On the bank of Qinhuai River, inside Dagongfang.
Huang Shu, the former censor of Huguang and the former admiral of water transport Zhu Guobi, were following a handsome young man in jade-colored Confucian robes as they walked through a rocky path. There were servants and maids walking silently everywhere. Huang Shu didn't even bother to look around. He had seen too many of the palace's ocean-like demeanor.
It's just gold and jade on the outside, but rotten on the inside.
Of course, the decay wrapped in gold and jade does not mean that the owner of Dakongfang Palace was extravagant and emptied his family fortune.
Although Xu Da's descendants have been squandering for ten generations, the wealth of the government has not been exhausted, but has become richer with each generation. When it was passed into the hands of the current Wei Guogong Xu Hongji, it could no longer be described as rich and invincible. Because how could Emperor Chongzhen, the head of a country, dare to compare wealth with the Xu family, Duke of Wei? It is not an exaggeration to say that the wealth of Duke Wei was ten times that of the country.
The reason why the Xu family of Wei Guogong has become richer with each generation is also very simple. It is that the Xu family of Shizhen Nandu is actually one of the real owners of the place where wealth gathers in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty!
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, most of a country's wealth was concentrated in the southeastern areas along the river and sea. And when the Age of Discovery came, the wealth gathered in the southeastern coastal areas along the river, which produced silk and porcelain, two of the first-class international trade goods, became even greater.
At the same time, the Ming Dynasty abolished the Kaizhong Law, leaving the salt industry that originally benefited the northwest in the Huaiyang Prefecture.
The benefits of sea trade, salt, and the already fertile southeastern fertile land combined together turned the southeastern land of the Ming Dynasty into a cornucopia of gold.
If the Ming Dynasty could profit from the southeast cornucopia, the current world might not be the Qing Dynasty, but it would still be able to survive. However, the Ming Dynasty was like all feudal dynasties in history. After its peak, the power of the central government slowly declined, and the area that the imperial power could effectively control became smaller and smaller.
This decline in authority is not only reflected in the loss of control over the northeastern and northwest border areas, but also in the massive loss of tax revenue along the southeastern coast.
By the way, the so-called loss of tax revenue does not mean that the farmers and industrial and commercial people in the southeast do not have to pay to the higher authorities - the southeast is not really ownerless, but is quietly changing owners!
The nobles who stayed in the capital, led by the Duke of Wei, the scholar-officials of the southeast with the Donglin Party as the backbone, and the maritime merchant forces of the southeast represented by Shiba Zhi and the Haisha Gang, are replacing the Ming Dynasty as the new owners of the prosperous land in the southeast.
This is why the Ming Dynasty was so poor that it was unable to grab enough wealth from the southeast!
The Xu family of the Duke of Wei was not only the head of the nobles who stayed in the capital, but also had the hereditary right to guard Nanjing. They could also manage the affairs of the Nanjing Governor's Palace and had been rooted in Nanjing for ten generations. In addition to the direct descendants of the Duke, each generation will also be divided into a group of world-class military attachés. With the help of the direct line of Wei Guogong, these families of world-class military attachés will gradually encroach on the territory of the Southeast Guard military camp. The numerous commanding families, in turn, became the basis of the power of the Duke of Wei.
With power, you can naturally benefit. The three great profits of military land, maritime trade and salt continued to flow into the Duke of Wei's mansion, turning into silver in the hoard and into magnificent gardens.
Dagongfang by the Qinhuai River is just one of the famous gardens owned by the Xu family!
In the "Journey to the Gardens in Jinling" written by Wang Shizhen, a veteran of the three dynasties who died during the Wanli Dynasty, 16 famous gardens in Jinling were listed, ten of which belonged to the Xu family of Wei Guogong!
This is evident from the wealth of the Xu family. And the Xu family of Wei Guogong is just one of more than a dozen princes and counts who have stayed in Nanjing as their capital!
If the wealth of these dozen families were gathered together, Zhu Cixiang, who was entrenched in Yangzhou, would definitely go crazy and go on a killing spree!
Huang Shu, who has now become a giant in Donglin, sees this very clearly. In addition to the fact that the Southeast maritime merchant forces who have mastered powerful maritime armaments can cooperate with Prince Zhu, Liudu Xungui and Donglin scholar-bureaucrats must defeat Zhu Cixiang, the Prince of Fujun, if they want to continue to be the masters of the Southeast.
And if Zhu Cihong wants to seize the wealth of the southeast for his own use, he must also defeat the nobles from the capital and the scholar-bureaucrats from Donglin.
