In the afternoon of the same day, Xia Wei got on the boat to Liangzhejiang Road.

Although he was born as a military attaché, he was already sixty years old after all, and he could not withstand such bumps, so he could only walk by boat.

On the 20th of March, the smashing in Jiangsu and Zhejiang rose to its peak, but the yamen of the various divisions reacted quickly, arresting people and expelling them, and the riots lasted for two days and finally subsided.

When the landlords of all walks of life saw that the matter was getting bigger, some began to retreat, and some of them were relieved when they saw that the imperial court only arrested the smashers and looters, and did not wantonly arrest people on a large scale.

On March 23, three days after the riots began, Gong Xu, Pan Shi, Wang Wei, and Zhang Ruohai, the four largest families in Suzhou, gathered in a restaurant on the Qiantang River in the east of Fuyang County, southwest of Hangzhou.

In addition to them, there are more than 40 landlords and gentry in Huzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, Hangzhou, Runzhou, Jiangning Mansion and other places, and they are also big landlords, so it can be said that the people who can sit here must at least have more than 30,000 acres of land under their names.

The restaurant is three storeys high, and the roof can overlook the entire Qiantang River, and the scenery is extremely beautiful. The riverside is cluttered, and the wild grasses and willows are still around, fluttering in the wind in the spring of March. Listening to the sound of the waves on the riverside is full of leisure and comfort.

But at this time, the patriarchs of the major families were not touched by the beautiful scenery outside the building, and everyone's faces were either sad or frightened or hesitant or fearless, everyone had their own thoughts, and naturally they couldn't enjoy the scenery.

They wrapped up the entire third floor, the room was noisy and whispering, and several friends who knew each other sat at a table, and their eyes were mainly on the big landlords in Suzhou headed by Gong Xu and Pan Shi.

After all, they picked the blame for this matter, and now that the matter is getting bigger, once the court investigates it, it is necessary to push them to the forefront, and they will be such a substitute for the dead.

And Gong Xu, Pan Zhi, Wang Wei, and Zhang Ruohai's faces are actually very ugly.

This is in the Great Song Dynasty.

The rebellion and uprising could not set off any turmoil in the Great Song Dynasty.

So they didn't want to rebel at all, they just wanted to accumulate strength, protest in the city, and put pressure on the imperial court.

As a result, I never expected that when there were too many people, it would be impossible to maintain order, especially some impulsive people, seeing that the government had been ignoring them, they were angry and squeezed, and they actually began to smash, loot, burn, and even kill people.

This is something they could not have anticipated.

Just as during the Song Qinzong period, at the beginning, more than 300 Tai students protested, and in the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of people in Bianliang took to the streets and killed more than 200 eunuchs.

Once there are more people and anger is contagious, it will naturally easily lead to irreparable consequences.

"Ahem, cough, cough"

Seeing that everyone in the building was uneasy at this time, Gong Xu had to stand up and stabilize the army's heart and said: "Everyone, what are you sitting here for, I believe you also understand that if the imperial court does not abolish the apportionment of acres and the recruitment of landowners, we will not be at peace for a day." ”

"If we lose our work here, what do we do next? We have more and more taxes to pay, but there are fewer and fewer farmers to help us with our farming. For a long time, it is not far from breaking the family and destroying the clan. ”

He looked around at the crowd and continued: "Therefore, we cannot stop there, we must continue to hold on to the government, and we must not leave here. ”

There are already many people here today who have the intention of quitting.

Gong Xu and the others must keep them, because in addition to the appeal that Gong Xu said is not answered, more importantly, if everyone retreats, and the tide recedes, the court finds that they are swimming naked, then if they are not arrested, they will be ghosts.

Therefore, in order to retain the glimmer of life of "the law does not blame the people", he must unite the people, otherwise after a period of time, the court will settle accounts, and then they will be called real suffering.

However, the hearts of the people are scattered, and the team is not easy to lead.

Someone immediately said: "That's a good thing, now something big has happened, killed people, and burned a lot of shops, do you want to talk about this matter will the government be good?" ”

Gong Xu immediately said in a deep voice: "If you kill someone, you naturally have to hand over the person who killed you to atone for your guilt." There is also no less compensation, we must not let the court catch the sore feet, this matter itself is for all of us, can you do nothing, can we still be safe and sound? ”

"This"

Everyone immediately looked at each other, and he was told about the pain point.

