New Shun 1730

In addition, the rogue intermediaries in Songjiang Prefecture also believe that the old thugs there lack political sensitivity and cannot grasp the correct direction of contradictions and struggle skills.

They can't describe it in such language, but that's probably what they mean in their hearts.

After all, there are also a group of people who came from the old thugs here, and they are very familiar with the old thugs.

Relying on party struggles and participating in political struggles are just the side jobs of these old thugs.

The main business is killing, arson, robbery, theft, collecting protection fees, etc.

Including but not limited to:

For example, forcing widows to remarry, or forcing widows to death. Generally, this is paid by the widow's in-laws, because after the widow remarries or dies, the property can be taken back. So relatives pay to hire these old thugs to insult, humiliate, and spread rumors in front of the widow's door. If this still doesn't force the widow to death, they force matchmaking to make her lose the family property.

For example, setting up a trap for a beggar. In the Xianbo Bian written by Ye Quan, a scholar during the Jiajing and Wanli periods, there are many professional trap routines for a beggar. For example, find a prostitute to pretend to be a good girl, find a rich one, show off her charm, and when the fire is lit, the "father" suddenly rushes in with the "brothers".

The rest, such as digging graves, arson, arresting people to sell brothels, and opening casinos, are similar to these and belong to their main business. They are also very normal criminal behaviors. Criminals, it would be abnormal if they were not so shameless. The chivalrous stories are not about picking beans from shit, but about finding a needle in a haystack.

However, being employed by wealthy and powerful families to beat people, guard the courtyard, rob real estate, participate in party struggles, etc., is a sideline.

The politics that the old beating industry participated in was still mainly the internal contradictions of the old era.

The beating industry group in Songjiang Prefecture, which was re-split and integrated by Liu Yu, was seriously divided.

Many of the events that I usually participate in are similar to the situation of this salt abolition and reclamation, which are new problems and new contradictions at the turn of the old and new eras.

Liu Yu always said that the officials of Dashun actually didn't understand the affairs between landlords and farmers, let alone the contradictions between the emerging classes; the same is true for these fighting companies. These new contradictions are not professionally matched by the old fighting companies.

And what do the new fighting companies and new literati gangsters in Songjiang Prefecture do?

Some things are inconvenient for officials as representatives of the court to do, such as enclosure and factory building. Who does it? When doing it, how can we incite public opinion and ensure that there will be no large-scale riots? How to calm public opinion?

For example, in some emerging factories, there have been rice stickers and calls for rest. How can we divide, disintegrate and calm these movements? How can we guide the striking workers to sacrifice the leaders and calm the chaos?

As the saying goes, the higher the road, the higher the devil.

Others say that rising tides lift all boats.

In struggle, we learn and progress in struggle. If you die, I live, and if you live, I die.

Whoever does not seize the time to sum up experience and change means will fail in the next struggle.

As Liu Yu led the fighting industry here to split, the struggle between regions was led to class struggle. The two sides have been fighting for more than ten years.

These new fighting industries that are attached to the emerging class industrial and commercial groups can be said to have extremely rich experience in struggle. It is estimated that in another ten years, the hired workers will be forced to form professional off-work pickets.

With this rich experience in struggle, the lackeys of the emerging capitalists who grow, learn and progress in practice have an advantage in dealing with a group of old fighting industries that are attached to the landlords and gentry.

…………

A few days later.

In order to win over the people, the feudal lords waved the people's beggars' bags as flags. However, whenever people followed them, they found that their buttocks were covered with old feudal emblems, so they laughed and dispersed. The farce of "The Lord of Heaven and Earth" officially began.

Early in the morning, the citizens of the county who were ready to watch the drama of the Lord of Heaven ruling for the people found that a large number of poor people suddenly poured into the city.

They wore tattered clothes, and many people's pants could only reach their knees. The exposed feet were soaked in sea water and exposed to the sun, as if they were a piece of pig liver that was roasted by fire and hard enough to break teeth.

Obviously, this is a group of salt households.

These salt households carried the statues of the Heavenly Official and the Earthly Official, and shouted some blessing slogans while walking.

The citizens in the county were not unfamiliar with this. Every year on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, these salt households, salt workers, and salt workers would also organize such activities.

But now is not the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Moreover, these salt households seemed very different from the old salt households who came last time. They did not go directly to the county government, but went to the most crowded place in the city, just like the blessing activities on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Several huge incense burners were put out, and the old man from the salt household lit incense on the burners.

Although the citizens felt strange, they also knew that something might happen today, and today was not the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, but they still gathered around to watch the excitement like they did on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

The statues of the Heavenly Official and the Earthly Official were placed behind the incense burners, and the salt households knelt down to worship.

At this time, a man from the salt household came out and came to the incense burner.

This man... was not actually a salt householder, but his nickname was Fried Salt Beans.

Although the nickname contained the word "salt", Fried Salt Beans actually had nothing to do with salt households.

Fried Salt Beans are professional hooligans.

In the Jiangsu salt area, beans, especially salt beans, actually refer to broad beans.

