I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 239 Confrontation and Mobilization

The "Full Court Meeting" held on the first and fifteenth day of October in the tenth year of Zhengde was the largest court meeting in the Ming Dynasty except for the grand court meeting. All officials in the capital attended the meeting. Zhu Houzhao had been quite diligent in his work recently, so he also attended the court meeting on this day.

At the court meeting, the censor Shen Hao impeached Prince of Jing Zhu Houxun and the Ming Royal Group under his control for violating the Kaizhong Salt Law and selling salt privately.

Several other imperial censors followed suit and filed an impeachment, impeaching the Ming royal group for forcibly occupying the people's land, destroying the people's graves when building railways, and forcing people to sell goods and bully the market, which made the people suffer greatly.
The Royal Group is described as even more abominable than the previous yellow shop.
And asked the emperor to close down the Royal Group just like he closed down the Huangdian.
He also impeached the King of Jing, Zhu Houxuan, for staying in the capital for too long and being at odds with the ancestral system, and requested the emperor to allow Zhu Houxuan to return to his fiefdom.
The censors controlled by the salt merchants had racked their brains to fabricate charges, some of which were very far-fetched. They thought Zhu Houzhao would be furious, but Zhu Houzhao let the matter ferment and kept the censors' memorials in his hands with an ambiguous attitude.
No one was clear about Zhu Houzhao's attitude. They didn't know whether Zhu Houzhao and Zhu Houxun had a rift recently or whether Zhu Houzhao was allowing things to escalate.

However, the Royal Group's salt transportation was not affected by the impeachment at all, and it even became more crazy.
Zhu Houxuan did not hide it and directly issued a "Letter to All Employees" to the entire group, explaining the importance of the recent actions, and the employees of the entire group were excited.
After Wang Xiang finished reading the "Letter to All Employees" in his hand, he carefully posted it on the wall of the lounge.

The lounge was filled with employees of the Royal Group Railway Department. Some of them were drivers, some were line inspectors, some were repairmen, and some were porters. They were all immersed in what Wang Xiang had just read out.
The Railway Department of the Royal Group has been expanding rapidly recently, with a lot of new employees. Many people have also come to support from other sister departments, but there is still a shortage of manpower.

So even Wang Xiang, a train driver from the Steam Locomotive Research Institute, was pulled to the railway to drive a Marxist-Leninist train.

Wang Xiang posted the "Letter to All Employees", turned around and looked at his colleagues in the lounge, and said: "Colleagues, I won't say anything else. Your Highness has made it very clear. We all came from poor backgrounds. Thanks to Your Highness, we have been able to eat well for a few years. We have all suffered from the high price of salt."

"We have enough to eat, and we can afford salt even if the price is a little higher. But there are still many poor brothers and sisters in the world who cannot afford salt. The price of a pound of salt has dropped by dozens of coins, and we can save hundreds of coins every year just on buying salt! These few hundred coins can really save lives for poor families. With these few hundred coins, many families don't have to sell their children!" Wang Xiang said very emotionally.

Wang Xiang's words touched everyone's heart. Everyone present had red eyes. Some people recalled the past and cried with their hands covering their faces.
"Your Highness is such a noble man, a descendant of a royal family, a descendant of the dragon, and he does not have to worry about these things. But even such a noble man is still thinking about our poor brothers and sisters in the world all the time. Can those of us who come from poor backgrounds and have just had a full meal for a few days forget our poor brothers and sisters?" Wang Xiang continued to mobilize.

"No!" Many workers immediately followed suit.

"No!" More workers followed.

"No! No! No!" All the workers shouted, their faces full of excitement and enthusiasm.
No one knows better than them the pain brought by high salt prices. They can relate to what Wang Xiang said and it touched their hearts.

"Even if I die of exhaustion on the job, I will deliver salt to my poor brothers and sisters." A worker shouted excitedly with his arms raised.

His speech drew responses from everyone.

"Listen to me! Listen to me! His Highness said in the "Letter to All Employees" that the body is the capital for contributing to the Chinese nation. We should pay attention to the combination of work and rest. We still have to work for the health of the Chinese nation for another 50 years." Wang Xiang shouted.

But not many people responded this time.

The workers quickly dispersed and returned to their respective work stations.
"Master Zhang, didn't you take a leave because of your back pain? Why are you back again?" Wang Xiang grabbed an acquaintance in the crowd.

"It doesn't hurt anymore. Your Highness' words are so encouraging. My waist pain is gone all of a sudden," Master Zhang said cheerfully, but he still supported his waist with his hands. "If your waist hurts, go and rest immediately, go see a doctor immediately, don't force yourself to hold on!" Wang Xiang said with a frown.

"No, no, no, my bus is about to leave, I'll leave first." Master Zhang hurriedly slipped away.

Amidst this chaos, Mr. Shen of Shunde Prefecture once again summoned the masters who were running the salt business in the prefecture.

"What's wrong, Brother Shen? What's the matter that requires you to call us here in such a hurry?" asked Mr. Li.

"More than 200 MaLun trucks have arrived at the warehouse outside the city, and they are unloading the goods now." Mr. Shen no longer has the initial calmness he had.

"More than 200 vehicles? It can't be salt, right?" Mr. Li said fearfully.

The others were also waiting for Mr. Shen's answer in fear.

Mr. Shen said nothing, but just nodded with a sullen face.

Mr. Zhou's face turned very ugly. "We have already collected 700 million catties of salt. I'm afraid another 600 million catties will be shipped in this time?"

Everyone's face turned ugly. They felt like they were trapped in an endless vortex.
"That man named He will probably come to visit us soon. What should we do with this batch of 600 million kilograms of salt? This is 12 taels of silver as payment. We have already paid him 14 taels of silver." Mr. Li said in a panic.

This amount of silver was already huge for them. Although they sold 20 kilograms of salt every year, and theoretically had a profit of taels of silver, they also paid a lot of costs to maintain the high local salt price, and spent a lot of silver on bribery. In the end, what they got was far less than they had imagined.

"The people I sent to the nearby prefectures and counties have also come back with news from the salt merchants," said Mr. Shen.

"What news? Brother Shen, tell me quickly!" Mr. Li said anxiously.

"The imperial stores in the neighboring prefectures and counties have also begun to sell large quantities of salt at low prices. The amount is about the same as ours, and the local salt-running families have also taken up the salt."

"The salt merchants told me that they are working on resolving the issue of the dumping of salt by the Royal Store. It is estimated that it will be resolved soon. Let us first take the salt sold by the Royal Store and maintain the salt price. They will bear all the losses this time."

(End of this chapter)