Usuke opened the curtain of the carriage and looked out through the glass window. The streets are full of vendors selling Huanxi Tuo, noodle nests, tofu skins, hot dry noodles, and lard pastries.
Loud and low-pitched hawking sounds drifted into the car through the cracks in the car window, along with the alluring aroma of food. Because this street leads to the pier, it is very prosperous. In addition to vendors selling food, there are also many shops along the street, row upon row, all the way through the city gate to the south pier outside the city. There are many pedestrians on the street, half of them are traders or residents of Jiangling City who make a living in the South Pier area, and the other half are ragged homeless people supporting the elderly and the young.
That’s right, they are refugees!
When Niu Jie saw these refugees, the corners of his mouth turned up into a sarcastic smile.
The prosperous Ming Dynasty, the splendid Celestial Dynasty... they are all superficial scenery! Look at these homeless people who have lost their land and cannot even become tenant farmers. They can only wander around and beg for a living! How could there be such a prosperous dynasty since ancient times?
When the carriage approached the South Gate Urn City, there were already so many refugees that they almost filled the entire Urn City. However, these refugees did not block the road and quickly dispersed to both sides of the road after entering Wengcheng.
Niu Jie, who had been wandering around the mainland of Ming Dynasty for several months, knew that these refugees went to the porridge factory to find food.
There are also porridge factories in Dashun that provide porridge to the hungry people, but they are rare and not permanent. They are not opened in cities, but are set up in the countryside during times of famine. Usually it is the leading military households in the disaster-stricken towns who provide some rice from their own homes, and then ask the government to provide some rice relief, and cook porridge in the villages and towns to give food to the hungry people.
However, most of the porridge factories in the Ming Dynasty were set up in cities, and they were permanent. No matter whether there was a famine or not, and whether the people who came to beg were hungry people, as long as the clothes were worn and dirty enough, there would be a meal of porridge to drink. But you can't take it away, you have to finish the porridge in front of the porridge servant.
Jiangling's porridge factory is located in the two barbicans in the south of the city. There are small doors on both sides of the barbicans for hungry people to leave. After drinking the porridge, they are not allowed to stay or queue up again. They must leave immediately. The Jiangling County government also installed many wooden fences outside the porridge factory to separate many one-way passages, so the queues to receive porridge are in good order.
After leaving Wengcheng through the small gate, it is not easy to go back and line up again. Because the small gate can only go out but not in, and the soldiers of Jingzhou Prefecture (the local army of Jingzhou Prefecture) stand guard at the gate of Wengcheng to let the refugees in ragged clothes enter the city - the refugees can only enter through the east gate of Jiangling City.
In the east city of Jiangling, in a corner of the original Royal City of Jiangling, a "refugee camp" was built specifically for the residence of refugees. After the able-bodied refugees have left to look for food, petty officials from Jiangling County will go to the refugee camp to give porridge to the elderly and sick people who are inconvenient to move.
In addition, in Wengcheng to the east of Jiangling City, there are many colonial trading houses, all of which deceive people into going to Nanyang to Xinzhou... They are all very shady, and they often ask people to sign three-year and five-year contracts. A year-long contract!
Oh, there are also those who can collect money from colonial trading houses! If any refugee family has unmarried girls or widowed young women and is willing to let them go to Xinzhou to get married, they can get a sum of money. Depending on their age and beauty, the amount of money they get will be different. Some can get more than a hundred taels. .
But Niu Jie is very doubtful about this... How much does it cost to "buy" a girl with hundreds of taels and transport her to Xinzhou to make a profit by "marrying" her? At least five hundred taels, right? Who buys it? Will a man who can spend five hundred taels of silver to marry a wife be desperate and go to the United States of New Zealand to seek a living? Is it possible that there really is a mountain of gold and silver there?
So these traffickers must be selling good girls to brothels!
The government of the Ming Dynasty is really incompetent to the extreme. They don't care about this kind of blatant human trafficking and abduction of women from good families!
"Master Li, the dock has arrived!"
At this time, the carriage Niu Jie was riding in had stopped outside Jiangling South Pier.
The driver was also a latent agent from the Dashun Dynasty, affiliated with the Trade Department of the Dashunhu Government—this yamen was founded by Gu Junen and was in charge of both foreign trade and intelligence collection!
