Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 114 Pirates and Treacherous Officials Collude (Part 3)

While the capital city was busily dredging the waterway from Taiye Pond to Tonghui River, the Jiangnan region remained quiet.

The prefects, magistrates, and county magistrates of all the prefectures and counties in Zhejiang, Zhili, and Fujian seemed to have vanished, and none of them paid any attention to Governor-General Xiong Wencan.

Xiong Wencan had already led the Zheng brothers to Quanzhou Prefecture, and had mobilized nearly 100,000 troops and over a thousand warships of various sizes, but still hadn't received a single official document reporting the production of raw silk and tea.

This left him completely bewildered. He was about to lead his army to reclaim Dongfan, but none of the prefects, governors, or county magistrates were paying him any attention.

It wasn't that he cared about his own reputation; the key issue was that he couldn't fulfill the task assigned to him by the current emperor.

Zhejiang, Zhili, and Fujian are dozens of prefectures and hundreds of counties. All the prefects, magistrates, and county magistrates ignored him. Did he order all of them to be thrown into prison?

He dared not make such a big decision on his own; he could only send a memorial to the emperor with urgent permission.

Zhu Jue was currently focused on clearing the waterways, hoping to get the steamship out of Taiye Pond.

Around 9 a.m. that day, he, along with Wang Chengen and Fang Zhenghua, disguised themselves and came to the gate tower of Deshengmen, where they raised their binoculars to scan the area.

At this time, the area from Shichahai to Deshengmen in the inner city was already filled with able-bodied soldiers and farmers from the Beijing Garrison. The five or six-mile stretch was lined with more than 100,000 able-bodied men, with forty or fifty people at every meter.

These people weren't idle; they were frantically digging and clearing away the silt from Shichahai, which was as muddy as a swamp.

They not only cleared the silt from the planned river channel, but they also dug out many huge ponds along the river, and used wooden buckets to scoop the seeping water into the ponds.

The silt in the riverbed was quickly scooped into a winnowing basket, and bystanders used ropes to pull it ashore and dump it out. Then the empty basket was thrown down, and more silt was scooped in with all their might.

This cycle continued, and the silt was visibly cleared away, and the river channel, which was more than ten feet wide, was visibly taking shape.

To be honest, the inner city's waterways are easier to clean, because they have been sealed off for nearly two hundred years. Without fresh water to replenish them, the water has mostly turned into mud pits after evaporation. As long as the water seeping from the ground is scooped into the ponds dug nearby, it is relatively easy to dredge them.

The moat was a bit difficult to clean, because the water in the moat was already several feet deep, and it was impossible to directly dredge the silt at the bottom.

At this moment, the emperor's father-in-law, Tian Hongyu, had already arrived upon hearing the news.

Zhu Jue glanced at the moat, which was still deserted, and couldn't help but ask, "Father-in-law, when will the mud-dredging boat and the shallow-water boat you mentioned arrive?"

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty had over two hundred years of experience in cleaning the Grand Canal, and they still had the tools for dredging the waterways. Tian Hongyu requested permission to have a batch of these tools transferred from Cangzhou, along with dredging boats and shallow-water workers specifically for cleaning the waterways.

The problem is, it's been several days, and these people and the ship still haven't arrived.

Tian Hongyu quickly explained, "Your Majesty, please forgive us. The mud-dredging boats are flat-bottomed, wide boats designed to prevent running aground. They are very slow to row, and coming from Cangzhou is against the current. They can only row forty or fifty li a day. However, they passed Tongzhou yesterday afternoon and should arrive this morning."

As they were talking, a long fleet of ships miraculously appeared in the moat.

These boats were all around 400 liang (a unit of weight), but they were much wider than cargo ships, and a bunch of strange tools were placed on them.

Zhu Jue scanned the area with his binoculars and then decisively said, "Hurry up and get them to start clearing the river." Upon hearing this, Tian Hongyu quickly bowed and took his leave. He then ran down to the moat, beckoned the leading official, and excitedly shouted a few words.

