Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

The north wind was howling, and the sky and the earth were vast.

Outside Taiyuan City, a large number of military tents were set up, rustling in the fierce cold wind.

Sun Chuanting was in his military tent, practicing calligraphy leisurely with a brush in his hand. In order to save money, there was no brazier in the tent.

He was originally from Daizhou, Shanxi, and had long been accustomed to the bitter cold in the north.

Soldiers came from time to time to report on military camp affairs. Sun Chuanting never stopped writing and finished all the affairs in a few words.

Sun Chuanting agreed in his heart with the task assigned to him and Lu Xiangsheng by the Marshal. In fact, he had long been dissatisfied with this group of Shanxi merchants.

But according to his principles, he would never be so simple and crude. Not only would it give people a chance to talk, it would also have a bad impact on his reputation.

But Lu Xiangsheng said that when the country is in crisis, one should not be too particular about trivial matters. He naturally understood which was more important, personal reputation or the safety of the court.

Although he still felt it was hasty in his heart, Sun Chuanting's opinion had changed in the past few days.

He sent people to conduct secret investigations in nearby counties and prefectures, and found that the land in nearby counties and prefectures had all been annexed by gentry landlords such as Huang Yongfa. In order to make a living, the common people had no choice but to work as tenants for these landlords.

It's not just Taiyuan Prefecture, other prefectures are like this as well. Land annexation in Shanxi has reached an extremely serious level.

These tenants worked hard for a year, but the food they earned was just enough to barely make a living. If there were many people in the family, it was not enough to even make a living and they could only barely avoid starving to death.

In the event of a natural disaster, these tenants would sell their children to the landlords in exchange for a meager amount of silver to buy rice in order to survive.

In years of great disaster, the price of selling children was low, but the price of grain often soared to the sky, and it was precisely landlords and businessmen like Huang Yongfa who controlled the price of grain.

It can be said that these landlords have already controlled the land, and through the land they control the price of grain, and then control the local people. In a sense, they are the real decision-makers in Shanxi.

After learning about this situation, the remaining pretentiousness in Sun Chuanting's heart disappeared completely.

Not only that, he was even a little impatient about this plan and was just hoping to get news from Lu Xiangsheng as soon as possible.

Although the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants were mostly from Taigu, Qixian, Jiexiu and other places, most of their industries were in Taiyuan Prefecture and Zhangjiakou Fort to the north of Xuanfu.

Zhangjiakou Fort was one of the few trading markets in the north of the Ming Dynasty. For two hundred years, many Mongolian tribes visited this market to trade with the Ming Dynasty.

The batch of war horses that Lu Xiangsheng obtained in the year were purchased through this market.

The Eight Great Shanxi Merchants had been operating in Zhangjiakou for many years, with businesses spread all around, and their caravans would often pass through to trade with various Mongolian tribes.

Of course, it is unknown whether they traded with the Mongols or the Manchus after they went out of the border.

Xuan Da was originally Lu Xiangsheng's base. Lu Xiangsheng was very familiar with the industries of the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants. He immediately discussed with Sun Chuanting and divided his troops into two groups.

Sun Chuanting was in charge of Taiyuan Prefecture, while Lu Xiangsheng was in charge of Zhangjiakou Fort.

In order not to alert the enemy, Sun Chuanting accepted all the gifts from the Shanxi merchants. More than a dozen merchants gave him more than 20,000 taels of silver notes.

If calculated based on his salary, this gift would be equivalent to a hundred years of his salary.

In order to paralyze the Shanxi merchants, he not only accepted the gifts, but also invited the local merchants in return and organized a fundraising event at the banquet, calling on local merchants to donate grain and money to the country.

However, after all the effort, he only raised more than 1,000 taels of silver, which was less than 10% of the gifts given to him by these merchants.

In the eyes of these businessmen, the safety of the country is not as important as his title as governor.

That night, Sun Chuanting couldn't help laughing as he watched the wealthy businessmen leaving, and found it extremely funny.

"Sir, the Huang family has sent a letter." A personal guard reported.

Sun Chuanting took a glance and put down the brush in his hand.

Along with the letter was an invitation to Huang Yongfa's 60th birthday. In the letter, Huang Yongfa apologized to Sun Chuanting for his omission and repeatedly stated that it was the mistakes of the people in the mansion that led to the misunderstanding.

In order to express his apology, Huang Yongfa even stated in the letter that he would beat to death the servant who had caused the mistake, and hoped that Sun Chuanting would not mind.

"Sir, the letter was sent by the chief steward of the Huang Mansion. The servants of the Huang Mansion came with him. They beat a servant to death in front of me."

The guards did not dare to hide anything and told Sun Chuanting the truth.

