A few days later, Wu Shigong went to the powder shop again. It turned out that Li Xin was not used to other maids coming to serve her, and asked to buy the maid who used to serve her. Wu Shigong was a good man and went to ask Li Pengfei again to get Li Xin.
Xin's maid was also bought from the Jiaofang Department.
When they sent the maid to the powder shop, she didn't expect that Li Xin would burst into tears. She had just heard that her father had died in prison. The little girl was quite pitiful. So Wu Shigong ordered Zhao Ruya to
After taking good care of Li Xin, she left with a sigh.
The storm in the court is getting bigger and bigger. Wei Zhongxian's party has a comprehensive advantage. However, differences of opinion have also emerged in the Wei party. A few people such as Xue Lian have expressed their willingness to control the scope. However, the absolute majority in the Wei party
Most people hoped to expand the scope of attacking Donglin Party officials, which caused fierce disputes within the Wei Party. In the end, Wei Zhongxian accepted the opinions of the majority. He hoped to take advantage of this opportunity to completely attack Donglin Party officials.
Party officials were swept away in the court. At most, to take care of Xue Lian's face, several officials who were entrusted by Xue Lian were dismissed from office.
Li Chengzuo, the Marquis of Fengcheng, once again stood opposite Xue Lian in this internal dispute within the Wei Party. In addition, the two of them had several disagreements in the Beijing camp, which made Xue Lian's relationship difficult.
The mood was very unpleasant. Unexpectedly, Xue Lian heard that his younger brother and Li Chengzuo were walking very diligently. Therefore, these days, Xue Lian felt as if he had been fed gunpowder and got angry again and again.
But in the Xue Mansion, Xue Lian and Mrs. Zhang were deeply in love, and Xue Yufei was the apple of Xue Lian's eye. Therefore, the glorious post of punching bag fell to Wu Shigong. Therefore, Wu Shigong often treated some banquets in the evening.
I attended in person. I tried my best not to appear in front of my father-in-law Xue Lian.
On that day, President Lin of the horse racing company hosted a banquet for Wu Shigong and gave Wu Shigong the first sum of money for cleaning up the ruins of the house. At the banquet, President Lin brought a guest named Zhang Chunyu.
Zhang Chunyu is from Tongzhou, and he also has some industries in Tongzhou. Moreover, he is a local snake in Tongzhou. He is familiar with both the Grand Canal shipping guild and the road transport car and horse dealers. Zhang Chunyu is also a flexible character.
With him here, the atmosphere of the banquet seemed very lively.
After drinking for three rounds, Zhang Chunyu told Wu Shigong the reason for his visit. It turned out that Zhang Chunyu, through Chairman Lin, knew that Wu Shigong was the commander of the Nancheng Army and Horse Division, and the soldiers guarding the Nancheng gate were also Wu Shigong's men.
But this time, the Nancheng Military and Horse Division requisitioned the carriages from the Carriage and Horse Company. When these carriages left the city, they were pulling ruins. When they were entering the city, some of them were pulling materials for building houses, and some were empty.
Zhang Chunyu knows many merchants who transport goods to the capital through the Grand Canal. Among these merchants, some without any background have to pay a heavy entry tax at Chongwenmen Customs when they enter the capital. Therefore, Zhang Chunyu asked Wu Shigong today to find out.
In this situation, can these vacant carriages entering the city be used to transport these commodities into the capital? Moreover, it is best to waive part of the city entry tax.
Wu Shigong understood clearly that what Zhang Chunyu wanted to do was smuggling. Wu Shigong was also a little funny in his heart. Does the circulation of domestic and foreign goods in a city in the Ming Dynasty require smuggling?
Wu Shigong thought about it carefully, and there was absolutely no problem in using an empty carriage. But how to go into the city to evade taxes had to be explored first. So Wu Shigong did not agree immediately. Wu Shigong told Zhang Chunyu that if anything happened, he would ask Lin Hui
I'm going to inform Zhang Chunyu.
When he arrived at the Bingma Si Yamen the next day, Wu Shigong found Zhang Kequan and asked him to advise him on what he should do.
