"Of course, big changes may not happen immediately. But as the saying goes, it's better to be prepared for a rainy day. It's never a bad thing to think about the worst of everything." Yan Shannong said calmly.

Zhao Hao nodded slightly, motioning for the old man to continue.

"Then if the young supreme really has evil intentions towards your group - judging from his actions of constantly asking the Ministry of Revenue for Taicang silver in recent years and his several attempts to re-assign mining supervisors and tax collectors, the current Emperor Wanli is probably a king who is greedy for money and goods. And all the fat sheep in the world combined cannot match the fur of your group - so this is almost certain." Yan Shannong said slowly.

"A nephew takes after his uncle's family. Wu Qinghou's greed and stinginess have most likely been passed on to Zhu Yijun." He Xinyin said coldly.

Zhao Hao couldn't help but smile bitterly. The Taizhou School's group of people had really sharp eyes. Before Wanli took power, they had already seen through him.

But think about it, Zhao Zhenji is also a big shot of the Taizhou School, and they have intervened in high-level struggles several times before, and they are likely the mastermind behind the storm of love-stealing, etc. Their understanding and infiltration of the court is absolutely beyond imagination.

"Then I would like to ask the young minister, if the emperor asks you to hand over the Jiangnan Group, what will you do?" Yan Shannong asked quietly.

"Well..." Zhao Hao touched his chin and said with a bitter expression, "It would be a lie to say I haven't thought about it, but I really don't know what to do."

"Then I will venture to explain the situation between you and your group." Yan Shannong took a puff of his pipe and said with a smile, "I wonder if you are interested in listening?"

"Yes." Zhao Hao nodded with a smile, raised his right hand and slightly extended two fingers.

The secretary who was standing quietly behind him quickly took out a cigarette case, took out a Tortoise brand cigarette, and placed it steadily between his index and middle fingers.

This type of cigarette, which uses activated carbon and cotton wool as filters, was developed specifically for him by the Luzon Cigarette Factory. It is said that smoking in this way is healthier and the smell of the smoke will be softer.

The secretary handed over another lighter, but Zhao Hao was in no hurry to light it. Instead, he played with the gold lighter while listening to Yan Shannong slowly say:

"Okay. You will have only two options left. Either you surrender and get out of this unscathed. If it were someone else, this would certainly be a dead end. But with your strength, it shouldn't be difficult for you to find another warm land thousands of miles away to settle down."

Zhao Hao smiled noncommittally and said, "How can it be that easy?"

"Either we try to protect ourselves and make the court accept the existence of the Jiangnan Group! Form an ideal situation where the court is in charge of internal affairs, and the Jiangnan Group is in charge of external affairs, and they complement each other! As a commoner under the protection of the group, I absolutely do not want to see the former." Yan Shannong said with a look of determination to stand on your side.

"Anything handed over to the imperial court will be doomed. They will definitely plunder everything here, just like they did when they first enforced the maritime ban, and then order everyone to move inland and abandon these overseas territories." He Xinyin has been fighting the imperial court for half a century and knows the conduct of those people too well. He said with a look of resentment:

"They always do whatever is convenient for them to do, and they don't care about the lives of the people!"

"If your group decides to accept the fate, we can only express our deep regret. But if your group wants to protect itself, we, the lawless lunatics, can make a small contribution." Yan Shannong brought the topic back and said:

"Sir, you can't deny that no matter how powerful a gang or an organization is, it can't rely solely on itself to achieve the final victory, right? If you want to have the last laugh, you must seek help from outside. In short, you must win the hearts and minds of the people!"

"There should be no one in this world who knows how to gain the power of the people better than the young minister. The imperial court can't catch up in this regard. But the power of the people can be taken by force. The imperial court has a vast territory, millions of soldiers, and trillions of people. The foundation is a hundred times stronger than your group, so it is definitely much stronger than your group in mobilizing the power of the people."

"Of course." Zhao Hao nodded and said, "We are not that arrogant."

"However, fortunately, your group is known for its navy, has been operating overseas for a long time, and has the strong support of tens of millions of immigrants. The imperial court has almost no navy, so at least in the first few years of the struggle, the group can still be invincible." Yan Shannong scratched the ground with his pipe a few times, drew a very abstract map, and then pointed out the situation based on it:

"But the Jiangnan Group's roots are still in China. Your group's 18 overseas provinces are far from growing to the point where they can stand on their own. If the imperial court orders that no ship goes to sea, and the people living along the coast are relocated 20 miles inland, your group may be able to hold out for a year or two, but after a long time, it will inevitably become like the Wufeng ship owner, showing signs of decline and having to ask the imperial court for help!"

"The sea areas from Liaodong to Guangdong are all under the control of our group." Zhao Shizhen finally couldn't help but retort: ​​"The court wants to blockade us? Dream on!"

"This is exactly the point I want to make!" Yan Shannong laughed and said, "So whether your group can survive until the day when the court accepts your existence depends on the hearts of the people along the coast!"

Yan Shannong looked at Zhao Hao with sharp eyes, and said in a deep voice without any disguise:

"To be more precise, the will of the people in Jiangnan and even the southeast is the key to the struggle between your group and the imperial court!"

