Without money, what is the point of being a traitor?

Chapter 392: Changing Beans to Cotton
Pei Yuan did not waste much time in Dezhou. After a brief rest, he led his men to continue heading south.

After carefully conspiring with Pei Yuan, Wang Chang began to push the plan forward in full swing.

Soon, the memorial impeaching Zhang Lian for wasting military funds on the front line spread in the Shandong officialdom.

In order to quell the rebellion, a large amount of supplies were drawn from Shandong and Henan, and the treasuries and granaries in various counties were almost emptied.

The officials had paid so painfully for the money from their own pockets, only to see it wasted by others. This shocked them and made them feel like they had been robbed.

I was robbed!
The anger of Shandong officials can be imagined.

The newly appointed Shandong Governor Wang Chang naturally empathized with the situation very much. When he talked about it with officials from the Shandong Provincial Administration and the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner's Office, he also criticized it severely and expressed his attitude of standing with the Shandong officialdom.

He also provided some solid insider information.

It is said that they heard that the food, hay and bean fodder stored at the front line were so plentiful that they piled up like mountains. In order to prevent them from rotting and stinking, some of them even had to be burned every now and then.

Now that the Bazhou Army has been pacified, all troops must return to their bases.

The imperial court had already planned to send Wang Qiong, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue, to sell off the mountains of grain and soybeans at low prices.

When Governor Wang Chang talked about this with the people from the Provincial Administration Office, he expressed his concern, "The court's sale of grain and soybeans at low prices will inevitably lead to a sharp drop in grain and soybean prices. Recently, wealthy merchants from Nanzhi are planning to build a cotton cloth workshop in Shandong, so it is conceivable that the price of cotton will definitely rise."

Governor Wang called on the gentry and wealthy people in various places to take people's livelihood into consideration and not just focus on growing cotton, which would lead to food shortages for the people.

Later, when inspecting the provincial school in Jinan, Governor Wang also denounced the behavior of those who were obsessed with growing cotton, chasing huge profits and making money, which was simply a disgrace to society.

After Governor Wang’s desperate dissuasion, many well-informed officials, gentry and powerful people became puzzled.

——"Is this true?"

——"Is it that profitable to grow cotton this year?"

Soon, the latest court bulletin arrived.

The massive waste of military supplies on the front line aroused the anger of the emperor and the court.

The Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, Yang Tan, was accused of incompetence, and the Minister of Revenue, Sun Jiao, was blamed for negligence.

In order to prevent the large amount of supplies from being looted by the dismissed soldiers, the court urgently ordered Wang Qiong, the right vice minister of the Ministry of Revenue, to rush to the Huguang front and seal up the remaining military supplies.

According to Wang Qiong's pre-departure memorial, the grain and fodder piled up like mountains took up a huge area, making them inconvenient to store and transport, and would gradually decay. Therefore, he planned to sell them on the spot and exchange them for silver to subsidize Xuanfu's expenses in order to strengthen the defense against the north.

When the emperor heard about the subsidy for Xuanfu, he immediately agreed to it.

Once what Wang Chang had said before was confirmed by the imperial report, many families with idle land immediately panicked.

Given the rumored volume of military supplies, once the imperial court starts selling them off, I’m afraid soybeans won’t be in demand for a short period of time.

If we plant soybeans in the fields again this year, won’t we lose money?

If there really were cotton cloth merchants in Jiangnan who came to open a workshop, growing cotton would be a good choice at this time.

However, this matter is of great importance and concerns the annual revenue.

Some people who had connections asked someone to ask Governor Wang about the news of the cotton cloth merchants in Jiangnan.

When Governor Wang heard that someone came to test his opinion, he not only did not give a definite answer, but was also very angry. He repeatedly stressed the need to consider people's livelihood, plant more grains and beans, and not plant cotton out of greed for money.

Although the local gentry were rejected by Governor Wang, they still believed it to about 70%.

While he was hesitating, a few days later, some wealthy merchants from Jiangnan came north along the canal.

They first went to the governor's office to pay a visit openly, but were driven out by Wang Chang after just a few words.

The wealthy merchants could not hide their surprise.

How is this different from what was said?
Fortunately, the leaders knew what was going on. They came here to target Shandong's cotton, so they naturally didn't expect much cooperation from the local governments.

They searched in various states and counties according to the plan.

Many people also spent a small sum of money as a deposit and marked out a lot of land for workshops.

However, they have not yet announced the exact date for the construction of the workshop, because there are many people coming to inspect this time, and the specific states and counties to be selected still need to be discussed and compared.

When they came back from their inspection, the leading wealthy merchant even took a handwritten letter from the prefect of Hangzhou and went to pay a visit to Jiang Hong, the left governor of Shandong.

