Chapter 438: Take Mount Tai and laugh at the last

On June 25, 16th year of Chongzhen, the Zhou royal family began to be dismissed in Kaifeng's palace. Unlike the vassal kings in other places in the Ming Dynasty, the Zhou king made a difference and exploited relatively lightly. Compared with the Fu King in Luoyang City, it was even more in the sky and underground, and the people in the city also had feelings for him.

Seeing that the Zhou royal palace was surrounded by Shandong soldiers, there were quite a few villagers in Kaifeng City who went to the barracks of the Guerrilla Yuan Shizhong in Guide. However, they were all turned away.

The 6,000 people led by Yuan Shizhong came to Kaifeng City. The officials and civilians of Kaifeng had a good impression of this army from Henan but belonging to Shandong. Because of the strict military discipline and the lack of harassment of the people, this was extremely rare, but in the matter of King Zhou, it was not humane at all.

The fellow villagers in Kaifeng petitioned once or twice. The thoughts of Duke Li Meng of Qi are already known to everyone. The Zhu family and him are really incompatible. The petition expressed their attitude. Since the other party did not agree, these people in Kaifeng City were unwilling to continue to persist, so as not to suffer from the disaster.

Everyone in this world has such a reality, especially in such a chaotic end of time, where everyone still regards their lives as important.

After the servants were dismissed from the Zhou royal palace, there were only a few servants who were like family members in the mansion. The servants did not leave. The Zhou princess, the princess, the concubines, and the children and grandchildren were only 20 people in total.

Now no one is willing to pass by the royal palace in Kaifeng City. Shandong is closely guarded, and no one is involved in passing that place and are suspected.

Judging from this situation, it is impossible to say when Shandong soldiers and horses will attack the Zhou royal palace. At present, we must do superficial things. If we get closer and are caught as a scapegoat, we will regret it. For such things, residents living in the city are always much more alert.

On June 27th, even the noble residences around the Zhou royal palace were emptied. The owners of these residences went to live elsewhere for various reasons, but they were unwilling to get close to them and caused this trouble.

On June 28, more than 2,000 Shandong soldiers stationed around the Zhou Palace came for a major investigation, searching the neighbors and nearby mansions of the Zhou Palace, and most of the houses were empty. Seeing this situation on the empty houses, they moved away quickly. Some people left behind family servants who looked at the scenery. When they saw the actions of Jiaozhou Camp, they were all glad that they had moved away.

On the evening of June 29, a fire suddenly ignited in the Zhou Palace in Kaifeng City. The fire light soared into the sky and reflected the night sky red. The fire was too big.

More than 2,000 soldiers stationed next to the royal palace had no time to extinguish the fire. Although the young and strong people in the city were temporarily mobilized to put out the fire, most of the mansions around the royal palace were empty, which wasted time. By the time the large group of people arrived, the fire in the royal palace could no longer be controlled.

Many people were alarmed by the fire. They stood up in the middle of the night and looked at the fire. Even if people who had never experienced the fire saw such a fire, they understood that such a fire. Even if the stones were burned to ashes inside, Shandong was really ruthless. The Zhou family is so pitiful!

But thinking about His Royal Highness Fu, who was scraped by a knife in Luoyang City, mixed with venison and served wine to the refugee army, was lucky.

And some people think more. If it weren’t for their Zhu family’s over-examination of levies and causing the people to live in poverty and the army of refugees to rebell, how could this situation be like today? It can only be said that the situation is changing and the fate is so pitiful, it’s a pity, it’s a pity!

On June 30th, Shandong soldiers and horses intensified their inspections in the city and sent fast horses to Guide Mansion. The two regiments of Yanzhou Army, where Guide was replaced were prepared to prevent changes.

But Kaifeng City was unexpectedly calm and the burning of the Zhou Palace. To everyone's eyes, it seemed a natural thing. What Duke Li Meng of Qi did was impossible to tolerate a member of the Zhu Family. Kaifeng City even benefited a lot from the burning of the Zhou Palace.

For example, the Zhou Palace covers a large area and is burned by a fire. Although the fire was put out in the early morning, the ruins still have remnants of fire. The entire ruin also requires a large number of young and strong laborers. Jiaozhou Camp also paid silver and copper coins in real terms. Everyone is nervous now, which is a great thing.

After Kaifeng City began to return to normal living conditions, the city gates were wide open, and the water and land were open, and a large number of supplies were transported from the waterway. There were also civilians living on both sides of the Yellow River between Guide Mansion and Kaifeng City, and the news began to become more informed.

