Looking north towards the rivers and mountains

Chapter 326 Large-Scale Purchase and Inquiry

On the twelfth day of the intercalary tenth month, after staying in Matuosha for several days, Shao Shuyi took a boat to Huangtian Port. While purchasing supplies, he also did not forget to inquire about the situation.

He no longer needed to obtain information from the officials of Jiangyin Prefecture.

At 9:00 AM, Liu Ming, Liu Zhenru, and Chen Yue arrived one by one to meet with him.

"The Prince of Zhennan sent an envoy to the prefecture to inform them that he would remain in Changzhou to quell the rebellion and would not come to Jiangyin for the time being. He also ordered the prefecture to guard the borders carefully and not to be negligent. For this reason, the Ministry of Revenue allocated some money and grain and made contributions to merchants and wealthy people. Zhao Yangui of Shiqiao volunteered to contribute 500 shi of grain and came to the prefecture every few days. He seemed a little anxious," said Liu Zhenru, a clerk in the Ministry of Revenue.

"How does Jin Jingli from the household registration office treat you?" Shao Shuyi asked.

"He wasn't very enthusiastic; he had his own people," Liu Zhenru replied. "However, he didn't exclude me from household chores, but he often assigned me chores, which were quite demanding."

"It's alright." Shao Shuyi laughed. "This fellow is still jealous of Hu Wu's matter, but it's not a big deal. Keep doing it. Report back immediately if there's any news." "Yes." Liu Zhenru replied.

Liu Ming cleared his throat and said, "Shao She, there have been quite a few more people in the prison lately, and the cells are almost overflowing."

"Why?" Shao Shuyi asked curiously.

"A while ago, the prefecture conscripted three thousand ruffians and nameless archers, which cost money and provisions every day. Judge Ma saw this as a problem and had to do something, so he set up roadblocks to arrest thieves and tax evaders," Liu Ming said. "On the Xicheng Canal, the customs office has added over a thousand men, a huge swarm. Now, apart from our boats being able to pass, all other tax evaders are caught red-handed. They're all waiting for their families to bring money to ransom them."

Shao Shuyi shook his head and chuckled, then asked, "Just these people?"

"There are still some people asking about you." Liu Ming glanced at him and said, "Chen Zi, the patrol inspector of Chengjiang, is very cunning. He didn't arrest many outsiders who were asking about you, and he didn't dare to arrest them. In the end, he only arrested the local small vendors who had contact with them."

Shao Shuyi nodded and said, "These small vendors are big mouths, they deserve what they got. But since they've already learned their lesson, let them go. Tell Chen Zi when you get back."

"Okay." Liu Ming paused, then continued, "The day before yesterday, a few people from Jiangning and Suzhou came to the jail. After being arrested, they identified themselves and were released."

"Who is it?"

"The minor official from the Imperial Censor's Office disguised himself and sneaked into Jiangyin. He was spotted by a street ruffian, who rushed to report to the patrol office. In the end, he was caught red-handed in a brothel."

Shao Shuyi was speechless.

Changzhou is in complete chaos, and Nan doesn't care. Instead, he's still investigating a few cases. You guys are really bored out of your minds.

He was even considering giving them gifts, not because he was afraid, but because there was no need to get entangled with these people; however, he didn't have a way to do so yet.

"Is there anything else?" Shao Shuyi's gaze swept over Liu Ming and Chen Yue.

Liu Ming glanced at Chen Yue, who stepped forward and reported, "Shao She, the clerk Meng in the Criminal Division values ​​me highly and entrusted me with managing the files. At the end of October, someone from the Anti-Corruption Bureau came to the Criminal Division to check the files and specifically asked for yours. I hid it, and the man left helplessly, saying before he left, 'Jiangyin is a den of snakes and rats,' and he seemed quite angry."

Upon hearing this, Shao Shuyi laughed and said, "Don't pay any attention to these people."

Having said that, he stood up, paced back and forth a couple of steps, and then asked again, "Has anyone in the prefecture been discussing the matter of Changzhou?"

"Yes," Liu Ming said in a deep voice. "Most of them are gloating, saying that since the Prince of Zhennan didn't come to Jiangyin, the people have avoided a calamity and can have a good New Year."

