Chapter 70: Collusion between officials and businessmen
"Sir, please let me go. I have a sixty-year-old mother at home to take care of!"
The man who was arrested was called Gou Si, a street thug in his twenties who had not yet married. He had no brothers or sisters and only an elderly mother at home.
The official said impatiently: "If you don't go, will your mother go? Refining salt is not a life-threatening job, what are you afraid of?"
Gou Si had no words to express his suffering. A friend of his also went to work in the salt field. He heard that he could earn dozens of taels of silver if he worked there for half a year. But he had been there for seven or eight months and had not come back.
Later, when Gou Si was playing dice in a gambling house, he suddenly found that someone had pressed a jade pendant, which turned out to be his friend's.
This thing is a relic left to him by his friend's father. That guy values it more than his life and there is no way he would give it to anyone else.
Gou Si paid attention to the man and found the new boots his friend bought when he left! There was a yellow word embroidered on the boots, which he would never mistake. Even if he could lose the jade pendant, could he also lose the shoes?
A bad thought arose in Gou Si's mind, and he felt a chill on the back of his neck. He guessed that his friend must have died in the salt field.
Now the official suddenly came to him and wanted to take him to the salt field, how could he dare to go!
Gou Si burst into tears: "Please let me go, what will happen to my mother if I go?" The weather was getting colder and there was not much rice and flour left at home. If he went to the salt field, his mother would definitely not survive.
The officer no longer pretended and said viciously, "Don't waste time with him. Knock him out and take him away. We need to catch forty of them today to complete the mission. We are still short of seven or eight more."
Before Gou Si could call for help, he was knocked unconscious by a stick and dragged by several people to a wooden cart nearby, which was already packed with men and women.
These people had ropes tied around their bodies and rags stuffed in their mouths. They looked like pigs waiting to be slaughtered, with their eyes wide open in fear, not knowing where the carriage was taking them.
Song Yuzhu angrily followed the carriage and saw that they captured several more people along the way. Only after they had captured forty people did the carriages leave the city.
As it got darker, the screen gradually went darker. Song Yuzhu recognized that this road led to the salt field in the suburbs. When he wanted to see what was going on, a message suddenly popped up saying that today's viewing time had expired and he was asked to come back tomorrow.
It turns out that this map has a time limit.
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty..."
Song Yuzhu suddenly woke up, opened his eyes, and saw the eunuch standing beside him and said, "Your Majesty, it's time for dinner."
Unconsciously, he had been looking at the map for two hours. The long time of looking at it made Song Yuzhu dizzy. He rubbed his eyebrows tiredly. Something must have happened in Dongzhou.
"Bring up the dinner."
The man in the video said that he was being sent to the salt field by the officials. Aren't there refugee workers in the salt field? Why did they also arrest ordinary people?
Song Yuzhu frowned and drank a bowl of soup before putting down his chopsticks. The eunuch saw that he looked unhappy and thought that today's dinner was not to his liking, so he immediately asked the kitchen to bring in a few more plates of snacks.
"I have no appetite, take them all away." Song Yuzhu couldn't eat until he understood what happened in Dongzhou.
After washing up, Song Yuzhu took off his clothes, lay on the bed, and opened the map of Dongzhou again to find the location of the suburban salt field.
The video was first pitch black, then gradually a flicker of fire appeared in the distance. He manipulated the video to move towards the light and finally found the salt field.
By the light of the fire, he saw thousands of civilians boiling salt in the salt fields.
These people included both men and women, most of them had pale faces and were skinny. They were guarding a large pot of boiling salt, constantly burning the fire and stirring it.
There were more than ten supervisors patrolling with whips in their hands. If they saw anyone slacking off, they would whip him, and the person's skin would be torn to pieces!
Suddenly, a skinny teenager fell down. The supervisor walked over cursing and whipped him a few times with a whip, but the boy still didn't move. He sniffed his breath and found that the boy was dead.
"It's so damn unlucky, another one died!"
The supervisor next to him said, "Aren't there a truckload of people being transported in from the city today? Hurry up and change them."
"It's a lot of work to discipline new people, but it's not as easy to discipline these zombies."
"Okay, be content. If we refine more than 100,000 stones of refined salt by the end of this month, Lord Zheng will reward each of us with 500 taels of silver, plus two beauties."
Speaking of beauties, both supervisors smiled lewdly.
"I heard that these beauties were bought back from Jiangnan. They are all fair-skinned and beautiful, and -"
The supervisor pointed to his chest with both hands and said, "It's white and soft, and feels like a big white steamed bun."
Another supervisor swallowed and said, "Just listening to you makes me uncomfortable."
He cracked his whip and shouted, "Everyone, work hard! No one will eat until we refine 50 tons of salt tonight!"
Song Yuzhu turned his attention to other places. There were dozens of sheds like this where salt was refined all night long, and dead bodies were constantly being dragged out during the process.
Some were beaten to death, some died of exhaustion, and the dead were dragged to a large pit nearby and buried. Judging from the size of the pit, it is conservatively estimated that there are thousands of people buried here...
Song Yuzhu was so angry that she was shaking all over. It had only been a few months and Dongzhou had become like this!
"Someone, turn on the light!" Song Yuzhu turned off the video and got up from the bed in anger.
The eunuch on duty was startled when he heard the noise and hurried in carrying a palace lantern.
"Your Majesty, are you going to get up to sleep?"
"Go get some writing brush and ink, and send someone to ask the messenger to come into the palace and wait. I have an urgent letter to deliver!"
"I'll go right away!" The eunuch did not dare to delay and trotted out of the bedroom. He hurriedly ordered the eunuchs who were on guard outside to get pen, ink, paper and inkstone and summon the messenger into the palace.
