After this donation.
Zhu Ningyun led a few people and followed a twelve-year-old girl.
I want to check what's going on in this village.
The little girl in front of her tightly grasped the broken silver she had begged for, and skipped towards her home without noticing that she was being followed.
Along the way, Li Xiao discovered that this village was really poor and the houses were very dilapidated.
It seemed to be poorer than the village where he had stayed.
After a while, he followed the little girl to a dilapidated house.
The little girl was about to enter the house when she noticed the person following her. When she realized it was Zhu Ningyun, she showed an innocent smile and said, "Kind-hearted sister, why are you following me?"
The little girl was dressed in shabby clothes, with patches all over her clothes, especially her pants, which looked extremely ill-fitting.
Hearing the noise, a thin woman with sallow skin came out of the house and looked at Li Xiao and others warily, "You are..."
The little girl smiled and said, "Mom, these are the kind people who gave us alms just now."
Hearing this, the old lady immediately thanked: "Thank you to the kind people. Kind people are rewarded with good things."
Zhu Ningyun hurriedly asked her to get up, and the old woman stood up.
At the same time, doubts arose in his mind. How could the old woman know that we were kind-hearted people even though the girl hadn't handed over the money to the old woman?
Zhu Ningyun asked again: "Is this the only child in your family?"
The old lady shook her head, "There are several children, all girls. All seven of them are in the house."
Hearing this, Zhu Ningyun looked towards the dilapidated house and asked curiously, "It's broad daylight. Why can't you come out of the house?"
The old woman hesitated.
The little girl pointed to her pants and said, "Sister, it's because we only have this pair of pants at home, and we all have to change them before we can go out."
The words fell.
Li Xiao and others were slightly shocked.
The poor man only had one pair of pants left, and several children had to take turns wearing them when going out.
Especially Li Xiao himself, he had seen old black and white photos of ordinary people in the Qing Dynasty taken by foreigners.
There are many portraits of poor families. The family only has one pair of pants and can only go out.
But that was the Qing Dynasty, and now is the early Ming Dynasty. How could there be such poor people?
At the same time, I also understand why there are so many children taking turns begging.
Love comes after you go home and change your pants.
"Are your other families like this too?" Zhu Ningyun asked.
"Yeah, almost." The old lady nodded.
At this time, everyone felt extremely sympathetic to what these people were going through.
This is too poor.
This is a prosperous place in the south of the Yangtze River. Even if Li Xiao's village in Peiping is poor, he can't afford to buy clothes.
Zhu Gaoxu frowned and said, "Does your family have land?"
He wondered if it was caused by corrupt officials or the squire occupying the land of the villagers.
The woman nodded, "We have several acres of land at home."
"What? How many acres of land!"
Zhu Gaoxu said coldly: "Why do you still live in such poverty if you have land? It's obviously laziness! The family has hands and feet, and they don't farm the land and stay in the house. It's no wonder that others are poor."
The woman sighed and didn't answer.
After all, the answers are meaningless.
"Gao Xu, don't scare people."
Zhu Ningyun whispered: "I think people are not necessarily lazy, there may be some other reasons."
Li Xiao also nodded in agreement.
Zhu Ningyun asked: "Can you tell me, since we have land, why can't we support a family? Even if we are poor, we can't live without clothes, right?"
The old woman still didn't speak.
The little girl's expression became aggrieved and she said: "We are not lazy, but we can't support ourselves by farming. My mother said that we should go out less at home and eat less so we can survive this spring, otherwise we will all starve to death."
Hearing this, Zhu Ningyun knelt down, looked at the little girl and asked: "Then sister asks you, what do you usually do?"
The little girl was very honest and replied truthfully: "My elder sister and I go to the town to beg every day. My sister is older and walks farther to beg in the big town. Because we only have one pair of pants, we always change." go."
Zhu Ningyun looked at her pants. No wonder she felt weird just now. It was because the clothes didn't fit her.
Zhu Ningyun asked again: "What about your father?"
As she spoke, the little girl's eyes turned red and she said, "My father was beaten to death with his uncles in the village a few years ago."
Hearing this, several people's expressions changed.
No wonder I couldn’t see any men along the way.
Zhu Gaoxu walked over, looked at the woman and asked, "Is this the case?"
