"Ying'er, salt is related to people's livelihood all over the world, and the Lianghuai Salt Industry occupies a decisive position in it, so you must be cautious!"
"Well, my aunt has reminded me that I must not give those salt merchants any chance to resist. I must capture the thieves and the kings, capture them all in one fell swoop, and then quickly control the ordinary salt merchants... That's good, it's me
Go and have a look yourself!”
The red lady nodded, and after thinking about it, she decided to go there herself. After all, the wealth and property of those salt merchants would probably not be much less than that of Xun Gui. It would be unsafe if she didn't supervise them in person.
"Oh, okay!"
"As long as it doesn't cause a shortage of salt supply in various places, Auntie and Ying'er will be the villains together!"
"No, my aunt still has to be a good person. Let her nephew and daughter-in-law do this evil thing alone. The nephew's daughter-in-law has a bad reputation anyway. As the saying goes, if you have more debts, you won't have to worry about it!"
The red lady waved her hands and said with a smile.
Seeing her indifferent expression, Zhang Yan also smiled bitterly, and did not insist anymore, but asked again: "What about the hundreds of thousands of people spinning and weaving outside the city? Although they were all forced to come here by the gentry
, but their future livelihood is indeed a problem, and it seems inappropriate to let them go back like this, but if they continue to stay outside the city, they will see winter coming again."
"Don't they all know how to weave and spin yarn? Didn't those scholars say that they had no work to do?
Well, just send them all to Beijing to continue spinning and weaving, and each person will be compensated ten taels of silver, so now everyone will have nothing to say!"
"This is a way. I have sent people to investigate. Most of them have no land. They have worked for those merchants for generations. Their lives are not good. They can barely make ends meet. Even if they don't weave and spin yarn in the north, they can still farm.
"
Zhang Yan nodded, actually she thought so too.
"Then my nephew-in-law will go there in person tomorrow."
The two discussed for a while and then returned to the palace to rest.
After returning to the palace, the red lady did not rest, but ordered someone to call Chen Yuanyuan over again.
"Yuanyuan, have you heard everything I asked you to ask about?"
"Go back to the empress, and I have found out everything. There are more than a hundred salt merchants in the Huaihe River and Huaihe River, large and small, and they are divided into Shanxi merchants and Hui merchants..."
Chen Yuanyuan introduced it while taking out a thick booklet, which was all about the situation and specific information about the Lianghuai salt merchants.
It is clear how many people and houses each family has, how many high-ranking officials and relatives there are, how many stones of salt are produced every year, and where the salt is sold.
Obviously, nothing in Jiangnan can be hidden from the prostitutes in Qinhuaihe River, not to mention that the channels through which Chen Yuanyuan obtained information were not only from the prostitutes in Qinhuaihe River, but from the prostitutes in the entire Jiangnan brothel.
Now Chen Yuanyuan has become the leader among the prostitutes in Jiangnan. In the past six months, relying on the red lady as her backer, she has acquired many brothels in various places. The seven girls are also working harder and harder, as if they want to save all the prostitutes in Jiangnan.
.
"Okay! I have underestimated you. Your ability to find out information is almost as good as that of the Jin Yiwei, haha."
After reading it, the red lady nodded and smiled happily.
The last time she saw Chen Yuanyuan knew all about the nobles in the city, so she gave it a try and asked her to inquire about the situation of the Lianghuai salt merchants. Who would have thought that she could find out so clearly and in detail.
"It is a blessing for slaves to be able to do things for the queen. Mom, this is the income of the brothel in the past six months. Although it is only more than one million taels, in the past few months, the slaves have purchased hundreds of brothels all over the south of the Yangtze River...
"
After Chen Yuanyuan finished speaking, she looked at the matchmaker with some anxiety, worried that she would blame her for taking the decision without permission and purchasing the brothel.
"Well, you can keep the money for yourself. You can take care of the brothel's affairs yourself. You don't need to ask me for instructions."
The matchmaker waved her hands, obviously not intending to ask for their money, nor did she want to get involved too much with the brothels. When she was asked to run the brothels, she just had a headache and didn't know how to deal with the prostitutes.
"My slave, I would like to thank you for your great kindness."
Chen Yuanyuan hurriedly knelt down and thanked her. Her eyes were a little moist with emotion. Apparently she understood what the red lady was thinking.
It's probably hard to find someone like this who doesn't want their money, doesn't force them, and yet gives them support. It's really a blessing for them to meet the empress.
"Okay, get up quickly!"
"The Imperial Palace is going to Yangzhou in a few days. You can choose a thousand women who can write and do calculations to go with me." The red lady raised her hand and said.
"It's your Majesty, I will choose someone immediately when I get back."
Chen Yuanyuan replied quickly, but her heart skipped a beat.
She had some doubts about whether the empress was going to take action against those salt merchants. However, she did not dare to ask more questions about this kind of thing.
The next day, early in the morning, the red lady arrived at the refugee camp outside the city. As she looked around, she saw densely packed huts built haphazardly.
Although they live in straw huts, they eat refined rice and grain every day, so hundreds of thousands of people, old and weak, look good.
In fact, even if Zhang Yan doesn't care about these people, the landlords and gentry in Jiangnan will not let them starve.
I heard that the imperial concubine had gone to the refugee camp, and all the scholars in the city killed her.
As for going to the palace gate to continue the petition, even if it costs one hundred taels of silver a day, no one would dare to go there again.
The gentry and wealthy merchants in the south of the Yangtze River are actually most afraid of the rebel thief Red Lady, especially now that this rebel thief has a heavy army and has imperial power on her head.
And the news came back from Huguang that the red lady killed those civil servants and gentry just like killing chickens. She was really called a noble concubine, but it was actually an act of anti-thieves.
So at this moment, almost no one in Nanjing is talking about cotton. They are all talking about romance, as if what happened a while ago never happened.
"Brother Mi, how do you think the empress will deal with these people?"
"How else to deal with it? I don't believe she can send all these hundreds of thousands of people to Qiongzhou."
"Yes, since ancient times, the law has not punished everyone."
All the scholars only dared to watch from a distance and discuss in low voices.
When they learned that the person here was the imperial concubine, hundreds of thousands of people were terrified and knelt on the ground.
One family of five was brought to the Red Lady, and they were so frightened that they knelt on the ground and begged.
"My dear, please forgive me. It's none of this villain's business. I didn't cause any trouble. It was our boss who forced us to come here..."
"Okay, get up. I don't want to ask you about your sins. I just want to ask you some things. Just answer them honestly."
The red lady saw that the family was so frightened, and the two children were trembling even more, with helpless expressions on their faces.
"Thank you, my queen, for your life. Thank you, my queen, for your life!"
"The young one must answer honestly and never dare to deceive the empress..."
The whole family was kowtowing furiously, and they were so nervous that they all started to speak incoherently.
When the red lady saw this, she was angry and resentful. She looked at one of the trembling girls. After thinking about it, she stepped forward and picked her up and put her on her lap. In the end, the girl was so frightened that she cried.