Wang Mingquan was a scholar and a wealthy gentleman from Qihe County, Jinan Prefecture, Shandong Province.
His family has extensive property in Huadian Township, Qihe County, with 220 hectares of farmland alone. As for rice shops, oil shops, and cloth shops, there are countless them. The entire industry in Huadian Town, Huadian Township, is ten thousand
Qi Ba belongs to Wang Mingquan. Wang Mingquan was a well-known figure in Huadian Township.
Even in the entire Qihe County, who doesn't know Wang Mingquan? Even if the county magistrate sees him, he must be polite and call him Wang Gong.
Wang Mingquan is in his fifties, has a wife, seven concubines, and five sons and four daughters. He lives a comfortable life and has no worries at first. But over the years, the world situation has made Wang Mingquan more and more worried.
Tatars and bandits were what Wang Mingquan was worried about. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the Tatars once attacked the city of Jinan Prefecture and almost broke through the county seat of Qihe County. Wang Mingquan hid in his house in the county seat and experienced a lot.
It was a thrilling feeling. In order to strengthen the city defense, Wang Mingquan donated one hundred taels to the county magistrate to reward the army.
Although one hundred and twenty cents is a small amount, which is a bit embarrassing to say, everyone is like this these days. During the defense of the city, other wealthy people in Qihe County donated even less. Whoever donated more was looked at like a fool.
He. Those who are getting rich these days are the kind of people who will let the sky fall and not make any effort.
However, the Tatars came and went without any danger. On weekdays, it was Li Zhi from Tianjin who frightened Wang Mingquan the most.
Li Zhi collected business taxes and exploited the gentry in Tianjin, let’s not talk about it. The key point is that Li Zhi collected land taxes from the gentry in Tianjin, which cut off the lifeblood of the gentry. Without free empowerment, which farmer would invest his land with him?
Dedicated to the gentry?
After Li Zhi collected taxes from the gentry in Tianjin, Wang Mingquan heard that the gentry in Tianjin had reduced land rent to the same level as land tax in order to retain their land, and their incomes plummeted. He heard that many gentry could not support their families because of this.
People, they got rid of all the servants and maids. What’s even more exaggerated, even the concubines were sent out because they couldn’t afford to keep them.
What Li Thief broke is the lifeblood of the gentry in the world.
Not only that, Li Zhi also published newspapers and competed with the gentry for control of public opinion.
Let’s talk about things in Huadian Township. In Huadian Township, only Wang Mingquan has the right to speak. What Wang Mingquan says is the law! Which of the scholars in Huadian Township was not trained by Wang Mingquan’s ethnic studies?
People either work as accountants in the Wang family's shop, or work as rent collectors in the Wang family. Which one doesn't rely on Wang Mingquan's business to make a living? Which one doesn't rely on Wang Mingquan as his boss?
What these people say and discuss is the public opinion of Huadian Township. After all, the public opinion of Huadian Township is not based on the change in Wang Mingquan’s face. If Wang Mingquan scolds one person, the whole township will be scolding him the next day.
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Those farmers have never left Huadian Township in their lives and have no knowledge. Why don't they just follow the public opinion of scholars?
It is this kind of control over public opinion that allows Wang Mingquan to live a comfortable life, while small farmers have to pay heavy taxes and eat chaff.
Li Zhi's newspapers were published in Tianjin and could not reach Shandong. But if a copy entered Shandong, it would undoubtedly be burned by the Shandong gentry. But what Wang Ming never expected was that Li Zhi actually asked for the imperial edict and went to Shandong
Come publish "Shandong Daily".
Is this going to turn upside down?
When "Shandong Daily" was sent to the tea shop in Huadian Township, Wang Mingquan was surprised. Are you kidding me? Wang Mingquan of Huadian Township has been saying this for decades. Could it be that from today on, there will be one more inciting peasant to overthrow him?
His own voice? His first reaction was to take people to burn the newspaper and beat up the newspaper reader at the tea shop.
At that time, a huge crowd of farmers were listening to the newspaper in the tea shop, surrounding three floors inside and three outside. The farmers originally came to the tea shop to listen to the news and hear about world affairs, but in the end they saw Mr. Wang lecturing people. Wang Ming was completely taken aback.
