Wu Shigong had no idea about the troubles that happened around him beating Yu Zilian in the capital. In fact, he had already left the beating Yu Zilian behind. What he wanted most now was to show his muscles to those ignorant merchants in the town.

One day, all the merchants in the town received a notice from Qianhu Institution that Qianhu Institution would conduct musket shooting training. However, since Qianhu Institution's site is relatively small, Qianhu Institution will place an empty ship on the river with a target on it for musket shooting training.

In order to prevent accidental injuries, I hope that the merchants' boats will not approach the shooting training venues. Otherwise, they will bear the consequences at their own risk.

Before these merchants could react, Wu Shigong arranged for Zhou Xun to lead the newly recruited soldiers to the river. After placing the empty ships and targets, he began to shoot with muskets.

The place Wu Shigong chose was very mysterious. It was the only way for ships to approach the dock on the river. With such a fire from the guns, the ships on the river could not reach the dock, and the ships on the dock could not get out. After all, no one dared to try it out, whether the musket would really hit people.

Now, these merchants became anxious. It was the peak period before the end of the year, and after a while, the river would be frozen. These merchants gathered on the dock and watched Wu Shigong shooting with his guards armed guards, protecting the trained soldiers, and no one dared to come forward to negotiate.

Until Mr. Yao got the news, he rushed over and saw this situation and came to Wu Shigong.

Mr. Yao trembled with his beard and shouted angrily at Wu Shigong: "Wu Qianhu, why do you want to shoot muskets on the river? Aren't you afraid that we will sue you for hindering the passage of civilian ships?"

Wu Shigong glanced at Yao Yuanwai and said quietly: "I am training soldiers on the land of his Thousand Households. What do you care about? You still have to sue me? Then you go and sue me. It's really inexplicable."

Yao Yuanwai was taught a lesson by Wu Shigong's words, and almost vomited blood. However, the issue of the belonging of the land was still hard to explain at this time.

Mr. Yao had no choice but to hold back his breath and asked humbly: "How long does Wu Qianhu need to train?"

"Of course, it's until these soldiers have fully mastered the fire of muskets." Wu Shigong said with confidence. "I guess it's almost done when the river is frozen."

This is simply too much, this is a naked blackmail. Yao Yuanwai didn't want to pay attention to Wu Shigong anymore. He thought about waiting for a while to discuss with the merchants: Wu Shigong didn't necessarily shoot muskets on the river day and night. At worst, he could wait until the night, and just click more lanterns to load and unload the ship's goods at night.

As if he knew Yao Yuanwai’s thoughts, Wu Shigong said leisurely: “From today to the end of the military training, this section of the river will be set as a military restricted area. If any ship enters, the ship will be detained, the cargo will be confiscated, and the personnel will be detained. Dear fellow villagers, if you don’t believe me, you can give it a try.”

Now, these merchants were anxious. They all surrounded and pleaded with Wu Shigong. After listening for a while, Wu Shigong seemed to be a little moved, and sighed and said, "I am just soft-hearted. Forget it, let the ships come over later. But they have to charge the dock usage fee, each ship costs five taels of silver."

"Wow——", these merchants were in an uproar. They all thought to themselves: "The new Wu Qianhu is a little too dark."

But under the eaves, people have to bow their heads. They will first deal with the difficulties in the past. Some merchants bargain with Wu Shigong, wanting to pay less money.

Wu Shigong suddenly became angry, and he shouted angrily: "What do you think of the glorious army of the Ming Dynasty? You still bargain with the army? Either pay the bank and rely on the dock, or if you don't pay the bank, you will float on the river. You can choose for yourself. This official is busy with military affairs and loses his companion first."

After saying that, Wu Shigong left some of the guards to maintain order and asked Zheng Zhen to be responsible for collecting the dock usage fee, and then he left.

"This Wu Qianhu is probably crazy about money." After Wu Shigong left, Yao Yuanwai said to the merchants around him, "Let's do it as he said today. However, there are royal laws in the Ming Dynasty, so I immediately went to find my parents and asked him to comment on this principle for us."

Mr. Yao was very quick. In the afternoon of that day, the Qi County Magistrate of the county town sent two yamen runners to Wu Shigong to deliver a letter: Let Wu Qianhu get to the county government tomorrow morning, and the Qi County Magistrate had something to discuss with Wu Qianhu.

After receiving a letter from the magistrate of Qi County, Wu Shigong smiled knowingly. He thought to himself: "These merchants are really mean. They beat them up and they realized that they should talk to me obediently."

The magistrate of Qi has been a county magistrate in this county for five years and will be transferred to the local area next year. The magistrate of Qi estimated that his assessment in the Ministry of Personnel has been good in recent years. At that time, as long as he is engaged in activities, he may not be promoted to a prefect. Therefore, he does not want to have any problems at this critical moment.