I have to say that these big landowners in Suzhou still have two brushes, and they quickly use the things that everyone cares about as bargaining chips. After all, they have already boarded the thief ship, and whether they leave now or continue to stay, it will be difficult to get out if they can't meet their demands.

Because from the obvious apportionment to the mu, the taxes they bear will only become heavier and heavier, and they will be overwhelmed. Not to mention the hidden, the tenants have been robbed, who will help them farm the land.

If this continues, their tens of thousands of acres of land will be turned into wasteland, and the imperial court can use the tenants to reclaim new fields and overhaul the fields, without worrying about farming.

In the final analysis, it is not land that is lacking in an agrarian society, but people.

As long as someone has money, the imperial court can build canals to re-irrigate the fields, and they don't have any way to play with these landlords.

However, if the landlords were not worried in the past, because the imperial court had no money, most of the finances had to be placed in the three redundancy, where would the money come from to repair water conservancy facilities?

It's different now.

The problem of redundancy has been solved, foreign trade income has risen sharply, commerce has prospered, and the state fiscal revenue is increasing day by day.

"Then according to Brother Gong's meaning, we continue to protest?"

Someone asked tentatively.

"Not bad."

"But what if the court blames it?"

"Didn't you just say that? Surrender people, lose money! ”

"But I always felt that the court wanted an excuse, and now I have this excuse."

“.”

Gong Xu was silent.

That's what worries him the most.

But after a while, Pan Zhi said: "Don't worry, the so-called law does not blame the public, there are so many of us, and there are none, will the imperial court really slaughter us?" ”

"Alas, I can only think like this, now I am also difficult to ride a tiger, if we don't fight, our family wealth will be slowly lost, and I will be terrified when I fight."

"So what? I have heard that many people have been forced to follow the path given by the imperial court, and some people have even sold their fields to the government at a low price, and are now organizing fleets to go to sea. ”

"Hehe, the fleet goes to sea, nine deaths. Don't look at how much gold and silver the ocean-going fleet has brought back, but people can't always see how many people they went to and how many people came back. ”

"This thing. Even if the old man is timid, he won't get involved. Alas, who would have thought that this family business, which had been saved by hard work for several generations, would be destroyed by me? ”

Some people sighed, some acquiesced, and a very small number of people finally decided to quit and leave Hangzhou with their own people and return to their hometown.

As soon as the matter was too big, they were afraid that something would go wrong.

Second, they felt powerless, even if the matter was so big, the court still did not let go, which also made people feel how determined the court was.

So in the end, a few people left.

Their fate is nothing more than two, either they are slowly expropriated by the imperial court from their tenants, and then they are saddled with high taxes, and finally their families are bankrupt. Or make a decision early to sell the land and go into business.

It obviously takes a lot of courage.

After all, with their wealth and wealth, a thin camel is bigger than a horse, even if they sell their land and sit on empty food, as long as the head of the family does not gamble, basically several generations will not worry about eating and drinking.

And doing business is too risky, especially going to sea.

Don't look at Chen Haizhong, an official of the ocean-going fleet, in just seven or eight years, he has been promoted from the eighth grade to the director of the third grade Tongzhi City.

But the cost is unimaginable.

Others don't know, but they, the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, know it, after all, Chen Haizhong is here every time he goes to sea and returns.

In his two voyages alone, thousands of people were lost due to disease, waves, wind and rain, disappearances, etc., and this is not counting how many ships were destroyed and people died.

In addition, there are also many people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang who go to Japan and Korea to do business, and these people also suffer heavy casualties.

Therefore, compared to farming in peace and stability, with this stable iron rice bowl income, who wants to sell out their land, go out to eat and sleep, or even risk the destruction of the ship and the death of the business?

But now...

Those who left shook their heads and sighed and left, hoping that the remaining ones would finally prevail and that the imperial court would give up their apportionment and conscription of their tenant farmers.

After these people left, there were more than 30 big landlords left in the field, and finally decided to break the kettle and fight with Gong Xu and them.

So in the next few days, they began to organize protest groups again, marching around inside and outside the city, but they did not have the momentum of the previous days, but they were relatively low-key.

By the beginning of April, however, everything had changed.

On April 6, Xia Wei, who had sailed more than 1,000 kilometers, dragged a slightly tired body into the city of Hangzhou on a passenger ship.

After entering the city, he quickly made a round of the city, and he only brought a few domestic servants, and saw that order in the city had barely been restored.