But the beans in Fried Salt Beans refer to soybeans.

The difference in the abbreviations proves that this guy obviously came from the north, most likely Shandong or the vicinity of the capital.

The nickname of fried salt beans comes from the fried soy beans in the north. If they are not fried well, they are as hard as stones.

There are also fried salt beans in Jiangnan, but they are not the same.

There are cultural differences in the fried salt beans in the gangster world.

The gangster world in Jiangsu Province, that is, the old gangster world before Xinghaiyun, has the "cultural" connotation that they steal things in the local area during the day, deliberately let people find out, and hand them over to the government. The accomplices robbed the people halfway, beat them up, and urinated on them. After a long time, no one dared to stop stealing things during the day. This is the fried salt beans in the southern gangster world.

The "cultural connotation" of the fried salt beans in the northern gangster world is: blackmailing in front of people's door, according to the law of compromise, if you die in front of the door, the owner must also bear certain responsibilities. So, if you want to blackmail or want to get out in the gangster world, the first step is to get beaten.

He didn't fight back when he was beaten, and let people beat him. But because he would be sued if he killed someone, he didn't hit him in the vital parts. He hit him in the vital parts, not only hitting him, but also pouring salt water on the wound.

If the gangster groaned, he would lose. But if he was beaten all over and didn't groan even when salt water was poured on him, the blackmailed party would be convinced: give money, admit defeat, and don't mess with him.

This is how the nickname of fried salt beans came from.

He is not a salt household at all, but today he has to fight for the "interests of salt households".

Because the agent found him and gave him a good job, 120 taels of silver, which is also a sky-high price in the low-end gangster world.

Fortunately, he came here from the north early, and he has been in Huaibei area for a while, so he is relatively familiar with the dialect here, otherwise the agent would not have given him this good job.

Just chop off a finger and a piece of meat from the chest, and you will be paid 120 taels of silver, and you only need to chop off the little finger.

Such a good job, if there is no language requirement, I am afraid that he will fight for it, how can he get his turn?

Now the gangsters in Songjiang Prefecture are also seriously involuted, and many times they need professional high-tech talents to hire people.

For example, when suppressing hired workers to fight for wages, you need to hire people who can beat them lightly and ensure that they will not kill people; for example, when you want to secretly kill the leaders of the hired workers, you need to hire those who can survive the beating, but leave internal injuries and die a few months later.

These are all in the category of "handicraft technology", and there is a master-apprentice inheritance system. Gangsters who ran from the north to the south of the Yangtze River to make a living like stir-frying salted beans cannot squeeze into this academic circle, so they can only do things that do not require professional skills.

Chopping fingers and cutting your own meat, this is not very technical. The agent said that the doctors were ready. After the finger was cut off, there would be a doctor to stop the bleeding. The retired ship doctor of the navy used to saw off people's legs and arms on the ship. The mortality rate of the people he sawed was only 50%. This small injury was definitely no problem.

Fried salt beans touched the knife hidden in his waist and thought that he had to wait for a while and wait until the incense burner was hot before cutting.

In this way, throwing it into the incense burner with oil sizzling, the effect is better. Since he received 120 taels of silver, he had to do a good job.

Next to Fried Salt Beans, there were two or three scholars.

These scholars were also well-known in the fighting industry of Songjiang Prefecture.

They were mainly responsible for cleaning the ground. Because they were scholars, they were high-end thugs.

The literati gangsters in Songjiang Prefecture also underwent a secondary differentiation.

Some became professional lawyers.

The other part became professional public opinion guides.

Because the situation in Songjiang Prefecture was different, these scholar thugs who were responsible for public opinion guidance were also very aggressive.

Many people who cannot keep up with the times have been eliminated by the times. Especially those who still hold on to old ideas, old methods, and old technologies to make a living, failed to transform, and gradually became lonely in the new era, and can only do the lowest-end hands-on scholars.

Scholars are not necessarily weak scholars. Many of them can fight, especially with experience from the previous dynasty. When fighting against government officials and yamen runners, people with the status of scholars must take action first and mix in the crowd, so that local officials will be afraid to act ruthlessly.

Some scholars who grasp the trend of the times cannot be professional lawyers because of professional quality and talent problems-survivor bias. Those who can get by in the new era all understand that they need to go deep into the masses, especially in the context of the overdevelopment of industry and commerce in Songjiang Prefecture and the increase in the urban class.

Only by going deep into the people, understanding the people, and getting close to the people can we effectively fool the people, incite emotions, and play with public opinion.

The direction is wrong, and the more you know, the more reactionary you are. This sentence makes a lot of sense.

These rogue scholars who have successfully transformed themselves in the transition between the old and new eras have constantly honed their skills, mastered the essence, improved their technology, and matured in the various struggles between the emerging class and the old class, capital and feudalism, industrial capital and landlords, factory owners and feudal guilds, workers and feudal guilds, and workers and factory owners in Songjiang Prefecture.

They are mainly responsible for guiding emotions and cleaning the floor on weekdays.

Today, their main job is to guide emotions.