"Zhang Zhan, please come to the official!" Zhang Zhan walked up and bowed to Gao Shixin.

Gao Shixin laughed and held Zhang Zhan's shoulder with both hands: "What a good man who works and works! Good! Good! If you have any grievances in your stove household, just talk to me! This official is the commander of the Jinyiwei, who inspects the world for the emperor, understands the sufferings of the people, and specializes in corrupt officials and illegal businessmen!"

Seeing that the Jinyiwei first took down Lai Laosi and his group and were polite to him, Zhang Zhan hurriedly knelt down: "Official! The grass-roots are the stove-roots household Zhang Zhan, and we are diligent in the stove-roots household, making a living by drying salt. Damn the local government actually colluded with profiteers and private salt dealers of half-merchant and half-bandits, exploiting us grass-roots citizens in various ways, and even let these thieves rob the grain we had worked hard to grow, forcing us to buy high-priced food from Shanxi merchants!"

"Shenzhen merchant?" Gao Shixin asked, "Why did Shanxi merchant sell grain here? You are not the territory of Hui merchants?"

Zhang Zhan replied: "Official, you don't know that in addition to Hui merchants, there are also Shanxi merchants in the two countries. The two families have equal powers. However, the Fan family of the grain merchants is not a big figure among the Shanxi merchants. I just heard that the boss Fan Ming has great supernatural powers and there are people in the court. Fan Ming and his son both operated grain, and the grain here was monopolized by them."

"What? Fan Ming?" Gao Shixin was shocked. He didn't expect that the power of the Fan family would actually come here!

"Yes, it's Fan Ming, Fan Yongdou and his son!" Zhang Zhan nodded, "Although they have very little salt in their hands, the grain in Lianghuai Salt Field is controlled by them! I heard that their grain business is very large, and there are business outside the capital and outside the border."

Shanxi merchants and Donglin Party had little relationship, and those who had close ties with the Donglin Party were Hui merchants and emerging maritime merchants. However, those old Xi not only had considerable forces in the Lianghuai area, but also colluded with local governments to sell high-priced grain. In order to achieve this goal, they instigated private salt dealers and salt primaries to openly rob the grain of the stove households!

The Fan family actually had a certain influence in Huguang. They could purchase relatively cheap grain from Huguang, then transport it to Jiangnan to sell part of it, then exchange it from Jiangnan to cotton and ironware, and then take part of the grain to Lianghuai for sale. The salt they exchanged was finally transported to the frontier with grain, ironware, salt and cotton, and sold it to the hands of the Liaodong Jurchens.

"Tell me, what is the relationship between the Fan family and you?" Gao Shixin put the knife around Lai Laosi's neck.

Lai Laosi was so scared that he knelt on the ground and begged for mercy: "Prince, please spare me! You are so unfair to the people. We are just a business relationship with the Fan family. We buy private salt and sell it to the Fan family."

"It's just a business relationship? Then why do you want to steal the food from the stove? Isn't it that the Fan family's grain store can earn more money? Do you know that the Fan family colluded with Jiannu and sold grain to Jiannu outside the pass, which is a serious crime to kill the nine clans?" Gao Shixin sneered.

"It's unfair, it's really nothing like this." Lai Laosi kowtowed and begged for mercy. The charges of colluding with Jiannu and killing the nine clans scared Lai Laosi so much that his pants were wet. He could not bear these charges.

"No such thing? Then you say, what kind of holiday does the stove owner have with you? Why did you snatch salt and even have to snatch food? If there were no these stove owners, where could your private salt come from?" Gao Shixin asked again.

"It's just that the grass people are too greedy. They are not greedy for robbing the salt of the stove households, so they robbed their food." Lai Laosi defended. He did not dare to be involved in the Fan family anyway. Not to mention the crime of colluding with Jiannu to kill the nine clans, it would be a matter of just asking the Fan family to confess it. With the power of the Fan family, it would be a matter of being able to kill him, Lai Laosi's family.

Gao Shixin turned around and ordered: "Except for the brother-in-law of Yancheng County Magistrate, all the rest will be beheaded!"