Song Yuzhu lay on the table and wrote furiously. In his anger, the brush almost pierced the paper. He wrote a two-page letter and ordered someone to rush it for 800 miles to Zhao Xiao, asking him to thoroughly investigate the Dongzhou Salt Field!
*
It was more than ten days later when Zhao Xiao received the letter. He had failed to capture Yang Yuanji's surrender and was now leading his troops back from Yunnan.
After receiving an urgent report from the Emperor, I thought something had happened in the capital.
When he opened the letter, he found that something went wrong at the Dongzhou Salt Field.
The letter said that officials and businessmen colluded with each other and disregarded human lives. They forced ordinary people to work in salt fields day and night to boil salt. If they died of exhaustion or illness, they would be buried in pits nearby.
Song Yuzhu ordered him to get to the bottom of the matter at the salt field, and Gong Yangqing and others could act first and report later if necessary. It seemed that this matter made Song Yuzhu very angry.
When they left Dongzhou, the area was managed by Grand Marshal Gongyang Qing, and they did not receive any unusual news from Dongzhou for a year.
On the contrary, the salt sold better and better, and the salt tribute increased from 200,000 taels of silver per month to 450,000 taels. A few days ago, Song Yuzhu verbally praised a group of officials in Dongzhou, thinking of rewarding them at the end of the year.
Now it seems that the salt was probably made at the cost of one's life.
After reading the letter, Zhao Xiao carefully put it away and ordered the army to immediately change route to Dongzhou.
*
"Sir, please try this tea. It is a Pu'er golden gourd tea sent from Yunnan. It costs three hundred taels of silver and one penny. There is no market for it."
Gong Yangqing picked up the teacup and took a sip. He felt the fragrance of tea filling his mouth, and the sweet aftertaste made him salivate.
"Good tea." Gong Yangqing put down the teacup.
Zheng Jia smiled flatteringly and said, "My Lord, if you like it, I'll have someone bring you some more."
"No one comes to visit you for no reason. What do you want to do today?"
Zheng Jia said: "To be honest, I heard that General Fuguo won a victory and changed his route from Yunnan to Dongzhou."
He made friends with many powerful people in the salt trade. He had ears and eyes on all sides, and was extremely cautious. He was aware of any slight disturbance.
"Puff!" Gong Yangqing was so scared that he spat out a mouthful of tea.
Zheng Jia quickly handed him a handkerchief and wiped it: "Don't panic, sir."
How could he not panic! The scene of the emperor ordering the killing of Prefect Qian was still vivid in his mind. Now he accidentally climbed onto Zheng Jia's pirate ship. If he was discovered, he didn't know how miserable his death would be!
Gong Yangqing walked back and forth in the room with his hands in his pockets: "Why did he suddenly come to our place? Did the news about the salt field leak out?"
Zheng Jia shook his head: "Impossible, the people I sent to arrest were all people without relatives and we did it quietly, there is no way it could get out."
"Then why did he change his route to Dongzhou?"
Zheng Jia said: "Maybe he came to see how the road repair is going?"
Gong Yangqing did not dare to tamper with the road construction. The civilians sent to build the road strictly followed the orders from above. He was not afraid even if the general of the state came.
Gong Yangqing's face looked a little better: "If they are here to build the road, it will be easy to deal with. We can just deal with it casually."
Zheng Jia looked around the dazzling array of antiques and treasures in the study and said, "Your Excellency should not take it lightly. If they are heading for the salt field, we should make preparations in advance. Pick up and pack up the things that should be put away in the mansion, and I will clean up the salt field."
"You just need to take care of the salt works and don't let him find out anything."
After Zheng Jia left, Gong Yangqing immediately asked the servants to put all the valuable things in the mansion into the warehouse, move out the old furnishings, and rearrange them.
In order to be conservative, he even sent his new concubines to farms in the countryside and brought them back when they were out of the spotlight.
*
On the other side, Zheng Jia also drove towards the salt field in a carriage.
In the salt field, the workers numbly added firewood and stirred the salt grains in the big pot. They didn't know that disaster was about to come, or that such a life was already disaster.
Zheng Jia reached out and lifted the car curtain. Through the swirling white mist, he saw those skinny people without a trace of pity in his eyes.
It is hard to imagine that he was one of these refugees a year ago, but now he holds the lives of these people in his hands.
"Master Zheng, you are here!" The chief supervisor ran over to greet him.
Zheng Jia waved at him, and the leader leaned over to listen. When he heard his words, his eyes widened in surprise.
"Hey, there are so many people and no one is left?"
Zheng Jia turned the ring on his thumb and said, "If anyone says something wrong if we stay here, we will all die."
"I understand!" The leader drew the long knife from his waist and immediately summoned all the supervisors. Since they could not be spared, they would be killed!
The people were tied up hand and foot with ropes by the supervisors, like a string of grasshoppers, unable to break free or escape.
Hundreds of supervisors took up knives and killed all the people like slaughtering cattle and sheep. They spent a whole day chopping them to death, and then dug a pit on the spot to bury them.
The weather was cold, and the bodies buried in the ground would not rot for a while. In order to avoid being discovered, Zheng Jia also ordered people to build two pig pens on the filled pit, so that the smell of pig manure could cover the smell of blood.
The salt field was replaced by tenants from Zheng Jia's farm. He promised these tenants that as long as they kept the secret, he would reward each of them with ten taels of silver.
Ten taels of silver was simply too much for these tenant farmers! They worked hard to farm the land for a year but could not even earn one tael of silver.
Everything was arranged properly, and the army led by Zhao Xiao arrived in Dongzhou on the tenth day of the first lunar month.
Gong Yangqing brought a group of officials to greet them at the city gate early in the morning.
As soon as they met, Gong Yangqing smiled and bowed to him from a distance, saying, "General Fuguo, how are you?"
(End of this chapter)
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