There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 343 Jiang Ning
Jiangning Prefecture.

The Chen family's merchant ship was slowly approaching the shore, and the manager, Chen Lin, and others went out of the cabin for some fresh air.

Seeing the Nanjing city wall so close at hand, Chen Lin couldn't help but sigh, "Nanjing is a city of strategic importance, with such a long and tall wall. Even the mighty army of the Han Dynasty would have a hard time taking it down with a frontal assault."

Chen Fu, the deputy beside him, carefully observed the section of the city wall along the river and concluded: "The section of the city wall along the river is covered with the puppet Qing's river defense cannons. Judging from the exposed barrel caliber, they should all be Hongyi cannons. These Hongyi cannons pose a great threat to our Han navy fleet and we must take precautions."

Chen Lin said, "Once we've established a foothold in Nanjing, we can first find out how many soldiers, armor, weapons, and artillery pieces the Qing army in Nanjing has. So many cannons for river defense are just large fire sticks if they don't have enough ammunition."

Chen Fu nodded: "Yes, we can try to bribe the Qing army's artillerymen. We don't need to turn them to defect, we just want them to do the work but not the work when our army attacks the city in the future."

Chen Lin laughed and said, "We need to bribe the gunners, we need to bribe the ordinary Qing soldiers, and we can even bribe the officials of the puppet Qing, as long as they can help our Great Han take Nanjing!"

"We can still..."

The two men stood on the deck, oblivious to everyone else, loudly plotting their scheme to bribe and subvert the corrupt officials and gentry. Meanwhile, the merchant ship slowly arrived at the dock.

"Boss, we've arrived!" a sailor called out.

Chen Lin and Chen Fu ended their secret plot and prepared to disembark.

They had just disembarked and were preparing to recruit laborers to help unload the cargo when suddenly several Qing soldiers arrived, drove all the laborers to the outer perimeter, and surrounded the Chen family's merchant ship.

Upon seeing this, their first reaction was that they had been exposed, but then they realized that this was impossible.

They've only just disembarked and haven't even started doing anything yet, how could they be exposed so quickly?

Chen Lin restrained Chen Fu, who was about to lead his men in a violent attack, and personally greeted him with a smile, saying, "Gentlemen, I am new to this place and do not know the rules here. May I ask what brings you here to surround my merchant ship?"

Although they claimed to have surrounded the enemy with troops, there were actually only seven or eight Qing soldiers. Chen Lin carefully observed their clothing and realized they were clearly not regular cavalry or infantry. They didn't even have proper armor, only a uniform that indicated they were officers and soldiers. It was enough to intimidate them.

As expected, the leading Qing officer said, "Our prefect has ordered that all foreign merchant ships arriving in Jiangning must present their travel permits as collateral, undergo cargo inspection, and hand over the silver for passage and disembarkation."

Upon hearing this, Chen Lin had already made up his mind. Just as he had guessed, they were indeed Qing soldiers who had come to extort money.

"Sirs, you've worked hard. This is just a small token of my appreciation, please accept it as a gift for drinks."

Chen Lin did not confront them. He took out half a tael of silver from his sleeve. Half a tael of silver was the amount of money that the Qing soldiers in front of him could afford.

The leading officer remained calm, pocketing the silver, before suddenly shouting angrily, "How dare you! Without a travel permit, how can we let outsiders like you land?"

Huh? Breaking the rules and raising prices on the spot?
it is good!
Chen Lin's smile faded, and he took out a document from his sleeve: "My Chen family business left in a hurry this time, so we didn't bring any travel permits. We only have a guarantee document personally issued by the Prefect of Hezhou, which has the Prefect's official seal on it. Would you like to see it?"

Good heavens, Chen Lin's move almost scared the Qing soldiers to death on the spot.

These men were only interested in extorting money from merchant ships because they rarely saw them dock. As long as they were willing to pay, they didn't care whether the ship had a travel permit or where it came from; they would let it ashore as long as they paid.

That was just a temporary price increase, hoping to get an extra half tael of silver. Otherwise, given the current situation, who knows how long it would take for another merchant ship to arrive.

Unexpectedly, Chen Lin showed them no respect and directly produced a guarantee document from the prefect.

The Qing soldiers certainly didn't recognize the prefect of Hezhou. But they could tell from the official seal on the document that it was definitely not fake.

Of course it doesn't look fake, because it is genuine. Chen Lin arrived in Hezhou first, went to the prefectural government office to ask the prefect of Hezhou for the official seal, and then stamped it himself.

Although Hezhou was nominally still under the control of the puppet Qing dynasty, Taiping Prefecture on the other side of the river had already been captured by the Han army, and was only separated from Hezhou by the river.

Furthermore, with the Green Standard Army in Anhui completely wiped out, and Li Changgui, the General of Shouchun, escorted to the capital for trial, the entire northern Anhui region, let alone Hezhou, was like a woman stripped naked, just waiting for the Han army to pounce on her.

The prefect of Hezhou was very clever. This guy saw that the land distribution officials of the Han Dynasty had finished distributing the land in Taiping Prefecture, and then brazenly crossed the river to Hezhou to distribute the land. He also took the opportunity to establish farmers' associations in the towns and villages, and directly regarded Hezhou as the territory of the Han Dynasty.

This Prefect Wang pretended not to see anything and didn't even bother with the affairs of the prefecture. Just last month, he sent someone to contact the Prefect of Taiping, saying that he would surrender the city whenever the Han Dynasty crossed the river.

