On August 15th of the first year of Wuding, there was no trace of festive celebrations in Linqing Prefecture City. During this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, more than 3,000 merchants in the city spent their time in fear and fear.
For all those who threatened the Qi Empire unintentionally or intentionally, Emperor Wu Ding was not only their god of death, but also the source of their fear.
The murderous Kaiyuan Town troops raided everything from street shops to hidden cellars.
Not only the local wealthy merchants, but also the influence of eight Shanxi merchants such as Qiao Chang, Cao Houqukang, etc. in Beiyun was uprooted. The properties purchased by Shanxi merchants in Linqing were all taken over by Daqi before they could escape.
Tang Hexin, a businessman in Datong, was desperate and left an ancient poem in front of the screen wall of his residence: "How can I pick melons from the Huangtai again?" Then he took his concubine and threw himself into a well.
The Zhenfu soldiers found more than 50,000 kilograms of rice from the Tang family's cellar, half of which was moldy.
This Shanxi business owner, who loved reading Tang poetry and always called himself a Confucian businessman, would rather let bags of grain rot in the cellar than sell it to the hungry people in the city at a reduced price.
Under the personal command of Zhang Dong and Pu Gang, the Zhenfu soldiers confiscated all the grain, cloth, gold and silver jewelry, silk and satin, tea, porcelain, illicit salt and pepper, spices and ebony that the rats had hoarded for generations. Lu Xiangsheng led the civil affairs officials to register the mountains of stolen goods one by one, and put them all into the Daqi treasury.
For five days from August 15th to 20th, there was an endless stream of horse-drawn carriages transporting goods. The North-South Street was blocked by horse-drawn carriages and town soldiers. 2,500 soldiers took to the streets to maintain order and suppress riots by merchants. .
Because there were not enough horses for transportation, Emperor Wu Ding had to recruit horses from the cavalry battalion and handed over the fat and strong horses to the civil affairs officials for use as miscellaneous horses.
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During the liquidation operation in August of the first year of Wuding, the eighty-one largest trading houses in Linqing were unable to pay the miscellaneous taxes owed to them before the Ming Dynasty (a fine of 100,000 taels). All their property was confiscated and their goods were fined and transferred to the state treasury.
After eighty-one families were drained and wiped out, the emperor ordered all shopkeepers, clerks, and servants to be beheaded. More than a thousand heads fell to the ground. In late August, Linqingzhou City was filled with heads.
In addition to the eighty-one wealthy merchants, many local tooth merchants could not escape the butcher knife of Emperor Wu Ding.
Ancient business carried original sin from birth. In troubled times, righteous businessmen like Xian Gao (Note 1) are not excluded, but most businessmen hoard and do all kinds of evil. In Marx's words, they came to The world is dripping with blood and filth from every pore from head to toe.
There are differences in commodity prices, business traditions, language habits, etc. in various places, and commodity transactions are difficult. Therefore, among the merchants and merchants, there are people who are responsible for negotiating and introducing transactions. This is the tooth merchant.
After the mid-Ming Dynasty, the value of banknotes depreciated, and the taxation department lacked personnel and funds, so it was laid off in large numbers. The task of collecting commercial taxes was gradually passed on to tooth merchants.
The emergence of tooth merchants has its historical inevitability, but its negative role in commercial activities is also very obvious.
The business ya between various merchants, craftsmen and yarenya shops is particularly eye-catching.
Yarenyahang often act as servants, distributing labor services or buying goods to vendors in relevant shops. They often ask for goods from vendors in a weak position to satisfy their selfish desires.
Merchants trafficked goods over long distances and were not familiar with local customs and customs. They had to rely on local merchants, who often used this to detain the payment for goods or even embezzle them, which led to business disputes and even human lives.
The Ya people used the power in their hands, colluded with each other, or had private ill intentions to suppress and drive up prices without authorization, harming merchants and people.
In addition, in the lawsuits between merchants and civil servants, ships, servants, and gangsters, tooth merchants also acted as industry representatives to complain to the government. The government would also take care of them when collecting taxes from businesses. This made tooth merchants more confident and simple. In other words, it is the so-called collusion between officials and businessmen.
If the eighty-one families in Linqing are rats, then the numerous people who live in the 36th and 72nd Streets are like buzzing flies.
Now that the rats have been exterminated, the flies must also be swatted.
There were many tooth merchants in Zhoucheng, with as many as eight hundred if not a thousand. Emperor Wu Ding, in line with the concept of "I would rather kill a thousand by mistake than let one go", ordered a mass killing.
So after Zhang Dong cleaned up 81 wealthy merchants, he attacked the tooth merchants again. In just three days, the Zhenfu soldiers used almost the same charges to kill a total of more than 850 tooth merchants in Linqing. people.
