In the meeting hall of the Grand Canal General's Mansion, various gods expressed their concerns.

"If they abolish the grain transport, our Governor's Office and the General's Office will definitely be abolished!" The officials of the two offices were trembling with anger. "It's okay for us officials, the court has to arrange a place for us to go. But who will support the hundreds of thousands of grain transport workers in the Governor's Office, the tens of thousands of grain transport workers in the General's Office, the tens of thousands of craftsmen in the Qingjiang Shipyard, and their families? The court or the Jiangnan Group?!"

They are definitely the ones who are most affected and most directly affected.

"Yes, our counties along the river have prospered for hundreds of years thanks to the canal." Officials from Xuzhou and Huai'an, as well as officials from Linqing, Jining, Dezhou and other places in Shandong, also sighed and said:

"If the canal transportation stops, the canal will soon be clogged, and our dozen or so prefectures will be deserted and all industries will decline. The people will face hard times..."

The only drawback is that the officials from Yangzhou did not come, and even less so from the officials along the Yangtze River to the south. It is said that the Jiangnan Group drew a big pie called "Jiangnan Economic Mutual Assistance Zone" and bewitched those short-sighted guys.

What a bunch of idiots who only care about the present. Don’t they know that the canal is the solid crop that can be sustained for generations to come?

What? They are officials who serve a three-year term? Well, I hope they will be removed from office and investigated soon.

However, Cao Ke, the military governor of Tianjin, not only did not come in person, but also did not send a representative. What does that mean?

Oh, Tianjin is the terminal of sea transportation, and in the future, the grain transported by sea will be transferred at Dagukou, so Tianjin will be completely prosperous. If he dares to come to participate in the alliance to protect the grain transport, he will be slapped to death by the elders of Tianjin when he returns...

Selfish and cowardly. Ugh, disgusting!

~~

"Damn it, that kid named Zhao is really going too far!" After the grain transport and local officials finished complaining, it was the turn of the nobles to express their gratitude.

"We, the marquises and earls, sound glorious, but the court doesn't treat us as human beings. We are not allowed to inherit the title before the age of 24 or 25, and we can be fined or deprived of our salary for any reason. Our family of hundreds of people depends on the grain transport for support. The Zhao people even want to take away our little income. They are forcing us to death!" Nanhebo Fang Yingqi said as if he had lost his parents.

"That's right. His Jiangnan Group is so rich, but it still wants to snatch food from our mouths! Does he think that we, the nobles of Nanjing, are sick cats just because the tiger doesn't bite?" The Earl of Dongning, whose surname is Jiao and whose given name is Wen Yao, angrily replied.

The Ming Dynasty began transporting grain to the north in the first year of the Yongle reign. The grain transport system was established by nobles and has been controlled to this day.

The first officer in charge of the grain transport was Chen Xuan, the Earl of Pingjiang during the Yongle period. He served as the governor of the grain transport for 30 years and single-handedly built all aspects of the grain transport in the Ming Dynasty. After that, Chen Xuan's children and grandchildren successively served as the generals of the grain transport for two more terms. Now his seventh-generation grandson, the contemporary Earl of Pingjiang, Chen Wangmo, also serves as the deputy general of the grain transport. After Zhenyuan Marquis Gu Huan retires, he will most likely take over.

Before Gu Huan, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Canal Transport was also controlled by nobles, or to be more precise, nobles from Nanjing, without exception.

Because of the Jingnan Campaign, the Ming nobles were divided into two groups, the northern and southern factions. Most of the northern faction were the heroes of the Jingnan Campaign, and they all went to Beijing after Zhu Di moved the capital.

The southern faction mainly consisted of those nobles who were conferred titles by Emperor Taizu and who stood on the side of Emperor Jianwen during the Jingnan Rebellion. Zhu Di naturally disliked them, but they were loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty after all, and they were related to each other, so Zhu Di couldn't kill them.

So after the capital was moved, they were all left in Nanjing, and a blind eye was given to them. This group of Nanjing nobles, led by the Xu family of Duke Wei, lived a stable life in Nanjing. In addition to the Nanjing Five Military Commanders' Office, the Grand Canal Transport Commander's Office was another private land that the court tacitly allowed them to settle their children and make extra money.

Now the Jiangnan Group has actually extended its hand to their private plots, how can the nobles not jump up and down? Therefore, as soon as the General's Mansion sent an invitation, they rushed from Jinling to Huai'an.

The only drawback was that the old master Xu Pengju was too ill to come, and his son Xu Bangrui refused to come on the pretext of taking care of him. This inevitably made them feel less confident.

~~

Fortunately, however, the eunuch Chou, the garrison commander of Fengyang, also came. This completely offset the negative impact of the absence of Duke Wei's mansion and boosted everyone's morale a lot.

In addition to serving the imperial mausoleum, managing the Zhongdu imperial city, and training the eight guards and one troop of the Zhongdu Liaison Office, the Fengyang garrison eunuch was also responsible for monitoring all military and political affairs within the jurisdiction of the Fengyang governor.

Therefore, the eunuchs guarding Fengyang also had the responsibility of supervising the grain transport for the emperor. Their authority was second only to that of the eunuchs guarding Nanjing outside the capital.

In fact, like the eunuchs in charge of Nanjing, the eunuchs in charge of Fengyang were also external officials of the Imperial Household Department. When the eunuch in charge of Nanjing was absent, the eunuchs in charge of Fengyang would basically take over.

Therefore, only those who have a say in the emperor's affairs can take up this important position. The eunuch Qiu, who is now in charge of Fengyang, holds the nominal position of the eunuch who holds the pen, and is also the sworn brother of the eunuch Teng, who holds the seal of the Imperial Household Department. He speaks for the Canal Transport Office, so naturally it is easy for him to get his words to the emperor's ears.

