Chapter 5                                                                                                                              

In Hu Zongxian's heart, the heavens and man fought. Finally, he sighed, as if he had made up his mind and said, "Sir, even if we do this, Zhou Mengchen will be trapped?"

Zhao Wenhua's face was gloomy and she said, "What are you going to do?"

Zhao Wenhua is not unaware that he did this. In fact, there are many uncontrollable aspects, the most uncontrollable part, that is, why Zhou Mengchen was squeezed by him and was willing to take over the mess in Zhapu.

But as Zhao Wenhua said, he had no choice. He could not give Zhou Mengchen time to gain a foothold. Once Zhou Mengchen gained a foothold, his advantage would disappear little by little.

Many people are very powerful, not because they are themselves, but because they are powerful on the platform. Before that, Zhao Wenhua was behind the entire Yan Party. Therefore, Zhao Wenhua blocked people and killed people, and the gods blocked the gods. They looked very powerful, but in fact, there were big flaws on their bodies, so you don’t need to deliberately look for them. You can see them at a glance.

But at this moment, he was stripped out of the strict party and allowed him and Zhou Mengchen to fight one-on-one in Jiangnan, and Zhao Wenhua had no confidence yet.

Hu Zongxian felt a deep regret for a moment, regretting how he followed such a person. However, there was no other way at this moment. He could only try his best to let Zhou Mengchen fall into the trap. As for the others, he could no longer care about it.

Zhou Mengchen looked at Suzhou City and sighed in his heart.

The world's number one city in the Ming Dynasty must be Suzhou. Suzhou was the first city among all the cities in the Ming Dynasty to clearly give up the construction of the city walls.

In other places in the Ming Dynasty, there were also city spaces that were restricted. So much so that there were houses outside the city, and the city walls were no longer the division between the city and the outside. In this case, there were two ways to deal with it. One was to build an outer city, just like Beijing. The other was that it was not able to build an outer city now, but had plans, but it was just a strand. In other words, never give up and build a wall to wrap the city.

Suzhou is inside and outside, and the reason why it is inside and outside is that many officials in Suzhou have had many debates about whether to build Suzhou's outer city, but in the end, they decided not to build the city wall.

On the one hand, the financial burden is too heavy. If you want to wrap the entire Suzhou city, it will take more than 100 miles of city walls. The entire project volume will definitely not be smaller than that of Beijing's outer city.

Another aspect is that Suzhou has been expanding. The city distribution is also dynamic. The city that has just been determined will be outdated in less than a few years. It is back to the original problem.

Therefore, after much discussion, local officials in Suzhou clearly expressed their intention to give up the idea of ​​building a city wall. From then on, there was no city in Suzhou City, only the original old city wall. Among the overlapping houses, there was no difference between inside and outside the city.

Suzhou City in this state is the Suzhou City in Zhou Mengchen's eyes.

The waterways are densely packed, and the most convenient means of transportation in Suzhou City is the boat. Zhou Mengchen does not care too much about the local people, but Zhou Mengchen cares about the entire industrial chain.

Yes, rural farmers sent their cocoons through small boats to the neighborhoods outside the city. And the sounds of various machines came from these seemingly ordinary houses. When wooden machines were moving, they always made squeaking sounds.

The birds and insects are flying in the south of the Yangtze River and the soft words in the south of the Yangtze River have become the background color of Suzhou.

In this poetic and picturesque way, this simple truth is interpreted, what makes Suzhou City expand in disorder, so that the officials who manage Suzhou City completely gave up the idea of ​​building Suzhou City walls.

It's the textile industry.

Many times, Zhou Mengchen does not need to deliberately emphasize that the people in Jiangnan have completed their division of labor. Those who plant mulberry trees may not be raising silkworms, and those who raise silkworms may not be spinning. Those who spin may not be weaving cloth. And weaving cloth may very likely only be weaving silk and satin.

Although there are also those big merchants with thousands of looms, these big merchants seem to be huge. In fact, it seems useless to cure this. They are produced by one household. Without the commercial division of labor starting from mulberry leaves, there is no Suzhou City, which is as prosperous as the world.

This is also the emergence of capitalism in the Ming and Qing dynasties in the eyes of many people.

