Lin Shiyi didn't care what Zhu Ying did to get food. He threw his gold and silver to the South Seas, bought spices and tobacco leaves, and headed north to Hangzhou Port for trade.
This time, eight grass-mud horses survived. As soon as they arrived in Hangzhou, they went ashore to show off, attracting countless onlookers at the pier.
As soon as the spices were sold, an official from the Ministry of Justice came to the door and asked: "Lin Qianhu, there is a group of prisoners who have been sentenced to move to the far east. Can they be loaded onto a ship and taken away directly?"
"So urgent?" Lin Shiyi asked, "How many people are there? What have they committed?"
An official from the Ministry of Justice said: "Sixty to seventy, half men and women, burned the merchants' looms."
Lin Shiyi said with a smile: "You just destroyed some looms, but you are exiled to the far east. Your sentence must be too harsh."
"If the sentence is not harsh, this trend may get worse," said an official from the prosecutor's office.
Before the physical school improved machines, the textile industry had two production models: agglomeration and decentralization.
Concentrated production naturally involves merchants purchasing machines and inviting workers to gather together for weaving. This is actually not a mainstream business model.
Decentralized production is the mainstream!
First there are capitalists, called "accounting houses", who purchase cotton and cotton yarn in large quantities.
Then there are contractors, called "clients", who sign contracts with capitalists and receive cotton and cotton yarn from the capitalists.
Then there are the common people, called "weaver households", who receive cotton or cotton yarn from the contractor, and use their own machines to spin cotton into cotton yarn and cotton yarn into cotton cloth at home. The products are handed over to the contractor, who then
The contractors are handed over to the capitalists.
Finally, there are merchants, called "contract sellers", who buy cotton cloth from capitalists and sell it. Some capitalists are also responsible for selling it themselves.
The advent of improved manual machines and steam engines gradually broke this conventional production model. Contractors directly lost their livelihood, and scattered weavers either cut off their livelihoods or were hired to work in factories.
In addition, capitalists are greedy. In order to reduce costs and seize the market, they crazily squeeze workers at the bottom.
So? The workers' guild was born!
Are these workers' guilds secretly organized? They even need to form blood alliances to discuss unity against the capitalists? Their demands are nothing more than a raise in wages - the slave revolution in the late Ming Dynasty also started with societies? Do slaves form secret associations? Unite
They rose up together to fight against their masters. When the struggle was fierce but did not resort to violence, the slaves in the entire city did not work, and the gentry and rich had to chop wood and cook their own meals.
As steam engines gradually became more popular, only a few of the "owners" class who were contractors became factory owners. Most of them didn't know what to do. They began to sneak into workers' unions, instigate workers to cause trouble, and even gradually became union leaders.
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Not long ago, a factory owner in Huzhou Prefecture bought more than a dozen steam engines. He planned to eliminate all the previous improved hand-spinning machines and announced the layoff of some redundant workers.
The workers were already dissatisfied with their treatment. Now they were in danger of being laid off. As soon as someone with ulterior motives provoked them, an operation to destroy machines immediately broke out, gradually affecting most of Huzhou Prefecture.
In the end, a factory was directly burned down, and more than 20 workers were burned to death.
This was definitely not done by the workers? They just wanted to improve their own salary. If they really ruined the factory, they would also lose their jobs.
After searching again and again, we could not find out who the real murderer was.
The capitalists in Huzhou Prefecture were frightened. In order to scare the monkeys, they simply banded together and framed the workers who usually complained the most, bribed the government to convict them of being arsonists, and asked the Zhejiang Provincial Inspectorate to exile these people to America.
This case is equivalent to the Ming Dynasty version of the "Luddite Movement."
Lin Shiyi despised capitalists in his heart, but he was too lazy to say anything after collecting the freight. Anyway, Wang Shangshu had an immigration task every year, and these dozens of workers could still supplement the immigration amount.
But just when Lin Shiyi was handling the handover, Zhejiang Inspector Ouyang Zhong suddenly came over and said with an angry face: "Lin Qianhu, send someone immediately. This case is full of doubts. I want to take these workers back for retrial!"
Lin Shiyi smiled and said: "I don't care. You can figure it out for yourself as Chasi. Don't involve our Jinyi Haiwei in this."
"Thank you for your cooperation." Ouyang Zhong said, clasping his fists.
Ouyang Zhong was a Jinshi in the third year of Zhengde, a good friend of Yang Shen, and a junior promoted by Yang Tinghe. Historically, Yang Shen was exiled to Yunnan, and Yang Tinghe died of illness when he returned home. It was Ouyang Zhong who begged for mercy, and Jiajing allowed Yang Shen to go home for the funeral.
Regardless of faction, only in terms of talent and character, Ouyang Zhong can be said to be selfless, capable ministers and officials.
