Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 127: Huizhou merchants dominate the business, a business legend!
Three levels of governance!

The Hanlin Academy became a joke.

It also made Zhang Juzheng's words "If the Hanlin is useless, how can he take care of state affairs" spread across the country.

The Hanlin scholars who prided themselves on their noble character could no longer sit still, and they all went to the Ministry of Personnel and the Cabinet to request local official titles.

Although Zhang Juzheng had conflicts with the Hanlin Academy, the Hanlin scholar Wang Xijue who had the conflict had already been killed by the emperor for treason.

Zhang Juzheng did not vent his anger on other Hanlin scholars. He asked Gao Gong to carefully select and send many Hanlin Academy Hanlin scholars to local posts.

There was a small incident in the middle. To become an official, one had to return the land first. Many Hanlin scholars did not recognize the reality and did not want to return the land donated by the people. Then, the cabinet submitted a memorial, and those who tried to cause trouble not only failed to become local officials, but also had their status as Hanlin scholars dismissed.

He was sent back to his hometown with only the honors of being a Jinshi in the two lists, waiting for the day when the court would reinstate him.

Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong were both broad-minded, but they were also narrow-minded. As long as these two were in power, the dismissed Hanlin would never be reinstated.

The most terrifying thing is that Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong are very young. Zhang Juzheng is only 36 years old, and Gao Gong is a little older, only 48 years old this year.

Today's Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the Cabinet are in good health and have the potential to live a long life. As for those dismissed Hanlin Academy, their knowledge depends on age. They were already quite old when they entered the Hanlin Academy, and then wasted several years, or even ten or twenty years, in the academy. Forty or fifty years are the norm. Even if they can survive until Zhang and Gao retire and return home, they will be in their seventies or eighties and it is impossible for them to be employed by the court again.

It became a de facto dismissal from office.

With the demise of Shanxi merchants, the largest merchant groups in the Ming Dynasty became the Huizhou merchants and Chaozhou merchants.

The biggest business of Chaozhou merchants is smuggling.

They basically did not get involved in the Ming Dynasty. When the Chaozhou merchants competed with the Huizhou merchants for money shops and bill exchanges in the Ming Dynasty and seized the commercial gap left after the demise of the Shanxi merchants, the Chaozhou merchants were clearly at a disadvantage.

It’s not that Chaozhou merchants are not good at business, nor is it that they are unwilling to make initial investments, but that they can’t do it, they really can’t do it.

Huizhou merchants.

Also called Confucian businessman or official businessman.

Just by hearing these two aliases, one can see the close connection between Huizhou merchants and the literati and officials. Although Chaozhou merchants tried hard to expand their business in the two capitals and thirteen provinces, they chose to be honest after suffering heavy blows from local government offices.

Except for important cities such as Beijing, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, Chaozhou merchants retained the money shops and bill shops they opened, but they gave up all businesses in other small and medium-sized cities and sold them at low prices.

It cannot be said that we made a loss, after all, our domestic business did increase. But it is even more difficult to say that we made a profit, as we were almost beaten to a pulp by the Huizhou merchants.

To be precise, their efforts were in vain. The Huizhou merchants took over the complete failure of the Shanxi merchants with a smile. The fruits of victory for the Huizhou merchants' partial failure in the local area made them earn countless silver coins.

Officials at all levels in the two capitals and thirteen provinces were also overwhelmed with money.

Shanxi merchants fell.

The prosperity of Huizhou merchants will also bring prosperity to government offices!
The commercial taxes raised by the imperial edict could even be ignored given the profits of the Huizhou merchants.

However, there is no business without fraud.

The Huizhou merchants were very dissatisfied with the increase of more than one cent in commercial tax. Countless silver coins flowed into the capital and the court, intending to change the imperial edict and reduce the commercial tax again.

Hu Zongxian, the newly appointed cabinet minister from Anhui, was almost crushed to death by silver before he even arrived in Beijing.

Lu Bingren, the commander-in-chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, was in Xishan, conducting the final inventory and escort of the Shanxi merchants' wealth, but the work of the Embroidered Uniform Guard did not stop there.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard reported to Yuxi Palace that Hu Zongxian's eldest son Hu Guiqi and second son Hu Songqi had accepted large amounts of money from fellow townsmen and relatives from Huizhou merchants.

