In fact, the salt merchants in Lianghuai and Huaihe have their own salt factories, but these salt factories do not directly produce salt, but collect salt from salt households for secondary processing.
Some dissolve and filter the salt and process it into refined salt needed by large households, while others mix the salt into sand to increase its weight and sell it to ordinary people.
The more than 100,000 salt households in Yancheng have been divided up by hundreds of salt merchants. However, the salt merchants cannot always send people to supervise the salt households to cook salt. In order to prevent them from selling salt to private salt dealers, they not only bribed a large number of inspection departments
, cracked down on private salt dealers, and also stipulated how much salt salt households must hand over every month.
If they fail to hand it over, they may be whipped and tortured, or at worst, the whole family may lose their lives.
Even so, in order to have enough food for their families, salt households will still choose to take desperate risks. They would rather be beaten once a month than hide some salt.
Otherwise, according to the price given by the salt merchants, the whole family can only survive without starving to death.
However, compared to the people in the north who were forced to chew tree bark and eat the seeds, at least the people in the south of the Yangtze River would not starve to death, but that was all.
If the aloof Chongzhen heard about the sufferings of the salt farmers, he would definitely not believe it and be shocked. Even the people in Jiangnan lived as hard as cattle and horses, but the red lady believed it and was not surprised at all.
After hearing the torture of the salt merchants, he just looked at Liu Zhixian coldly and asked: "Guan Gou, as the parent official of Yancheng, why do you turn a blind eye to the oppression and cruelty of salt merchants by salt merchants? Your sages' books are all
Did you read about the dog?"
"My dear, it's not that I turn a blind eye, it's that I dare not take care of it. Those salt merchants have great eyes and hands. How can I, a small magistrate, defeat them..."
Liu Zhixian's heart was trembling, his legs softened and he fell to his knees directly on the ground.
"Hmph! Even if you can't fight, won't you report it to the imperial court? I think you are clearly greedy for life and afraid of death, or you have accepted Yanshan's money and are colluding with them to harm the people!"
"Empress, I am wronged..."
"For a dog official like you, no matter whether he was wronged or not, keeping it is just a waste of food. Today, I will take your head to soothe the resentment in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of salt households in Yancheng. I will chop off the head of this dog official.
Hang it at the gate of Yancheng County to show the public."
After the red lady finished speaking, she waved her hand.
Liu Zhixian was so frightened that he urinated and pooped out and passed out.
The old man and his family were scared and a little excited at the same time.
Immediately, the red lady went to check every other house in the village one by one. The situation was almost the same. Hundreds of families were living in poverty, barely surviving.
After summoning the villagers to the entrance of the village again, the red lady personally announced: "Folks, we have suffered a lot over the years. I have brought all the salt merchants who bullied you to justice. From now on, I will sell the salt you cook every month."
Send someone to collect it in person, one tael of silver and one stone, no kid or old man can be deceived.
However, you cannot sell the salt to others. If someone forces you to sell salt, you will inform the person who comes to collect the salt, and then I will make the decision for you!"
The price of one tael of silver and one stone was decided upon by the Red Lady and Zhang Yan after discussion, because even if one tael of silver was collected from a salt farmer and sold at a price of twenty wen per catty, one could still make double the profit.
When the salt households heard that the imperial concubine would personally send people to collect salt in the future, and pay one or two silver coins for every stone of salt, everyone was frightened and thought they were dreaming.
The private salt dealers they used to sell only had four to five hundred cash per stone, but they could sell at most a dozen kilograms per month, which was considered good.
Now not only has the price doubled, but he can also sell all the salt to the empress, earning at least one tael of silver every month.
At the thought of this, everyone was trembling with excitement. They knelt on the ground, kowtowed to express gratitude, and cried loudly.
The red lady comforted them and then left.
In the next half month, the Red Lady not only went to hundreds of salt villages to inspect, but also took over all the salt factories of salt merchants.