Jiang Hong is old and has already thought about retiring.

I thought that if this could be accomplished, it would be a benevolent policy.

In addition, with the help of Hangzhou prefect Liu Zhishu as a guarantor, they were particularly enthusiastic about those wealthy merchants and even helped with the planning without considering their personal gains and losses.

The Jiangnan cotton merchants were very satisfied and expressed their willingness to recruit some craftsmen to make preparations as soon as possible.

And they spread these things widely at the feasts in the city.

Jiang Hong has such political achievements and is not afraid of people knowing about them. He admits it frankly.

As a result, a large number of wealthy people began to grow cotton in order to make a profit.

Some people who didn't know the truth saw that cotton was being planted everywhere. After asking around, they understood the whole story. As a result, no one paid attention to Wang Chang's loud calls and everyone started to compete with each other to plant cotton.

Even some of those who were hesitant and skeptical, when they heard that the price of soybeans sold on the Huguang front had dropped to 70% of the usual price, immediately lost all interest and chose to grow cotton instead.

Just when the plan of "converting beans to cotton" was in full swing, Pei Yuan also bypassed Dongchang Prefecture and arrived in Yanggu County.

Pei Yuan chose to take a detour through Dongchang Prefecture this time, partly because he wanted to see what the customs of the people in Dongchang Prefecture were like, and partly because he wanted to see whether Wang Chang's propaganda had any effect.

Pei Yuan walked for a few more days and took Chen Xinjian and Cheng Zhihu to the nearby county town to understand the people's sentiments from time to time.

The customs of the people in Dongchang Prefecture were indeed as tough as Wang Chang had described.

However, perhaps due to several generations of intermarriage and migration of population, the people of Dongchang Prefecture no longer have many traces of the Mongols.

Before leaving Dongchang Prefecture, Wang Chang's briefing activities had already begun to produce results.

Pei Yuan met several groups of families who were preparing for spring planting. After asking, he found out that they all planned to plant cotton.

Pei Yuan wanted to ask about the matter of Prince De's enclosure of land in Dongchang Prefecture, but no matter whether he used intimidation or inducement, the people were all confused and had no idea who was the owner of the land.

Pei Yuan had no good solution for this problem. Unless he re-surveyed the land, the confusing land ownership would be impossible to explain.

Not to mention the lands of those vassal kings, even when several relatives by marriage started fighting over the land, the emperor could only divide it up randomly without any intention of clarifying the ownership.

In addition, some lands were held by the princes for the sake of benefits, and some lands were directly taken for free, and the princes' names were pretended. Ordinary petty officials did not dare to go to the prince's palace to ask in detail, and after a while, even the pretenders believed it themselves.

Pei Yuan was overwhelmed by the question and was too lazy to answer for the moment.

After a few years, when he had a small foundation in his hands, he deliberately summoned Gui E and displayed the "One Whip Method" of collecting taxes based on the acreage.

Yanggu County belonged to Dongping Prefecture under Yanzhou Prefecture.

The administrative structure of the Ming Dynasty was relatively complex and sounds confusing.

Generally speaking, it is called the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces.

The two capitals refer to South and North Zhili, and the thirteen provinces refer to the thirteen provincial administration commissions of Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi, Henan, Huguang, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Shaanxi.

The status of Southern and Northern Zhili can be compared to the current municipalities, which is easy to understand.

The administrative unit at the prefecture level is similar to our current prefecture-level cities.

According to our usual understanding, each province, that is, under the name of each provincial administration commissioner, should be a prefecture, and after this level of administrative unit is the county.

So how do we calculate this special and strange thing called "state"?

In fact, it is easy to understand. Some of the states are called "directly governed states", which can be regarded as directly-administered counties at the provincial level.

Because most of the "Zhili Prefectures" were strategic locations, the status of these "Zhili Prefectures" was equal to that of "Prefectures".

The states under the prefecture are called "scattered states", which are similar to strengthened counties or sub-prefectural-level units.

This kind of small state is usually composed of multiple counties, but overall, its status and value are not as great as those of a direct-controlled state, so it is affiliated with the administrative unit at the prefecture level.

For example, Dongping Prefecture is such an example.

In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, Dongping Prefecture was originally a prefecture. Later, in the eighth year of Hongwu, the status of Dongping Prefecture was downgraded to a state, and later it was under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou Prefecture.

Dongping Prefecture itself has a strong foundation and is located in an important position, so it has always maintained a high status. Even as a scattered prefecture, it has jurisdiction over five counties: Wenshang, Dong'e, Pingyin, Yanggu, and Shouzhang.

Pei Yuan brought a lot of people this time.