The fire broke out in the middle of the night in Kaifeng Zhou Palace almost in July, almost half of the people in several provinces in Zhili, Shandong, and Zhili in the north were known.

This was also beyond the expectations of the Shandong military. I originally thought that such a move would make many people disgusted, and the literati would set off another wave of attacks. Who would have thought that everyone's reaction was so light and ignored it at all. Moreover, in the later news from further places, provinces with Ming vassal kings such as Shanxi, Huguang, and Jiangxi were quite applauding this matter.

In the Ming Dynasty, except for the vassal kings who went out of the city to worship, they were surrounded by the city and were not allowed to go out in the rest of the time. There was only a sky above their heads. The place where they could move was this city. Except for the capital, Nanjing, Kaifeng, Xi'an and Suzhou, the rest of the cities in the Ming Dynasty were quite small.

After generations of affliction, it is difficult to not be perverted. How to vent these emotions in your heart is to harm the people in addition to drinking and sex.

It may be a joke. Local vassal kings like wine and sex, and are generally praised by the court, and are called honest, because they are addicted to wine and sex, at least they will not harm the center of the court. As for greed for money and exploitation, local officials have no way to deal with it. Often, a large number of rogues and evil people surrender to the vassal states, rely on their power to occupy the land, and force good people to the people. The local area is suffering and the people live in poverty.

Even if these vassal kings kill people in the city, they are not within the jurisdiction of local officials. It is no exaggeration to describe them as lawless.

The vassal kings were so harmful to the place but could not restrain them, so they stood on the opposite side of everyone. Not only the people were disgusted and hated, but even the local literati, the great families, and even the local bureaucrats also hated them deeply. The King of Zhou could not be said to be a bad person in Kaifeng City, and even did many good things.

But the Zhou family has never left the city. Anyone who hears this encounter with the Zhou king will mostly substitute the local vassal kings, and they must have cheered loudly.

Something about Yuyang, Yanzhou Prefecture City can explain this attitude more specifically. At present, the Lu Palace is completely enclosed in Yuyang City. The fertile fields of Wangzhuang outside the city were "measured" under the name of the Tuntianzhuang, and some ordinary people benefited from it.

Back then, the Lu Palace did some serious things on the ground of Yanzhou Prefecture. In July, the news of the burning of the Zhou Palace reached Shandong. Someone cursed outside the Lu Palace in the middle of the night, saying that why did you bastards not look for a torch to ignite yourself, making the people of Yuyang happy?

The Lu Palace was silent and did not dare to react. They were really afraid of offending the killing god in Shandong, and were accidentally "fired" at night.

Few people noticed that the day after the fire broke out, there were 500 fewer soldiers in Shandong surrounding the Zhou royal palace. At the same time, a fleet of food transported began to sail and returned to Shandong from the Yellow River along the canal.

Two of the large ships are claimed to be made using the manufacturing technology of the Dafu ship. Their current size is due to the limitations of the river. If this is not the case, the ship can be made even larger.

Such a ship sailed upstream to the Kaifeng City Ferry, which made Kaifeng City amazed. No matter how you look at it, it was not used to transport food, but to show off Shandong's strength.

The two amazing big ships are indeed not used to transport grain. After the ships who came to Kaifeng City in Shandong, they often have to bring some specialties from Kaifeng City, such as the gold and silver treasures in Kaifeng City, and some materials stored in the large warehouse.

But the two ships are not loaded with cargo or grain now, but are loaded with the King of Zhou and his family. To be on the safe side, they did not allow them to walk on the deck from Kaifeng City to the downstream Yifeng. After passing Yifeng, they had already entered the Shandong Bingma Control Area. Naturally, they breathed a sigh of relief.

The Zhou family, who had been bored and bumpy for several days, walked onto the deck. The vassal king was the second only to the emperor in the Ming Dynasty. It was inevitable that the whole family would take any extreme actions to plunder the Zhou family of Zhu Gongzi.

On the deck, everyone was staring at each other. If someone walked to the side of the boat, someone would dissuade him. However, it was obvious that the people who were accompanying him were worried too much. Everyone was extremely excited, and there was no sorrow or despair of losing the glory and wealth.

The people from the Shandong Salt Gang and the personal military camp who were accompanying each other exchanged information and found that the people from the Zhou royal palace were already excited when they were in the cabin.

