Rule over Ming Dynasty

A small event can often determine the direction of history.

If Liu Zhang did not have the idea of ​​​​bringing the best potato seeds back to his motherland, they could actually avoid this adventure of the Inca Empire and return to Daming via the same route they came from.

But when things have developed to this point, can he really be blamed entirely?

His original intention was only to bring the best potato seeds back to China, and then he chose to prepare friendly negotiations with the Inca Empire. No one expected that so many unexpected events would occur.

What's more, they are Chinese explorers after all, and they cannot be timid in doing things. Otherwise, they would not be able to cross the ocean through hardships, and they would not be able to collect sweet potatoes, corn, and peanut seeds.

The mission they shoulder is to open up a new path for China without fear of danger, a route that can be walked repeatedly by future generations.

It was just a twist of fate that when they came to the capital of the Inca Empire, they not only got potato seeds, but also accidentally discovered a gold treasure, but they suddenly encountered an army of 80,000 people who had just returned from the battle.

Once all three hundred of them die here, let alone bringing the Inca emperor's best potatoes back to the Ming Dynasty, even the sweet potatoes, corn and peanuts collected earlier will not be able to do so.

The Mingyuan treasure ship fleet built with the efforts of the whole country will end in failure. If there was no wise king like Zhu Youtang in office, and with the stubbornness of those scholar-bureaucrats, I am afraid we would have to wait for who knows how many years before we can set sail again.

The words were divided into two parts. At this time, Ming Dynasty, located in the west of the Pacific Ocean, was also uneasy.

Nanjing is the most populous city in the world.

"Matteo Ricci's Notes on China" records that the locals told a story: Two people rode toward each other from opposite directions in the city, and it took them a whole day to meet each other.

Although it is obviously an exaggeration, the capital city, which took 3.5 years to build, mobilized 230 migrant workers and used about million city bricks, has an enclosed area of ​​more than square kilometers.

Even though it has now become the capital of the Ming Dynasty, the economy here is still very prosperous, and lanterns are hung high on the Qinhuai River every night.

The entertainment industry in Jiangnan is extremely developed, so that the entire spring and summer are in a lively atmosphere.

Yangzhou Oiran in March, Suzhou Oiran in April, Songjiang Oiran in May, and now in June there will be another Oiran competition in Nanjing, so the Qinhuai River is particularly lively now.

Since this year is the year of the Great Competition, the Qinhuai River has attracted countless literati and elegant guests, and various poems praising the women in brothels have emerged one after another.

"The smoke cages the cold water and the moon cages the sand. I moor in the Qinhuai River near the Jiu River at night."

This is the realism of Jiangnan in the era, but the Ming Dynasty was in a prosperous period, so there was no such thing as "business girls who did not know the hatred of the country's subjugation, but still sang as flowers in the backyard across the river".

The ancient rhyme is full of joy, the wind shakes the boat and the rain contains smoke.

Night tours are stunning and full of beautiful thoughts, and love and wine play in the Huaihe River forever.

This is a holy land for literati, or more accurately, a prosperous age for rich people. Many young and frustrated young men like to hang out here and live a life of dissipation and wealth.

“You’re all a fool if you don’t know how to make money these days!”

"I took a trip to Japan and made another tens of thousands of taels, which is far inferior to the loan sharks back then!"

"There was someone who refused to collect money yesterday. Guess what? I almost stuck out my tongue after throwing a silver ingot at it!"

……

The children of Jiangnan merchants spend money like rain and have become the highest quality consumer group in Jiangnan. Now they are gathering in Nanjing city from all over.

The conflict between the East China Sea Governor's Palace and the Ouchi family has not been resolved, but they have secretly become the suppliers of the Ouchi family, which can be said to be making a lot of money.

The most important ones are the Kyushu and Iwami silver mines in Japan. They brought the soot blowing method and a large number of mining workers to the Japanese, and now they have produced a steady stream of silver.

"We have to keep a low profile. Those people are already eyeing us!"

Wang Yanao was not dazzled by wealth, but he knew that the court was still trying to abolish the silver standard and implement new currencies, so he seriously warned his companions.

"He who is unjust will have little help!"

“The Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes are all useless paper, who dares to pay for the new coins?”

"If there are too many silver mines in Japan, the silver standard will be abolished. This has never been the case in the world!"

……

Jiangnan trading companies have been tied up with Japan's mining and silver interests, and are very resistant to the imperial court's desire to abolish the silver standard. Now they are also angry and angry.

Originally, they were very opposed to the imperial court's implementation of the silver standard. Now that they are jointly developing silver mines with Japanese daimyo, it is naturally even more impossible to let go.

