New Shun 1730

The Dutch’s evil plot was like Tokugawa Yoshimune’s attempt to alienate Liu Yu, a disgusting public poisoning.

Even if no one believed it at the time, or if Tokugawa Yoshimune’s letter certainly could not alienate Liu Yu at the time, what about the future?

Once an accident or similar incident occurs, someone will definitely bring these words up.

Even if Shi Shiyong wanted to help Liu Yu, this matter was not said in private, but was directly discussed in front of so many people.

If he didn’t say it, the emperor would not be able to explain it.

Moreover, what Valkner said was not completely false. This kind of poisoning with the truth is the most disgusting.

The East India Company has a vast market from Cape Town to Japan, but it can’t accommodate the labor force of only tens of thousands of Chinese. Such a large market can create a situation of “relative surplus”.

If Dashun wants to develop handicrafts, how big a market scale does it need?

What’s even more bizarre is that Dashun has the largest population in the world at that time. Since the Ming Dynasty, almost half of the world’s silver has flowed in, but the consumption capacity of the entire Dashun is surprisingly poor. Coupled with the small peasant economy where men farm and women weave, the domestic market is almost half dead.

The events in Batavia may eventually cast a shadow on the Dashun handicraft factory, which has just started.

It may also let the emperor see the horror behind the beauty of these new things.

A month later, Shi Shiyong returned to the capital.

There was no other choice but to report the events in Batavia truthfully, including the last words of Valkenir.

Even if he didn't say it, someone else would say it.

The emperor didn't care too much about anything else than these words. Everything was in accordance with the strategy set by the Privy Council, completely grasping the lifeblood of the Dutch, just like the music bureau commanding elegant music to follow the rhythm of the court.

Shi Shiyong couldn't see the emperor's attitude in the last words, but he felt that the emperor seemed to care a lot. Not only did he listen to Shi Shiyong's retelling, but he also asked about the things that Valkenir said and looked at them carefully.

In fact... Dashun had already had a similar thing a few years ago.

Six years ago, a vigorous weaver strike broke out in Changzhou County, Suzhou Prefecture.

This was originally a small matter in a county.

But this kind of thing, from the county magistrate to the governor, was the first time they encountered it. They were confused and didn't know how to deal with it.

They had experience in dealing with peasant uprisings; they also had experience in dealing with petitions for permanent tenancy; they also had experience in dealing with merchants' strikes.

The only thing they really had no experience with was the weavers' strike.

It had never happened before, so how to deal with it?

Moreover, the time when the weavers chose to strike was when foreign companies came to place orders, so they had to report it layer by layer and directly to the Forbidden City.

The whole thing was actually very simple. At that time, Liu Yu was still training troops in Weihai, and he had no chance to participate in the court discussion on this matter. But with his common sense, he didn't even use his brain, he knew what was going on with his buttocks. Either asking for better treatment or asking for an increase in wages, the workers' demands were nothing more than these few.

The reason why it was brought to the Forbidden City was because a machine owner named He Junheng, that is, a capitalist with means of production such as looms, asked the court to "carve a stone to permanently ban the matter of calling for a rest."

He Junheng had a simple class consciousness and clearly felt that such "all-in-one strikes", that is, strikes of the entire industry, would become more and more common in Suzhou, Songjiang and other places in the future.

However, the court had never issued a decree to guide how to deal with such things, so it was best to use this incident as a precedent, erect a monument, and engrave it on stone, and use it as a guiding precedent in the future.

As a weaver, he did not want similar incidents to happen again, and he did not want the county magistrate, who was on good terms with him, to be at a loss when such a thing happened.

The county magistrate did not dare to act rashly when the entire industry called for a strike, fearing that it would cause a major incident.

The court finally stepped in and sent someone to erect an inscription in Suzhou Prefecture.

As you can imagine, the inscription is roughly divided into two parts.

The first part is that the reason for the strike must be that there must be bad people among the weavers, with ulterior motives and evil intentions.

However, most people are good, deceived, and do not know the truth.

So, the first part says: [A certain lawless person, who was not familiar with the work, was abandoned by the master, so he was jealous and advocated the name of a gang. He forced the crowd to stop working, extorted more silver, and made the machine owner suspended from work and the machine mechanic quit his job...]

The second part is definitely how to solve it.

But this era is not the American mine railway in the 19th century. In the mechanical era, you can just grab a few people to do it. Those who dare to make trouble will be directly shot to death by the company's gunmen.

At this time, it was a handicraft factory, and weavers needed skills.

This was not the steam engine textile factory in later generations, where you could catch a bonded worker to operate the machine. Those who could weave silk cloth were considered skilled workers at this time, so they could not be killed.

They had to compromise and changed the original daily salary to piecework salary; every year on the first day of June, the first day of July and the fifteenth day of August, the machine owner had to give the machine worker an extra penny of silver as a welfare.

From daily salary to piecework salary, and then to the welfare of giving wine money, it was considered an increase in wages overall, and the matter was solved in this way.

Finally, the imperial court, capitalists such as Ho Kwan-heng, representatives of weavers and other parties jointly erected an inscription in Suzhou Prefecture.

The inscription reads:

In the future, if there are any lawless thugs who dare to call for a halt and attempt to extort money from the crowd, the neighbors and weavers will be allowed to report them to the local authorities for investigation. They should be investigated and punished according to the [Law on Controlling Markets] and put in shackles for a month as a warning.

The most important point of this inscription is the [Law on Controlling Markets] investigation and punishment.

Because, there had never been a similar case of Qi Xing calling for a break before. Even if the county magistrate was in favor of He Junheng, he couldn't stand the fact that the weavers in Suzhou Prefecture went on strike. The county magistrate was afraid of causing a big incident and had a headache.