Zhao Hao nodded approvingly. This was quite interesting.

"Your group must have confidence in the people of Southeast China. Over the past 20 years, you have built bridges and roads, promoted free education, and ensured that there is no famine in the Southeast provinces. Every family has enough food, and the people's lives are getting better and better. From the beginning of their lives, people are now hoping for a well-off life. This is truly a grand occasion never seen before in our country!"

Yan Shannong first praised Zhao Hao, then changed the subject and said:

"However, since China abolished all schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone, it has been pursuing a policy of keeping the people ignorant. When the Confucian tradition flourished, the destruction of the people's wisdom reached its peak! Therefore, over the past thousand years, up to this day, the people's hearts have never been the hearts of the common people, but the hearts of the gentry, landlords, and clan elders!"

"You have indeed enlightened the people by running a school, but it has only been a short time, the scale is still too small, and you have sent most of the students overseas. So apart from your old nest of Suzhou and Songjiang, other places are still like nephews looking for lanterns - as usual!"

"Yes, in the past twenty years, your group has indeed won the hearts of the gentry in Jiangnan and even the southeast by luring them with benefits. But once your group breaks with the court, can they still be on the same side with you? Will they turn against you? I don't think it's certain!"

"Zhu Ming drove out the barbarians, restored China, established laws and disciplines, saved the people, and gained the name of the country with good reason! He has been the emperor for more than 200 years. In the hearts of the people of the world, it is natural that the surname Zhu is the surname of the world!" Yan Shannong said earnestly:

"During the past hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, it was rare for ordinary people to succeed through studying, and the imperial examination was a monopoly of the rich and powerful. Therefore, the gentry were considered gentry. The story of being a farmer in the morning and ascending to the throne in the evening only existed in novels and stories."

"Let's take you, my brother Zhao, for example. Your father won the first place in the imperial examination and was promoted to the position of vice minister. Your grandfather was also a Jinshi and retired as an assistant minister." He Xinyin said, "Those gentry are not as prominent as your Zhao family, but they have also achieved great success and firmly occupied the position of the best."

"Vested interests." Zhao Hao gave him an accurate summary.

"Well said! They are exactly a group of vested interests!" Yan Shannong clapped his hands and praised, "These people are the ones who want stability the most and are the least willing to take risks. So if they have to choose between the court and your group, I'm afraid most of them will choose to maintain the status quo!"

He Xinyin interrupted again in a cold voice: "In fact, it's hard to say whether they are on the same page with you now!"

Zhao Hao couldn't help but frown, and the smile on his face gradually disappeared.

"In the Ming Dynasty, money is important, but power is more important. Power brings money, but money does not necessarily bring power. Yes, the gentry in the southeast are getting richer and richer following you. But the problem is that the lives of the poor have improved more significantly." He Xinyin said in his sarcastic tone:

"Happiness is based on comparison. If I have one bun and you don't, I am happier than you. But if I have a thousand buns and you have a hundred, even though I have more buns, it is hard to say that I am happier than you. So the satisfaction brought to them by the growth of money is not as great as imagined. If they have a choice, they would definitely prefer to keep the poor poor forever rather than getting rich themselves!"

"So the main reason they work with you is not to get rich, but to follow you to bully others! To gain power and status above the government! The development companies you set up in various counties have actually bypassed the government of each county - as a director of a development company, they can openly decide the major and minor affairs of the county. Unlike before, they could only exert influence secretly. So they are all scrambling to join you!"

"The reason they support you in developing overseas is the same - to satisfy their desire for power that cannot be satisfied on the mainland. They want to be local emperors, to have the power to kill and take people without restraint! They want to place their own clansmen and servants overseas, to obtain a fiefdom where they can reap wealth and settle down!"

Zhao Hao frowned even more tightly. This He Xinyin was really a ruthless person, exposing all the dark psychology of the human being.

"But this time, they didn't get what they wanted. The anti-corruption investigation foundation you founded has killed five or six thousand people over the years, right? A large proportion of them were children of wealthy families and former servants, right?

"There are all kinds of backgrounds." Zhao Hao coughed and said, "It's not just the rich families who are corrupt. People from poor backgrounds are also corrupt. Without supervision and punishment, few people can resist the temptation of corruption."

"Look, is this reasonable? They treat our family members and poor people the same, is this reasonable? Where is the privilege?" He Xinyin started shouting and making a fuss.

"Yeah." Zhao Hao nodded, his voice was very low. He suddenly realized that he had pinched off the filter of the cigarette in his hand without knowing when.

"But now, at least overseas, you no longer count on them - your free education has become popular, and you have trained batches of children from poor families into talents. You don't need those scholars who only know the ins and outs of things! Don't they really hate them in their hearts?!"

He Xinyin looked at Zhao Hao provocatively, gloating:

"It's just that they still rely on your academy for the imperial examinations, so they dare not speak out. But if you break with the court, who will dare to go to your academy? They will soon let you know what it means to change your attitude faster than turning the pages of a book!"

ps. Okay, I have sorted out my thoughts.