SWDnovel Chapter 30 The Madness of the Jiangnan Gentry!
Chapter 30 The Madness of the Jiangnan Gentry!
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The Gu family of Songjiang is the most prominent family in the entire Jiangnan region.
His family had been officials for generations, with disciples and friends all over the country. They owned tens of thousands of acres of fertile land, as well as countless shops and shipping companies.
In Jiangnan, the Gu family's reputation was even more effective than that of the emperor.
At this moment, the atmosphere in the Gu family's council hall was extremely tense.
The head of the household, Gu Xiancheng, was an elderly man in his sixties with a gaunt face, sitting in the main seat with a livid expression.
Below, the seats were filled with representatives of gentry from Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou and other places.
They were the most powerful and wealthiest people in the Jiangnan region.
"Gentlemen, let's all speak. The Regent Prince in the capital is holding a knife to our throats. What should we do?" Gu Xiancheng spoke slowly, his voice hoarse.
"What else can we do? Fight him!" A hot-tempered wealthy businessman from Hangzhou slammed his fist on the table and stood up. "He wants to survey our land and collect our taxes; isn't that tantamount to taking our lives?!"
"Fight? How can we fight?" A local gentry from Suzhou sneered. "Haven't you heard? Those tough guys in Shuntian Prefecture are all dead, their graves are overgrown with weeds! That Regent Prince has a living ancestor by his side, and he has divine abilities. Who dares to go head-to-head with him?"
"But... but we can't just sit here and wait to die!" the wealthy merchant exclaimed anxiously. "Half of my family's silk business relies on overseas smuggling. Now he's going to lift the maritime ban, establish a Maritime Trade Office, and require all ships to register and pay taxes. How... how are we supposed to survive?"
A chorus of sighs and lamentations immediately filled the hall.
These people, who usually live a life of luxury and oppress the local people, rely on loopholes in the imperial laws and collusion with local officials.
Now, Zhu Zaiyi's new policies—land survey, the Single Whip Law, and lifting the sea ban—have all precisely struck at their Achilles' heel!
This is going to sever their roots!
"What kind of behavior is this, crying and sobbing like this!" Gu Xiancheng shouted coldly, and the hall instantly fell silent.
He slowly stood up, his gaze sweeping over the crowd.
"That guy in the capital is determined to target our Jiangnan region to enrich his national treasury."
"A head-on confrontation would certainly lead to certain death. But there's absolutely no way we'd surrender!"
A sinister glint flashed in his eyes.
"He has his brilliant plan, and I have my own way out."
"He wants to survey the land, doesn't he? Fine, let's let him do it!"
"He wants to collect taxes? Fine, let's let him collect them!"
Everyone was stunned upon hearing this.
"Mr. Gu, what do you mean by this?"
Gu Xiancheng sneered: "If he wants to measure the land, we'll report all the barren, unproductive land. We'll hide the fertile, high-yield fields, calling them sacrificial fields, school fields, or charitable estate fields. According to ancestral rules, these lands are tax-exempt!"
"If he wants to collect taxes, we'll just increase them layer by layer, multiplying the taxes the imperial court wants to collect tenfold, and then distribute them all onto those peasants! When public resentment boils over, let's see how his new policies will be able to be implemented!"
"Isn't he going to lift the maritime ban? Let's unite and go on strike! All merchant ships must not sail! All shops must close! Let's see how Suzhou and Hangzhou can ever prosper again! If he can't collect taxes, how will he support his army!"
A series of wicked schemes came out of Gu Xiancheng's mouth.
The gentry present listened with increasingly bright eyes.
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!
They won't openly confront you, but they'll secretly trip you up and make things difficult for you, preventing all your policies from being implemented effectively!
When that happens, the people will suffer, commerce will decline, and the national treasury will be empty. The court will naturally blame those who implemented the new policies.
They don't even need to lift a finger; the officials in the court who dare to criticize him can drown Zhang Juzheng with their spittle!
"Wonderful! Wonderful!"
"We admire Elder Gu's profound wisdom and foresight!"
Everyone stood up and bowed to Gu Xiancheng.
"That's not enough." Gu Xiancheng waved his hand, a more crazed glint in his eyes.
"We need to give him a tougher hit."
He lowered his voice and said, enunciating each word clearly:
"Didn't he send Qi Jiguang with 30,000 'New Policy Supervision Army' south?"
"We'll find a way to ensure that these 30,000 troops never return!"
"What?!" Everyone was shocked. "Old Master Gu, have you gone mad? Those are the imperial army's elite troops! To plot against the imperial army is a capital crime of treason!"
"What are you afraid of?" Gu Xiancheng sneered. "Who said we had to do it ourselves?"
"I have already contacted the remaining forces of the White Lotus Sect, as well as the bandits in Taihu Lake. They hate the imperial court to the core."
"All we need to do is provide them with some money and provisions, some weapons, and tell them the marching route of the supervising army..."
"When the government troops suppress the bandits, they suffer heavy casualties. We won't be held responsible for that, will we?"
The hall was deathly silent.
Everyone was shocked by Gu Xiancheng's madness and viciousness.
This means they're going to completely break ties with the imperial court!
Seeing that the crowd was still hesitating, Gu Xiancheng added the final push.
"Gentlemen, at this point, we have no way out!"
"Either we watch helplessly as the family fortune accumulated by generations of our ancestors is devoured bit by bit by that brat!"
"Or, let's take a gamble!"
"As long as we prevent his new policies from being implemented, as long as we plunge the court into chaos, we'll have a chance to restore everything to its original state!"
"Let's do it!"
Finally, the wealthy businessman from Hangzhou was the first to stand up, his face contorted in a ferocious expression.
"He wants to cut off our livelihood, so we'll take his life first! I'll offer 100,000 taels of silver for Qi Jiguang's head!"
"I'll do it too! I still have hundreds of sets of armor and weapons hidden at home; I'll bring them all out for the heroes of Taihu Lake to use!"
Count me in!
Incited by Gu Xiancheng, the gentry, driven to the brink of despair, unleashed their final frenzy.
A massive conspiracy targeting the new policies, the supervising army, and even the entire Ming Dynasty, is quietly unfolding in Jiangnan.
What they didn't know was...
While they were plotting.
Zhu Zaiyi, far away in the capital, was standing in front of that huge map of the Ming Dynasty.
His finger gently touched the three characters "Suzhou Prefecture".
"Grand Ancestor," he said without turning his head.
"Hmm?" Zhu Di, who was resting with his eyes closed, opened them.
"My grandson thinks the scenery in Jiangnan must be quite nice."
"Sir, would you like to make a personal trip to the south?"
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