The woman nodded helplessly, "Almost half of the men in the village are dead."
Zhu Gaoxu was very shocked and said loudly: "Why don't you report it to the official?"
The woman looked dull and said: "Reporting to the official is useless. How can those officials care about the life and death of our people?"
A man in the village is dead, and it’s useless to report it to the official?
Zhu Ningyun was angry, stood up, walked to the woman and said, "Tell us the whole story, maybe we can get justice for you."
But the old woman shook her head and said: "Young people, don't worry about things here. The year before last, there was an official who said that a high-ranking official who was supervising the censor came here. He also said that he would seek justice for us, but Not long after, we heard that the official had died in the lake."
The inspector and censor came to investigate the matter and died in the lake?
After the group heard this, they felt shocked!
This is too exaggerated.
Is this still the Daming they know? ? ?
Is this still the Ming Dynasty where grandpa used his iron-blooded methods to control corrupt officials? ?
Living in this affluent land south of the Yangtze River, the poor people who have no food to eat and no clothing to cover their bodies are not as good as the people in Peiping.
What kind of world is this? ?
He clearly came out of the restaurant yesterday. The people there ate delicacies from the mountains and seas, wore silks and satins, and had a meal worth more than ten taels of silver.
Compared with here, it can be said that there is a huge gap! ! !
Why does this happen?
In an instant, Zhu Gaoxu's sense of justice was overwhelming, and he walked over and said, "Just say it! Say it, and this gold will be yours."
As he spoke, he took out a few golden beans.
Naturally, Zhu Gaoxu would not handle this matter personally.
But with his status, it’s not difficult to write a letter to grandpa, right?
When the woman saw the golden bean, her eyes widened and she took it.
"Since you want to hear it, I'll tell you."
The old lady spoke slowly: "Originally, everyone in our village was doing pretty well."
"But ten years ago, the price of silk on the market suddenly increased, and many villages made a lot of money. Everyone was a little excited."
"But it takes two years to plant mulberry trees to raise silkworms and produce silk. If there is no income for two years, everyone will starve to death."
"But at this time, a businessman came over and was willing to lend us money to convert rice into mulberry trees. The requirement was to grow it on a large scale. After discussion, the clan leader agreed, and everyone in the village changed to mulberry trees."
"Two years later, the mulberry trees grew and produced silk. However, the sea was suddenly banned and the price of silk plummeted. Merchants jointly lowered the price, which pushed the price of silk to the bottom again."
Hear this.
Zhu Ningyun stamped her feet, feeling angry in her heart. Damn businessman, this is bullying the people.
The old woman continued: "A year's harvest was converted into copper coins to pay taxes, and after being converted into grain to eat, we paid interest. We found that after a year of busy work, we could only eat one meal a day, and we couldn't even buy clothes." Our village has been getting poorer and poorer since then, to where we are now.”
Hearing this, Zhu Gaoxu asked puzzledly: "Since raising silk is not profitable, why not continue to plant rice instead?"
The old woman said: "We thought too, but the money the patriarch borrowed and the deed he signed were later discovered to be usury. The deed stated that the interest rate was extremely high and we couldn't repay the interest at all, but the person who lent us the money couldn't pay back the interest. The merchant allowed us to use silk to repay the interest, and the silver offset was a little higher than the price of silk on the market. But we had no choice but to keep raising silkworms to make a living."
"Loan loan shark? If you can't afford it, just pay it back. Is it more important than life?" Zhu Gaoxu said.
The old woman said: "Two years ago, the people in the village felt that they could no longer survive like this, so they did not plan to repay the interest, so they planned to forcibly cut down the mulberry trees and plant rice.
However, they sent people to beat us and said that we must use silk to pay interest.
After the men in the village reported that it was useless, they discussed it and jointly resisted. We had a fight. It was at that time that the men in the village died.
The people in the government said that repaying debts was the right thing to do and ignored the matter.
What else can we do? We can only accept our fate. "
After listening.
Everyone was silent.
This is obviously a collusion between officials and businessmen to exploit the people.
First, the price of silk was raised, and then the merchants offered usurious loans to lure them to plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms, and then jointly lowered the price. This was a big scheme.
The people in this village became slaves who provided silk to the merchant for profit.