Yuxi Palace passed the secret report to the cabinet. Zhang Juzheng's cabinet was speechless when they saw the dealings between Hu Zongxian's two sons and the Huizhou merchants.

Not long ago, Hu Guiqi bought a winery that was going out of business, and Hu Songqi bought a tea house that was going out of business.

Unlike other commodities, there is no strict price range for wine and tea. Sellers can sell at any price they want, as long as the buyers agree. After the brothers Hu Guiqi and Hu Songqi bought a winery and a tea house, their wine and tea became popular.

A jar of wine costs a thousand gold coins.

A brick of tea is worth a thousand gold coins.

However, buyers came in an endless stream, and in just a dozen days, three hundred thousand gold were sold.

Created a business legend in Beijing.

The reason why the Cabinet knew the exact amount of money Hu's wine and tea shop sold was not because the Jinyiwei were so powerful.

It’s the Hu brothers who paid the taxes!

With the new commercial tax rate of 10% to 20%, the Hu brothers sent 15,000 taels of gold to the Taxation Department of the Ministry of Revenue!
Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong, Li Chunfang, and Chen Yiqin just felt their scalps tingling.

The Hu brothers were the first in the world to embezzle money and then give it to the emperor and the court.

The reason why the emperor did not send anyone to arrest the Hu brothers, the court did not send anyone to arrest the Hu brothers, and the cabinet did not send anyone to arrest the Hu brothers is very simple.

The Hu brothers accepted money from the Huizhou merchants, but did not do anything for their fellow townsmen and relatives.

I took the money but didn't do the job. Why are you arresting me?
The imperial court was discussing giving two official positions to the brothers Hu Guiqi and Hu Songqi, but the Hu brothers had not yet held official positions and their achievements were very shallow, one being a juren and the other a xiucai.

It cannot influence the court's decision-making, let alone the emperor's will.

Perhaps, the Hu brothers did not think about the impact. After the Hui merchants gradually discovered that the two brothers only took gold and did not do anything, they slowly stopped sending money to the winery and tea house.

The winery and teahouse were not doing well, so the Hu brothers were straightforward and sold them to the pawnbroker at a low price.

As a result, the Hu brothers made a net profit of more than 280,000 taels of gold, or 2.8 million taels of silver.

Before Zhang Juzheng's cabinet could figure out what crime to charge the Hu brothers with, officials in the court who were bribed by the Huizhou merchants took the lead in sending a memorial impeaching Hu Zongxian to the Yuxi Palace, which was then transferred to the cabinet intact.

It is the fault of the father to raise or not to teach.

Civil and military officials accused Hu Zongxian of not educating his children well and of allowing his two sons to accept gold and silver in Beijing.

However, Hu Zongxian was still on his way to Beijing, and Hu Guiqi and Hu Boqi had been in Beijing all the time. Hu Zongxian was not aware of the affairs of the winery and tea house.

What a mess.

Just when Zhang, Gao, Li and Chen were having a headache, the six ministries sent another official document.

It is said that Hu Guiqi and Hu Songqi, who noticed the behavior of their fellow villagers and relatives, ran to Qianbu Gallery and blocked the gates of the six ministries one by one, cursing the officials of the six ministries for being corrupt.

They scolded the officials of the six ministries for being jealous of the brothers' extraordinary business talent. Their winery and tea house were all normal business activities and they paid taxes according to the law. Which law of the Ming Dynasty did they violate?
Why can inferior wine and tea be sold for so much money?

There are so many fools!

The word "fool" made several big managers of the Huizhou merchant gang in the capital so angry that they vomited blood.

I swear to fight to the death with the Hu brothers!

The more the civil and military officials impeached, the more the Hu brothers cursed. Relying on their father, the cabinet minister, no one from the Five Cities Military Department or the Three Judicial Departments dared to arrest anyone.

Zhang Juzheng, who could no longer tolerate this, finally said after asking Hu Zongxian about the date of his arrival in Beijing: "First, throw Hu Guiqi and Hu Songqi into the Shuntian Prefecture jail, and put the matter of the imperial title on hold!"

(End of this chapter)