With Xu Fan's reputation in the local area, he said hello and a group of people naturally stood up.
Moreover, they are all powerful people with certain status, and ordinary people are not qualified to go to the government office with Xu Fan to exert pressure.
When Xu Fan was about to leave, he saw Feng Shike standing still and asked in surprise: "Brother Feng! Why don't you go to the government office with me?"
Although you, Feng Shike, have been blaming Mrs. Lin just now, this is an internal conflict within the local area.
But if you, Feng Shike, are unwilling to take practical actions and put pressure on the government together, then it will be tantamount to cutting yourself off from the locals!
Feng Shike replied without interest: "I'm sure you haven't dealt with Lin Jiuyuan directly before. Going to the government office is a waste of time, so why go there?"
Everyone: ""
Although Lin Taipu may have made the mistake of left-leaning putschism, Lao Feng, you must also be a right-leaning capitulationist, okay?
Feng Shike sighed helplessly: "That's all! Although I know it's useless, I still follow you for a while!"
After that, these rural officials and gentry left the government schools and went to the government offices, and soon met the prefect Xu Zhenming.
For local officials, having a bunch of local gentry come to put pressure on them is one of the most troublesome things.
Xu Fan said sadly to Magistrate Xu: "A peasant woman works hard to weave cloth, but her annual income is only thirty pieces.
It all depends on sales in autumn and winter to improve household income, which is related to the livelihood of people all over the country!
Nowadays, powerful neighbors are on the side, cutting off the traffic in our county. Foreign merchants are not allowed to enter, and local ships are not allowed to leave.
As a result, tens of millions of pieces of cloth are backlogged in the territory, and the people's hard work for a year has been wasted. Is the government indifferent?"
Xu Zhenming asked like a novice who didn't understand anything: "Why did the Suzhou people cut off the waterway?"
Xu Fan tried his best to explain: "There was just a little misunderstanding, but it cannot affect the well-being of millions of people just because of a little misunderstanding."
"What Mr. Taichang said is absolutely true!" Magistrate Xu agreed very much with Xu Fan's words, and then said in a very action-oriented manner: "I will immediately send a letter to the Suzhou Prefecture, asking the Suzhou Prefecture to work hard to solve this problem!"
Xu Fan was not stingy with his kind words, "Your Majesty treats the people as kindly as a parent. Thank you so much for the folks in this county!"
Magistrate Xu asked the servant to serve tea again, and then took the lead in picking up the tea cup, which meant that he wanted to end the conversation.
Everyone: "?"
Is this the end? Just send a message to Suzhou and it’s over? What’s next?
Everyone has been an official. Who doesn't know that just saying "issue a document" is fooling people!
Magistrate Xu looked at everyone and asked inexplicably: "What else do you want me to do?"
Xu Fan had to say: "Just sending a document to Suzhou is far from enough to solve the problem. More measures are needed."
Magistrate Xu couldn't help but chuckle and said: "The matter you are talking about is a business matter, so we might as well discuss it in business.
I would like to ask, can the total commercial taxes paid by such a prosperous Songjiang Prefecture amount to 20,000 taels?
This is just a small business, and you only pay so much money, how much do you expect the government to do for you?"
Faced with the prefect's fallacies, everyone was speechless for a moment.
The government's business turnover is several million per year, but the government's commercial tax is less than 20,000. What are you trying to do with your life?
In the Ming Dynasty, commercial taxation is so pitiful! Not to mention that the ratio is very low, it is also dispensable.
Then Magistrate Xu appropriately expressed his embarrassment and said: "Even if a group of strong bandits occupy the waterway and cut off the waterway, they are still within the territory of Suzhou Prefecture.
So what if our Songjiang Prefecture has organized Minzhuang, we have no authority to carry out cross-border extermination. This is a systemic problem, and I have no way to do it."
Xu Fan replied: "Then report it to the governor."
Magistrate Xu slapped the case and said: "That's right! I also sent a message to the governor at the same time! Let's wait for the superior to deal with it!"
Faced with a bureaucrat's tossing and turning, the country gentry had no better solution.
After coming out of the government office, someone said angrily: "I don't believe it. Suzhou really dares to block the waterway all the time! No one can get away with it if it continues to be wasted!"
Feng Shike said quietly: "Don't believe it, they are really brave. If the consumption continues, our Songjiang Mansion will not be able to bear it first."
The man was dissatisfied and said, "Why do you raise other people's ambitions and destroy your own prestige?"