These people are indeed not lazy, but no matter how diligent they are, they cannot feed their family.
After paying taxes and loan shark interest, they can only survive by hiding in their houses and reducing consumption.
This is not the future. Farmers cling to one-third of an acre of land to survive. The land cannot earn enough to support them, and they have no other way to make a living.
All we can do is reduce exercise and reduce consumption.
Zhu Ningyun's eyes were already red at this moment, and she asked: "Can't you sell the silk to others and sell it at a higher price?"
The woman shook her head: "No one can collect our silk. All the merchants dare not come to us to collect silk."
"What's the price of your silk?" Zhu Ningyun asked.
The old woman replied: "Fifty cents per catty."
"What?"
Li Xiao was shocked.
Although he didn't know the price of silk, when he heard it, he felt that the price was ridiculously low.
No wonder many people in this village starve to death. This is simply an open robbery.
Zhu Ningyun looked at Li Xiao and whispered: "Xiaolang, since others don't dare to buy it, let's buy it. Why don't we make cloth? These raw silk can also be put to use. Help them."
"Ningyun, I said that I will support you unconditionally in any request you make, let alone something like this."
Li Xiao nodded, looked at the old woman and said, "Let's go, take us to see your clan leader!"
The old woman hesitated for a moment.
Then he led everyone towards the clan leader's house.
After a while.
In the patriarch's home.
"You want to buy our raw silk? The price is three hundred cents per pound?"
The clan leader was very surprised when he heard the news.
Li Xiao smiled and said, "I'm just asking if you dare to sell it?"
"You dare to buy, why don't we dare to sell!"
As he spoke, the old patriarch's eyes turned red, he rubbed his wrinkled face with his hands, and sighed: "Come to think of it, it was all my fault in the beginning. Blame me”
At the price of three hundred pennies, even after paying off the high interest, you can still earn more than in previous years, and everyone can improve their lives.
He looked at Li Xiao and said: "If you dare to buy, we will sell! We can't live any longer, so it's you who have nothing to fear."
"What are we?" Li Xiao frowned.
The clan leader worriedly said: "It's not that no one collects the raw silk here. Although the price has plummeted after the sea ban, it is not as low as this field. The reason is that the people who collect raw silk have been driven away by a big shot."
"Who was driven away by the big shot?" Li Xiao asked.
"It took us many years to find out."
The patriarch looked worried and said: "He is a big shot named Lan Gongzi. I heard that no one dares to mess with him in Hangzhou City. He covers the sky with his hands."
Mr. Lan?
Upon hearing these three words, Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Gaosui immediately became happy.
Who do you think it is, that trash?
Zhu Gaoxu laughed loudly and said proudly: "To be honest, three days ago."
He pointed at himself, "It's just me, the big shot you were talking about, Mr. Lan. I slapped him more than thirty times, but he didn't even dare to let go of a fart."
Zhu Gaosui sneered from the side and said: "I slapped him more than twenty times, Mr. Lan, that bullshit, for messing with us, this is what happened."
"This is impossible, you are bragging"
The patriarch looked at the two people in disbelief, wondering if these people were liars?
Li Xiaodao: "I'm not bragging. The two of them slapped Mr. Lan in the face. I was watching from the side and knocked out several teeth."
"This" the old patriarch still didn't believe it.
Zhu Gaoxu snorted, "It doesn't matter if you don't believe it. All you need to know is that we bought all the raw silk here. How many kilograms are there?"
He is also quite concerned about this matter. It is spring now and the silkworms are already spinning.
Now that I am back, I am following my brother-in-law in a textile workshop.
Unexpectedly, the other party bought them all. The old patriarch said excitedly: "One acre of land can grow mulberry and raise silkworms. If the mulberry leaves are good, 3 pieces of silkworms can be raised. Each piece of paper can produce about 60 kilograms of cocoons, and 30 pieces of silkworms can be produced." There are two thousand acres of mulberry trees in our village. The harvest was good last year, and the whole village should have a total of sixty thousand kilograms."
Sixty thousand catties, 300 wen per catty, cost 1,800 taels.
It has also been confirmed that the entire village's silk is bought and sold by the clan leader.
Several people asked to see the raw silk. When they saw the raw silk, they found that the quality of the raw silk was quite good.
