After Zhang Mingwei and his group turned a street, they were still in the wealthy area of ​​the capital, and they were either rich or noble.

Logically speaking, if the Ming Dynasty is peaceful today and it is New Year's Eve again, it must be a happy New Year.

However, Zhang Mingwei saw a large group of people surrounding the mansion gate in front.

He was sitting on the horse's back and saw far away. He found that in the middle of the crowd, there were several men and women kneeling there, as if begging for mercy.

Most of the people around were young and strong, and they were not easy to get along with at first glance.

Seeing this, Zhang Mingwei couldn't help but frown: What are the New Year's Day doing?

Liu Jin, who was escorting Zhang Mingwei, had certainly had the eyesight and saw his dissatisfaction immediately. Moreover, this was a group of people gathered on the way Duke Xingguo passed by, so of course he also had to ask about it.

So he drove the horse forward a few steps and immediately shouted loudly: "What are you doing? It's spread out!"

The onlookers heard the shouts and turned to look over, with a fierce look on their faces.

But when they saw that the Jinyiwei was talking, wearing a flying fish suit. The fierce expression on their face disappeared without a trace. Then they saw the python suit riding a horse behind them, and immediately knew who was coming, even their height seemed to be a little shorter.

Among the crowd, the middle-aged man was kneeling. He was originally holding his head up. After seeing that it was Duke Xingguo coming, he quickly waved his hand and scolded his subordinates, quickly went to the side. He lowered his head and waited for Duke Xingguo to pass by in a respectful manner.

Zhang Mingwei drove his horse and arrived in front of them. Instead of continuing to move forward, he stopped and asked coldly, "What's going on?"

The one who was kneeling seemed to be a couple, dressed in decent clothes. Behind the door, there were still many people stumbled on their heads, not as far as they could imagine, but just lowered their heads. However, they could see their expressions, either uneasy or panic, and also had the kind of sadness of desperateness.

However, when the middle-aged man heard the question, he quickly squeezed out his smile and looked up and replied: "Report to Duke, the villain is just coming to collect debts as agreed!"

Speaking of this, he pointed his hand at the man kneeling on the ground and said a little angrily: "I borrowed the money from my master and kept dragging it back and gave him a chance. I urged him several times and still relied on it!"

After he finished speaking, the kneeling man did not refute. Obviously, this should be fine.

When Zhang Mingwei heard this, he couldn't help but think of later generations.

Many people, especially those who do engineering, will avoid them if they cannot receive money and are collected by material suppliers or subordinates, and will not go home until New Year's Eve. Some even do not even go home on New Year's Eve and hide outside.

Speaking of which, it is true that each has its own suffering!

Zhang Mingwei didn't think about taking care of the situation in front of him by his identity. He couldn't control such things, and he didn't break the law.

However, it was on this festive day that Zhang Mingwei felt compassion when he saw this family like this, especially with a few children behind the door, with tears on his face.

So he asked the middle-aged man, "How much money do you owe?"

Hearing this, the middle-aged man was a little stunned. Unexpectedly, Duke Xingguo would ask such a question.

After coming to his senses, he did not dare to neglect, so he quickly replied: "The principal was 100,000 taels of silver, and the principal was 50,000 taels of silver, and the interest was 50,000 taels, and the total amount was 100,000 taels of debt!"

As soon as he heard this, Zhang Mingwei knew that he had misunderstood. This was not the kind of person he had in his later generations, but borrowing!

When he thought of this, he immediately remembered a term: loan shark!

So he continued, "How long did you borrow a 100,000 principal?"

"If you want to go back to the adults, you will borrow one year and only pay 50,000 taels when the expiration date." The middle-aged man immediately continued to answer respectfully, "My master is kind and he will be exempted from the interest of one month. As long as he pays back another 100,000 taels. As a result, this guy is still dragging him down and not paying back!"

Afterwards, he looked a little angry.

At this time, the man kneeling on the ground raised his head and defended himself: "The villain is engaged in cloth trading. Thinking that the world is about to be peaceful, everyone can have money to make some clothes, so they borrow money to store a lot of cloth. As a result, the price of cloth became more and more cheap. No one accepted it if the villain wanted to sell it at a loss. After raising the money, he could only pay back 50,000 taels of silver. Now he really has no money, and he doesn't want to rely on it!"

Hearing this, Zhang Mingwei thought for a moment and suddenly realized that this seemed to be his own fault!

Last year, when he led troops to conquer Zhang Xianzhong in Jiangnan, he took out the original historical flying shuttle and Jenny spinning machines.

These two tools will greatly increase the production of cloth.

The emergence of any new thing will always bring various impacts. The key is whether it brings many benefits or disadvantages.

For example, the emergence of steam locomotives has affected the interests of relevant personnel in carriage and even inland shipping.

