Postscript (13) Workers' and peasants' strikes

"The Imperial Court of the Imperial Court of the Imperial Palace, impeachment of Qin Quyi, Marquis of Youyang! Wu Yingdian University Scholar Jiang Ding! Stone Pillar Bomafu! ”

"Ministers impeach Qin Quyi, Jiang Ding, and Ma Fu!"

When the "Nanhai" incident broke out, in April of the second year of Shaoqing, it finally opened with the forced palace of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

More than 100 high-ranking officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate in Beijing knelt in front of the gate of the Qianqing Palace and loudly sang the names of the people they had impeached, causing the three leading officials of the hundreds of officials behind them to turn pale.

At this time, an official hurriedly walked from the direction of the Imperial Palace, walked in front of the three of them, and saluted, and then hurriedly spoke:

"The ministers, the marquis, the uncle, and Li Ziren of the Metropolitan Procuratorate summoned all the officials below the fifth rank of the Kyoto Procuratorate to protest at Chang'an Gate, demanding that Qin Qumin, the captain of the "Wang Yue", be severely punished. ”

"Bastard!" Hearing that someone reported his clan brother, Youyang Marquis Qin Quyi blurted out, and the stone pillar next to him, Bo Ma Fu, couldn't help but squint his eyes.

At this time, Jiang Ding, a scholar of Wuyingdian University who was not confused, had no waves, and it seemed that he had long expected that the Metropolitan Procuratorate would play this hand.

He set his eyes on the group of high-ranking officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate above the fifth rank in front of him, and then asked a third-rank waiter next to him: "When did Li Du Yushi enter?" ”

"About half an hour ago, ......" the squire replied, Jiang Ding nodded when he heard this, and didn't say anything, just quietly watched the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate loudly impeach.

While they were observing, the news that Li Ziren had summoned all the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate in Beijing to protest at Chang'anmen also spread to the Qianqing Palace.

In the Yangxin Hall of the Qianqing Palace, Emperor Zhu Bohai of Shaoqing looked at Li Fu of the left capital of the Imperial Court in front of him without waves.

In front of Li Fu, in addition to Zhu Bohai, there are also Tian Wenjing, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Zhang Tingyu, the second assistant.

Li Fu, who was born in Jiangxi in the fifth year of Qiansheng, is now two out of fifty, serving as the imperial history of the left capital of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and also the executor of the "Shaoqing New Deal".

He has a strong personality, is upright, and never accepts bribes, so Zhu Bohai asked him to implement the "Shaoqing New Deal".

It's just that now, Li Fu's personality gives the three people in front of him a headache.

"The implementation of the new policy is difficult, this matter has been discussed a year ago, why do you ...... it?"

Tian Wenjing, as the first assistant, was the first to speak, but his words were very harsh in Li Fu's ears.

In the face of his words, Li Fu argued: "I have already prepared to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty and Long Live the Yuan, but we can be lonely, but we can't watch the murderer go unpunished!" ”

"Long live, please severely punish Qin Qumin!" With that, Li Fu clasped his hands together and bowed deeply.

His appearance made Zhang Tingyu subconsciously look at Zhu Bohai, and seeing that Zhu Bohai's face was not shocked, he stood up and persuaded:

"The matter can be discussed, you first let the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate outside the Chang'an Gate disperse."

"If things don't work out, how do you convince them to disperse?" Li Fu asked Zhang Tingyu rhetorically, and blocked Zhang Tingyu's question.

Without waiting for him to refute, Tian Wenjing pressed forward step by step and questioned him:

"Li Julai, you are not an official on the first day, how can you bring down corrupt officials and corrupt officials, do you still use me to teach you? Are you now roasting Banzai on the stove, do you want to force the civil strife of the Ming Dynasty?! ”

"I didn't do that!" Li Fu competed against each other, and the momentum of the two was equal for a while.

Zhang Tingyu intended to persuade, but before he could speak, Zhu Bohai said indifferently:

"Alright, you don't have to act for me to see."

"Qin Qumin connived at his subordinates to fire at the special ship of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the evidence was conclusive, he was beheaded for the crime, and his relatives were exiled to Lingbei."

Zhu Bohai saw through the careful thinking of these three people, although Tian Wenjing and Zhang Tingyu were both embarrassed by Li Fu, but their purpose was just to scold Huai.

The three of them are all reformists, and all they want is their own attitude, and this attitude, Zhu Bohai gave.

He turned his head to look at a eunuch next to him: "Great companion, give Li Du Yushi the Imperial Sword, and give him the right to cut first and then play." ”

"The Minister's Decree ......" the eunuch of Heaven returned the salute, and then went to the side to draft the holy decree.