Feng Shike chose to speak with facts: "Haven't you heard that the price of cotton cloth in Suzhou has doubled?
Although the output of cotton cloth in Suzhou Prefecture is far less than that of Songjiang Prefecture, millions of pieces are still exported, and they must be very happy when the price has doubled.
I heard that even the price of silk, the main product of Suzhou Prefecture, has been driven up inexplicably.
Those foreign merchants who come to Songjiang Prefecture with money to purchase cotton cloth, if they don’t want to make the trip in vain, they can only spend money to purchase cotton cloth in Suzhou Prefecture!
So you said between them and us, who can't stand it first?"
Everyone: ""
Songjiang Prefecture is the most powerful county in the world and ranks first in the country economically!
Men farmed and women weaved, producing 15 million stones of grain and 40 million pieces of cotton cloth every year!
The total volume beats Changzhou, the third largest city! Per capita, it exceeds Suzhou, the oldest city! They are sincerely proud of this!
Why did you just find out today that you can still be punished casually?
Xu Fan said to the others: "It seems that as Feng Shike said, the simplest and most trouble-free way is indeed to make Mrs. Lin bow her head.
It doesn’t seem appropriate to ask the entire county to accompany Mrs. Lin to fight to the end.”
Just like when his father Xu Jie met Yan Song, he would be soft when he should be soft.
Seeing that others were silent, Xu Fan asked Feng Shike again: "Does Lin Jiuyuan have any conditions?"
Feng Shike replied: "Lin Jiuyuan said that Xinwu Club has just opened, and the Wusongjiang shipping business that it plans to focus on cannot be launched yet, so there is currently no business and it is urgent to open up the business.
Therefore, starting from this year, all the cotton produced by the tenants of Lin Taipu’s family will be purchased and sold by the Xinwu Society.”
The cotton production and silk fabric production of this era seemed to be both textile industries, but in fact they were completely two models.
Silk weaving is a factory model, and a large silk loom often requires three to five people to operate.
Cotton production is an authentic "small-scale peasant economy". A single person can operate a spinning wheel, and weaving is done by housewives at home.
Therefore, cotton cloth production is still dependent on the land to a certain extent and can be regarded as the main sideline business of farmers.
Lin Tailai's condition of "unified purchasing and marketing" is based on this basis.
Then everyone came to the plain garden on the outskirts of the city to persuade Lin Taipu.
At this time, Mrs. Lin was much more haggard than when she was first injured, probably because she had not slept well in the past few days.
Because Mrs. Lin was unable to take charge of the affairs, the affairs of the Lin family were temporarily managed by his younger brother.
"Impossible!" Mr. Lin refused the peace terms without thinking.
The tenants under the name of the Lin family produce two hundred thousand pieces of cotton cloth a year. How can such a big business be given to others for free?
??????55.??????
Xu Fan asked: "Then how do you solve this matter?"
Second Master Lin gritted his teeth and said, "You don't have to worry about it! Of course our Lin family has old methods!"
Xu Fan didn't ask any further questions, stood up and left. Others also pretended not to know anything and were ready to leave.
Lin Taipu, if you can pacify Lin Jiuyuan, everyone will be happy to see the result. If you can't pacify him, let's talk about it later.
As for the "old method" that Mr. Lin mentioned, everyone can guess to some extent. After all, they are all powerful local people and have many common ideas.
Now is the slack time for farming, so it is not difficult to gather one, two, or three thousand tenant farmers who are attached to the family.
Smashing a government office or attacking a county jail are not impossible things.
Arousing public anger and triggering civil unrest is nothing new. It has happened many times in Suzhou Prefecture next door in recent years!
Only the kind-hearted Feng Shike gave some advice, but Mr. Lin did not appreciate it. Instead, he said to Feng Shike:
"I know that Brother Feng, you have a good relationship with Lin Jiuyuan, but we are not afraid of our actions being known by Lin Jiuyuan!
If Lin Jiuyuan doesn’t want to lose control, he should take the initiative to leave the county jail, don’t pretend to be wronged there, and go back to Suzhou!”
This is roughly what Lin Erye's plan was. If Lin Jiuyuan was afraid and ran away on his own initiative, then the lie of being imprisoned would be exposed.
If Lin Jiuyuan is brave and refuses to leave, then he will be taken hostage directly.
The enraged mob could do anything, even the governor dared to besiege him, let alone Lin Jiuyuan!
To be continued...