Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 597 The Abolitionist Movement
"Today, the slaves are abolished and the people of the world are lenient. After the drum falls on the evening of June [-], there will be a curfew for the people except slaves and government servants."

"It's night, and the local government will issue silver to redeem the body deed. Local gentry officials are not allowed to violate it. If there is any violation, the slaves of each government can tie up their masters and take them to the nearest military camp!"

"If there are servants and robbers who make trouble at night, the local guard camps can kill them immediately, and those who don't report to the nine bandits will be exiled to Lingbei."

On the tenth day of June in the 20th year of Apocalypse, when there was a severe drought and the people fled famine, Zhu Youjian's second ultimate move against the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River came to the stage of history.

As this notice was posted on the Jiangnan City Wall, Huangdian, and the gates of the Fuya, the common people and gentry in the three Jiangnan provinces were shocked.

Not only that, Zhu Youjian also made detailed plans for the servants in the newspaper.

The plan is divided into three steps:

First, each family is responsible for each family. If anyone enslaves you, you will guard at the door of your house and wait for the county government to come and redeem you.

Second, some people were cruising on the streets. Once there were gentry who dared to resist, they immediately rushed to support them, and at the same time escorted the resisting gentry to the military camp outside the city.

Third, send some people to urge the county government to redeem people's lives. If you see the county government doing something, don't interfere.

This plan is not sophisticated, but because it is not sophisticated enough, it is suitable for servants to use.

"The court wants to redeem us!"

"Don't be a slave anymore!"

"Really?!"

"Where is it? Let me see?"

On the first day when the news spread, many servants got the news immediately.

They walked on the street, and the newspapers and periodicals on the street were hawking. They went to the imperial store, and there were endless notices in the imperial store.

The law on servants was abolished, and the local government offered money to redeem them. If the yamen and gentry did not abide by them, the servants could tie up the yamen officials and gentry and go to the nearest military camp.

For this reason, Daming publicized ten days in advance, and at the same time announced that the implementation will start on the night of June [-], and the slaves will not be affected by the curfew that night.

In other words, that night, the government would first send people to negotiate with the gentry from all over the place to redeem the slaves.

If the local government does not act, they can tie up officials and take them to the nearest military camp.

If the gentry is unwilling, they can tie up the gentry and take them to the nearest military camp.

After this news spread, there were shocks all over the world. First of all, the officials had already started to redeem their own servants after the imperial court invited Yingzhou girls and Nanyang girls to the Central Plains.

Of course, a large number of officials are scolding and releasing people at the same time.

Since the servants of the Ming Dynasty were mainly formed by joining righteous men as servants, son-in-laws as servants, and selling their lives as servants, many officials, nobles, and wealthy households bought slaves at extremely low prices.

After the slave grows up, the price rises, and the general owner will choose to keep it or resell it to others.

Therefore, slavery is actually a kind of "trade", a disguised form of human trade.

If the imperial court used the price of the original contract of sale to redeem the slaves of the world, then all the gentry would have been cut off a bunch of flesh.

The servants who were originally worth tens of millions of taels had to be sold at the original price of millions of taels.

This is only the main source of slaves in the north. If it is the Jiangnan area, the source is more complicated.

Starting from the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, taxation was extremely strict.

Such harsh taxation caused a large number of ordinary people to bring their own land and sell themselves to the gentry's homes in order to avoid harsh taxation.

This is why there are so many slaves in Jiangnan, and why Jiangnan can hide so many people.

If you don't take refuge, you will be exploited to death. This was the main theme of the Ming Dynasty during the Jiajing and Wanli years. This situation caused a disparity in the status of masters and slaves in the Jiangnan area, and slaves dared not betray their masters at will.

Of course, in the early Ming Dynasty, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang clearly opposed raising slaves. Except for some military slaves, Zhu Yuanzhang personally did not support civilian slaves.

But in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, under the control of civil officials, the families of high-ranking officials and dignitaries all had male and female servants.

Therefore, the abolition of slavery seems to be Zhu Youjian's method against the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, but it actually offended all the noble classes to death.