"They take human life so lightly. Do these people still have any regard for the law?" Sun Chuanting muttered.

But he knew in his heart that since Huang Yongfa dared to do this, he must be fearless.

Most of these servants were not hired but purchased servants. If a servant who had handed in a contract to sell himself committed a serious crime, the master could indeed deal with him at will.

But Sun Chuanting was still very angry that someone was beaten to death for such a small matter.

"Sir, would you like me to prepare a gift for you?" the guard asked after seeing the invitation.

"Why prepare more? Didn't Huang Yongfa send a lot? Just pick one or two at random!" Sun Chuanting said with a cold face.

In the Ming Dynasty, where etiquette was very important, sending back gifts sent by the host was considered extremely rude.

But Sun Chuanting had long since lost his patience with what these Shanxi merchants had done.

"Yes, I'll take my leave." The guard knew that the governor was in a bad mood, so he didn't dare to disobey and bowed and left.

After the guards left, Sun Chuanting no longer had the mood to practice calligraphy. He walked out of the tent and looked at the vast sky, with a hint of worry on his face.

According to the plan, the situation on his side was troublesome, but generally not dangerous.

But it is hard to say about Lu Xiangsheng. As the base for foreign trade of the eight major Shanxi merchants, Zhangjiakou has a complex network of relationships.

Once the news leaks out, not only will their plan fail, but it may also cause greater unrest.

These merchants love to use money to pave the way for corrupting local officials. Zhangjiakou Fort is a border town, so even if you use your toes to guess, you will know that there must be financial transactions between Shanxi merchants and the military commanders in the border town.

The imperial court was already so exhausted. If a scandal of rebellion in a border town broke out at this time, not only would the two of them be to blame, but even the commander-in-chief would find it difficult to remain in office.

The eight major Shanxi merchants were not only well-informed, but they also had a large number of domestic slaves under their command. On the surface, they were of course responsible for the safety of the caravans, but when an emergency came, if they were concentrated and deployed, they could also be a considerable military force.

These are the hidden dangers of this plan, so he can only endure it before getting news from Lu Xiangsheng.

Time passed quickly, and three days passed in the blink of an eye.

On November 20th, the weather was not good. It was overcast and it looked like it was going to snow but it didn't. This made the housekeeper of the Huang Mansion very worried.

A birthday celebration is a happy event, and dark clouds are never a good sign.

The servants in the mansion were busy going back and forth, preparing food and wine for the banquet. Just after two quarters past the hour of Si, guests who lived nearby came to pay a visit, bearing gifts.

Nearing noon, most of the guests had arrived. Huang Yongfa sat in the main seat, chatting and laughing with the guests, and looked particularly happy.

The housekeeper looked at the gift list and compared it with the list of invitations sent out, and found that the new Hanzhong Governor Sun Chuanting had not arrived yet.

He looked outside the mansion with some anxiety. The time for the banquet had already been calculated by the Taoist priest, and half an hour would be the auspicious time. If the guests who had not arrived were of ordinary status, the banquet would of course be started directly.

But the person who didn't show up was Sun Chuanting. Even if the host didn't like him, Sun Chuanting was a high-ranking official after all. It would be a loss to make such a person unhappy.

The butler had no choice but to give a few instructions to his son and asked him to go to the camp outside the city to invite him in person.

In the military camp outside the city, Sun Chuanting sat upright in the central military tent, looking extremely serious.

On the table in front of him was a gift box. It was a gift sent by Huang Yongfa a few days ago, and now he chose it as a gift for the other party.

Normally, when attending a birthday banquet, one must wear official uniform even if not casual clothes. But at this time, Sun Chuanting was wearing armor and a sword hanging around his waist.

"Sir, the people from the Huang Mansion invite you to attend a banquet." The personal guards outside the big tent reported.

"No rush, just say that I am not ready yet." Sun Chuanting said expressionlessly.

After the personal guard left, he talked to the housekeeper's son. After hearing what the housekeeper said, the son didn't know what to say and paced around outside the military camp in embarrassment.

At this time, a fast horse came running from the north and whizzed past the side of the housekeeper's son, making him break out in a cold sweat. The housekeeper's son was so scared that he fled in panic.

After the rider entered the military camp, he stumbled after dismounting his horse, apparently due to the numbness of his legs from the cold and wind.

Guards had already gone over to help him, and another personal guard quickly delivered the letter in the man's hand to Sun Chuanting.

The content of the letter was extremely concise, consisting of only a few numbers.

"Everything is ready, and today is the day for success."

After reading the letter, Sun Chuanting burned it with a hint of excitement on his face.

He walked out of the big tent and said to the guards outside the tent:

"Let's go to Huang's house to celebrate his birthday!"

……