Even if mining silver mines will bring great benefits to the Japanese, they will also benefit a lot. Naturally, there is no reason to follow the imperial decree for the sake of national interests.

Jiangnan becomes more and more prosperous, but the contradictions become more acute.

If the world did not belong to the Zhu family now, they would definitely support the other side with all their strength, so that they could successfully cooperate with the Japanese daimyo to mine silver mines and seize China's social wealth.

Even though this is a peaceful time of singing and dancing, there are still hidden ghosts and shadows.

puff!

A sharp blade pierced the young man's chest, and blood immediately spattered out. The stabbed young man's face looked full of disbelief and unwillingness.

The assailant didn't even blink, as if he had just killed a chicken, and was full of disdain for the young man who was slowly falling.

His ears suddenly moved slightly, but he accurately caught the sound of rapid footsteps in the front yard. He secretly thought something bad and immediately chose to jump out of the window and escape from the backyard.

A team had already arrived, and then there were rapid knocks on the door, and someone shouted loudly inside: "Li Si, are you there?"

"No, it smells of blood!"

"Kick the door open quickly!"

Hu Jun personally led the team and suddenly gave instructions anxiously.

The door was not strong. In the violent impact, the door latch had broken, and the young man who had just been assassinated had fallen into a pool of blood and lost his life.

"Oops, they are one step ahead of us again!"

"The blood hasn't dried yet. The murderer must have just left. Let's chase him quickly!"

An experienced deputy squad leader of the Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Procuratorate immediately made an accurate judgment after checking the condition of the corpse.

"Don't chase?"

"Monitor, why is this?"

Just when the deputy squad leader wanted to lead a pursuit from the backyard, Hu Jun, the leader of the third group, stopped him directly.

"Let's not alert the enemy!" Hu Jun was no longer the country boy he once was, but had grown into an elite member of the Metropolitan Procuratorate's search for the city, but he expressed his own opinions.

This……

Deputy team leader Lei Ming couldn't help but frown. Although this explanation was somewhat reasonable, he still felt that it was too far-fetched. But after all, the other party was his superior and someone whom Mr. Wangge relied on, so he had no choice but to give up.

Nanjing City, Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Wang Yue was sitting on duty, looking very attentive to the matters at hand.

After two months of recuperation, his injury had healed, but he suffered from frequent abdominal pains, so he chose to stay in Nanjing to continue recuperating.

Although he was recuperating here, he never forgot his mission, nor the people who were still struggling at the bottom, so the work at hand did not stop.

The most urgent thing at the moment is the emergence of counterfeit copper coins on the market, which has seriously disrupted the economic order and caused losses to the Ming Dynasty's finances.

Although the abolition of the silver decree and the implementation of the new currency still encountered resistance from the Jiangnan official and gentry group, the matter finally achieved some results, especially the salaries given by the court to Jiangnan officials were all in silver dollars, and the taxes collected were also settled in silver dollars.

Now he has asked all salt shops, rice shops and silk shops in Jiangnan to refuse silver transactions and instead use silver dollars and copper coins.

This measure mainly enhances the status of copper coins. In the past, the status of silver became more and more prominent, so nearly two thousand copper coins could be exchanged for one tael of silver.

Now using one thousand copper coins is equivalent to the purchasing power of one tael of silver before. You can also use one thousand copper coins to exchange for one silver dollar. This is actually of great benefit to the people at the bottom.

The imperial court did not accept all copper coins, but decided to take back the original copper coins and destroy them.

However, the people in Jiangnan deliberately caused mischief. They obtained a large amount of copper mines from unknown sources and began to forge copper coins on a large scale and circulate them in the market.

Because the weight of Xuande Tongbao is not fixed, and it was lighter than Hongwu Tongbao and Yongle Tongbao in the early days, it became the hardest hit area for their counterfeit coins.

Wang Yue knows that the current financial situation is healthy, but if the Jiangnan Group is allowed to counterfeit so unscrupulously, it will be a serious disaster for the country and the people, so he must find the place where counterfeit copper coins are made as soon as possible.

"Where are the four Li people?"

"John Doe is dead!"

When Hu Jun came back to resume his duties, he seemed very helpless and reported the truth truthfully.

Ever since Yin Zhi discovered that the gold case was related to Jiangnan Company, they had also conducted a joint investigation, and after two months of following the clues, they had traced the convoy of Jiangnan Company.

Li Si is a captain of the Jiangnan Merchant Escort Team, but he has spent a lot of money recently, so he is going to be captured for questioning.