The time required for boating on the Yellow River is very long. You can feel fresh in the first few days on the boat, and the days will be quite boring. The people in the Zhou palace, from the Zhou king to the young grandson of the Zhou king, seem to have not seen enough, giving people the impression that they have never seen anything on the market.

It was so happy in the cabin. After arriving at the deck, everyone was not satisfied. Even when it was time to eat, they were asked to bring the meal up and were unwilling to go down.

These people from Shandong understand completely what to see in this boring scenery on both sides of the straits. It takes four or five days to get from Kaifeng City Ferry to Guide Mansion. It is incredible that it has not been seen enough for such a long time.

When we arrived in Guide Mansion, the King of Zhou and his family had to eat dinner on the deck. Fortunately, it was summer and the weather was suitable.

Moreover, the superiors had already given instructions to serve the King of Zhou and not neglect the situation. The dining table was also filled with delicious wine and delicacies, and there was nothing short of anything.

The King of Zhou drank a few more drinks this day and said a lot, but this sentence made the soldiers and spies on the ship understand why the King of Zhou and his family were so excited to see the surroundings.

"I originally thought that my children and grandchildren could only see this sky in Kaifeng City and drink the water in Kaifeng City, but I didn't expect that one day I could escape from this big prison and see the different scenery between the world. It was really favored by God."

Although the vassal kings and royal families were extravagant in the city and could do evil, their ancestors were surrounded by a place for generations and could never come out, and this situation would make people crazy.

This is also the reason why the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty were so crazy and made all kinds of unreasonable actions. They did not feel that they were enjoying it, but that they felt that they were suffering. They did not care about the survival of the Ming Dynasty. Over the long period of time, another form of ban had made them angry and even wanted to perish with this empire. Perhaps King Fu was unwilling to pay a penny to help with the salary. Perhaps King Chu was angry at Zhu Yuanzhang’s imperial chair, which was a manifestation of this emotion.

There is a ridiculous inference, that is, the city where the vassal kings are located is larger, and their mental state will be normal, such as the Qin King in Xi'an and the Zhou King in Kaifeng, but their ancestors have been enclosed in a city for generations, they must be more eager for freedom than prisoners in prisons. Because people with a little rationality are unwilling to be banned in any form, they all want freedom, at least they have the same freedom as the people.

It was almost July 17th, and after the Zhongyuan Festival, the two ships arrived in Jining Prefecture. The person sent to receive them was Kong Sande. Kong Sande was the style of a great nobleman when dealing with people and was probably suitable for the family of this vassal king. Kong Sande brought Li Meng's inquiry.

The Zhou Wangfu family is willing to go to Jinan City in Jining Prefecture. Jining Prefecture is the best city in Shandong, while Jinan City is the central area.

Of course, this is just a suggestion for the Zhou royal mansion. All cities in Shandong are under the control of Li Meng. If King Zhu Gongye of Zhou is willing to go to any city, Li Meng can be satisfied and ensure that the food and clothing cost will not be inferior to the original Zhou royal mansion.

In addition, Li Meng also promised that if the prince of the Zhou king and several concubines wanted to do some practice, Jiaozhou camp could make arrangements. For Li Meng, these weak Zhu family royal families would not cause any storm. It would be better to let them assimilate in the atmosphere of Shandong.

King Zhu Gongzi of Zhou had a simple idea and his answer was very affirmative. They were willing to live in Jinan City, but they hoped that the Duke of Qi could let their father and daughter meet frequently.

Li Meng had already allowed this request. Kong Sande naturally agreed to it quickly and had a good hospitality. He also allowed the interesting King of Zhou and his family to visit Jining City and nearby scenic spots for a few days. This was how people were arranged to send them to Jinan City.

Before leaving, Kong Sande still respectfully called Zhu Gongyi as His Highness, King Zhou. After hearing this title, Zhu Gongyi smiled and said freely:

"Now, the Zhou king Zhu Gongyi and his family are all dead in Kaifeng City. What else is the Zhou king? Well, hosted by Kong, I... my woman's surname is Mu, and of course our family's surname is Mu. If we meet again in the future, call me Mr. Mu."

After saying that, King Zhu Gongye of Zhou laughed with a hint of relief, and his expression was very relaxed and comfortable. Kong Sande was stunned when he heard this and laughed out loud.

