Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 40: Gold and water are improving, sand is turning and water is buoying!
This was the largest silk weaving workshop in the Ming Dynasty.

At a glance, there were six looms, each ten feet wide, arranged horizontally, with a passage in the middle that could accommodate two people walking side by side.

Walking to the end of the passage, there were twenty rows of looms lined up!
Each loom was weaving silk of different colors, and the sounds of weaving could be heard one after another.

Hu Zongxian's guess was right and wrong. The magistrates of nine counties in Xin'anjiang, including Chun'an and Jiande, and his third son Hu Boqi were indeed in Hangzhou Prefecture, but not in the governor's office, the provincial judge's office, or the weaving bureau, but in the workshop of the weaving bureau seen by outsiders.

However, the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau and the Zhejiang Maritime Customs had never acknowledged it, and their chief eunuch Yang Jinshui only regarded the workshop as the private property of the Weaving Bureau, and did not acknowledge that the owners and weavers of the workshop were employees of the Weaving Bureau.

The money belongs to the weaving bureau, but the people do not.

People can rely on the power of the Weaving Bureau to do things and make profits, but if anything goes wrong, it has nothing to do with the Weaving Bureau.

"Outsourcing" and "dispatch", these regulations that have the advantage of taking advantage of profits and retreating when faced with difficulties, have existed since ancient times.

But this was not a place for conversation. Eunuch Yang Jinshui, the chief eunuch of Jiangnan Weaving Bureau and Zhejiang Maritime Customs, Zheng Michang, the governor of Zhejiang, He Maocai, and Hu Boqi, the provincial judge of Zhejiang, were invited to a secluded hall by a man who looked like a businessman but exuded elegance, wearing a long blue coarse cloth gown and flat black cloth shoes.

This man was Shen Yishi, the richest businessman in Jiangnan who specialized in weaving silk for the Weaving Bureau.

of course.

In name only.

Hangzhou has been the first port of the Ming Dynasty since ancient times. The three major business groups of the Ming Dynasty, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanxi, all had businesses here, and many foreign businessmen also settled here.

The so-called richest businessman in Jiangnan was nothing more than domestic and foreign merchants who did not compete for the title out of respect for the Weaving Bureau. Therefore, Shen Yishi had always been humble and low-key.

When the group walked into the hall, Shen Yishi clapped his hands, and immediately countless servants came out from the small doors on both sides with tea sets and walked lightly to each table to arrange the tea sets.

This hall is probably one of the largest and most luxurious halls in Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Above the north wall stands a rosewood desk with a marble surface, with a rosewood carved armchair placed on each side, and eight rosewood chairs placed in a row on the east and west sides to accompany the desk. The most valuable thing is the floor, which is all marble, and each piece is inlaid with marble fragments.

After some wrangling between the host and the guest, Yang Jinshui and Shen Yishi sat at the upper seats, Zheng Michang and He Maocai sat at the lower seats, and Hu Boqi sat at the last seat.

Yang Jinshui, Zheng Michang, He Maocai, including Hu Boqi, and all the servants brought the first batch of Shifeng Longjing tea, which was picked during the night dew. Only the owner of the place, Shen Yishi, drank plain water.

Yang Jinshui had little interest in Shen Yishi's pretense. He put the tea bowl on the table, straightened his face, and his voice was full of excitement: "Let's get back to the point. I have negotiated a deal with a Western merchant for 700,000 rolls of silk. I presented it to the capital half a month ago. Eunuch Lu must have reported it to the emperor. Calculating the date, the letter from the Supervisor of the Imperial Household to promote silk production will soon arrive in Hangzhou.

Of the 700,000 pieces of silk, 100,000 pieces will be woven by the workshop in Yingtian, 200,000 pieces will be woven by the workshop in Suzhou, and the remaining 400,000 pieces of silk will be woven by you, Boss Shen.

How are your plans for adding more looms and building a larger workshop?"

It usually takes seven days for express delivery from Hangzhou, so fourteen days for the round trip. If we consider that my godfather, Eunuch Lu, has presented it to the emperor and he has given her a reply, it should be about time.