Zhu Ningyun immediately took out the five hundred taels of silver notes and said, "This is the deposit. The whole village will prepare the raw silk the day after tomorrow. We will come to pick up the goods and deliver the remaining one thousand three hundred taels as expected."
The old village chief was very surprised when he saw the banknote.
On weekdays, the raw silk in my village can only be sold at a low price of 50 Wen per catty.
With this money, even if we pay this year's usurious interest, we can still earn more than five hundred taels.
Things will be better for everyone next time!
The old patriarch thanked you and said, "Thank you all."
Li Xiao waved his hand, "What's the point of saying thank you for normal business?"
In fact, Li Xiao and others made a profit from the raw silk costing 300 Wen per pound, but Li Xiao and others did not understand the price, because except for Hangzhou, silk on the market cost 500 Wen per pound.
"correct."
Li Xiao asked: "Are there any other villages with similar situations to yours?"
The village chief nodded, "Lijia Village, Rongshu Village, and Zhanger Village next door."
He named more than a dozen villages in a row.
This surprised everyone. Mr. Lan was really loud. He had actually used tricks to control so many villages and turned them into silk machines, squeezing them like crazy.
"If you don't do one thing, you won't stop doing the other thing. Buy them all!"
After leaving the village, Li Xiao made a decision in his heart.
With your own high-end textile machines and so much raw silk, the first task of opening your own textile factory is to drive down the price of silk and occupy the market high ground!
"Xiaolang, you are so kind! Then let's do this, it can be considered a good deed."
Zhu Ningyun was very grateful and said, "My mother-in-law said that if you do more good deeds and accumulate virtue, you will accumulate blessings."
Li Xiao laughed: "Your mother-in-law is right, that's what we will do!"
Next, Li Xiao and others ran to many villages non-stop.
These villages are all in a similar situation to the village just now. They are troubled by usurious interest rates, and market merchants jointly lower prices. Their lives are equally difficult.
Buying, buying, buying, Li Xiao kept settling on these silks.
And asked the chiefs of these villages to keep it secret.
Zhu Gaosui was sent out to inquire about the news.
At night.
Everyone went back to the inn to meet and rest.
I took a sip of tea and stopped my busy day.
Zhu Gaoxu took the lead and said: "Brother-in-law, some of the three hundred silk we collected are profitable. I have inquired privately. Although the price of raw silk has plummeted due to the current sea ban, we still have a large domestic demand in Ming Dynasty. We can buy raw silk from other places for almost the same amount." The price is five hundred cents per catty for good quality.”
"I understand, let's make a small profit this time."
Li Xiao reminded: "However, we must be careful about Mr. Lan."
Zhu Gaoxu curled his lips and said: "Let's buy raw silk and leave immediately, so that they can lose everything! Let the eldest sister write a letter to the emperor's grandfather immediately, telling him what happened here, no matter what Mr. Lan or Mr. Hua, Grandfather Emperor will definitely kill him."
"Good idea, let's do it."
Li Xiao agreed and said: "Such a big movement may make him find out about this, so I will continue to run to the village tomorrow to order silk. Ningyun and Gao Xu, you go to the cargo ship, call down all the guards and buy it. Let’s take the raw silk and run away, go back to Peking and make a fortune!”
"That's it, cheers!"
Everyone picked up their teacups, clinked a cup, and then went back to rest.
On the second day, after recuperating, we started to act according to the plan.
at the same time.
In a luxurious mansion in Hangzhou city.
Lan Nao'er was lying on the recliner, recovering from his illness.
Since being beaten by Zhu Gaoxu, I have been suffering from frequent headaches recently, and my ears can't hear clearly. It should be that the eardrum was perforated and I had a slight concussion.
So during this period, Lan Naoer had a very bad temper.
He often beat and scolded the servants around him.
At this time, several Yangzhou thin horses around him who were fifteen or sixteen years old were carefully serving Lan Nao'er, feeling extremely nervous.
"I'm going to spit, hetui"
Lan Naoer coughed up phlegm, and the woman next to him immediately caught it and swallowed it.
"Damn it, can't you do this little thing?"
A maid was picking grapes for Lan Nao'er. Because she was a little slow, she was kicked to the ground.
Now Lan Nao'er is like a rubber ball that can explode at any time, constantly losing his temper and venting his displeasure.