But as the head of the nobles who stayed in the capital, the Xu family was very beautiful on the outside, but there was no one among them who could really lead troops to fight. This is the real decay!
After walking for an unknown amount of time in the Xu family's Dagongfang, even Huang Shu's legs and feet began to feel sore, before he came to a somewhat quaint and old hall.
Suddenly there was a violent coughing sound in the hall. The young man who was leading the way for Huang Shu and Zhu Guobi frowned and asked loudly outside the door: "Sir, are you okay? The child has already treated Fu Ninghou and Huang Yushi Please come."
The coughing in the hall finally stopped, and then the door was opened. Two elderly people and a middle-aged man with an extraordinary bearing were sitting inside. One of the old men looked sick, and two maids were beating his back and chest. They must be the critically ill Duke of Wei, Xu Hongji. The middle-aged man was Zhao Zhilong, the leader of the Nanjing camp and one of the most trusted noblemen of Emperor Chongzhen.
Although the other old man was also old, he was full of energy and strong, looking like an old and honest man. He was sitting there with an anxious face and a folding fan in one hand, flashing desperately. When he saw Zhu Guobi and Huang Shu coming in, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Marquis Funing, you and Shi Kefa have caused great harm to our Xu family in the Wei State!"
This person turned out to be Xu Yongji, cousin of Wei Guogong Xu Hongji, who had just come to Nanjing from Yangzhou.
The middle-aged man who looked quite dignified coughed: "What are you talking about now? Didn't Chang Yanen say that what the prince wants is the land passed down by your family for generations! Are you willing to give it? ?”
"I..." Xu Yongji stamped his feet, "Where do I have any land now? It's all fucking lost in Yangzhou Mansion!"
"Seventh brother!" Xu Hongji coughed a few times, shook his head and said, "What I want is the property of the families in Wei Guofu!"
"Not just Wei Guofu?" Huang Shu said, "All the nobles who stayed in the capital, as well as the commanders, colleagues, officials, and families of nearly a hundred guards in the southeast will all be in trouble! Scholar-officials from the southeast like Huang We can't run away, we just got unlucky first and then got unlucky... This prince brought tens of thousands of hungry wolves south, if we don't eat us, how can they live a good life?"
"Hmph!" Xu Yongji snorted, "The strong dragons can't overpower the local snakes! They are just destitute dogs who came from the wilderness, but they dare to rob our family business! Brother, why not rebel!"
"Reverse?" Xu Hongji glared at his cousin, "Do you want to be the emperor?"
"How can I succeed?" Xu Yongji clapped his hands, "But we can't just give away the family property passed down by our ancestors like this, right? Now the prince has captured the Yangzhou Guard and copied four more for us. The home of Mr. Yan who works at home!”
Huang Shu interjected from the side: "He also captured the four Anhui gang salt bosses... He was not arrested, but he was forced to contract the salt business of Lianghuai, and he had to pay 6 million taels of silver a year! "
"What? 6 million taels a year...hmm, hmm..." Xu Hongji, old man Xu, was so angry that he coughed for a while, and the two maids who were serving him wanted to go up and beat their backs and chests again. , but he pushed him away, "You are so greedy! You are so greedy!"
"Yes, the biggest fault of a princeling is greed!" Huang Shu said sternly, "He was greedy by nature when he was in Beijing. When Beijing was about to fall, he did not want to serve the country and only knew how to be greedy. In the end, he was involved in millions of taels. Minzhi Mingan fled! After running to Shandong, he took away the property of many people in Denglai Prefecture! Now that he has arrived in Yangzhou, he has intensified his efforts. He is simply the most greedy master in history!"
"It's not just greed," Zhu Guobi said, "it's also unfilial! He rebelled at Huangji Gate and imprisoned his father to seize power... It's extremely unfilial!"
"There is also debauchery!" Zhao Zhilong added, "Within the besieged city, he did not think about serving the country, but blindly debauched, and even took Wu Xiang's daughter as a concubine. It is really debauchery!"
"There is also bloodlust and tyranny!" Huang Shu gritted his teeth and said, "He once went on a killing spree outside the Meridian Gate, executing hundreds of officials and people who opposed him at one time, and also personally killed his official Xiang Yu ! Nowadays, no one is unafraid of the officials who visit the court, and everyone is flattering to protect themselves! If this continues, the Ming Dynasty will surely perish!
However, the prince's biggest fault was not greed, lewdness, unfilial piety, bloodthirsty, cunning, and tyranny, but evil! "