In addition to his own 300-plus Jinyiwei, he also borrowed more than 100 guards from Wang Chang's imperial envoy's office.

As soon as they entered Yanggu County, Pei Yuan ordered Sikong Sui's 100-man guards and Wang Chang's 100-man guards to block the four city gates of Yanggu County.

The magistrate of Yanggu County was named Chen Lang, a third-class Jinshi. When he heard that the Jinyiwei had sealed the four gates of Yanggu County in the name of arresting people, he flew into a rage and came with the yamen runners to question them.

After all, since Liu Jin's death, not to mention the Jinyiwei, even the East and West Factories had to keep a low profile in the face of the powerful civilian government.

As Chen Lang walked out angrily, he was already fantasizing that after this matter spread to the capital, he would be praised by everyone and directly appointed as the Censor the following year.

Chen Lang first went to the west gate but found nothing. After finding out where the head of the Jinyiwei was, he led his men directly to the north gate.

As soon as he arrived at the north gate, Chen Lang discovered that there were even more Jinyiwei gathered here.

In addition to the fifty Jinyiwei soldiers guarding the gate, there were more than two hundred Jinyiwei soldiers sitting inside the north gate and taking a rest.

Chen Lang was afraid that his police officers would not be noticed by the Jinyiwei, so he could only step forward and angrily shouted at the Jinyiwei, "Who gave you the courage to block the four gates of a county? Are you planning a rebellion?"

Pei Yuan happened to be among the group of Jinyiwei who were resting. He glanced at the county magistrate, ignored him, and continued to take a nap.

Seeing Pei Yuan's attitude, naturally no one paid any attention to Chen Lang. They all looked at the official jokingly. Some said nothing, while others looked at him and whispered.

Chen Lang's face flushed red as he shouted angrily, "How can this be! Once I have confirmed your rebellion, I will report it to the court and have all of you arrested and imprisoned."

After Chen Lang finished his scolding, he saw that the Jinyiwei had no intention of paying any attention to him. He felt powerless and ashamed.

He could only continue to threaten with a timid tone, "You guys are not afraid of death, don't you think about your wives and children at home?"

Chen Lang's words did have some effect.

The personal soldiers around Pei Yuan were all from Xuzhou, and they did not have the arrogance that the previous Jinyiwei had developed.

Seeing that Yanggu was not far from Xuzhou, many people began to feel homesick.

Hearing Chen Lang's threat, I did feel a little worried.

Just as the soldiers began to whisper, Pei Yuan looked up and glanced at Huo Tao, "You handle it."

This time, Pei Yuan had planned to clean up those guys in Yanggu County quickly with lightning speed. Naturally, he didn't want to lose his edge in front of a small county magistrate.

Huo Tao has been eager to try since Chen Lang scolded him just now.

When he heard Pei Yuan asking him to deal with the official, he jumped up and said to Chen Lang in a literary way, "Student Huo Tao, nice to meet the county lord."

Chen Lang breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that someone finally spoke.

No matter how toothless tigers those Jinyiwei were, they were not something a county magistrate like him could do anything about.

If he really fights the lawsuit to the end, he may not lose, but he will not end up well either.

Seeing that there was one Jinyiwei who could communicate, and who seemed to be a scholar, Chen Lang asked, "Why did the Jinyiwei surround Yanggu County for no reason?"

Huo Tao showed no fear at all, and explained with a smile, "I followed Captain Pei here to search for some wanted criminals. In order to prevent the criminals from escaping, we resorted to this last resort and temporarily closed the city gates. Even if there is a little inconvenience, it is a serious matter, and I believe the county lord will understand."

Chen Lang heard this and insisted, "Do you have any solid evidence to arrest him?"

Huo Tao nodded and said, "Of course, the witnesses and confessions are all complete."

As he said this, he also joked to Chen Lang based on his superficial knowledge of officialdom, "You are afraid of the Censorate, and so are we. How could we possibly bring trouble upon ourselves?"

When Chen Lang heard the scholar say that there was solid evidence, he didn't know what to say for a moment.

It is one thing to be able to remain dignified and fearless when facing the treacherous Jinyiwei, but it is another thing to obstruct the Jinyiwei from handling the case when there is solid evidence.

But he also secretly despised it in his heart, thinking that the Jinyiwei were no longer effective.

It's just to arrest a few people, but you have to make such a big fuss to block all four gates.

Just as he was thinking, Huo Tao took out a few pieces of paper from his sleeve and handed them to a Jinyiwei beside him, "Go and post these near the city gate, and then we should get to work."

Seeing the dense writing on the paper, Chen Lang couldn't help but ask curiously, "What is this?"

Huo Tao smiled naturally, looked at Chen Lang and said, "Notice to reassure the people."

(End of this chapter)