After a while, when a eunuch sent the imperial sword, Zhu Bohai got up and took the imperial sword, placed it in front of Li Fu, and said indifferently:

"This is the sword of Emperor Shizuwu, and it is also the sword of King Wen to control the five armies."

"From now on, you will hold this sword, patrol the hunt on behalf of the sky, up to the cabinet, down to the common people, regardless of martial arts, all have the right to dispose of it in battle!"

There are many imperial swords in the inner court, and almost all emperors have their own imperial swords, but the highest specification among them is nothing more than the imperial sword of Taizu, Chengzu, and Shizu.

And among them, the ancestor imperial sword is the most noble, and there is no other reason than because King Qi Wen once held it to patrol the sky on behalf of the sky.

"Minister! Thank you! Hearing that the imperial sword in front of him was the imperial sword held by Shizu and King Wen, Li Fu's eyes lit up, and before taking the imperial sword, he couldn't help but kneel on the ground and repay the emperor's trust in him with such a great gift.

When he got up, he carefully took Edgeworth with both hands, his gaze burning enough to melt it.

Not only him, but also Tian Wenjing and Zhang Tingyu next to him could not hide their envy.

They thought that they could get the Taizong Imperial Sword or the Gaozong Imperial Sword from the emperor's hands at most, but they never thought that they would actually get the Shizu Imperial Sword among the three ancestors.

"The new deal cannot be stopped, the three of you will watch it, step down."

Zhu Bohai turned around and walked towards the dragon chair, and the three of them also saluted when they heard this, and slowly withdrew from the Heart Cultivation Hall after shouting long live.

When they walked out of the Heart Cultivation Hall and walked out of the Qianqing Palace, Li Fu boldly pulled out the Shizu Imperial Sword.

The sunlight shone on the sword, illuminating the words "Apocalypse Sword" on the sword.

Li Fu felt the hilt of the sword he was holding, and when he thought that this sword had once been held by Emperor Shizuwu and His Royal Highness King Qi Wen, he couldn't help but burst into tears.

These two are both heroes who transformed the Ming Dynasty, and now I am fortunate to be able to hold the same sword with them......

Li Fu held the sword tightly and walked out of the Qianqing Palace Gate with Tian Wenjing.

Originally, the imperial historians who were still loudly impeached at the gate of the palace saw Li Fu walking out, and they closed their mouths one after another, staring at the imperial sword in his hand.

When Li Fu appeared with the imperial sword, Jiang Ding, Qin Quyi and the others' faces instantly turned bad.

"Let's go back to the yamen to do things!"

Li Fu did not explain whose sword belonged to him, because he knew very well that it would not be long before the ministers would know.

What he wants to do now is to take advantage of the fact that Jiang Ding and the others don't know, and take the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate to study how to deal with the two parties.

Hearing Li Fu's words, the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate got up one after another and followed him to the outside of the palace.

Between the two parties, Qin Quyi clenched his fists, and after Li Fu and the others walked away, he left with the nobles with a pale face.

Obviously, he recognized whose Imperial Sword was in Li Fu's hand.

Although Jiang Ding didn't know, seeing Qin Quyi's expression, he probably guessed that the owner of this imperial sword should be one of the three ancestors.

But even so, he calmly left with the officials behind him.

Looking at Li Fu's appearance, I am afraid that the emperor is really ready to make a move against the two parties.

Thinking of this, Jiang Ding began to make his own calculations in his heart.

The three parties left separately, and soon Li Ziren outside the Chang'an Gate also got the news, quickly dismissed many officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and then rushed to the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

When he arrived at the Imperial Palace, Li Fu saw that the important officials had arrived, and then showed them the Imperial Sword of the Ancestors.

When Shizu Edgeworth appeared, this group of officials were all in shock.

Although Sejo was only a few decades ago to them, the more important meaning of Sejo Edgeworth is that King Wen once held it.

This sword, except for the grandsons and princes of previous dynasties who can carry it when they inspect the Qi Kingdom, is placed in the Heavenly Pavilion for worship at the rest of the time.

Getting this sword greatly enhanced the enthusiasm of the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

While the officials were still in shock, Li Fu did not hesitate to issue a new order.

If they want to bring down the two parties, they need to do more than just investigate the case, but also mobilize the power of the people.

Therefore, Li Fu selected 427 officials to serve as inspectors of the imperial history, hoping that they would go to all the prefectures, counties, and towns to mobilize all the forces of the people that could be mobilized to expose all the criminal evidence of the two parties that could be exposed.

In the case that the six departments and the three divisions could not get involved, they could only solve the problem by destroying production in this way.

This is a necessity, but it must be done.

Endure the pain for a while, for a hundred years of stretching, it's all worth it!