A fire broke out in the Zhou royal palace, and the Zhou royal family safely took a boat to Shandong. This news was regarded as the second-class important news, and it was also rushed to Jinan City. At the same time, in addition to Shandong Xuanyang, Shandong, Hejian Prefectures in southern Zhili, Jiangbeidi and northern Zhili also made a mobilization trend.

After this news spread, no one dared to judge the local reaction. Of course, this incident was not expected to be so extreme, but at this time, the Jiaozhou Camp was still quite afraid of the central authority of the Ming Dynasty and did not expect a storm to arise because of this incident.

Duke Li Meng of Qi rarely used the power of Shandong to do something private for him, but this time it was an exception. When he went to the inner house, Li Meng also joked with Mu Yunyao:

"For my father-in-law's family, I risk being scolded by scholars all over the world. Yun Yao, we are reunited this time and we will never have any worries anymore."

Although Li Wu has been weak since he was born, he was born in a wealthy family and was treated by famous doctors. He used various precious medicinal materials and ingredients at will, and his body grew up normally.

This made Mu Yunyao relax a little. Women with children are naturally very different from girls in the past. Mu Yunyao also became much more steady. Hearing Li Meng say this, the last stone in Mu Yunyao's heart fell to the ground. At that time, she was holding the child and she was about to stand up to salute and thank him.

Mu Yunyao was weak and Li Wu was still a baby. This action scared Li Meng, and he quickly reached out to stop him, and then teased and comforted him again.

Zheng Zhihu, the second leader of the Zheng family in Minhai, has been in Shandong for almost four months. Every day, he goes to the gate of Duke Qi to ask for help, but he is coldly blocked and comes back.

Mr. Zheng Er had never been so angry before, but he had to bear it. During this time he stayed in Shandong, Zheng Zhihu really re-recognized the situation in Shandong.

The representative of the Bamin Commercial Bank in Jinan City was scolded by Zheng Zhihu several times, and he had sent someone to send a letter to Zheng Sha from Nanzhili to ask him to replace the representative of the Bamin Commercial Bank in Shandong. Only in the hinterland of Shandong did he know how powerful Shandong was. Faced with such a powerful and wealthy Shandong, he could not accurately convey the news to the main family. This led to the leader Zheng Zhilong making a wrong judgment, which made the Zheng family in such an embarrassing situation. What's the use of such a person?

If this representative is not his own cousin, Zheng Zhihu might have to draw his sword and chop people. Zheng Erye is becoming more and more anxious. Looking at the current situation, if Shandong soldiers crossed the Yangtze River, the Zheng family would have no bargaining capital at that time.

He planned to write to his elder brother, Zheng Zhilong, the leader of the Zheng family in Minhai, if the Duke of Qi still did not see him in July, and let him see him in person.

If you say that this matter is really at a loss, Zheng Zhihu really encountered a situation of darkness and brightness. On July 13th, Duke Li Meng of Qi sent someone to tell him.

Zheng Zhihu was really ecstatic when he heard this news. He hurriedly recorded several precious treasures in the semicolon of the Bamin Commercial Bank stationed in Jinan, preparing to use them as a meeting gift.

During this period, the Zheng family had been sending people to send treasures and gold to the Bamin semi-colon in Lingshan Private Port. Then the Bamin semi-colon was sent to Jinan City for the purpose of Zheng Erye for favors.

In fact, the reason why Li Meng wanted to see Zheng Zhilong was very simple, because on June 29th, Ning Gangui visited him in the evening.

The relationship between Li Meng and Ning Gangui was extraordinary. When Li Wu was born, Ning Gangui also sent a big gift and rushed to Laizhou area because of the tight demand for copper materials for casting cannons and copper coins. Ning Gangui was already preparing to go to Lingshan Private Port and buy copper materials with various maritime merchants.

The copper material is thick and heavy, so it is definitely not as good as loading more fine goods on the ship to make money. There may not be any willingness to do this business everywhere, but the copper coins are charged at high prices. First, the market is not smooth, and the Jiaozhou Camp has not deducted too much, but the matter of casting cannons cannot be delayed. Each regiment has three three-pound cannons. This number is too large, and the city defense of Kaifeng City also requires artillery. These require a large amount of copper material.

Ning Gangui had already made plans and was ready to accept the loss. After all, the general Li Meng had a requirement, that is, military industry first, and to try every means to ensure the normal operation of the military construction site in any case.

