Weng Tongshu sat in his room in a small and dilapidated hostel in the south of Nanjing, smoking Island brand cigarettes produced by Nanyang Tobacco Company one after another. Now the Ming Dynasty has a very strict control over opium, almost no one smokes it, and cigarettes have replaced it as the best-selling hobby, Weng Tongshu also has this hobby, he likes to smoke while reading or thinking, probably thinking that it can refresh his mind. When he arrived in Nanjing, he mingled with a group of hot-blooded scholars, and he wanted to betray them, and he felt very uncomfortable, so he smoked cigarettes more fiercely, and felt that he was much better.

The door was gently pushed open, and a figure stood in the doorway, lighting an oil lamp. Weng Tongshu stood up as soon as he stood up, and saw his younger brother Weng Tongshu standing at the door wearing a half-worn Confucian robe, with two thread-bound books under his arm—this poor and sour look was the most common among the scholars gathered in Nanjing at the moment. This kind of down-and-out appearance actually shows from the other side that the gentry and landlords did not mix very well in the new Ming Dynasty.

The landlords, who sound like they are very rich, are actually not worth mentioning compared to the new bourgeoisie. In particular, those middle-class landlords who had lost their gentry privileges, but who refused to change their lives to farmers, had a real income that was simply worse than that of the working class in Nanjing.

To be honest, the income from this land is a bit low. Even in a place like Jiangnan, one acre of good paddy field can harvest more than 400 catties of millet a year, and selling it to a rice merchant is only three yuan, that is, taking fifty percent of the rent, and the landlord's income is one and a half yuan. There will also be a tax on fifteen large copper plates. That's 1.35 silver dollars. There are 100 acres of such paddy fields, which is enough to get the word "big landlord". The rent for a year is only 135 silver dollars. Although there is still a way of usury, it is different from the past, there are so many factories in Shanghai and Yingtiancheng, there are still collective farms in various places recruiting people, and there is also a way to go to Jinshan (Xin, San Francisco) in the South Seas. The peasants in Jiangnan are not willing to borrow usury to farm.

Some of the tenants even borrowed money to invest in the collective farms, and if there was no one in the creditor's family to be an official, it would be impossible to get the tenants in debt out of the collective farms' recruitment points. It can only rot - to the officials responsible for recruiting and transshipment collective farm households, these people are all a big amount of money! Therefore, those landlords who have no official status and no big background do not dare to put money in the seal now, nor do they have the privilege of sharing profits and taxes in the past, so they have to rely on a few small land rents to survive.

Moreover, most landlords do not have 100 acres of land at all, only 20 or 30 acres of land, and there are many small landlords who earn only a few dozen yuan a year. They were naturally wider than the small farmers in the countryside, but when they arrived in Nanjing...... What a gentry, it's a poor sour that people look down on! Instead, it was the students who came out of Jishi University. casually has an income of two or three thousand a year, which is the real envy and worship of the people of Nanjing! Therefore, this time Jiangnan Shilin protested. In the eyes of millions of Nanjing citizens, it is just a poor and sour trouble, wearing a half-worn Confucian costume to walk around the city of Nanjing, and everywhere you go, you are white-eyed. This taste, Weng Tongshu has tasted enough!

"Shuping, are you here?" Weng Tongshu's love is obviously not high, but he just nodded at his younger brother, which can be regarded as a greeting.

Weng Tongyi closed the door, walked in, found a chair to sit down, and smiled: "Big brother, the place where you live is really easy for my brother to find for a while." "Yes, after asking a few times, either no one answered, or they just pointed him out, which really delayed a lot of time.

"Where else can you live if you don't live here? Far Eastern Hotel? It was the place where the Jishi Youth Party was active, and a room cost 10 yuan or 8 yuan a night. ”

This sounds a little sour! Weng Tongshu has been an official, and the Weng family in Changshu is a high-ranking eunuch, but it is not the kind of broken household, so Weng Tongshu's sense of superiority is innate. But these days in Nanjing City, it is really a bit of a feeling of being kicked to the ground and stepping on it again!