It is said that kings do not meet kings. Eunuch Qiu usually stays in Zhongdu City and will not come to Huai'an easily. This time he also came here rarely, and it is obvious that his interests have been severely affected by the transportation of grain by sea.

This is not difficult to understand. After all, Fengyang is a good place. Since the emergence of Emperor Zhu, there has been famine for nine out of ten years. Looking at the jurisdiction of the eunuchs guarding Fengyang, the canal is the most profitable. The annual income from this place alone is almost as much as the total of all the other places.

Although Eunuch Qiu remained silent, like Marquis Zhenyuan, just by sitting there he was showing great support to the Cao Party.

~~

In addition, there are seven or eight big businessmen, most of whom made their fortunes from the canal.

Although the cost of grain transport was three or four times that of regular grain, the transporters still complained bitterly and deserted frequently. In order to ensure the safety of grain transport, the court could only provide relief to the transporters and allow the grain transport ships to "carry local goods and be exempt from taxes and banknotes"... In other words, the grain transport ships were allowed to carry commercial goods, and they were tax-free.

Mr. Zhao said that he also wanted one, but it had to be from the sea.

So the grain transport ships played the role of merchant ships, and later even developed to the point where they mainly transported goods and also transported grain, putting the cart before the horse. With the support of the terrifying transportation capacity of thousands of grain transport ships, the Grand Canal became the most important commercial circulation artery in the Ming Dynasty, and the grain transport office became the largest logistics group in the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the world has suffered from the canal transportation for a long time, and merchants have also suffered from it for a long time. Year after year, the freight rate has continued to rise, and they have to pay extra tribute to the canal transport soldiers, otherwise the goods will be knocked around, flooded and lost.

If sea transportation is opened, merchants will have another option for north-south freight transportation, which they will certainly be eager to do. So at least most merchants are actually willing to see this situation.

But these big businessmen present here are different from the traditional sedentary or traveling merchants, but rather unique grain transport contractors.

The so-called canal transport contractors are merchants who act as agents for the allocation of canal shipping capacity.

Later, because the profits from this were so high, they soon exceeded the profits from the canal transportation itself, and the canal transportation office simply brought all the ships on the canal under its jurisdiction.

The Canal Transport Office was extremely overbearing. Without their permission, even if you had your own boat, you could not cross the canal. If you wanted to obtain the right of passage, you had to purchase it from these contractors.

Those who can become "Cao Bao" are all well-connected people, belonging to the core of the Cao transport interest group. The difficulty of becoming a "Cao Bao" is no less than becoming the chief salt merchant in Lianghuai.

Therefore, even though Wu Ji Coach and Horse Company had already managed to carry goods from north to south in recent years, it still had to be honest and spend huge sums of money every year to purchase the canal passage rights from the "Cao Bao".

Although most of this income had to be turned over to the Canal Transport Office, the Canal Contractors still accumulated a huge amount of wealth. They also relied on the great power brought by the "contracting power" to buy a lot of industries along the canal, and their interests spread to important commercial cities along the canal, such as Tongzhou, Tianjin, Jining, Linqing, Huai'an, and Yangzhou.

If the canal was marginalized, their losses would be too great. Even the subcontracting rights that supported their survival would become worthless. This was something they absolutely could not accept.

~~

The leader of these Caobao merchants was named Song Xiaoming. He was the one who provided the detailed information about the Jiangnan Group.

Even this meeting was held under his strong encouragement. Otherwise, given the stupidity of these officials and eunuchs, even if they felt the threat of sea transportation, they would not have come together so quickly to discuss countermeasures.

The reason why Song Xiaoming was so active was that besides being the grain transport agent, he had another identity - the manager of Hengtongji, the largest money house in the Ming Dynasty.

Hengtongji has a history of one hundred years. Its main shareholders are the grain transport government and Nanjing nobles, and the grain transport managers also have shares in it.

The Grand Canal runs through the most prosperous economic zone of the Ming Dynasty. Hengtongji has unique advantages in foreign exchange and savings business, as it is backed by the two canal transport prefectures. However, it has been doing half-heartedly, and scandals have often broken out, making its reputation very bad.

If it weren't for the mandatory regulations of the Canal Transport Office that all money transactions of canal merchants must be handled through Hengtongji, this bank would have closed down long ago.

This is not surprising. Given the nature of those grain transport officials and nobles who could increase the grain transport cost to four times the regular grain cost, it would be strange if they could do well in a business like money houses, which is characterized by oligopolistic competition and high professionalism.

Finally, thirty years ago, after Hengtong suffered serious losses, the General of the Grand Canal and the Governor of the Grand Canal finally made up their minds and spent a huge amount of money to poach Song Xiaoming, the manager of the Huai'an branch of "Wanyuan" at that time, to take the helm of Hengtong.

This manager Song was a business genius who was very decisive and ruthless. Before he took office, he made three rules with the shareholders.

First, if they don’t like me, they can remove me at any time. But as long as they use me for one day, they must give me absolute decision-making power in management. This includes the use of capital and the stay or departure of personnel, and they cannot interfere in any way.

Second, shareholders cannot borrow money from Hengtongji. Previous loans must be converted into loans and settled within one year. After one year, interest will be charged according to the market.

Third, no "third masters" are allowed to manage Hengtongji. The so-called third masters are the shareholders' "uncle", "son-in-law" and "young master". If a business is run by a shopkeeper, it will never be good if these three kinds of masters get involved.

If he doesn't agree to these three conditions, no matter how much money or shares he is given, he will not get involved in this mess.