After Zhang Kequan heard this, he analyzed it with Wu Shigong and said: If Wu Shigong just wants to put some products in here and there, then it is not a big problem. Even if other people know about it, they will turn their eyes. But if Wu Shigong puts in too many quantities, it will not be a big problem.
If so. No matter how strict the people of the Military and Horse Division are, so many goods that have not paid the city entry tax have entered the capital, and the people at the Chongwen Gate Customs and the factory guards are not vegetarians. When the time comes, Wu Shigong must
A large part of the profit was used to silence them. But if something happened, Wu Shigong would have to shoulder the responsibility alone. From the perspective of gains and losses, there was little point in doing this.
However, Zhang Kequan came up with another idea to Wu Shigong. He asked Wu Shigong to simply tell Xue Lian about the matter, and asked Xue Lian to seek Wei Zhongxian's consent. Because Wu Shigong did not buy the tools to clean up the ruins, but Wu Shigong himself.
Money? Wei Zhongxian must know about it because of those IOUs.
If Wei Zhongxian agrees, this will be regarded as compensation to Wu Shigong. Then Wu Shigong will have no risk in doing this. If Wei Zhongxian does not agree, Wu Shigong has not lost anything.
It was indeed a good idea. Wu Shigong felt that it was different to have Zhang Kequan as his assistant. In Wu Shigong's modern memory, the masters seemed to be shaking paper fans behind officials and coming up with bad ideas. But after seeing Zhang Kequan's performance, he
I really understand that in the Ming Dynasty, the master was indeed an indispensable right-hand assistant for any official.
So Wu Shigong told Xue Lian about this. Although Xue Lian often scolded his son-in-law for no reason, in his heart, he felt sorry for Wu Shigong. In order to prevent his son-in-law from suffering, Xue Lian made a request to Wei Zhongxian
.
After Wei Zhongxian listened to the request, on the one hand, it was to compensate for not accepting the opinions of his old brother Xue Lian; on the other hand, Wei Zhongxian also remembered Wu Shigong's contribution in this political struggle, and he had not rewarded him yet.
Therefore, Wei Zhongxian decided to allow all the items contained in the carriage that allowed Wu Shigong to enter the city without paying the city entry tax. However, this rule only ended at the end of the year.
Of course, the external explanation is that in order to reduce the burden on the victims, the emperor exempted the materials used to build the houses of the victims from the city tax. How to operate the specific situation was left to Wu Shigong himself.
After Wu Shigong received Wei Zhongxian's decision, he was overjoyed. He was going to make another windfall. But this could not be done in a big way. Wu Shigong's other close associates now have jobs in their hands. And these days, Zhou
Wu Shigong, who is following me on patrol, is very tight. Then give this young man a chance.
So Wu Shigong called Zhou Xun over and asked him to take charge of this matter. Then Wu Shigong called in Zhang Chunyu and President Lin and negotiated that the goods entering the city should be handed over to the Military and Horse Division at 60% of the city entry tax.
After that, Zhang Chunyu hurried back to Tongzhou to contact customers and prepare to open the business.
During Zhang Chunyu's return to Tongzhou, Wu Shigong took the time to check out the training of the gambling guards. Unexpectedly, the few veteran military leaders from the Beijing camp who were responsible for the training did not follow Wu Shigong's requirements at all. They trained these gambling guards.
The guards were very strict about getting off the horse, but they did not conduct any formation training at all.
When Wu Shigong pointed out this point, the military leaders retorted plausibly: None of the Ming Dynasty troops trained formations like my uncle.
Although Wu Shigong didn't know the role of the training queue, at this time, Wu Shigong insisted on his opinion just for the sake of face. He announced to these veteran military leaders: Each veteran military leader would be given an extra twenty taels of silver every month.
It’s hard work. But the queue training must be done according to the requirements. Wu Shigong will come to check often in the future.
Now, these old military leaders have no voice. Who will be at odds with Yin Zi?
August came in a blink of an eye, and Xue Lian, who had been in a bad mood, suddenly became ecstatic because his daughter Xue Yufei was pregnant.