Since then, the old commercial system that had been entrenched in Linqing for many years was completely eliminated, and all the businesses in the city were taken over by the Kaiyuan Civil Affairs Bureau. All shops purchased, dispatched, and priced uniformly. More than 2,000 merchants who had survived were under the control of the imperial court.
The government began to gradually penetrate into the daily lives of ordinary people, affecting their daily necessities of life.
Coupled with the high-pressure policies later implemented by Da Qi such as the officialdom of public opinion and the system of rural people's representatives, history calls this period of rule:
"The totalitarian rule in the early years of Wu Ding".
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Not all Linqing merchants lost, the only beneficiaries were the officials from the East.
Not only did Dongfang Zhu not have his arrears of "former Mingya tax" collected, but the number of Bao'an Tang pharmacies under his name increased from the original three to six. Even the most famous Shizilou restaurant in Linqing also has shares from Dongfang Daguanren ( All large businesses in Linqing were owned by the emperor).
In short, in this bloody clean-up operation, not only did the Dongfang officials not suffer any losses, but the strength of the Dongfang family was further strengthened. At the end of August, Dongfang Zhu was appointed as the Superintendent of the Daqi Linqing Prefecture Taxation Bureau ( Similar to the eunuch who oversees the army), he was officially whitewashed as a seventh-grade tax official in Da Qi, completing his immortal life counterattack as a late Ming dynasty drug dealer.
For this reason, the government posted a notice explaining that during the Battle of Linqing, Dongfang Zhu led his retainers out of the city to stop the Ming thieves. All his retainers were killed in the battle, and he himself was wounded in thirty-six places all over his body...promoted to the post of prison officer, To show the kindness of our emperor.
People with a discerning eye raised questions. In the previous dynasties, the tax supervisors were usually eunuchs. Dongfang Zhu was a famous Huacong young general in Linqing and even Beizhili. The number of women he flirted with was not even a thousand but also eight hundred. Such a dignified man , how to hold this position.
However, word soon spread that the Ming thief's arrows were shot from the soles of Dongfang Zhu's feet to him, and one of the arrows hit the official's lifeblood. Dongfang Zhu was injured and his life was in danger.
Fortunately, our emperor was merciful and allowed "Xiao Dao Liu" from the capital to get rid of his power. Xiao Dao Liu was skilled in skills and with one click of the knife, the high official saved his life and became the father-in-law of the East.
There are also doubts among the public: The Linqing merchants who sent Ding Xiang to help defend the city were not just the Dongfang Zhu family. Many people from the eighty-one families who were massacred also contributed money and efforts. However, these people were all killed by the emperor in the end. This shows that the so-called "He went out to fight in the city and lost all his servants, so he was promoted to prison officer" was just rhetoric. A well-informed person quickly revealed the real reason why Mr. Dongfang was promoted:
There are rumors - this word came from the mouth of Dongfang Zhuxianghao Sister Li Gui - that the official had a half-sister since he was a child.
This girl was smart and eager to learn when she was young. Due to her poor family, she was robbed and sold to Huaiyang as a maid at an early age. When she was young, she fell into Zhangtai (brothel) and changed her name to Chen Yuanyuan. In the troubled times, she traveled between Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jinling, and later became the Obtained from the traitor Wu Sangui (who is still innocent to this day), Emperor Wu Ding fell in love with Chen Yuanyuan at first sight and not long ago made her a noble concubine, which is now Chen Guifei.
It is said that Concubine Chen and Empress Zhang who died in the capital looked exactly the same...
Just as it is said that a person can achieve enlightenment, chickens and dogs can ascend to heaven. Dongfang Zhu was lucky enough to survive because his sister was favored by the emperor. Yin (strong) was different (control) and yang (castration) was wrong (cut), and he became one of the most prominent figures in Linqing. This is also for He later became the powerful Nine Thousand Years Old (Eastern Undefeated) and laid the foundation for this.
If the Eastern official could predict the future, I believe he would be very pleased.
Why was Dongfang Zhu castrated?
Is Chen Yuanyuan really his sister?
How did Emperor Wu Ding suddenly visit Concubine Chen (five thousand words are omitted here)?
What unknown secrets are sure to win?
If you want to know the details of the ins and outs, please listen to the next chapter.
Note:
1. Xian Gao, a businessman from Zheng during the Spring and Autumn Period, often traveled between countries to do business. When the country was in crisis, he saved Zheng Guo. "Qin attacked Zheng, and when Xian Gao met Yu Hua, he rewarded the Qin army with twelve oxen, falsely claiming that Zheng was known to the state, and suddenly reported it to Zheng, so Qin did not dare to attack Zheng." - Huangfu Mi·" "The Biography of Gao Shi"
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