Shao Shuyi nodded.

It wasn't that the officials of Jiangyin Prefecture loved the people so much; in fact, they treated the hundreds of thousands of people of Jiangyin as their own, and didn't like others taking advantage of them, even if that person was the Prince of Zhennan.

"What else were they discussing?" Shao Shuyi continued to ask.

"Regarding the mutiny in Changzhou," Liu Ming said, "after this incident, Prefect Zhang brought 300 ingots of paper money, 500 shi of grain, and 50 jars of wine to the Han army camp of the interpreter to reward the troops."

Shao Shuyi couldn't help but chuckle. The child was dying, and now it knew to nurse.

After laughing, he couldn't help but sigh. It wasn't that Zhang Yang was stupid, but that doing some things was just that difficult.

If the defeated soldiers in Changzhou hadn't rebelled, the Darughachi might not have agreed if Zhang Yang wanted to go and comfort the troops. Now that this has happened, there's not much resistance.

In other words, under this system and this atmosphere, Zhang Yang could only act this way. Many seemingly foolish measures at the end of the dynasty had profound reasons. If an individual wanted to rely on this system for reform, they should forget about it and start from scratch. "Any news about the chaos in Changzhou?" Shao Shuyi then asked.

"Upon hearing that the Xiang army was advancing towards Changzhou City, General Wang raised a large sum of money and personally went to the camp. Without going through the Darughachi or the commander of ten thousand, he directly distributed the money to the soldiers: forty strings of cash for regular soldiers and twenty strings for subordinate soldiers. Then he arrested a few unfortunate souls who had participated in the looting and beheaded them as a warning," Liu Ming said. "The deputy commander of ten thousand, Song Zhizhong, then reorganized the remaining troops and set up palisades along the main road outside the city to guard the area, but he dared not leave the camp at all. Song Zhiyuan, a member of the Song clan, led his own troops to help in the battle, repelling the Xiang army and beheading more than fifty. The people in the city wept with joy upon hearing the news."

"It wasn't easy, but we finally defeated that bunch of rioters," Shao Shuyi said with a smile.

If you said the attackers were salt smugglers,江湖大名 (江湖大名, a powerful figure in the martial arts world), or 盗匪 (盗匪, bandits from the Huai River region), you could have something to say if you won. But they turned out to be a bunch of rioters who had just started an uprising and had no order whatsoever. What's there to be "overjoyed and weeping" about? Well, their lives were saved, so that's certainly something to be happy about.

"It seems Chen Bao'er of Benniuba is going to become a patrol inspector." Liu Ming added, "That fellow has no ambition. As soon as he heard there was a ninth-rank official position, he immediately stopped rebelling. He's a laughingstock."

Shao Shuyi grunted in response.

Actually, he also felt that Chen Bao'er lacked ambition. Whether or not to accept amnesty was a personal choice, and he didn't want to comment further, but wasn't it too cheap for someone to be bought off by a low-ranking official?

However, perhaps this is just how the "market" is right now.

At this stage, a low-ranking official of the eighth or ninth rank can pacify a local powerful family. In two years, it will require a judge-level official. Two years after that, it will probably require a regional governor-general. And then what? A provincial governor? One of the Three Dukes? A prince?

The price to pay for accepting amnesty is getting higher and higher, and official positions are becoming less and less valuable.

"But one," Liu Ming added.

"explain."

Liu Ming nudged Chen Yue, who cupped his hands in greeting and said, "Shao She, yesterday the Zhenjiang Road General Administration sent a document to various places, saying that there were also people burning incense and causing trouble in Danyang County. Their number was several hundred. It is said that they were encouraged by the Huashan bandits, or that they were colluding with the White Lotus sect members in Wujin County."

"Oh?" Shao Shuyi was somewhat surprised.

When did the White Lotus Sect infiltrate so deeply? In his memory, there were followers of the White Lotus Sect and the Ming Sect in western Zhejiang. For example, Tie Niu's father used to go to Yi Liao Nunnery to burn incense often, but it was really rare.