But who would have thought that they had just found a list and were about to go to bring Li Si back, but they were silenced by a mysterious organization.

"Dead again?"

When Wang Yue heard this result, he couldn't help but stop what he was doing.

If it happens once or twice, it may just be a coincidence, but if a phenomenon repeats many times, it can no longer be a coincidence.

What initially made him suspicious was the Suzhou side. Song Cheng originally wanted to identify the mastermind of the gold robbery when Suzhou was selecting oirans, but things did not develop smoothly.

Not to mention that the two most high-profile children did not spend money, and that all the children of Jiangnan Company did not participate. Instead, it was Concubine Jing's younger brother Su Qubing who supported the oiran.

It's just that Su Qubing is a young man on their side, and Su Qubing's original intention in supporting the oiran was to help lead out the mastermind of the gold robbery, but he didn't want the other party to fall for the trick at all.

If you add in the fact that he was attacked last time, then it can't be a coincidence, but there is a mole next to him or Song Cheng.

"Mr. Wang Ge, what should we do now?" Hu Jun asked carefully when Wang Yue remained silent.

Wang Yue sighed softly, then faced the reality and said: "The day before yesterday, I asked you to secretly investigate who among our group is from Jiangnan. Have you found out?"

"Mr. Wang Ge, if you didn't tell me, you almost forgot to report, the list of all the personnel is here!" Hu Jun patted his forehead and immediately presented the list.

Wang Yue was well aware of the power of Jiangnan Group and did not dare to take it lightly. Although he had already carefully screened them in the capital, seeing that things were not going his way, he decided to re-investigate the people around him.

Although the list of the three personnel was not large, after seeing the resumes above, they quickly identified Lei Ming, the deputy squad leader of the search department. I didn't expect that although he was not from Jiangnan, his mother was from Jiangnan and she was raised in Suzhou when she was a child.

Wang Yue put down the list in his hand and made a decision: "Keep watching! Once these people do anything inappropriate, take them down immediately!"

"Yes!" Hu Jun said solemnly immediately.

Wang Yue raised his hand to let Hu Jun leave, and sighed helplessly. The infiltration of Jiangnan Group cannot be underestimated.

It's just that some things are not as simple as they appear. Now things have exceeded my expectations, so I am silently preparing to write a secret.

Although Wang Yue was not in the capital, he was in constant contact with the emperor and would report everything here to the talented emperor.

The sound of oars and lights and shadows stretch for ten miles, and singing girls play with flowers and boats on the turbid waves.

Meixiang Tower is the most famous brothel on the Qinhuai River.

"Don't worry! As long as you take good care of me, I will spend money on you to be the oiran this year!" Li Yi, smelling of alcohol, said with assurance, holding a beautiful brothel girl in his arms.

The beautiful brothel girl pointed at Li Yi lightly, but she exposed his lie and said: "Come on! The Nu family has heard that you said you wanted to support Su Meier in Suzhou, but who will you support when you get to Songjiang? It turns out that You only have a clever mouth!"

Li Yi acted very high-profile this year, but he did not go to the sea again, but lingered among the flowers every day, from Suzhou to Songjiang and now Nanjing.

He was clearly in debt many times in the brothel, but he always claimed to praise someone. He was more like a descendant of Wu Xun who ate, drank and slept together.

"You have to think carefully! If I lie to you, you will suffer a small loss at most... If I don't lie to you, then you will be the oiran!" Li Yi pretended to be unsteady, but continued to seduce. road.

The beautiful brothel woman was finally moved, but she gently hit his chest and said: "The slave family must have owed you something in the previous life, so you must not lie to the slave family!"

"I am the queen of Qiyang, how can I lie to you? Let's go to your room and have a good time first!" Li Yi was overjoyed and immediately cheered up.

The beautiful brothel girl vaguely guessed that there would be no such good thing, but she couldn't resist the temptation. What's more, she was indeed of an extraordinary background, and she had a good personal relationship with the wealthy owners of Jiangnan merchants.

Li Yi glanced at Lei Ming and other people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate who were staring at him over there, and said as if he was deliberately provocative: "As long as you serve me well, I will spend money to make you the oiran this year!"

Lei Ming and the other people sitting around the table in the Metropolitan Procuratorate's Search Office suddenly darkened their faces. The more provocative the other party was, the more reason they had to suspect that this person was the real culprit who robbed the gold ship.

"Li Yi, please come with me to the county government office!" Just as Li Yi was carrying the beautiful brothel girl across her arms and heading straight to the room, a thin middle-aged man wearing a sixth-grade official uniform blocked the way. (End of chapter)