"Give me your life! Your lord!" A group of salt deers and private salt dealers knelt down and begged for mercy.

The Jinyiwei ignored these people's begging for mercy, dragged them down one by one, pulled out the Xiuchun sword and chopped the head.

"Good kill!" Seeing that these salt diced people who bullied themselves on weekdays were beheaded by the Jinyiwei in a blink of an eye, the stove households applauded. Especially those salt diced people, when they represented the government and legal salt merchants on weekdays, they came to collect salt and charged heavy taxes to the stove households. After a few days, these salt diced people transformed into private salt dealers, who came to the door to suppress the price, or even robbed! The stove households had long hated salt diced people.

Gao Shixin turned to Zhang Zhan again and said, "This hero is very skilled! Are you willing to join the Jinyiwei and follow me?"

When Zhang Zhan heard this, he was surprised but worried. The surprise was that by joining the Jinyiwei, he could get rid of the stove household registration that was only a little higher than the cheap and slave household registration. Joining the Jinyiwei would be a military household, but the Jinyiwei is a special military household, and he is much taller than ordinary military households! But the Jinyiwei's reputation is so smelly. If you join the Jinyiwei for ten miles, will you be pointed at the nose and scolded by your descendants?

Gao Shixin seemed to see through Zhang Zhan's thoughts and said with a smile: "Zhang Zhuangshi, you may think the Jinyiwei is a bad person, but do you think we are a bad person? Our Jinyiwei is just targeting corrupt officials and never bullying the people! The reason why we have such a bad reputation is that it is because there are too many corrupt officials killed, so that we are slandered by the gentry?"

Zhang Zhan knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Gao Shixin: "Caomin is willing to join the Jinyiwei and swear to be loyal to the superiors!"

"Okay!" Gao Shixin helped Zhang Zhan up, "I have another powerful general!"

The stove households were no longer afraid of the Jinyiwei, and they all walked up one after another, knelt in a circle, shouting at Master Qingtian.

Gao Shixin turned to Xu Xianchun and the others and said, "Brothers, let's go and see the homes of these ordinary people!"

When they walked into the village where the stove owners lived, the Jinyiwei was stunned by the scene in front of them: they saw a piece of tattered thatched huts, all piled up with weeds and mud. A lot of mud had dried and fell down. There were traces of newly mud in some places. The roofs of the tattered thatched huts were leaking. Once it rained, they could not sleep at all. Fortunately, there was little rain here, otherwise it would not be a salt field.

Zhang Zhan's home is in a dilapidated scene, the dilapidated thatched hut and the dust on the walls have fallen off. The thatch on the roof has obvious black marks caused by long-term leakage. Apart from a large iron pot used to make salt, there is no furniture, and it is really a waste of the house.

There was not even a bed, and a few pieces of earthen bricks were raised. There was a wooden board on it, which was the bed. There was no bedding, only a pile of straw mixed with rotten cotton, and a layer of rag on the outside. This was their quilt.

"I didn't expect that the lives of the stove households were so hard!" said a Jinyiwei.

The Jinyiwei has seen poor families, and they have also seen many farmers in the north, but the lives of the stove households are more difficult and difficult than those farmers.

In fact, the stove households in the Ming Dynasty were the group of people living at the bottom of society. Although the craftsmen and military households were hard, they could still barely live; although the Lehu and slave households were the lowest, the Lehu would not live too badly, at least they still had some money in their hands and lived a better life than the farmers. However, they had been lowly for generations and could not participate in the imperial examinations and would never be an official; as for slave households, they had the lowest status, and the master had the power to kill them. However, the slaves in the Ming Dynasty were generally domestic slaves, living in wealthy families, there was definitely no problem with food and clothing, and their lives were better than ordinary farmers. Without making any mistakes, the master could not kill them at will. After all, slaves were also bought with money.

In fact, the generals' servants are also slaves, but those slaves live much better than ordinary soldiers. The head of the family equips them with the best armor and the best weapons, and the food and military pay are paid in full.

Therefore, when people like slaves and lower-class people in the Ming Dynasty, their lives are actually not too bad.
Chapter completed!