Moreover, the White Lotus sect in western Zhejiang was completely different from that in other places. Simply put, the White Lotus sect leaders in the Huaihe River Basin, Huguang region, and Jiangxi province took a grassroots approach and had less contact with the upper class, while those in western Zhejiang mainly targeted wealthy people and did not have many grassroots followers.

To put it simply, Shao Shuyi felt that the "original" White Lotus sect in western Zhejiang was more about swindling money and had a strong element of fraud, while the White Lotus sect in the Huaihe River area actually used knives and didn't have much money.

Could the two groups of incense rebels that rose up in Wujin and Danyang have been launched by foreign missionaries?

"Keep inquiring," Shao Shuyi instructed. "Some officials in the prefecture may not tell me the truth. You are my eyes and ears, so don't slack off." "Yes," the three replied in unison.

Shao Shuyi clapped his hands, had someone bring three ingots of paper money, one for each person, and then told them to leave.

There are two people in the criminal investigation department, one of whom, Liu Ming, is actually in charge of the prison. There is one person in the household registration department. Including Jin Congxuan, who is about to join the military department as a trainee clerk—Jin Congyi's younger brother, who is fourteen years old this year—there are four people in total.

Out of respect for him, the officials in charge of various departments couldn't go too far in targeting them. Even if they were unhappy, they had to grit their teeth and use them. At least the criminal investigation department, the household registration department, and the military department didn't hold any major secrets for Shao, not to mention that Ge Daji, the chief clerk in charge of receiving and sending documents, was above the six departments. It wouldn't be so easy for the Jiangyin Prefecture government to go through the proper procedures to deal with him.

After meeting these people, Shao Shuyi stayed in Jiangyin for two days.

During this time, he met with Lu Fu, a grain merchant from Jiangxia City who had recently joined the Wuyue Grain Guild, and placed an order with him to purchase 500 shi of grain, which was stored at his brother's grain shop in Huangtian Port.

They are renting a new house here to use as a warehouse, which will have a capacity of two thousand shi (a unit of dry measure).

The Brother Grain Shop in Yixing Prefecture has also opened, with a storage capacity of up to 3,000 shi (a unit of dry measure). Currently, there are 500 shi of grain stored. Shao Shuyi then sent Jiang Cheng to Yixing by ship and ordered Liu Xing to spend money to purchase grain to fill the storage.

Then he placed an order with Madam Liu's grain shop for 1,500 shi of grain and with Madam Shen's grain shop for 1,000 shi of grain to fill the empty rooms in the old granary.

After this series of transactions, Shao Shuyi did the math and found that Shengye Trading Company still had about 300 ingots left in its accounts, which relieved him. Considering that there were still about 570,000 jin of salt stored in Matuosha and Huangtiangang, Shao Shuyi decided that it was time to continue shipping. This time, he wouldn't ship to Jiangyin, as the stock from the last shipment hadn't been fully sold yet, and it was estimated that it wouldn't be until the beginning of next month. However, Mo Tianyou in Wuxi was extremely "hungry" for salt and kept urging for more, as was the Sun family man in Changshu Prefecture, and the same was true for Yixing Prefecture…

So he wrote a letter instructing Lu Chaoen to arrange ships and use the eight-ship fleet of the Huangtian Trading Company to distribute 100,000 catties of salt to each of Fushan Port, Huangbudun, and Yixing Prefecture, so as to quickly recover some funds, which he would need.

As for whether or not Changzhou will send the aid, he hasn't decided yet because the situation is chaotic, and he estimates he'll have to wait a while.

Spending most of his working capital in one go was clearly an unconventional move. But Shao Shuyi couldn't worry about that anymore; he even wanted to go to Taicang to buy some livestock, especially horses, from Zhang to mitigate the risks.

He certainly had the money, because he didn't pay for the grain all at once. The three hundred ingots in his account were just the amount remaining after paying off all the balances. In reality, he had no less than fifteen hundred ingots at his disposal, so he needed to negotiate a big deal with the Zhang family.

On the 15th, Shao Shuyi boarded the Liu Jia ship after waiting for the boat, and led more than 20 people to Liujiagang.