Although there are still many problems, such as the production model of this family-centered production, which has both advantages and disadvantages, limiting large-scale industrial production. For example, many large weaving farms in Jiangnan are simply superimposed in quantity. There is no difference in efficiency between weaving here and putting a loom at home.

However, with this foundation, Zhou Mengchen felt that doing something here would be much better than doing it in Datong. Of course, the two sides also had different difficulties. Datong is a piece of white paper that is easy to paint, and there is nothing, and everything that you do is follow Zhou Mengchen. Although Jiangnan has a strong foundation now, many problems are problems in Datong, but they are not problems in Jiangnan. But there are new problems, that is, Jiangnan, where many things are behind many people's interests. Zhou Mengchen is not as free as Datong in doing things.

Without saying anything else, Zhou Mengchen could see the depression in Suzhou.

There were not many boats in the water alleys, and the sound of looms in many houses also stopped. There was a clear feeling in Suzhou City that there seemed to be a lot fewer people on the land. This was also brought by the Japanese pirates.

The Japanese pirates did not rush into Suzhou City, and at most they set fires outside Suzhou City. Suzhou was in danger in the end. But even so, many villages around Suzhou were in trouble.

This is unbearable for Suzhou.

Because Suzhou is a handicraft city, everything is based on outside sales and raw material supply. And both have problems.

Originally, normal maritime smuggling could also give Suzhou City a share of the pie. After all, Suzhou silk is also a hard currency overseas. But now that Japanese pirates have caused trouble, everyone has cut off contact with Japanese pirates, and let alone raw materials supply.

The Japanese pirates outside killed people everywhere, but who still planted mulberry trees in the village? There were no mulberry trees, and there were cocoons and silk?

There are many people who are not satisfied with the start of work.

This also verifies Zhou Mengchen's judgment. Although the Japanese pirates are a problem, the problems behind the Japanese pirates are even more problematic.

Zhou Mengchen asked Xu Wei and said to He Xinyin: "Is this what Suzhou looked like before?"

Xu Wei said: "I haven't come to Suzhou for many years, but it looks far less than that of that time."

Zhou Mengchen said: "The people's livelihood is so difficult."

"This is all caused by the reckless actions of the strict party." He Xinyin said: "Since you are concerned about the suffering of the people in Jiangnan, you should start as soon as possible and correct the situation."

Zhou Mengchen thought to himself: "This kind of thing is not a problem for Zhao Wenhua alone." However, Zhou Mengchen would not say it. After all, Zhou Mengchen has just arrived in Jiangnan and is not familiar with the place. Although Xu Wei is also from Jiangnan, he has been away from his hometown for many years and needs time to survey the current situation. So He Xinyin and Zhou Mengchen still need to use it for a long time.

"Sir," Jiang Yuan said: "Someone greeted me in front of me, said that it was the Right Censor, the Minister of War, the Minister of Jiangnan, the Governor of Jiangnan, and the Zhejiang soldiers Zhao Wenhua and Lord Zhao sent someone to welcome me."

Zhou Mengchen thought to himself: "It depends on whether Zhao Wenhua is sensible or not."

In fact, there is a serious overlap in the power between Zhou Mengchen and Zhao Wenhua. Because Zhou Mengchen made a promise to Jiajing, he issued a military order. Therefore, Zhou Mengchen defeated Zhao Wenhua in terms of power.

In fact, if Zhou Mengchen arrived, Zhao Wenhua should have returned to Beijing. Yan Song regarded Zhao Wenhua as an abandoned son, Yan Shifan wanted to turn the tables on Zhao Wen, and Xu Jie wanted to kill Zhao Wenhua to sacrifice the flag. Jiajing didn't care about this, but he also gave Zhou Mengchen a hint that he had the right to act cheaply.

This is also the reason why Zhao Wenhua was so anxious all day long. He did not dare to return to Beijing or resign, because once he resigned, his bad things in Jiangnan would fall into Zhou Mengchen's hands and would be completely passive at that time.

However, the most important level in the officialdom is that the so-called senior official level is to kill people. Without doing anything else, Zhao Wenhua will be at a disadvantage and passive when the reputation of both sides is revealed.
Chapter completed!