Besides, in this county, the land dispute between Thousand Houses and localities is a difficult problem left over from history. Originally, because this problem originated for a long time, and military households were in a weak position in the entire Ming Dynasty environment. Therefore, this problem is not too prominent.

However, after Qianhu was forced to commit suicide by Li Bingbeidao, the entire Henan officialdom knew about this problem. The magistrate of Qi thought that his wife would complete his term of office in moderation and let his later office solve this problem.

In addition, although Wu Shigong, the Thousand Household Office, was in this county, the Qi County Magistrate could not take care of any affairs of the Thousand Household Office. At most, the Thousand Household Office could issue orders to the Thousand Household Office during the war. Therefore, the Qi County Magistrate did not want to accept this hot potato at all.

However, Yao Yuanwai is the leading figure in the county. Many of the government affairs of the Qi County Magistrate need to cooperate with Yao Yuanwai and other gentry from the county to complete. However, Yao Yuanwai was filial to the Qi County Magistrate in his daily life. Therefore, when Yao Yuanwai asked to come to Qi County Magistrate, Qi County Magistrate was embarrassed to refuse.

Therefore, when the Qi County Magistrate convened Wu Shigong to meet, he mainly wanted to be a middle-aged man, and it would be best if Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai and others could discuss a satisfactory solution.

However, the talks between Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai and others almost broke down from the beginning.

Yao Yuanwai simply disagrees with Wu Shigong for any fees. In fact, among the seventy or eighty merchants in the town, Yao Yuanwai, the more than 20 merchants who do shipping trade, did not take the annual fee of fifteen taels of silver seriously.

But Mr. Yao was not thinking about this problem. He was worried: If the land rent fee for Wu Shigong this time is paid, on the one hand, it proves that the land in the town is owned by Qianhuyuan; on the other hand, these gentry also owns the farmland of Qianhuyuan. Will they still have to pay the land rent to Qianhuyuan in the future? Therefore, Mr. Yao's attitude is to refuse to give in.

Seeing that Yao Yuanwai's attitude was so firm, Wu Shigong was completely pretending to be crazy. He shouted in the county government: "You have forced a thousand households to death. Do you still want to force the second one to death? Anyway, I will die, and the official will die with you."

Wu Shigong's words made the magistrate Qi's scalp numb. Qi's magistrate was indeed not sure, would Wu Shigong, the 25,000 households, really take risks? Therefore, the magistrate Qi quickly persuaded him and carried out arduous mediation.

In the end, merchants such as Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai finally reached an agreement. The content of the agreement was: Wu Shigong would not mention this fee or that fee. Yao Yuanwai will be responsible for integrating all merchants and pay Wu Shigong 750 taels of military expenses every year. Wu Shigong will no longer charge these merchants any additional fees.

Wu Shigong was still very satisfied with this agreement. In fact, Wu Shigong didn't care about the name of charging fees at all. His main purpose was to receive the money.

Although the cost of 750 taels of silver is not much, Wu Shigong did not want to fish in these small town merchants.

If you really use violence, you may charge more money. However, the business environment of the town will also be destroyed. This is actually not beneficial to Wu Shigong.

Moreover, the gentry such as Yao Yuanwai are all local figures. As an outsider, Wu Shigong is not good to force these locals to the point of being too impatient. After all, Wu Shigong wanted to use this place as his base.

However, Wu Shigong was satisfied, but Yao Yuanwai was not satisfied. When he left the county government, Yao Yuanwai complained to the county magistrate Qi: "It is difficult to go on business in the town. The county has to collect the bank bank and now it has to pay military expenses. Even those young scoundrels have to blackmail some."

After hearing this question, the Qi County Magistrate's expression was that it was better to have less than more things, but Wu Shigong was worried.

After returning to the town, Wu Shigong called Yao Yuanwai and asked him to tell him about the situation of the green scoundrels in the town.

It turned out that with the prosperity of this town, there were more and more young scoundrels who cheated in the town. Some even formed groups and charged protection fees to those merchants. If any merchant did not pay, they would go to trouble. In order to avoid trouble, all merchants also paid protection fees to settle the situation.

Wu Shigong didn't say much, so he asked Yuanwai Yao to report the list of these green-skinned scoundrels, and asked Yuanwai Yao to arrange a few people familiar with the situation in the town to lead the way, dispatch troops, and arrest all these green-skinned scoundrels.

After catching these people, Wu Shigong took them to the town to march and show their condolences, and asked them to express their regrets in front of everyone. One of the green spies was stubborn and refused to say anything. Wu Shigong asked someone to beat him to death on the spot. The other green spies were immediately obedient.

After these young scoundrels repented, Wu Shigong escorted them all to Qianhushou Fortress for hard labor. Wu Shigong also had a shortage of manpower to work.

Wu Shigong's behavior shocked these merchants and made them look at Wu Shigong with admiration. They all thought: Although Wu Qianhu is a little more ruthless, he is not a person who doesn't do anything.
Chapter completed!