The emergence of this flying shuttle and Jenny spinning machine also affected the interests of the cloth merchants. To be precise, it was the interests of the cloth merchants who had a large amount of inventory before. Unfortunately, the merchant in front of him was the one!

What’s a little different is that the impact of the steam locomotive affects more people. The impact of the shuttle and the Jenny spinning machine is that there are more wealthy businessmen in front of you. Compared with the two, the number of people in the first category is much higher than the one behind.

Therefore, the negative impact of steam locomotives on this era has also been exposed earlier.

And the latter one only affects a few wealthy families. For the entire Ming Dynasty, this impact is actually insignificant. However, for a family, it will be a catastrophe for this family!

Thinking of this, Zhang Mingwei looked at the cloth merchant kneeling on the ground, and for a moment, he fell silent again.

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This cloth merchant has a good normal logic and thinking. Seeing that the world is coming to peace, the consumption capacity of the people in the Ming Dynasty will definitely improve, and it is not wrong to hoard cloth. It’s just that he didn’t notice that new things appeared, which changed his past experience!

Thinking of this, Zhang Mingwei turned to the middle-aged man and said, "Today is New Year's Eve, it should be a festive day. No matter how difficult it is for him, he will definitely not pay the money. Forget it today, let his family have a peace of mind!"

He said so, the middle-aged man dared to go against Duke Xingguo's intentions. Besides, Duke Xingguo's words are not unreasonable.

Of course, even if it doesn’t make sense, he has to give Duke Xingguo this face. At worst, he can come back tomorrow. Can he still run to the temple?

If you have Duke Xingguo’s words, the master can also explain them!

Thinking of this, he immediately squeezed out a smile and agreed, "Yes, yes, yes, all villains listen to adults!"

After hearing this, Zhang Mingwei turned to look at the cloth merchant kneeling on the ground and asked him, "Have you stored a lot of cloth?"

The cloth merchant was very moved when he heard that Duke Xingguo would stand up for him and talk to him. When he heard the question, he nodded and replied: "Yes, it's all villains who are greedy. Not only did they pour money into the money they have earned over the years, but they also borrowed 100,000 taels of silver to stock up on the goods..."

Speaking of this, he was about to cry. The woman beside him was already sobbing in a low voice.

After hearing this, Zhang Mingwei frowned slightly and said to the cloth vendor: "If you have a lot of goods, you can sell it overseas as soon as possible. I believe that the price of cloth overseas should not have been affected yet."

Hearing this, the cloth merchant was very happy at first, but immediately, his smile disappeared and he said to Zhang Mingwei with a bitter face: "The Duke of China doesn't know. If the grass people transport cloth to the sea, they don't know how many checkpoints they have to go through along the way. Just by collecting taxes from various places, the grass people can't bear it!"

As soon as he heard this, Zhang Mingwei immediately remembered the information he had seen in later generations.

It is said that in the Ming Dynasty, a person found that the prices of a commodity in two places were very different, so he felt that he had a lot of money, so he went to a low-priced place to buy it and shipped it to sell it.

Unexpectedly, after walking for a while, you will encounter tax collections. Some of them have local governments set up checkpoints, some of them have local tyrants or retired officials set up checkpoints, and other eunuchs set up checkpoints.

These people who set up cards to collect money were all strong groups, and they were not something ordinary small businessmen could offend. So, after plucking the hair layer by layer, the man found that if he wanted to transport the goods to his destination, he would definitely lose money.

What's even more bizarre is that he discovered that if he transported these goods back, he would be taxed at layers of levels.

So, in anger, he burned all the goods.

Thinking of this, Zhang Mingwei felt that there is actually a long way to go to truly achieve the peace and prosperity of the people.

In the past two years, it has actually not been so messy under the big framework. There are still many things that need improvement for ordinary people in the local area.

"So, I'll issue you a document, just for your trip to sea this time." Zhang Mingwei looked at the cloth dealer and said, "In this way, no one dares to take your taxes along the way! Are you willing?"

To be honest, going to sea is actually a great risk. After all, there is no weather forecast on the sea now, so the sea changes its face very quickly.

But because of this, the profits of going overseas will be very high.

After hearing Zhang Mingwei's words, the cloth merchant glanced at the middle-aged man who was collecting debts, and then quickly turned around and kowtowed to Zhang Mingwei heavily, saying loudly: "The grass people are willing, the grass people thank the Lord for their kindness for living the whole family!"

The woman beside him should be his wife, so she cried with joy. She quickly waved to the door, called out the children, and kowtowed behind the cloth merchant together.

For Zhang Mingwei, this matter was just a matter of convenience, but for this family, it was indeed a life-saving grace.

Seeing them like this, Zhang Mingwei smiled and clasped his fists and said, "Happy New Year!"
Chapter completed!