Ming Dynasty: I risked my life to teach the prince, the emperor begged me not to die

Chapter 308 Interrogation of Chen Ce
In the Qianqing Palace, candlelight flickers.

The Minister of Revenue and the Minister of Works stood quietly in the hall, and Emperor Hongzhi had a gloomy expression.

"I want to see who is doing such a heinous thing. Why are they transporting sulfur? Is it simply to kill Chen Chunjian, or to rebel?"

The Emperor Hongzhi's voice was chillingly calm, and both ministers knew that the Emperor was now furious.

No matter what the person behind this was planning, it would not be tolerated by Emperor Hongzhi.

"Let Censor Hong investigate thoroughly!"

"According to the order!"

……

This batch of sulfur cargo from Daxing County had already been dispatched. Not long after the cargo left Daxing County and the convoy had been moving, it was stopped by a group of officials.

Soon this batch of goods was seized by Shuntian Prefecture.

Chen Ce stayed quietly in the courtyard of Huaihua Hutong. It was the sixth day of April. The sky was gloomy and a storm was about to come.

Chen Ce was waiting for Shuntian Prefecture to come and arrest someone, but the first thing he received was a letter from Linjiang Prefecture in Jiangxi.

This is a suicide letter from Fu Yuan.

Chen Ce was a little surprised. He opened the letter sent by Fu Yuan and read it carefully.

[Brother Chen, long time no see, do you still remember our two-year agreement? ]

[Fu is going to break his promise. Fu messed up. He still hasn’t gotten rid of his conceited habits. He was set up by someone else…]

Chen Ce quickly glanced at the letter sent by Fu Yuan.

The inner palace of the imperial court would assign tribute tasks to various places every year. For example, timber and spices from the south, silk, salt, and mahogany from the south of the Yangtze River, and other materials needed by the inner palace were all tributed by the local areas.

Local governments will assign these tasks to local merchants.

What Linjiang Prefecture needed to pay tribute was cloth. As one of the top cloth merchants in Linjiang Prefecture, the Fu family naturally had to take on this big order.

However, there was another big merchant in Linjiang Prefecture who was competing with the Fu family for the order, intending to get this batch of tribute cloth from the government at a lower price. After all, the honor of the imperial merchant was still highly valued in the local area.

Fu Yuan was an extremely conceited person. He lost to Chen Ce twice in the capital. Although he lost, he accepted it with conviction.

But this time, he was tricked by the other party again. The Fu family lowered the price and finally got the task of producing this batch of tribute cloth.

Later he found out that the deadline given by the government was to produce 30,000 pieces of cloth a month, which was an impossible task. According to the previous efficiency, it would take at least half a year to produce so much cloth.

Fu Yuan then realized that he was being set up by his competitors, who had teamed up with the government to set him up.

Fu Yuan couldn't accept his own stupidity, so he wrote this letter to Chen Ce. If the task was not completed in a month, he would have no face to live in this world.

If he completes the task, he will write to Chen Ce again.

Chen Ce had just finished reading Fu Yuan's letter and had no time to reply when the door was violently kicked open.

Several clerks from Shuntian Prefecture questioned Chen Ce, "Are you the owner of Shuntian Express?"

Chen Ce nodded: "Yeah."

A clerk said, "Come with us to Shuntian Prefecture. Our master has something to ask you."

Chen Ce did not resist, but still asked: "Can I write a letter back to my friend?"

The clerk shook his head and said, "No! Come with us." Chen Ce thought about it and said, "Okay then."

The treatment this time is better, at least the other party is not in shackles.

Before leaving, Chen Ce instructed Wu Niangzi, Liu Hong and others to make arrangements for the funeral affairs here.

After Chen Ce arrived in Shuntian Prefecture, he went to the Shuntian Prefecture prison with familiarity and waited to be interrogated.

"Mr. Chen, I was assigned here by Lord Hong. If you need anything, just tell me."

A prison guard spoke respectfully to Chen Ce.

Chen Ce nodded and said, "Do you have paper and pen? Bring me some more paper. I want to write a letter."

"it is good."

The jailer knew that Chen Ce would not be brought to trial now, at least until tomorrow, so he hurried to get paper and pen for Chen Ce.

Chen Ce sat in the cell and pondered for a long time before writing back to Fu Yuan: "Our bet is not over yet, so don't think about dying yet."

"It's just some cloth. Traditional hand-woven textiles can't produce so much cloth. I'll give you a machine. You try to make it."

"I believe that with your intelligence and wisdom, you will be able to understand and produce it."

Since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, mankind has never stopped exploring textile technology. By the Western Han Dynasty, the hand-cranked loom had been invented. After hundreds of years of development, the foot-operated loom appeared in the Jin Dynasty. This inconspicuous change increased the work efficiency of the textile industry by dozens of times, and it has continued to this day.

In the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Dao Po innovated the hand-cranked and foot-operated cotton gin, which greatly improved the efficiency of cotton seed extraction and prevented the efficiency from being further improved.

Up to now, the development of the textile industry has basically stagnated.

The manufacturing process of the Jenny loom is actually not complicated. The spindle can still rotate when it is upright, while on traditional textile machines, the spindle can only work when it is horizontal.

The minor modification of the Jenny Loom was to use several vertical spindles side by side based on the original loom. One spinning wheel drove multiple vertical spindles to form warp and weft lines, working together horizontally and vertically, thereby increasing textile efficiency eight times!
In the letter, Chen Ce introduced to Fu Yuan in detail the innovative principles of the Jenny textile machine, various books and mechanical manufacturing of the First Industrial Revolution. He had harvested similar books in the vegetable garden in the yard, and would read various books when he was bored. He had a photographic memory, so he remembered them all clearly.

After writing a reply to Fu Yuan, he handed the letter to the jailer and said, "Seal this letter and send it to Fu's house in Linjiang Prefecture for me."

The jailer nodded hurriedly and said, "Okay, Master Chen, I'll do it right away."

Chen Ce slept soundly in prison tonight.

Early the next morning.

Chen Ce was brought to the Second Hall of Shuntian Prefecture, where Cheng Yi, the judge, personally interrogated Chen Ce and asked, "We found a large amount of sulfur in the express shipment you sent to Xuanfu. Tell us what your purpose is."

Chen Ce said calmly, "Sir, what are you talking about? Why don't I understand?"

"Bold and unruly!"

Cheng Yi said sternly: "We found a large amount of sulfur in the batch of goods you shipped from the Daxing Express Point. This is a military supply and private transactions are prohibited."

"Sulfur is a key material for making gunpowder. You smuggled sulfur to Xuanfu. Are you trying to aid the enemy or to rebel?"

Chen Ce thought for a moment and asked, "I don't know. We don't have the authority to check what customers are transporting... How did you find out?"

Cheng Yi shouted angrily: "Stop making noise, I am asking you! You just need to answer, are you aiding the enemy or plotting rebellion?!"

Chen Ce said, "Didn't I answer that? I have no right to check the contents of the goods sent by the merchants. I am just curious, how did you know that the batch of goods was contraband sulfur?"

"You sent it?"

(End of this chapter)