The promotion of steam engines in the south of the Yangtze River caused an impact on ordinary weavers. Countless weavers could no longer subsidize their families, and ordinary people's lives became more difficult. In addition, a large number of fertile fields were replanted with cotton, and a series of "cotton cannibalism" incidents were staged. These are all
Ouyang Zhong was heartbroken, believing that the steam engine was destroying the perfect society of "men farming and women weaving".
Taking advantage of this factory arson case, Ouyang Zhong plans to severely punish the capitalists!
Lin Shiyi sold out all the goods shipped from Nanyang, and purchased goods to sell in Liaodong. Just as he was about to set sail, the workers were sent again and asked him to take them with him for distribution to America.
Ouyang Zhong was so angry that he vomited blood. He resisted the pressure from the capitalists and just found some clues in the case. Suddenly, an order from the court came: he promoted Zuo Qiandu to be the censor, immediately patrolled Yunnan, suppressed the chieftains An Quan and Feng Chaowen.
Rebellion!
Yes, the rebellion in Guangxi has not been completely suppressed, and the chieftains in Yunnan have begun to rebel again.
Ouyang Zhong had served as deputy inspector in Yunnan and was familiar with the situation in Yunnan. With Yang Tinghe's support, he immediately got the job of governor of Yunnan.
The case could not be retried. The rebellion in Yunnan was serious, and Ouyang Zhong had to go to Yunnan immediately to take up his post. He quickly completed the handover, and on the way to his post, he wrote a thousand-word memorial aboard an official ship on the Yangtze River: "Yi Mian Shu"
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In this memorial, Ouyang Zhong elaborated on the local situation and analyzed the rise of the steam engine, which brought about the boom of the cotton textile industry. The traditional small handicraft industry was destroyed, cotton fields excluded grain fields, and grain prices continued to rise. The common people were already suffering.
The cotton cloth produced by steam engines has long been in short supply domestically, so it can only be shipped and sold overseas.
"All the benefits of cotton cloth belong to merchants, and the common people get nothing. The higher the price of cotton, the more cotton fields; the lower the price of cloth, the higher the price of food. The prolific cloth in the south of the Yangtze River is sold overseas, and the profits are huge.
How can the people of Kyushu be added to it?"
"Disasters are suddenly coming, grain merchants are in trouble, grain prices are skyrocketing, and ordinary people are working hard all day long with nothing to eat. As a result, people are starving and dying everywhere, and people are eating each other, just like the end of the world. Cotton eats people? Machines eat people? They all eat people with huge profits! That's right!
To suppress cotton and suppress business, please Your Majesty to impose more cotton classes and business classes..."
Ouyang Zhong was relatively sensible and knew that it was impossible to ban steam engines, but the development of capitalists must be restrained. He suggested that the court raise taxes on cotton fields, and then increase the commercial taxes on cotton yarn and cotton cloth so that capitalists could not earn such high profits.
Huge profits will naturally be able to effectively prevent the conversion of grain fields into cotton fields, and can also increase the court's tax revenue.
Yang Tinghe received this memorial and took it to the cabinet for discussion: "What do you think?"
Yang Yiqing said ambiguously: "Increasing taxes should be done with caution."
Mao Ji directly objected: "I don't think it is possible."
"Why not?" Jiang Mian supported it.
"Let's put it aside for now." Wang Qiong said.
Regarding this matter, factions do not play a role. There are two different views within Yang's party.
Mao Ji opposed the increase in cotton tax simply because he was from Shandong, and Shandong is a major cotton-producing province. Mao Ji had cotton fields at home, his clan also had a large number of cotton fields, and his relatives and friends also grew cotton. How could he support the increase in cotton taxes?
Tax?
Jiang Mian is from Guangxi, where there is not a strong commercial atmosphere. Purely considering the national economy and people's livelihood, he hopes to increase cotton field taxes and cotton cloth-related commercial taxes.
Although Yang Yiqing is originally from Yunnan, his family has long settled in Zhenjiang. Zhenjiang is located on the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal transportation artery. It is a typical commercial shipping city. It doesn't matter whether the cotton tax is increased or not. He just hopes that there will be no trouble caused by the tax increase.
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Wang Qiong opposed the increase in cotton taxes, and his starting point was even simpler, because Wang Yuan was the largest cotton manufacturer in the country, and he was afraid that supporting the tax increase would offend Wang Yuan, a popular figure in the imperial court.
As for Yang Ting and himself, he actually supports tax increases, and he has no interest in it.
However, Mao Ji is Yang Tinghe's confidant. Will the forced tax increase arouse Mao Ji's resentment? Yang Tinghe had to consider this. His first thought was to unite his party members.
The cabinet had different opinions on this, and it was unknown who leaked it. The contents of this memorial actually spread, arousing a strong response from the courtiers.
A large number of civil servants have requested an increase in cotton taxes. They have long been disgusted with the phenomenon of "cotton eating people"!
There are also people with ulterior motives who point their fingers at Wang Yuan and the growing school of physics.