and formulate provisional methods for the employment of the silk industry.

When these silk merchants came out of the weaving house unkempt, many of them could no longer stand on their own. In the past three days, their families have not gone to the weaving house to inquire, and it is not that no one wants to find a way to find out what is going on in the weaving house. However, the weaving house, which is independent of the local government, is not something that local officials can come to communicate with and inquire.

Before, Li Jin let out the news early in the morning, saying that he wanted to negotiate with these Suzhou silk businessmen to find a solution to the problem of starting the silk industry in Suzhou, so the plan of the families of these silk merchants to incite the weavers to besiege the dignitaries of the weaving government ended without a problem.

These silk merchants, who had finally come out of the weaving mansion, were very angry after learning about what had happened outside the mansion in the past three days, thinking that this vicious plan must have been conceived by Wei Zhongxian, an old thief, so many people tried to join forces with local officials to impeach Wei Zhongxian, impeach him for house arrest, merchants and people to "force" him to extort money.

However, with the arrival of three news, the impatience of these silk merchants soon died down. The first news is that the imperial court officially issued a relief method for the Sanwu famine, in addition to the reduction and exemption of land taxes, the most important thing is the reduction and exemption of manufacturing taxes, in order to encourage the manufacturing industry in the Sanwu area to continue to work; A quota system for the export of raw silk and a plan for official procurement of silk and cotton cloth have also been developed.

The second news is that in a small town less than 40 miles away from Suzhou City, there was an evil ** case of hundreds of weavers storming the rice shop and grabbing rice. Although this incident did not escalate into a local uprising, it was an unprecedented event for the people of Suzhou, who had lived in peace for hundreds of years.

The third piece of news is that a landlord in Wujiang refused to deposit a batch of silver in the bank because of his opposition to the imperial court's coinage bill, and instructed the banker to beat away the bank representatives who came to collect and store silver.

Although these Henan New Army are also civilians who have only joined the army for a short time, in Henan, where there has been a small period of turmoil since the third year of Chongzhen, the civilians in this area are obviously more combat-conscious than the Jiangnan civilians who have always been safe and sound, and although these Henan New Army have not received much military training, they have begun to receive ideological education all the time when they set out from their hometowns, believing that those who oppose the imperial court's policies now are obstructing the imperial court's disaster relief.

Therefore, when they began to be ordered to attack Haoqiang in these places, they almost all went out of their way, directly linking the elimination of Haoqiang with whether they could save their families. Although these places have a lot of villagers on weekdays, they can bully the small families in the surrounding areas, but how can they compare with the army organized by the state.

Even if these hurried Henan New Army did not have fully equipped armor and weapons, just a few well-equipped elites and a large number of auxiliaries were no longer something that these local tycoons who dominated the village could deal with.

The arrival of these three pieces of news undoubtedly made these silk merchants realize that the "troubled" world may be around them, and at this time to go out to confront the imperial court, they will undoubtedly send themselves to the knife of the imperial court and become the chicken that sets an example for the monkey. So they finally chose to forbear and accepted the agreement they were forced to sign.

The compromise of these silk merchants, coupled with the timely support policies issued by the imperial court, finally stabilized the precarious social situation in Suzhou, hundreds of thousands of employees in the silk industry kept their jobs, and even the economy in the south of the Yangtze River stopped deteriorating, and the disaster in the Sanwu area was also "exposed" at the dawn of the end.