However, even so, no nobles dared to resist, because Zhu Youjian firmly grasped the military power.

Like the powerful landlords who were relocated by Liu Bang in the early Han Dynasty, they gritted their teeth with hatred for Zhu Youjian, but they had to laugh with them.

Once the officials, nobles, and generals compromise, the gentry whose slavery system has been disintegrated will be the fish on the chopping board and will be slaughtered by Zhu Youjian.

From the 10,000th day of June to the [-]th day of June, before the implementation of the New Deal, the local governments had already redeemed [-]+ servants of the officials in the government offices. It can be seen how unscrupulous officials of the Ming Dynasty were in using slaves.

When June [-]th came, people from all over the country had already bought the things they needed for the next day. Many people had already returned home before Shenshi, closing their doors tightly and daring not to go out of the house.

"What about Zhang Xian and the others?!"

"I went out early in the morning, and they said they were free, and the government would pay them money to redeem them."

Inside Liu's Mansion in Guanyin Square in Nanjing City, Liu Juren looked at the empty mansion and couldn't help feeling panicked.

He found his in-charge, and in the face of questioning, the in-charge also panicked and told about the collective departure of the servants in the morning.

At this moment, not only Liu Juren was flustered, but also the old boss who was also a servant was also very flustered.

People who are as flustered as they are, as well as the gentry in the whole Jiangnan and the whole world.

It's just that while they were flustered, the railway station square in the east of Nanjing City was already crowded with crowds.

They are all dressed in rough linen clothes, net scarves on their heads, and cloth shoes on their feet. They are all surrounded here at this moment. There are probably no fewer than ten thousand people.

Such a large number of people naturally attracted the attention of the Gongwei Battalion stationed in Nanjing.

The Three Thousand Guards Battalion patrolled around the square, and warned some of the leaders among them not to take advantage of the chaos and attack the palace, or they would kill them all.

Facing the warning from the guard camp, the servants seemed very obedient.

After the warning, the general of the Gongwei Battalion also reminded them that there are four military camps in Nanjing City today, corresponding to the four gates of Jiangdong, Guanyin, Qilin, and Upper.

The meaning of the general is obvious. If there are gentry who dare to bully them, or refuse the mediation of the Jiangning and Shangyuan county governments in Nanjing, then they can escort them to the gate of the city.

"have to!"

"okay!"

After receiving the verbal promise from the general, many servants were gearing up, as if they were only waiting for nightfall.

There are tens of thousands of people in just one square. It is not difficult to imagine how many servants the rich and honorable households in Nanjing raised.

"Boom-"

When dusk came, the evening drum sounded, all the people closed their doors and windows tightly, and the servants also divided into teams according to the neighborhood, going door to door, preparing to send people to the door to wait for the people from the government to redeem them for them.

If you look down from the sky, this mighty crowd is probably no less than a hundred thousand.

"Beep--"

"Be more vigilant! If you frighten Wan Sui, you are ready to apologize with death!"

When the servants began to enter the city and were seen by the patrolling soldiers and horses, the soldiers and horses in the empty streets began to blow their whistles.

After the whistle sounded at the top of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, Wei Liangqing, who was in charge of defending the imperial city, also shouted to get Yiluan Guards to cheer up.

"Boom...boom!"

That Tongmu drum didn't seem to be beating on the surface of the drum, but on the chests of everyone in Nanjing City.

"plane--"

In the Qianqing Palace, facing the farce outside, Zhu Youxiao ignored it. He was now concentrating on processing his wood, preparing to add bricks and tiles to his three halls in Nanjing.

"Long live... this... don't you care?"

Standing on one side, Wei Zhongxian was cautious on the surface, but he wanted to cry but had no tears in his heart.

According to King Qi's decree, the [-] servants he bought will be dispersed tonight. Those are the servants he used for the elderly...

"Care?" Zhu Youxiao wiped the sweat from his forehead. With a short beard, he is still a little fatter, but it can be seen that he has controlled his diet, otherwise it would not be difficult for him to grow to two hundred catties.