At this time, among the top ten industrial provinces of the Ming Dynasty, the North Zhili and the South Zhili were the places where the Metropolitan Procuratorate did not enter the water, and Shaanxi, Anxi and Liaodong, and Shan Yu were the territories of traditional nobles.

Therefore, only the four provinces of Shandong, Huguang, Guangdong, and Yunnan can be used for the planning of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Since Li Ziren was a native of Huguang Changsha Prefecture, Li Fu appointed him as the Huguang Inspector of the Imperial History and controlled the officials of the Huguang Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Li Fu gave Li Ziren a very heavy task, not only to organize the workers in Huguang to report the factory and official businessmen, but also to let the peasants expose the dirty affairs of the local civil officials.

In addition, Li Ziren needs to wait at any time to help his colleagues in the Metropolitan Procuratorate in Guangdong, and to respond to his colleagues in the Metropolitan Procuratorate in Henan.

Li Ziren knew that his task was heavy, but he was not afraid, but on the second day after Li Fu gave the order, he took more than 300 officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate back to Huguang by train.

On the 10th day of the first month of April, Li Ziren led the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate to Wuchang, Huguang, and reached a consensus with his father, Li Changling, the envoy of Huguang, to jointly inspect the illegal officials who served in Huguang and did not abide by the "Da Ming Law".

After the consensus was reached, Li Ziren divided the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate into 10 teams, went to the rural areas and industrial areas respectively, and went deep among the people to boldly expose the obstruction of the "Shaoqing New Deal" by the officials of the two parties in the court.

"Shaoqing New Deal" is a new deal to punish corrupt officials in the state and private sectors and benefit the people.

Thanks to the fact that the Ming Dynasty had already carried out compulsory secondary education for all, most workers and peasants were able to understand the reality of the situation in the mouths of the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Under the explanations of the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, they finally understood why their wages were getting less and less, and why the state was paying less and less attention to the workers and peasants.

Upon learning of the situation in the temples, a large number of peasants and workers were organized, elected representatives, and exposed and recorded the violations of law and discipline by some local officials.

This situation is not only carried out in Huguang, but also in Henan, Guangdong, and Yunnan.

Later, this situation expanded to Luchuan, Jiaozhi, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places

Faced with such a situation, officials of the two parties rarely sat down calmly and cooperated with the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Jiang Ding believed that in order to sever the ties between the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the first thing is to first suppress the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate in Huguang, and as long as the Huguang Metropolitan Procuratorate is now in full swing, it will be much easier to deal with the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate in other places.

Under the organization of Jiang Ding, a scholar of Wuyingdian University, the Huguang Metropolitan Procuratorate was suppressed like never before.

On the fifth day of the sixth month, Li Changling, the envoy of Huguang, was transferred to Persia to serve as a political envoy.

On the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate of the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant were shot while giving a speech, which is known in history as "Ding Wei's shooting".

In this shooting, Li Ziren, the supervisor of Huguang, was wounded, Wang Zhao and Zhao Jian, who were inspecting the imperial history, were killed, and as many as 26 workers were implicated in the bullets.

At the same time, private factories began to close for rectification, and a large number of unemployed workers took to the streets.

After the incident, Emperor Zhu Bohai dismissed the Hubu Shangshu Shi Xun and harshly reprimanded many nobles.

On June 20, the Huguang private factory was forced to resume production under pressure.

However, after the resumption of production in the private sector, Jiang Ding and others made a fuss about the Huangdian state-owned enterprises.

On the fifth day of July, the Huguang Iron and Steel Plant announced that it would suspend production for rectification due to the operation errors of "workers", resulting in 12 injuries.

Huguang Iron and Steel Plant was one of the top ten steel plants in Daming at this time, and there were as many as 3,400 workers working inside.

Due to the daily wage system in the Ming Dynasty, after the steel plant announced the suspension of production for rectification, a large number of workers lost their source of income and had to take to the streets in search of temporary work.

In August, following the closure of the Huguang Iron and Steel Plant, state-owned factories such as the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant, Wuchang Gunpowder Bureau, and Wuchang Weaving Bureau successively stopped production to check for potential safety hazards.

Emperor Shaoqing issued a holy decree to question the Hubu Shangshu Shi inquiry, Jiang Ding, a scholar of Wuyingdian University, and Wang Qin, a scholar of Jianji Temple, but the three of them did not overhaul for a long time during the Xianjia period, and the current shutdown is still prevaricating in a reasonable way.

After the three of them answered, Shi Zai said, "The emperor is angry and removes his official position."

However, even though Zhu Bohai dismissed the three officials, the hundreds of thousands of officials inside the imperial store continued to stop production and overhaul according to the original plan.

Today's automobile factory is shut down for maintenance, tomorrow's weaving factory is overhauled, and the day after tomorrow's steel plant is ...... So repeatedly, the local workers in Huguang were overwhelmed.