According to what law?

After flipping through the "Da Shun Law" for a long time, he didn't find a similar situation, let alone how to deal with the Qi Xing calling for a break.

But after the inscription was erected, there was a law to follow.

Following the Ming system, the "Household Law·Market Tax·Controlling the Market" crime in the "Da Ming Law" was basically copied by Da Shun.

The "Household Law·Market Tax·Controlling the Market" law is ranked 149th in the "Da Shun Law" and has 15 small items under its jurisdiction.

Including yahang, foreign trade monopoly, anti-fraud in the tribute trade of Korea and Ryukyu, extortion in the middle of the grain transport, theft and sale of semi-official horses by government soldiers, trade rules at the border between Han and Miao, government offices and official transactions, etc.

Complete, basically quite complete. It is just that it is a bit out of date.

For example, the current trading system of Songjiang's trading companies and the contracting of buying and selling in Ezo can't be applied to them at all, and can only be handled in a special way.

According to the provisions of the "Great Ming Law", there are basically three ways to deal with the "crime of controlling the market".

80 strokes of the cane.

If there is no bribe, the person will die if it is carried out in a formal manner.

40 lashes.

This person will not die at the time, but it is basically the same.

If there is a large area of ​​whip marks on the back, if there is no treatment, it will soon be infected with staphylococci, and finally "die of gangrene".

The last one is "like theft".

As for how to judge the case later, it is very clear.

The premise of the crime of theft is that the benefits are obtained by illegal means in the trade transaction, and they are in their hands. Returning the stolen goods is useless, and they are all treated as theft.

Then, if the weavers call for a rest in the future and win, and fight for benefits such as wage increase, they will all be treated as theft in the "control of the market" law.

According to the provisions of the Dashun Code, those who attempt to steal shall be flogged forty times.

But if the strike is successful and the wages are increased, it is not considered attempted theft.

The money has been received and the wages have increased, so it must be a successful theft.

At the same time, the laws of ancient China stipulate that if ten people work together and steal 100 coins, each person is not convicted of an average of 10 coins, but is convicted of stealing 100 coins.

Therefore, once the strike is successful, each person will increase one coin of silver, and the entire industry of 1,000 people will be convicted of a major theft of 100 taels.

"According to the crime, stealing 100 taels of silver, exile to 3,000 miles to guard the border, exempt from tattooing, and 40 strokes of the cane."

Basically, after this incident was engraved on the stone, the cost of Qixing's strike increased on a large scale. No one wants to be exiled for 3,000 miles in the end.

This incident is both a proof of the so-called budding, and a proof that the court did not understand what the new era was, and there was no special legislation.

The old "Dashun Code" was patched up and continued to be used, and the law on "controlling the market" in the patched-up "Dashun Code" was copied from the "Daming Code".

In the "Daming Code", the law on controlling the market was copied from the "Tang Code Commentary".

Basically, it was like a thousand-year-old stick hitting people today, and the stick was swung to the Western Regions when it was still a Buddhist country.

Now that Shi Shiyong had spread the words from Batavia, the emperor naturally thought of the weavers' call for rest a few years ago.

He had to summon Liu Yu, the Minister of the Criminal Government, the Minister of the Household Government and several others to his side.

Li Gan did not summon Liu Yu alone to ask about this matter, nor did he ask how to solve similar things if they happened in Dashun.

After everyone came, he turned to ask the Minister of the Criminal Government, if the Batavia incident happened in Dashun, how would the sentence be and what crime would be based on?

Liu Yu stood there like he was asleep. The emperor did not ask, and he did not speak. Or, he did not take this matter seriously at all.

The emperor asked the Minister of Criminal Affairs, and the Minister of Criminal Affairs first talked about it from a professional perspective: "Your Majesty, I think the main culprit in this matter should be the contractor of the sugar factory."

"If in this dynasty, concealing the number of people, refusing to pay the tax, and the amount is large, according to the rules, it will be 80 strokes of the cane and the arrears will be recovered."

"But this matter... If you really do this, when we evaluate, we will definitely give the local county magistrate a bad evaluation of "assessment B-low", and basically his career in this life will end here. If you do this, the sugar factory will have to go bankrupt, the employees will make trouble, and there will be chaos. This is only knowing the law but not knowing how to adapt, which is really unworthy of the task."

"But if you turn a blind eye to this matter, something will happen sooner or later."

"So most of the local county magistrates think that As long as nothing happens during my term, I won't break this window paper, leaving it to the next generation to solve. As long as nothing happens during my term, it's fine. "

"In the end, the more pressure there is, the bigger the things that will happen in the future will be. Sooner or later, someone will be in trouble, just don't let it be me."

"However, since the current dynasty has exempted the Ding tax, there is no need to consider this matter. But merchants are profit-seeking and have no morals, so they will probably still exploit. If the exploitation is too harsh, even if there is no Ding tax, the hired workers will still make trouble."

"So, this matter... has no solution."

"The best way is to prohibit the opening of sugar factories, etc. This is called the fundamental solution."

"Or, restore the old system of "Zhou Li", collect all official camps, and then set up official craftsmen, all of which are registered as craftsmen, and are under special management."

After the Minister of Criminal Affairs replied to the emperor, he glanced at Liu Yu and added: "I will answer your majesty's questions. As for whether to do it or not, that is not something I can advise. It may be your majesty's decision or the public opinion of Tianyou Palace."

The emperor knew that the Minister of Criminal Affairs was being a good guy, so he didn't care. He smiled and looked at Liu Yu and said: "After hearing this, did the Whale Marquis prepare a thousand words to refute? Let me think about what words you are going to use. Hmm... stop eating because of choking? These four words must have come to your mind, right?"