"What is there to manage?" Zhu Youxiao asked Wei Zhongxian:
"It's not like you haven't understood the enmity between the servants in the south of the Yangtze River and the Patriarch."

"If you don't do it today, you will do it in the future."

"Then if that's the case, wouldn't it be better to let my brother do this in advance?"

"Okay, the weather is hot and dry, go get me some crispy mountains to cool off."

Zhu Youxiao waved Wei Zhongxian impatiently to let Wei Zhongxian leave. Wei Zhongxian could only leave Qianqing Palace with a mournful face after he answered.

When he withdrew from the Qianqing Palace, the servants outside the palace became more and more powerful.

Before their anti-servant activities started, some of them had been discussing for ten days, basically understanding the method handed down by King Qi thoroughly.

Therefore, they proceeded according to the steps that King Qi said in the newspaper, surrounded the mansions of gentry, powerful, wealthy, and nobles in Nanjing, and waited for the county government to send people to negotiate.

In order to gain momentum, they shouted the slogan "Loyal to the emperor and patriotism, eradicate master and servant, and the king of Qi will live forever" at the gates of each mansion and on the streets.

Such slogans kept ringing and never stopped, as if they felt that once the slogan stopped, the gentry would send someone to deal with them.

"How dare you! How dare you! These slaves dare to turn against me!"

On the attic of Duke Wei's mansion, Duke Xu Hongji of Wei took a binoculars to look at the servants on the street outside the mansion who were holding torches and shouting, "King Qi is a thousand years old".

"Don't you care about Long Live?!"

Xu Hongji looked at his son Xu Wenjue beside him, but Xu Wenjue shook his head bitterly.

Seeing this, Xu Hongji was also very uncomfortable. Fortunately, there were dozens of guards in the Duke's Mansion, so he would not be left unavailable.

"Come here! People from the county government are here!"

When it was completely dark that day, Xu Hongji did not wait for anyone from the palace, but only the officials of the county government of Jiangning County, Nanjing City.

"Open the door..."

At this moment, Xu Hongji's face was pale, and he had no choice but to let Xu Wenjue open the door.

Seeing this, Xu Wenjue could only take dozens of guards to carry boxes of deeds of sale to the gate of the Duke's mansion.

"Tuk Tuk Tuk..."

After the door of Duke Wei's mansion was knocked, Xu Wenjue opened the door like frost beating eggplants, and the five or six boxes of deeds of sale behind him made thousands of tenants and servants who surrounded Duke Wei's mansion jealous.

They are all heads of the family, which means that behind them are thousands of families, thousands or even tens of thousands of people.

"Wei Guogong's mansion has 230 copies of the contract of sale, and 370 taels of silver."

Xu Wenjue said with a heartache, knowing that these slaves, he could obviously sell them to other wealthy households at a price of 10,000+ taels, but now he can only get back their money.

"Look it up."

The magistrate of Jiangning County took the lead, and behind him were hundreds of ordinary officials from the county government.

After all, it is the Duke's Mansion, so it would be a little too unkind to send a master or pawn.

"Everyone spread out! Don't block the adults and redeem us!"

Seeing that the county government really wanted to redeem them, some servants immediately asked the big guy to give up a piece of land for settlement.

Under their efforts, a vacant lot was vacated, and the officials of the county government also began to make plans one after another, and settled the account according to the price of the deed of sale.

After the sum is calculated, they should immediately burn it, and the officials next to them will write down the person's name, place of origin, and selling price.

"Zhang Wuliu, a native of Longmenguan in Yingtian Mansion, sold himself for two or six dollars."

"Zhang Huarui, a native of Xijiangkou in Yingtian Mansion, sold himself for three or two ounces."

"He inspired..."

A person's name was read out, some servants called out to be themselves, others called out to be their brother, sister-in-law, wife, sister, etc...

Such a scene lasted for an entire hour, and during this hour, the entire city of Nanjing was carrying out a mighty "abolition of slaves" operation.

The less powerful gentry could only honestly cooperate with the government under the supervision of their servants, while the slightly more powerful gentry dishonestly said that the deed was elsewhere, not here, and deliberately said it was very far away.