When he recalled the humiliation he suffered that day, he became extremely angry.
You can only use the people around you as a punching bag.
At this time, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in."
The person who walked in was Lan Naoer's capable subordinate.
"Everyone get lost."
Lan Yu waved her hand, and the maids immediately left as if relieved of their heavy responsibilities.
Being around such a madman, he could be killed and thrown to dogs at any time, and he would be worried all day long.
The subordinate in black came in, cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty, I just went to ask the generals of each guard station, as well as the thousands of households in the Jinyi Guard Station in Hangzhou, but I couldn't find a few people who were there that day."
No wonder they couldn't find Li Xiao.
After Li Xiao was beaten by others, he disguised himself almost every day in order to avoid getting into trouble.
Upon hearing this.
Lan Naoer was instantly furious.
The table in front of him was suddenly overturned, and things were scattered all over the floor.
"Trash! A bunch of trash!!!"
"If you can't even catch four people, what are you going to do for food!"
"If we can't handle this matter this time, I will definitely make them look good when my father comes back!"
Seeing this, the subordinates in black were so frightened that they knelt on the ground and trembled.
"You, go and tell them that if they don't get caught, I, Lan Nao'er, will make them pay the price!"
"Yes, I understand."
After a long time, the subordinate stood up and bowed: "By the way, Your Majesty, it's time to collect raw silk this year. Do you want me to arrange for someone to collect all the raw silk?"
That's right, those conspiracies that squeezed the villages were caused by Lan Nao'er.
Outsiders dare not let him control the village's raw silk.
Therefore, those villages were almost squeezed by Sapphire.
And, there are things that are unknown.
Others' raw silk is sold domestically, and they earn little money.
Lan Naoer's raw silk is sold overseas.
The profit is ten times that of ordinary merchants!
In addition, his price for collecting raw silk is lower than other merchants, and his profit is thirty times higher than that of ordinary merchants!
The silk business alone brings more than three million taels of profit to the Lan family every year.
With their power and so much wealth, the Lan family can control more power and more court officials.
In this way, you can better protect your business, and your business will grow bigger and bigger.
This is a virtuous cycle, just like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger!
This is the power of rights!
Sea ban?
The sea ban is nothing to Lan Nao'er.
The various health stations along the coast have long been staffed by Lan Yu.
In other words, people who are not Lan Yu cannot sit in that position.
Lan Nao'er sat down, thought for a while and said, "Don't rush to harvest raw silk for the moment. The villagers have been frugal for so many years. If they save more money, they may cut down the mulberry trees and plant rice again and delay it for another month. If they can't survive, ask us for a loan and put in a sum of money so that they can't pay off the loan in their lifetime, and let me, Lan Nao'er, live a peaceful life as a silkworm farmer."
"Your Majesty's wisdom is unparalleled!"
The subordinate in black praised him, and then said: "After one month, I will arrange for someone to go down and collect raw silk."
Lan Nao'er nodded, and when his head moved, he felt another pain, and he thought of the person who beat him that day.
He said angrily: "The most important thing now is to find the person who was there that day. If I don't take revenge, I won't be able to eat or drink all day long!!! Since those losers can't be found, I can only find them myself. I will kill all my people." Go down and look for me!"
"Yes! I will do it now!"
The man in black bowed and retreated.
at the same time.
In a certain room, a group of people in plain clothes were discussing matters.
It was the people from Beizhen Fusi.
Ji Gang frowned and said, "This case is too difficult to handle. I really didn't expect that all the guards and yamen are already members of Mr. Lan. We can only rely on ourselves."
Everyone was silent when they heard the news.
At this time, Qinglong, who was outside investigating, walked in.
"Master Ji, I just found out. Mr. Lan actually used a trick to get more than thirty villages to grow silk for him. Those villagers lived like pigs and dogs."
Everyone was shocked when they heard the news.
"There is another news."
Qinglong whispered: "At this moment, someone has secretly beaten Mr. Lan's raw silk. Who do you think that person is?"
Ji Gang asked: "Who?"
Qinglong lowered his voice and said: "If I guess correctly, it was the person who robbed Yangzhou's thin horse that night!"
Ji Gang's expression changed: "Not good!"