Such shutdowns and maintenance have directly led to the rising prices of fertilizers, cloth, and grain, and the cost of living for the people has increased sharply.

Under the pressure of the cost of living, many workers and peasants had to abandon the action of following the Metropolitan Procuratorate to report corrupt officials.

Seeing that Huguang's struggle was about to be lost, the superintendent Li Ziren dragged his injured body out of the hospital and went to the countryside and the factory.

He had a good reputation among the people of Huguang, so when they learned that he was coming, many of them would still go to observe.

In conversations with the common people, Li Ziren used his own experience to educate the workers and make them realize that "obedience does not lead to respect, but only to increased oppression." ”

After returning to the Yamen of the Huguang Metropolitan Procuratorate, Li Ziren discussed with officials how to counter the counteroffensive of the two parties.

At the meeting, Li Ziren believed that the state-run officials were standing on the back of the imperial shop to suck blood, and the private sector was where the interests of the nobles were located.

The private market is very fragile and cannot be shut down for a long time, which is not in the interests of nobles and businessmen.

Therefore, Huguang must maintain the private market, and even expand the private market, so that Huguang's government-run and private market share will change.

If this can be done, then the private businessmen will not give up the market share they have gained, and there will be contradictions between the officials and businessmen of the two parties.

As long as there is a contradiction, it will give the Metropolitan Procuratorate a chance to break through one by one.

Now they have to sow discord between the state-run and the private-run sector, and this relationship can be openly stirred up with practical actions.

After the meeting, Li Ziren donated all his family property and established a Ming Mutual Aid Association.

He put his family property into the mutual aid association, and called on all peasants and workers to stop buying things from the imperial store and instead go to private factories and shops to buy things.

If any of them are in trouble, they can receive necessary daily necessities such as rice and noodles at the local mutual aid bureau.

Under his call, a large number of people changed their habits and went to buy things in private or self-employed ordinary people's stores.

As a direct result of this, from July to September in the autumn, the net profit of Huguanghuangdian was cut in half by 45%, and Huguanghuangdian had continuous disputes with private businessmen, and it was no longer possible to jointly sanction the Huguang Metropolitan Procuratorate.

At the same time, according to the reports of the people, Li Ziren arrested some of the officials who accepted bribes in the imperial store, so that there was a vacancy in the interest chain of the Huangdian in Huguang.

Li Ziren used the evidence of some officials to lure them into telling the evidence of other officials, and promised to give him a lighter sentence afterwards.

In the face of conclusive evidence, some officials who are not firm in their stance have poured out the incriminating evidence they have.

Relying on these incriminating evidence, Li Ziren impeached Qin Che, the political envoy of Huguangbu, and Gao Shilian, the head of the Huguanghuang store, on the fifth day of October, and sent the incriminating evidence to the Beijing Metropolitan Procuratorate.

After receiving the news, Li Fu immediately responded to Li Ziren in the court, and relied on the incriminating evidence sent by Li Ziren to arrest the two and their henchmen and put them in prison.

Seeing that Li Fu and Li Ziren had overthrown the Huguang officials, Tian Wenjing and Zhang Tingyu, who were firmly seated in Diaoyutai, immediately arranged for a large number of non-party officials to take charge of Huguang.

By the end of October, the factories in Huguang began to resume normal production, and the "three increases" policy was implemented, and while a large number of workers profited, the Shaoqing Emperor Zhu Bohai also ordered Huguang to be exempted from agricultural tax for one year.

After this news spread through the "Daming Daily", it greatly stimulated the people of the southern provinces, who actively responded to the call of the Metropolitan Procuratorate to constantly report and expose the illegal actions of local officials and monitor their every move.

By the 15th day of the second year of Shaoqing, more than 24,300 officials had been exposed to prison and more than 34,700 businessmen had paid bribes.

However, without waiting for Zhu Bohai and Tian Wenjing and others to be happy, a bloody news reached the palace.

On the twelfth day of the first month of the third year of Shaoqing, the refusal of private factories in Yunnan to comply with the "three increases" policy triggered a strike of collective workers in Kunming, Yunnan, and more than 100,000 workers took to the streets to march and surround the yamen of Yunnan's political envoy.

After the incident broke out, officials such as Wu Yaonan, the envoy of Yunnan soldiers and horses, He Kun, the political envoy, and Zhao Jixian, the envoy of the inspection department, ordered the soldiers and horses to disperse the workers.

When the gunshots rang out, many outlaws hiding among the workers incited the workers' collectives, which in turn led to riots.

Sun Yigui, the garrison of the Kunming Soldiers and Horses Division, ordered a counterattack, killing 327 workers and wounding 1,453.

History said, "Wushen strike"