Facing this kind of people, the servants often swarmed up and dragged these former high-ranking gentry lords into the crowd to beat them.

After the three punches and two kicks, they were immediately beaten beyond recognition, and the servants also tied them up, put up a sign saying "disrespect to the court" and tied them behind his back, and escorted them to a nearby military camp.

Some gentry confessed immediately after being beaten, while others confessed immediately after being beaten.

Some of them refused to confess after being beaten, and confessed on the way to the barracks.

There are everyone among them, except those who have not been beaten and have not confessed when they went to the barracks.

Often when they were about to arrive at the barracks and saw Jin Yiwei at the gate of the barracks, they all confessed.

This kind of bullying and fearing the hard will naturally result in another severe beating by the servants.

Some servants shouted while beating: "Why do you enslave me!"

These are just a microcosm of the whole world that night. Many gentry even closed their doors and refused to entertain guests. They were not prepared to discuss the matter of slaves with the officials of the local yamen.

Faced with this situation, the servants directly chose to knock on the door, push down the wall and rush into it. If they caught the owner, they would be beaten, and they would put various signs on them. After they were paraded around the street, they were sent to barracks office.

The Xu family in Suzhou, the Xu family in Songjiang, the Qian family in Hangzhou, and the patriarchs of the major Jiangnan families who were still clamoring yesterday were all treated by their servants in disgraceful ways after choosing their interests.

They were beaten so badly by the servants that they were fined to kneel under the plaque of the mansion, and the servants in front of the mansion counted his exploitation of the servants over the years.

During the tax evasion phenomenon, officials have recorded.

Perhaps because he was too angry, many servants inevitably went up and punched each other.

If there were no officials present, I am afraid that some servants would vent their anger on the female relatives of the head of the family.

Scenes like this were staged in various places in Ming Dynasty tonight, which could be called the most nightmare night for the gentry of Ming Dynasty.

The small and medium gentry who saw the miserable conditions of other patriarchs dared not stop the servants and officials, and cooperated with the county government to redeem the servants.

"become free!"

"Woo ho ho ho—"

Standing at the top of the palace, a [-]-year-old living official looks at the scene of torches like dragons outside the palace and the scene of gentry being beaten, and listens to the sound of freedom coming from outside the palace. He wrote down a full three pages.

It was just one night, so it was obviously impossible to completely abolish slavery.

When the rooster began to crow, Nanjing Cen had no more than 10,000 slaves redeemed, and [-]+ people were still slaves.

It can be foreseen that the Ming night in the next month will be full of slaves holding high torches just to regain their freedom...

"In just one night, more than [-] slaves were redeemed in the capital alone."

"Your Highness, I'm afraid my Daming has a hidden population of no less than 3000 million!"

At noon on June 20, 21th Apocalypse, when Li Changgeng, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, came to Zhu Youjian with the statistics of the abolition of slavery in Daxing and Wanping counties in Beijing last night, even seeing the greed of the gentry, he couldn't help being speechless. .

He was signaled by Zhu Youjian to sit down, and Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting and Chengde, Wang Chengen, Sun Chengzong, Cao Huachun, and Lu Wenzhao appeared in the Chengyun Hall with him.

Counting him and Zhu Youjian, there are a total of nine people in the hall, and these nine people can determine the political direction of Ming Dynasty.

After Li Changgeng sat down, Zhu Youjian said bluntly:
"The number of private servants and tenant farmers may not be less than tens of millions, and the number of tenants who have signed a contract of sale may be much more than I thought."

"I expected a million people before, but now it seems that it may be more than a million, it should be millions of people."

"So many people will be relocated to the seven northern provinces outside the customs and the three southern provinces. The Railway Bureau and the relocation department must be prepared."

Zhu Youjian said, and then continued:

"The Metropolitan Procuratorate must send enough officials to take advantage of this time to recover all the taxes owed by the gentry in various places through the prosecution of the common people."

"The gentry couldn't afford so much food and silver, so they used their fields to pay off the debt, so that the cost of recovering the gentry's land could be avoided."