No matter how the situation in the capital changes, no matter how weak the Imperial Household Department is, it is still the person closest to the emperor. It is in charge of the 24 government offices of the inner court and is the ancestor of the 100,000 eunuchs.

Here in Jiangnan, although Yang Jinshui was called godfather and was sought after, he was ultimately just a minor eunuch.

The execution of Meng Chong and Shi Yi, two eunuchs in charge of the Imperial Household Department, and Feng Bao's departure from the palace to practice Taoism at Chaotian Temple gave Yang Jinshui the opportunity to enter the Imperial Household Department and become the ancestor of the eunuchs.

Yang Jinshui was eager to make achievements, then return to Beijing with merit and be admitted to the Imperial Household Department.

The 700,000 rolls of silk, which would increase the Ming Dynasty's profits by tens of millions of taels of silver, was the best opportunity. After submitting the matter to the capital, Yang Jinshui began to prepare, never thinking that the emperor would disagree.

after all.

In order to collect wealth from the people, the emperor even entrusted important tasks to members of the former Yan Party, which shows how much the emperor loves money.

Yang Jinshui was sure that when it came to money, the emperor would definitely agree to change rice crops to mulberry trees.

"Eunuch Yang is working on something, and I dare not delay it even if I am exhausted. He is making looms and building workshops. The problem is the mulberry fields."

Shen Yishi expressed his loyalty first, and then pointed out the problem, "The mulberry fields before, plus the fields that the emperor converted into mulberry fields by the Yan and Xu families in Zhejiang, are only enough to produce 200,000 pieces of silk. There are still 200,000 pieces of silk that have not been found. Even if we add looms and build workshops, we can't produce more silk."

Yang Jinshui looked at Zheng Michang and He Maocai.

Zheng Michang coughed dryly and said, "Don't worry about the mulberry fields. We have as many as you want. But you have to prepare the food for the fields yourself, and you have to give half of the fields you buy."

Shen Yishi was stunned. "To produce 200,000 bolts of silk, even if there are mature mulberry trees, 200,000 mu of land would be needed. If we were to plant mulberry fields now, we would need at least 500,000 mu of land. If we were to give half of the land to the governor, we would need 1 million mu of land."

"It's not for me, it's for Beijing!" Zheng Michang quickly denied.

Shen Yishi understood instantly.

This Beijing does not refer to the Emperor, but to Lord Yan.

In the entire Zhejiang Province, more than half of the officials were former members of the Yan Party, even Hu Zongxian, the Governor-General of Zhejiang and Governor of Zhejiang, was one of them.

According to the news from the capital, there is no longer a distinction between the Yan Party and the Qing Party in the court. Lord Yan and Minister Xu Jie have reached a reconciliation. It is possible that Minister Xu will also have a share of the 500,000 acres of land to be divided up.

Shen Yishi couldn't help but sigh. Minister Xu and the Xu family of Songjiang Prefecture were really obsessed with the land. Their land had just been taken away by the emperor, and now they were thinking of getting it back from other places.

If we talk about cruelty, these families that pass on their traditions of farming and studying are the cruelest.

Take Chun'an County as an example. The county has no more than 300,000 mu of arable land. If one wants to get one million mu of land, at least three counties' arable land must be converted.

One obsession is enough to leave the people of the three counties without land to farm. No wonder everyone wants to be an official and everyone wants to be a high-ranking official.

Shen Yishi's thoughts wandered, and he immediately thought of the petition of the people from the nine counties and the closure of the sluice gates at the nine counties of Xin'an River to store water. If nothing unexpected happened, it was also the work of the capital.

But Shen Yishi couldn't understand. Hu Zongxian had gone to Chun'an County and ordered the sluice gates of nine counties to be opened. The river water was flowing downstream without any damage to the dikes or flooding of the fields. Why could Zheng Michang swear that the land would be handed over in one month, and Yang Jinshui, He Maocai and Hu Boqi all believed it?

at the same time.

Water marks gradually appeared in a corner on the back of the Chun'an County levee, and the Chun'an residents who were carrying sandbags to reinforce the levee had fear in their eyes.

"The sand is boiling!"

"Oh no! The sand is flooding!"

"..."

Note: Sand bubbling and water gushing out is called pipe burst!
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(End of this chapter)