Weng Tongshu silently took out a few banknotes from a thread-bound book and handed them to Weng Tongshu. I heard him say lightly: "Big brother, you take these first, and then stay up for a while, and when this turmoil passes, there will be anything." He paused and added: "The emperor doesn't want scholars, and the Donglin Party still has a future." ”

Weng Tongshu glanced at his younger brother suspiciously, and then carefully put away the banknotes, which were five banknotes with a face value of one gold dollar, equivalent to ten silver dollars, enough for him to live in Nanjing City for five months. However, not all of this money was spent on Weng Tongshu, and some of it was donated to the Donglin Party for funding.

"Big brother, the emperor wants to know the funding of the Donglin Party." Weng Tongyi saw that his brother had collected the money, so he began to ask questions.

"The Donglin Party is very tight...... Weng Tongshu didn't say anything, lit a cigarette, and began to continue to sell Jiangnan Shilin's career.

As mentioned above, most of the landlords in this era are bitter and poor, and these scholars with the Donglin Party brand are even more so. If they weren't poor, they probably wouldn't have that much fighting spirit, right? And a group of poor scholars got together, although many of them had big families, but they could not be compared with the members of the Jishi Youth Party who represented the new bourgeois outbursts. Therefore, it is very difficult to raise funds. Basically, there are no wealthy businessmen who donate money to them - these are all gentlemen and scholars, how can they go to businessmen to raise donations? At most, I am looking for those classmates who have an official and a half-job, but most of these people have low official positions, and most of them are not willing to have deep friendships with the Donglin Party, for fear of being settled after the autumn. In this case, how much money can these Donglin Party members raise?

"At present, the Donglin Party has about 500,000 yuan in funds, which may be less than 5 percent of the funds of the Jishi Youth Party...... In order to raise this amount, many people have sold out their family's fields! If it doesn't work, I'm really going to drink the northwest wind! ”

Weng Tongyi said coldly: "The wealth they fight for is also splashing, if the emperor is forced to retreat by them, their status in Shilin will rise, and then they are afraid that there will be no officials and no money?" Even the seat of the ruler can be obtained sooner or later. Can you not bet on such wealth? It's only 500,000 now, and these people are still reluctant to pay! It's just that this gamble has reached the point where they can't help but be reluctant to pay, and when it comes to the next year, Jiangnan doesn't know how many so-called gentry families want to pawn houses and sell land to deal with the aftermath of these poor scholars! ”

Hearing this, Weng Tongshu sighed, he knew that this trouble was easy to deal with! Emperor Zhu is not powerful now, but when the prestige of Jiangnan Shilin is defeated by the Jishi Youth Party, it is inevitable to settle accounts after the autumn......

"So, what time are they going to make trouble? This must have been decided, right? Weng Tongyi then asked.

"It's settled, at 8 o'clock in the morning of January 20 in the Western calendar, the scholars gathered in Nanjing City are ready to go to the Imperial City Square to ring the bell and petition."

This matter is no longer much of a secret, and it will soon spread throughout the entire city of Nanjing, and Weng Tongshu was only leaked a few days earlier.

"How many are there?" Weng Tongyi frowned and asked. The number of people is the key, whether it is a military fight or a civil fight, the side with more people always takes advantage.

"There are no less than 30,000 scholars gathered in Nanjing, and there may be more people coming, at most no more than 50,000."

"All of them are scholars?" Weng Tongyi pondered and asked, "There are no peasants?" ”

"Peasants?" Weng Tongshu was stunned for a moment and shook his head, "The scholar is a scholar's business, what is the matter of the farmer?" ”

"Don't they know that al-Shabaab is hiring laborers on the streets?" Weng Tong Qi said, "Li Lansun, Sun Xiechen and Uncle Xu Xing are not so pedantic, right?" ”

"Pedantic?" Weng Tongshu sneered bitterly, "They have to be rich if they want to pull farmers over!" There are a total of 500,000, so many scholars have to be helped, in case it is really out of control, they have to find a way to dredge and rescue, where is the rich silver to hire farmers? ”

Weng Tong smiled: "Then they will wait to be beaten!" (To be continued......)