Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

Su Jing was very angry.

Standing in front of him was Zhou Wenrui, whose head was wrapped in a white cloth, with a faint trace of blood seeping through it—like a rag that hadn't been wrung out properly.

"How much did they smash?" Su Jing asked.

"Everything was smashed." Zhou Wenrui's voice was muffled. "The fabric was dragged into the street and burned, the shelves were dismantled, and the account books were torn up. My daughter stepped on a shard of porcelain when she ran out, and she still walks with a limp."

Su Jing's face twitched.

"Troublemakers." He uttered the first two words, then, feeling it wasn't enough, added with emphasis, "Damn it, a bunch of troublemakers."

He walked around the room twice. On the third lap, he suddenly stopped.

"What about the government? What's their explanation?"

Zhou Wenrui sighed: "We arrested two people."

"and then?"

"And then...that's it."

"Gone?" Su Jing's voice rose a half-octave. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Well—they arrested two, but the rest escaped and couldn't be caught. The two who were arrested were interrogated, and they said they were just watching the show, not the leaders. The officers gave them a few lashes and then released them."

Su Jing opened his mouth, then closed it again. After closing it, he opened it again, like a fish that had been thrown ashore.

"So you just give up because you can't catch them?"

"How can you catch something if you can't catch it?" Zhou Wenrui asked, looking puzzled, as if Su Jing were asking, "Why does the sun rise from the east?"

Su Jing took a deep breath.

"Corrupt official," he said, his voice not loud, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, "Taking the Ming Emperor's salary without doing any work, he might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes."

He read this sentence in a vernacular novel from the Eastern Song Dynasty.

The novel tells the story of an honest official who, after being falsely accused and dismissed from office, would rather sell sweet potatoes on the street than associate with corrupt officials.

In the teahouses of Xinxiang, every time the storyteller tells this part, the audience erupts in cheers.

Officials in the Eastern Song Dynasty were certainly corrupt as well.

Su Jing, in his business dealings, had given a considerable amount of money to various government departments.

But even though the officials in the Eastern Song Dynasty were corrupt, they still had to get things done.

If you do nothing but take money, someone will leak the news to the newspaper the next day.

On the third day, your political enemies will stand on their moral high ground and criticize you.

That kind of scene is even more painful than being beheaded.

Even if you're incredibly capable and can manage everyone from top to bottom, and even shut the newspapers up—then you win.

If you can't afford to offend them, can't you at least avoid them?

Let's just move to another place and continue doing business.

It is worth mentioning that after the Eastern Song Dynasty went to Southeast Asia, in order to cope with the situation of vast land and sparse population, it encouraged people to explore the outside world and made changes to the household registration system of the two Song Dynasties.

During the Song Dynasty, when commoners traveled far (usually referring to leaving their county or exceeding 100 li), their primary task was to apply for a "public certificate" from the local government. This certificate detailed the traveler's identity, purpose, destination, companions, and even the quantity of goods and livestock they carried, in preparation for inspection at checkpoints and important passages along the way.

However, this kind of public inspection management is loose, and it focuses more on commercial taxation.

During the Eastern Song Dynasty, Gongyan greatly relaxed the restrictions, allowing people to travel freely on land as long as they did not go to sea.

With the development of maritime transport in the later period, official inspections became a mere formality.

The reason this system hasn't been abolished to this day is entirely because there are still officials in the departments that issue the certificates.

The court has plenty of money, so it doesn't matter if they keep these idle officials. They'll just wait until these people retire before abolishing the department.

However, in the Ming Dynasty, Su Jing discovered that officials could do absolutely nothing.

The only rule is that you can't make mistakes.

The more you do, the more mistakes you make.

So I won't do it.

For these weavers causing trouble, just grab two people to make an example of them.

Then they'll send someone to block your way to the capital to prevent you from filing a complaint with the emperor, and that will settle the matter.

He suddenly missed the newspapers from the Eastern Song Dynasty.

Although those newspapers were very scathing in their criticisms, at least they let officials know—someone was watching them.

"Never mind." Su Jing rubbed his temples. "Give some shares to the officials in Songjiang Prefecture."

Strictly speaking, he and Zhou Wenrui were not in an employment relationship; Zhou Wenrui was his distributor.

Therefore, Su Jing didn't feel bad about giving away shares.

Zhou Wenrui looked up: "How much?"

"Give me whatever you think is fair. You know the prices in the Ming Dynasty better than I do, so ask them for help as well."

"Then...what kind of help do they need?"

Su Jing glanced at him: "Let them help arrest the troublemakers."

Zhou Wenrui hesitated for a moment: "Boss, what if they take the money and don't do the job?"

Su Jing stared at Zhou Wenrui for a full three seconds.

"I don't expect them to do anything," he said. "I expect them to shut up."

Zhou Wenrui suddenly realized.

"Go find someone after the officials shut up," Su Jing said.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Find someone capable of fighting. Take care of all the cloth merchants in Songjiang Prefecture who are stirring up trouble in the textile industry, one by one."

Zhou Wenrui remained silent for a while.

"Don't worry, if anything really happens, I'll go to the imperial court and ask the Ming Dynasty for your release."

Zhou Wenrui was overjoyed upon hearing this. He could do the same thing himself, sending money to beat someone up. He had come to Su Jing for this promise.

After all, they have a powerful country behind them, or maybe even two.

Three days later, the officials of Songjiang Prefecture received a sum of money.

The amount was neither too large nor too small, just enough for them to collectively lose their memories.

Although the Ming Dynasty cracked down on corruption very strictly, there was nothing they could do. Salaries were so low that if they didn't embezzle, they would starve.

Surely you can't have studied hard for decades only to end up working for the Zhu family and living worse than a small landlord, right?

Five days later, the managers of several cloth shops in Songjiang Prefecture ran into trouble one after another.

Some people were ambushed and beaten in the alley on their way home at night, while others had their shop doors splattered with excrement.

The cloth merchants of Songjiang Prefecture were thrown into panic.

Someone reported it to the authorities. When the officials arrived, they looked around, said, "Go back and investigate," and then nothing more was heard from them.

Ironically, these people couldn't really complain. When Shun Kee Foreign Goods Store was vandalized, the government handled it the same way.

It's not like anyone's rebelling or a murder has happened, so as far as the government is concerned, there's nothing to worry about.

Some chose to close down, some chose to lower prices and gamble on a price war, and some gritted their teeth and went to Zhou Wenrui to ask if he still needed people.

Only one cloth merchant remained calm.

His surname is Qian, the same Qian who owns a silk shop.

The guy who was queuing outside Shun Kee last time and was seen by Sun Maocai, the one who covered his face with a fan.

Mr. Qian did not report it to the authorities.

He wrote a letter and sent it to the capital.

The recipient of the letter was a distant relative of his.

That relative worked in the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The letter contained only one sentence: In Songjiang Prefecture, officials and merchants collude, and the Song people have become too powerful.