The entire Yancheng County Inspection Department was also arrested and prepared to be dispatched to Qiongzhou together.
Finally, Tietou was transferred over and asked to lead two thousand troops to garrison in Yanshan County before returning to Yangzhou.
When we returned to Yangzhou, the properties of hundreds of salt merchants had been confiscated, with more than 60 million yuan in silver confiscated, thousands of houses and manors, and more than 300,000 shi of salt in the warehouses.
This time the Red Lady only arrested hundreds of salt merchants and their immediate family members, but there were still two to three thousand people.
Originally, the Red Lady planned to dispatch all these salt merchants to Qiongzhou, but when she went to Yancheng and saw the miserable situation of the salt households, especially in the past few years, countless salt households have been tortured to death, she could not suppress her heart.
of anger.
In the end, a large pot was set up outside Yangzhou City, and hundreds of salt merchants, large and small, were boiled alive, and their families were sent to Qiongzhou.
This move simply frightened the entire Jiangnan gentry family into nightmares like they did in the early Ming Dynasty.
But this time, some bloody scholars were finally aroused. They went to Nanjing and knelt at the gate of the palace to remonstrate, denounced the Red Lady's atrocities, which were no different from rebels.
But this is only a very small group of people after all. More wealthy people and scholars have chosen to remain silent. Obviously, the crazier the red lady becomes, the more these people will choose to be wise to protect themselves.
This time, even Zhang Yan was so frightened that she fell ill when she heard that the Red Lady had boiled hundreds of salt merchants alive.
Fortunately, at this time, Zhu Cixiang's imperial edict finally arrived, which not only appeased the merchants in Jiangnan, but also clearly expressed that the court supported Jiangnan business and would resolutely safeguard and protect the legitimate income of the merchants.
The happiest thing is that the red lady is going to be transferred back to the capital.
After the imperial edict was read out, all the civil servants exhaled heavily, and even Zhang Yan breathed a sigh of relief.
She was worried that if the Red Lady continued like this, she would eventually have to force all the Jiangnan scholars to rebel.
And as the news spread that the Red Lady was going to be transferred back to Beijing by the emperor, the whole Jiangnan was filled with cheers.
Of course, everyone was cheering behind closed doors in their own homes.
However, almost all the literati, gentry, officials and businessmen walking on the street had their long-lost smiles on their faces.
The Red Lady doesn't care much about His Majesty's plan to transfer her back to Beijing. In fact, she is eager to return to Beijing as soon as possible. Now that she needs money and food, she can definitely deal with the intruders and the Eight Kings.
The red lady herself didn't care, but Chen Yuanyuan and other famous prostitutes were all frightened.
"Look at your appearance. I'm just returning to the capital, and I'm not dead. What's there to worry about? Besides, isn't there still the Queen Mother?"
Seeing Chen Yuanyuan's helpless look, the red lady suddenly said angrily.
"I just can't bear to leave you..."
Chen Yuanyuan still lowered her head and sobbed quietly.
"Okay, don't cry. I will tell Xu Lan. If you have any problems from now on, just go to her directly."
The red lady waved her hand, thought for a while and then said: "Let's do this. You have also made great efforts in raiding the salt dealer this time. I will first confer you the title of the seventh-grade imperial wife, and then report to His Majesty for approval."
"Your Majesty, you must not do this. Your status as a servant is humble and humble. How can you be called the royal wife? If word spreads, you will be ridiculed by everyone in the world!"
Chen Yuanyuan was so frightened that she quickly waved her hands.
Even more touching.
"Just because you ransacked the house this time and faced the gold and silver mountains, and no one took a penny of it privately, you are worthy of being the wife of Emperor Gaoming. In my opinion, your moral integrity is much higher than that of those civil servants."
The red lady said with a serious face.
Obviously in her eyes, these literati in Jiangnan are not as good as Chen Yuanyuan and other prostitutes.