Ushijie got out of the carriage and looked around. He saw a merchant ship with a tailwind flag already moored at the dock.
The backend boss of Shunfengxing is the Trade Department of the Household Government in Dashun, and he has branches all over Jingchu.
Ushisuke, who was dressed in military uniform, walked up quickly, and two men dressed as sailors came forward and stood in front of Ushisuke.
Niu Jie cupped his hands, then patted his left chest with his right hand, and said with a smile: "The boss will make a fortune, everything will go smoothly, and the wealth will be great! I'm going to Nanhai Li Yijie, you're polite!"
"So it's Young Master Li," one of the sailors also clasped his fists, and then patted his right chest with his left hand, "Young Master, are you coming to Gangneung to study or do business?"
Niu Jie said: "I'm here to visit a friend."
The sailor asked: "I wonder where your friend lives?"
Niu Jie said: "Jingzhou Prefecture, Hulin Prefecture... I wonder if I can catch a smooth sailing?"
"What a coincidence, my sand boat happened to pass through Hulin Prefecture."
"Then excuse me!" Niu Jie cupped his hand again, "The shipping fee is negotiable."
"Please come on board!" The sailor made a sign of respecting guests, and then led Ushisuke onto the boat.
In the cabin, ten men of similar age to him, either businessmen or scholars, were already waiting there. Seeing Niu Jie come in, they all turned to look at him.
"Li Yijie, I have met all of you brothers."
Everyone stood up and saluted Niu Jie with clasped fists: "I have met Mr. Li."
Ushisuke smiled, then strode to an empty chair at the top and sat down in a dignified manner. Then he waved his hand to the ten people in the cabin and said, "Sit, everyone, sit down."
Seeing everyone sitting down, Niu Jie looked serious and said, "Tell me, how many heroes have you contacted?"
A strong man with a beard, a high nose and deep eyes said: "Master Li, we have contacted five or six thousand heroes!"
"So many?" Niu Jie was stunned.
"Master Li doesn't know something," the bearded man said, "Nowadays, there are many refugees in Jingchu area, and the Zhu family's court has neglected to control them, so there are many refugees forming gangs and groups. We only need to recruit a group of gang leaders to form a group." With just one leader, we can gather hundreds or even thousands of heroes. We have contacted five gang leader leaders, and we can recruit a total of 2,000 strong men!"
Another middle-aged man dressed as a scribe added: "In addition to wooing the gang leaders, our Dashun also has a foundation in Jingzhou Prefecture. At that time, we persisted in the mountains and valleys in Badong and Guizhou for many years.
Later, although the support could no longer continue, it only died down and was not eradicated by the red thieves. The people from the Trade Department have been keeping in contact with them secretly, and now it is time to mobilize them. Dingzhuang can also have more than 1,000 people. "
The Ming court's control over the countryside was inferior to that of the Dashun court, which had 600,000 soldiers all over the countryside!
Most counties and lower areas in the Ming Dynasty had considerable autonomy. As long as they could pay enough taxes, the court would not have much control over them, and it would be difficult to control them.
Only in important places such as Yingtian, Wuhan, Shanghai, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Huai'an, Tianjin, Tianhe (Yingkou), and Lushun, the imperial court had relatively strong control over the countryside.
There was also a fat man who looked like a businessman and said: "There are people from our trade department in Shunfengxing. There are no less than a thousand people who can fight. Everyone has a musket and chain armor, which can serve as the backbone!"
These more than a thousand people are elites selected by the Department of Trade from the military households of Chongqing Prefecture and Kunming Prefecture. He was sent to the Ming Dynasty after special training. He was not only highly skilled in martial arts, but also very reliable!
A man in his thirties who was working as a fortune teller continued: "We also recruited some poor men in Huya Mountain, and also recruited a run-down clan. There can be more than a thousand strong men, and the number of five thousand is No problem."
"Did the Zhu Ming government notice it?" Niu Jie asked, "The Emperor of the Zhu family is in Wuhan. There should be many spies from Jin Yiwei and Dongchang in the Jingchu area, right?"
"Don't worry, Young Master Li," the bearded man who spoke first said with a smile, "We are very careful in our work, and no lackey named Zhu Thief noticed."
"That's good!" Niu Jie smiled and clapped his hands, "Then let's go! Go to Huya Mountain, rise up and make a big fuss!"