Upon hearing this, the minor official immediately waved his hand and gave the order, commanding the crew members on the boat to grab their weapons and begin work.

The tool they used was called a net.

The dredging tool is a special tool for clearing silt. Its structure is somewhat similar to pliers in later times, but it is an extra-large version. The two bamboo poles on the dredging tool are more than 10 feet long, almost 20 feet long, while the head at the bottom of the dredging tool is like the buckets of two small excavators.

Asao quickly extended the sieve pole and plunged it into the water, into the silt. Then he snapped the pole shut, pulled it up quickly, scooped out the sieve head, threw it into the mud hull of the boat, and opened the sieve pole again, scooping up about a basinful of silt.

While one person's dredging might seem slow, the combined speed of hundreds of dredging boats and thousands of ascent workers is not slow at all.

The canal that Cangzhou Qianfu is going to clean is hundreds of miles long and at least several tens of feet wide. This moat, which is more than ten feet wide and several miles long, should be nothing to them. Judging from their speed, they can probably clean this section of the moat in a few days.

Zhu Jue was engrossed in reading when Fang Zhenghua suddenly strode over with a memorial in hand, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty, the Governor-General of Zhejiang, Zhili and Fujian, Xiong Wencan, has sent an urgent report from eight hundred li away."

This guy finally came to report.

He took the memorial, opened it, and couldn't help but frown.

None of the prefects, magistrates, or county magistrates in Zhejiang, Zhili, and Fujian reported their raw silk and tea production!
The spring tea has already started to be picked, and the silkworms have started to spin silk. The wealthy merchants from Zhejiang are definitely stalling for time. As long as they can wait until the spring tea is picked and dried, and the silkworms have finished spinning silk, these guys can get Liu Xiang to take it overseas to sell.

Xiong Wencan asked what to do, and said to quickly make an example of someone to warn others!
The problem is that this guy has already gone to Quanzhou Prefecture to gather troops to prepare to take back Dongfan, while the main production areas of raw silk are still in the counties around Taihu Lake in the Zhejiang and Zhili region.

It seems that Xu Guangqi is the only option, as Xu Guangqi's memorial is conveniently included in Xiong Wencan's memorial.

When he opened Xu Guangqi's memorial again, he was speechless.

Xu Guangqi seemed to be in a hurry to go to Dongfan to cultivate sweet potato and potato seedlings. This guy actually followed Xiong Wencan to Fujian and even collected high-quality sweet potato seeds in the Quanzhou area!

There was no other way; at this time, among the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, Fujian was the largest producer of sweet potatoes, and all other places combined did not grow as many as Fujian.

This is a real problem. By the time they receive the imperial edict and rush over, it will be too late. It would take seven or eight days for the edict to reach Quanzhou Prefecture by express courier. And it would take another seven or eight days for them to send people to the counties around Taihu Lake after receiving the edict. By then, it will be too late.

Zhu Jue frowned and pondered for a while, then decisively said, "Ruoyu, draft an imperial edict ordering Li Chaoqin and Tu Wenfu to quickly lead the Embroidered Uniform Guard to Wujiang, arrest the Wujiang magistrate, torture him severely, and ask him why he did not reply to Governor Xiong Wencan."

Fortunately, Li Chaoqin and Tu Wenfu were waiting for orders in Suzhou Prefecture, which was only about 2,000 li from the capital. The 800-li express courier would arrive in three days.

Seeing that Liu Ruoyu had finished writing, Zhu Jue instructed, "Draft another decree, ordering Xiong Wencan to quickly lead the army to recover Dongfan and drive the Dutch, Spanish and the pirate Liu Xiang's troops out of the southeastern sea area."

Zhejiang Party and maritime business elites, are you trying to stall for time?

I'll cut off your supply lines from the ground and drive out the Dutch, the Spanish, and the pirate Liu Xiang. Then let's see how you sell your goods overseas!
(End of this chapter)