But there were still forests scattered all over the city, adding up to thousands of people who were constantly demonstrating and making him frown.

The most important thing is that he saw that some of the smashed shops had not been repaired, and the ruins of the burned houses were still swaying in the wind, which showed how chaotic the market was at that time.

At noon, Xia Wei finally walked into the transfer envoy's office.

When Du Qi, Ren Maocheng and others heard that Xia Wei was coming, they hurriedly went out to greet him and invited him into the back hall.

"I've seen the count."

In the back hall of the transfer envoy of the two Zhejiang roads, officials such as the transfer envoy, the deputy transfer envoy, the general judge, and the degree branch judge saluted him.

Although the Ministry of Finance is no longer the third department, it is still nominally the first department under the Constitutional Yuan, so everyone still calls the Ministry of Finance Shangshu as the prime minister according to the previous custom.

"Hmph."

Xia Wei snorted coldly, put his hands behind his back, sat on the main seat, and then said in a deep voice: "Don't you have any feelings about the way it looks outside?" ”

Du Qi was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly: "Ji Xiang, this matter is not the inaction of the lower officials and others, but the prefect."

"Amount"

Xia Wei patted his head and said in confusion, Zhao Jun told him about this before he came.

The reason why the landlords of Liangzhejiang Road made such a big fuss was basically what he let go.

But because of the fatigue of the road, and seeing the city like this, and being sixty years old, I forgot about it for a while.

So he turned his head and said: "The instructions of the prefect are naturally correct, but they still can't be allowed to be too rampant, so as not to affect the people in Hangzhou." ”

"Ji Xiang is right, it is the negligence of the lower officials."

Du Qi hurriedly said.

Whether this matter is big or small, it depends on whether Shangguan will gently expose it.

Obviously, there is an endorsement from the Zhiyuan, and there is no big problem.

"Well, tell me about the current situation."

"Yes."

The crowd talked a little bit about the situation.

At the end, Ren Maocheng said: "Ji Xiang, after they made a big fuss in Hangzhou City on the 20th, they stopped a lot during this time, and some people have already gone back, and now there should be only thousands of people outside the city." ”

"Stubborn!"

Xia Wei sneered: "The imperial court aims to seek the well-being of all the people, and it is not that it does not give them a way to live, but it still clings to the land, and it is really impossible for the court to dare to kill them." ”

"Please tell me."

Du Qi immediately said that he had had enough of being angry during this time and wanted to vent for a long time.

"Go and call the other four chiefs to discuss the matter."

Xia Wei said: "I understand the meaning of the prefect, some should be killed, but not all of them, otherwise it will be difficult to convince the public, and the two people will be panicked and the country will be in turmoil." Therefore, it is necessary to find out the charges, and then pass on my order to immediately recruit the forbidden troops from various states to come to Hangzhou. ”

As he spoke, he took out the emperor's edict and the Privy Council's order, with which he could mobilize the army.

"Yes!"

Seeing that Xia Zhu brought the military order, everyone immediately became excited.

Now that there are many landlords, there is really nothing they can do by relying on the men and horses in their hands, and it is easy to say anything when the forbidden army comes.

The immediate transfer made the yamen immediately operational.

Some people notified the rest of the people from the yamen to come to the meeting, some people hurried to the military camps in various places to transfer troops, and some blocked the news, except for a few of their chief officials, the subordinate officials below could not know the inside story.

A few days later, the forbidden troops from the surrounding states quickly marched to Hangzhou.

Xia Wei held a meeting with the chief officer of the Sixth Division, and decided which people to arrest, how to arrest, how to interrogate, and how to go to their homes to investigate the situation.

We talked about how to make a judgment and so on, and by 9 April, we had basically sorted it out.

This is also thanks to Gong Xu's petition for saluting first and then soldiering, then the list has been sorted out for them, and now is the time to arrest people according to the list.

On the morning of the 9th, in the transfer envoy office, Xia Wei sat in the main seat in the hall, overlooking the below, and said in a cold voice: "Pass my order, all the divisions and officials, plus the forbidden army, search and arrest people in the whole city, and no one is allowed to be spared!" ”

"Yes!"

The following transfer envoys, pacification envoys, Changping envoys, promotion envoys, imperial history divisions, imperial city divisions and many other chief officials responded loudly.

Then, in an instant, more than 10,000 officials and soldiers in the city began to arrest people everywhere!

(End of chapter)