In front of hundreds of farmers, he slapped Mr. Zhang, the tea shop owner, twice. At that time, Wang Mingquan said harsh words:
"Old man Zhang, if you hire someone to read the newspaper again, I will tear down your tea shop!"
But what happened next developed in the direction that frightened Wang Mingquan the most.
Li Zhi from Tianjin actually mobilized more than 10,000 soldiers to Shandong, saying that he was "under orders" to run a newspaper. Li Zhi stationed a hundred soldiers in each county.
Li Thief's soldiers are like wolves and tigers, and even the Tatars are afraid of them. A hundred soldiers came to the small Qihe County, wouldn't they cost the lives of the gentry in Qihe County?
On December 17, three soldiers of Li Thief rode to Huadian Township with two copies of Shandong Daily. They personally handed the newspapers to the tea shop owner, Old Man Zhang, and asked Old Man Zhang to read the newspaper boldly.
Old man Zhang didn't know what he had eaten to make him so courageous that he went into battle on his own and read "Shandong Daily" in front of the farmers in Huadian Township.
When Wang Mingquan came to the door with a hundred servants, the tea shop was already full of people. Old man Zhang was reading an editorial article "Why are the people of Tianjin so rich?" Wang Mingquan heard the sentence "In the final analysis, the reason why the people of Tianjin are so rich"
The reason for not eating the chaff and drinking the thin water is because we collected taxes from the gentry and exempted the small farmers from taxes." He was so angry that his hair almost stood on end.
He waved his hand, and a hundred servants rushed forward, knocked Old Man Zhang to the ground, and surrounded the three Li thieves.
At that time, one of Li's soldiers pulled out a steel sword and rushed out of the siege, riding a horse to the county town to escape. The remaining two Li's soldiers were captured by Wang Mingquan and tied up.
Wang Mingquan tied Old Man Zhang and the two soldiers to the flagpole in the middle of the market, and in front of all the farmers in the township, he wanted to whip Old Man Zhang and the two soldiers of Li Thief to death. He sent his servants to each village.
Call people and let all the farmers come and see what will happen to old man Zhang when he takes refuge with outsiders and reads newspapers in Huadian Township.
As the Wang family's servants called from door to door, more and more farmers gathered in the market. The ragged farmers looked at Mr. Wang in fear and at Old Man Zhang who was tied to the flagpole. No one dared to speak loudly.
Wang Mingquan stood in the middle of the crowd and said loudly: "I asked everyone to come to the market today just to bear witness. Let everyone see if there is still a king's law in Shandong and see if there is a place for Li Thief in Shandong."
"This old man Zhang, together with Thief Li, read the heinous daily newspaper, and he should be executed for his crime. I will have him whipped to death today!"
"I will beat these two thieves of Thieves Li to death, so that Thieves Li will know that our Shandong Province is not unmanned!"
How do the farmers know why these three people died? Anyway, Mr. Wang said that these three people would be beaten to death, so these three people would definitely have no chance of survival. The farmers looked numbly at the execution ground in the middle of the market, and no one spoke.
, just waiting to see Mr. Wang’s servant executed.
Wang Mingquan waved his hand, and a strong servant walked up with a whip and whipped Old Man Zhang hard.
Old man Zhang let out a scream, a very shrill scream.
The people who were watching looked at the waving whip, with a look of fear on their faces. Everyone secretly said that they must listen to Master Wang, so that one day they would not be caught and whipped to death by Master Wang like this.
Everyone was scared there, but suddenly they heard the sound of rolling horse hooves coming from the east.
The sound of hoofbeats was rolling. It didn't sound like it was coming from one or two horses. There were at least dozens of horses galloping at the same time to make such a sound. The sound of horse hoofs seemed to be stepping on everyone's heart.
People feel anxious and restless. It's like thunder in spring, as if it wants to break through the dull and sinking sky.
I don't know who it was, but suddenly shouted in the crowd: "Uncle Xing Guo's soldiers are coming!"
