Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 116: Destroy Shanxi merchants and divide the spoils among all officials!
According to statistics from the Imperial Guard.

The Shanxi merchants purchased grain worth one million taels of silver. Even if it was all polished japonica rice, it would be two million dou, a total of 40 million jin.

The Imperial Guard retrieved the files of the Shanxi merchants from the past hundred years, and after analysis they found out one thing: every time the northern barbarians went south to raid or plunder, the Shanxi merchants would always buy large quantities of grain.

The available food seemed to have disappeared, without a trace left.

The amount of grain purchased by the Shanxi Merchants this year is enough to feed 50,000 elite cavalry for two months. The Shanxi Merchants can eat it all...

With this thought in mind, Zhu Houcong dug up the number of Tatar cavalry troops that had moved.

fifty thousand!

One thing is a coincidence, two things, three things are deliberate.

Zhu Houcong gradually figured out why the Tatar cavalry invaded so fiercely and came and went like the wind without considering the issue of logistics and supplies at all.

It turns out that it was the Shanxi merchants who had been providing support behind the Tatars.

The two grain routes cut off by the Embroidered Uniform Guards were definitely not all the grain routes used by the Shanxi merchants to transport grain and fodder outside the Great Wall.

There must be other food routes!
The fact that Altan Khan was able to organize 50,000 cavalry troops so quickly and was about to march south to capture Han Naji must have been due to the confidence given by the Shanxi merchants.

Jinyiwei Commander-in-Chief Lu Bing responded to the imperial summons and came to the audience.

"May the Emperor live forever!" Lu Bing knelt down and said.

Zhu Houcong raised his hand, motioned Lu Bing to stand up, and asked, "How is the investigation of Wang Chonggu, the governor of Xuanda?"

After discovering that the Shanxi merchants were colluding with the enemy and committing treason, Wang Chonggu was closely monitored by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

It is imperative to find out how deeply connected Wang Chonggu, who came from a wealthy Shanxi merchant family, is with the Shanxi merchants.

Lu Bing stood up and said respectfully, "Your Majesty, I have a general understanding of what you said. After Wang Chonggu became an official appointed by the court, he rose step by step, especially after he became the governor of Xuanda. Wang Chonggu's family gradually withdrew from the management of the Shanxi Merchants. Although they are still the owners of the Shanxi Merchants, they only participate in dividends and not other things."

At this point, Lu Bing paused and said, "But according to the investigation of the Jinyiwei, Wang Chonggu knew about the Shanxi merchants' grain routes in the two border towns of Xuanfu and Datong, but he turned a blind eye.

After the Jinyiwei cut off the two grain routes, merchants from the Shanxi Merchants Gang approached Wang Chonggu, but Wang Chonggu casually sent them away.

The Shanxi merchants also scolded Wang Chonggu for being ungrateful and turning his back on his friends after he got to a high position. "

The Ming Dynasty lasted two hundred years.

Merchants have always been people at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

After changing his nationality, ascending to a high position, and becoming one of the most powerful officials in the Ming Dynasty, the mentality of Wang Chonggu and his family changed significantly.

People are complicated. After escaping poverty, some people start thinking about helping their poor relatives.

But some people, after becoming better off, begin to look down on their poor relatives.

The Wang Chonggu family is obviously the latter.

However, this does not mean that Wang Chonggu is ungrateful, but that Wang Chonggu is well aware of the bad nature of businessmen, who will take advantage of others and betray their friends if they get enough benefits.

All the ugliness in the world can be found in businessmen.

Turning a blind eye to the Shanxi merchants' treason was the limit of what Wang Chonggu and his family could do as they still enjoyed dividends from the Shanxi merchants' wealth.

The Wang Chonggu family is now a family of the Shanxi merchants who accept money as money and get things done without any chance!
The Jinyiwei spent a lot of effort and searched almost every part of Wang Chonggu's family, but they were unable to find any connection or involvement between Wang Chonggu's family and the Shanxi merchants other than the dividends of the financiers.

Even Wang Chonggu's generation did not have any relatives by marriage with the Shanxi merchants.