Li Meng had no knowledge to deal with the shortage of copper materials and the high value of copper coins on the market, because this was almost in the category of economics. When Ning Gangui left Jinan, Li Meng also specifically reminded him:

"There is no shortage of copper materials, and this is not your fault. You just need to prepare enough copper materials. Let's discuss the other consequences later."

This is to make Master Ning feel at ease, and Li Meng is also ready to lose money, but this day is only a dozen days, that is, Master Ning arrives at Lingshan Private Port and returns immediately. What urgent matters are there that makes the Shandong storekeeper so anxious!

Although it was evening and the family was reunited, Ning Gangui arrived and Li Meng still came out to meet him. After all, it was a matter of business and was vague.

Seeing Ning Gangui's appearance, Li Meng was shocked again. Ning Gangui was in a high position for many years, holding a huge amount of gold and silver wealth. He was no longer the same as the master in the past, but also majestic and respectful, and had the cultivation of a great man. But I don't know why this state of ecstasy is for today.

"Master, there is copper, there is copper!!"

Ning Gangui's voice was trembling. This was really a good fortune. When Jiaozhou Camp was short of copper, a local merchant from Shandong came back from Japan by trafficking a large amount of copper materials. What a lucky thing.

It turns out that Japan is the place where copper is produced, and the price of copper is so low, which is really a blessing for Jiaozhouying. However, Jiaozhouying does not have enough maritime transportation capacity to travel between Shandong and Japan. Even the large amount of copper materials this time were transported back by Zheng's fleet.

Jiaozhouying currently has an extremely huge demand for copper materials. It is not the current offshore fleet of Jiaozhouying that can be transported by the transportation site. At present, only the Zheng family's fleet has the ability to transport such a large amount of materials on the sea surface of East Asia.

According to Li Meng's idea, he had to continue to hang the representative of the Zheng family for a period of time. Although the two sides were separated by two or three provinces, they could not effectively attack each other, but under the current circumstances, Jiaozhou Camp has an advantage in all aspects and completely overwhelmed the Zheng family in Fujian.

The Zheng family was a pirate, and the punishment for internal punishment was always bloody and cruel. The scared bow immediately sent the money back to Zhou Jihai. Zhou Jihai was already very good this time, so he naturally didn't care about his little silver. Moreover, he was indeed transported by a ship, and the money was spent to be practical, so he did not take it back at all. He scared the bow even more and more. He borrowed a silver from the people of his fleet and sent it to Zhou Jihai. If he had collected it, Zhou Jihai would have earned hundreds of taels back on this trip.

Zhou Jihai and the bow of the boat were inexplicably pushed each other and refused. If Ning Gangui had not taken him to Jinan with him, the entanglement would have continued.

The children of Shandong merchants who went there were also regretted it because Shandong and Japan had to take the Zheng family's ship back and forth, and many of them came back with Zhou Jihai.

Some people bought lacquerware, some bought swords, and smart people exchanged a lot of gold with the silver they brought. However, there were restrictions on this item in Tokugawa Shogunate, so they could only make a small payment. The goods everyone brought looked much more profitable than the copper material pressed by Zhou Jihai on the bottom of the bilge.

These people were waiting to see Zhou Jihai's joke. Even if this ship of copper material was returned to cast into copper coins, the expenses of craftsmen in the craftsmen in the craftsmen would only double the profit. But the key to the problem is that the Ming Dynasty strictly prohibits private minting, and Shandong even bans them by severe laws.

Moreover, the metal forging and casting masters were almost all concentrated in the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau. Everyone knows that Zhou Jihai almost threw all the money from his house in this trip, and there was no spare money to recruit craftsmen and build workshops. The premise was that he didn't want to lose his head, so these coppers would not be used to cast copper ware for sale.

Not everyone can observe that the high value of copper coins on the market is due to the large amount of copper materials needed by the weapons manufacturing bureau.

Not everyone is determined to use such a large amount of gold and silver to purchase copper materials, and is ready to give it to the Jiaozhou Weapon Manufacturing Bureau even if it is given for free. This kind of bet is a hero.

Zhou Jihai observed that Zhou Jihai dared to make nearly 20,000 taels of silver to make a fortune. Now he has succeeded. This trip to Japan, the heaviest batch of goods has achieved the greatest benefits. Those who want to watch Zhou Jihai’s bankruptcy jokes were stunned. It is too late to know that this copper material is rich.

Everyone knows that the next trip must be Lingshan Trading Company going to Japan with a large sum of gold and silver. At that time, except for Zhou Jihai, they should be able to make a little cheaper.
Chapter completed!