Zhu Youjian said it lightly, but just this one sentence, it was determined that these things were all things he had planned for a long time.

Perhaps the only thing that should be thankful is the powerful gentry who moved away before June [-]th.

Although they went overseas, their accounts were also wiped out, which is a blessing among misfortunes.

"In the three provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, how many people have migrated this year?"

After Zhu Youjian finished speaking, before Hong Chengchou and the others could speak, he continued to ask Li Changgeng.

Regarding this, Li Changgeng also skillfully bowed and said: "About 320 million, basically all of them have moved to Nanzhou and Jiugang."

"Currently, there are about 500 million Han Chinese in the provinces outside the Guanzhou, about 120 million in Jiugang, about 460 million in Nanzhou, about 270 million in Jiaozhi, and about [-] million in Luchuan."

"About 45 in Wusi Tibetan, 13 in Lingbei, 23 in Anxi, and 17 in Beiting."

"Shanyu is about 36, Modong is about 320 million, Donghai is about 410 million, Beishan is about 42, and Yingzhou is about 180 million."

"The number of Han people in the country is more than 530 million, and the total population is about 8000 million."

Li Changgeng reported the population situation, which Zhu Youjian hadn't understood for several years.

After these years of severe drought, the population of Ming Dynasty broke through from 20 million on paper to 6000 million in 8000 years, and nearly 500 million Han people migrated to places other than the original two capitals and thirteen provinces.

These Han Chinese plus nearly 500 million local minorities, that is to say, in terms of the total, the ratio of Han Chinese to minorities in these [-] provinces outside the customs, overseas, and Indochina Peninsula has reached an average of [-]:[-] degree.

Of course, some provinces are full of Han people, some have only a small number of minorities, and some provinces still have more minorities than Han people, such as Yingzhou and Luchuan.

Overall, however, the general immigration situation is good.

When the abolition of slavery is over, more than one million people will immigrate to these thirteen provinces, and the proportion of Han people will further increase.

With the increase of Han people, the local area will gradually be Sinicized, and the situation like Annan in the early Ming Dynasty will naturally not reappear.

"Recently..." Sun Chengzong, who is the chief assistant of the Donglin Party and the cabinet, suddenly said, everyone looked at him, and he continued:
"Recently, the sale of land in various parts of the world has been increasing, and the land in the hands of the imperial court has already reached more than [-] million mu."

"According to the local land price, these fields are worth at least [-] million taels of silver."

"This amount of money, Guochao can't afford it no matter what. Even if the officials of Guochao don't eat or drink, it will take four years to get it out."

"In addition, eleven of the two capitals and thirteen provinces in the Central Plains have suffered from drought this year, and more than 4000 million mu of arable land has either lost or failed to harvest. This year's land tax and grain may be less than [-] million shi."

"The annual income of 5000 million taels may be even more difficult to achieve..."

After Sun Chengzong finished speaking, Zhu Youjian knew that he had encountered the same experience as Chongzhen this year in history.

The country has no money, and this will be a major challenge whether it is for purchasing arable land, building a railway, or immigrating to the border.

But facing this challenge, Zhu Youjian said calmly:

"You don't have to worry about the matter of silver, Mr. Sun Ge..."

With that said, Zhu Youjian looked at Li Changgeng who had just taken a sip of tea:

"What is the total denomination of banknotes printed by the Finance Department?"

"Paper money?" Hearing this word, although he couldn't understand it at first, when he thought that paper and money were connected together, Sun Chengzong and others immediately knew what the so-called paper money was.

"The Department of Finance has printed ten taels of banknotes, a total of 3000 million pieces, with a total denomination of [-] million..."

When Li Changgeng spoke, Sun Chengzong and others couldn't sit still.

Printing [-] million banknotes similar to treasure banknotes in one go, if these [-] million banknotes are issued, it will only be a matter of time before Ming's private economy is crushed.

At this moment, everyone looked at Zhu Youjian, wanting to know what he was thinking.

Facing their gaze, Zhu Youjian also slowly put down his cup: "These [-] million taels of banknotes..."

(End of this chapter)