Wang Chonggu's family members all married foreign wives and recruited sons-in-law from outside the West Mountain. This way of drawing a line between the two represents the life and death of the Shanxi merchants, but in the eyes of Wang Chonggu, a second-rank official, it is not important at all!

After hearing this, Zhu Houcong understood the relationship between Wang Chonggu's family and the Shanxi merchants.

Officials are officials, and businessmen are businessmen.

When necessary, the Wang Chonggu family could sacrifice the Shanxi merchants without hesitation.

And this is exactly the normal attitude of Ming Dynasty officials towards merchants.

The military power of the two border towns of Xuanfu and Datong is in the hands of Wang Chonggu, not in the hands of the Shanxi merchants!
Zhu Houcong's eyes sparkled: "Find out other food routes for the Shanxi merchants, and destroy them after catching them red-handed."

This word "灭".

It was not like the previous two food routes, which simply cut off the food routes and killed the small shrimps who transported food to the Tatars.

It is to destroy the entire Shanxi merchant gang!
Lu Bing suddenly felt cold and had to confirm: "Your Majesty, what crime was he killed for?"

"Deal with it according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty!" Zhu Houcong said indifferently.

Great Ming Dynasty.

Those who collaborate with the enemy and commit treason will have their entire clan exterminated!

There were more than a thousand merchants from the Shanxi Merchants Gang, and all of them were killed along with their entire nine clans. Lu Bing, whose hands were stained with the blood of tens of thousands of officials, thought his heart had long been as cold as iron, but at this moment, his heart suddenly began to beat.

This time, the Jinyiwei will probably come out in full force.

But before that, when the Jinyiwei was investigating Wang Chonggu's family, they also found out some things about the Xishan officialdom. Lu Bing calmed down and said, "Your Majesty, just when the imperial edict on the return of the fire consumption to the public was passed to Xishan, Xishan Governor Guo Jingchang announced in Datong Town that he would organize a Mid-Autumn Festival banquet and summoned all Xishan officials to attend. According to the Jinyiwei's secret agents in Xishan, it is related to the retained silver in the Xishan treasury."

Guo Jingchang was a member of the Guo clan, a prominent family in Heluo. His grandfather, Guo Congdao, was known for his filial piety. He once served as the magistrate of Yingzhou. In the 19th year of the Jiajing reign, he retired due to old age.

His grandson Guo Jingchang was not well educated and was only a juren. However, coming from a family of officials, Guo Jingchang was well versed in the ways of being an official and was accustomed to using the methods of "using money to open the way, giving bribes and gifts, and currying favor with superiors" to get promoted.

After Yan Song took charge of the central cabinet, Guo Jingchang would visit Yan's residence in the capital every year. In just twenty years, he started as a purchased county magistrate, and eventually became a prefect and a provincial governor, and was promoted to the governor of Xishan.

Due to the special geographical location of Xishan, the Governor of Xishan was one of the few governors who could independently evaluate the officials of the province.

Extremely powerful.

After the downfall of Yan Song and Yan Shifan, Guo Jingchang impressed Zhu Houcong with a quick and good memorial impeaching Yan father and son.

Retain silver.

It is a kind of fire consumption.

Used for the daily operations of local government offices, such as official salaries, official document exchanges, and government office maintenance.

Guo Jingchang had been in officialdom for a long time and naturally had many spies in the capital. After the tragedy in Daxing County Yamen, Guo Jingchang clearly felt the determination of the emperor and the court to return the lost money to the public.

The imperial court could issue an order at any time to transfer the silver retained in the Xishan treasury.

This Mid-Autumn Festival banquet after the Mid-Autumn Festival can be said to be a meeting for tens of thousands of officials in Xishan to divide the spoils.

Guo Jingchang distributed silver to the prefects and county magistrates of Xishan Prefecture and County. After receiving the silver, the prefects and county magistrates returned to their respective yamen and divided the spoils among themselves.

Guo Jingchang was thinking ahead of the imperial court and also ahead of the emperor himself.

"Kill those who deserve to be killed! Execute those who deserve to be beheaded! Execute the entire clan of those who deserve to be exterminated!"

(End of this chapter)