I don't ask for high office or generous salary, I just want him to leave.

When the prefectural clerk revealed his clerk, the few small fry Qing soldiers, of course, had no right to stop him. They were so frightened that they hurriedly fled the dock and went back to report to their superiors.

……

Meanwhile, Chen Lin took out silver and recruited dockworkers to help unload the goods. He also hired a dock truck team to load all the unloaded goods onto trucks and transport them all the way to Nanjing for sale.

Even before entering the city, Chen Lin had already gained a general understanding of Nanjing. "This Nanjing is all show and no substance!" Chen Lin remarked.

Chen Fu asked in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"Did you take a close look at those coolies at the dock just now?"

Chen Lin frowned and said, "The laborers at Jiangning Wharf are generally pale and thin. If they were in other parts of the puppet Qing Dynasty, it might be considered normal, but this is Jiangning Prefecture, Nanjing! Nanjing is not the capital, but this is the puppet Qing Manchu city. Everywhere can be poor, but this place should not be poor. It is so poor that you can't even find a single strong and healthy man to work as a laborer at the dock."

After Chen Lin's analysis, Chen Fu quickly recalled the events and indeed realized something was wrong.

Not to mention the dockworkers from earlier, even the convoy of freight cars they've hired now consists entirely of donkey carts, not a single one of them made of ox or horse; most of them are old donkeys.

The driver, like the dock laborers before him, was pale and thin, clearly indicating that he was often underfed.

Is Jiangning really that poor?
This is Jiangning!

Even if Jiangning is not the capital of Jiangsu, it is still an important town along the Yangtze River, and half of the name of Jiangsu Province comes from Jiangning.

Moreover, the puppet Qing dynasty had a Manchu general stationed here, and the Anhui provincial education commissioner resided here. Anhui candidates who wanted to take the imperial examinations did not have to go to Anqing, but had to go directly to Jiangning to take the exams.

While Chen Fu was still pondering, Chen Lin had already started chatting with the driver: "Brother, I see that the Jiangning Wharf seems quite desolate. What's going on?"

The coachman, upon hearing this, readily agreed, saying, "What else could it be? It's all because of the war! Because the Han bandits came, the government said it was to resist the bandits, so they simply sealed off the Yangtze River and assigned the docks to those government officials."

"Sir, you don't know how fierce these soldiers are. When they see a merchant ship coming, they go up to demand money from people, claiming it's for fighting rebels."

"What a joke! Although we don't understand the ins and outs of this, we know that if things are done this way, the money goes to those government officials and soldiers. Not a single penny will be used to fight the rebels. As a result, merchant ships have all been made afraid to come to Jiangning Wharf, or even to Jiangning itself."

"Since the officials and soldiers no longer had merchant ships to harass them, they set their sights on the poor people at the docks. They came almost every day demanding money, sometimes even returning in the afternoon after money had already been given. Sometimes, after money had already been given, another group would arrive and continue demanding money..."

The driver kept rambling on, but Chen Lin listened patiently, quickly taking notes and sorting out the useful information in the driver's words.

First, the driver clearly revealed that the puppet Qing dynasty had already blocked the Yangtze River waterway, both to prevent the invasion of Han troops and to restrict merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang from entering Han areas.

Whether it was effective or not is unclear, but Chen Lin's merchant ships entered very easily, without even spending much money.

Furthermore, the Jiangning Wharf is currently under military control, which explains why those Qing soldiers dared to come to him demanding money; this is the authority granted to them by the Jiangning Prefecture.

However, considering the uniforms worn by those Qing soldiers, it seems that the Qing army in Jiangning Prefecture was somewhat insufficient. The Qing troops guarding Jiangning Wharf, a key landing site, were actually just a reserve force wearing uniforms.

If we go any further, I'm afraid we won't even have enough reserves, and we'll have to use civilian laborers and local militia.

Moreover, these are not the most critical issues.

"What? The price of rice in Jiangning has risen to fifty-three wen per liter?" Chen Lin was astonished, almost thinking he had misheard.

The coachman scoffed, "Fifty-three coins? What's fifty-two coins? Just a few days ago, the price of rice was only fifty-two coins. If you ask me, the price of rice in Jiangning is still going to rise!"

Chen Lin opened his mouth, wanting to say that the price of rice in Taiping Prefecture was only twenty-five coins per liter, and that the price was so high only because Taiping Prefecture was so far away.

Unexpectedly, the price of rice in Jiangning is even more outrageous than that in Taiping Prefecture.

Good heavens! If this happened in the Han Dynasty, and grain could fetch such exorbitant prices, the Han Emperor's sword would probably have already fallen on those grain merchants.

"With grain merchants hoarding and speculating like this, doesn't the government do anything about it?" Chen Lin asked.

The coachman was clearly surprised: "Oh, the government deals with this? I didn't know that!"

Chen Lin was taken aback by the driver's surprise, then shook his head helplessly.

Yes! Why would the government of the puppet Qing dynasty bother with such "trivial matters"?
They didn't follow the merchants in hoarding goods and speculating, nor did they sell grain to make money; they were all considered honest officials.

Rice prices in Nanjing were soaring, and the docks were full of thin, hardworking laborers. Although the situation in the city was not yet clear, he had already seen many wandering refugees in the short two-mile distance from the docks to the city gates.

Even the few villagers along the river that could be seen mostly had blank stares, clearly having been tormented by the government.

The puppet Qing dynasty's Jiangning Prefecture was a paper tiger; they couldn't stop the mighty Han!
(End of this chapter)