Chapter 284

"Not a single copper from the Sun family's money can be missing! The breach-of-contract penalty must be paid; if it is not paid on time, then we must seize their assets."

"You!"

Old Zhu stared at Su Qiao, his eyes nearly splitting from rage.

"Why are you so stubborn, you brat? Can't you show some flexibility? Just treat it as if we are begging you, won't you?"

"Do you have no compassion at all?"

"Just look at what you have forced the people of Jin Ling to become!"

"Must the people's lives be so bitter before you can do your duty?!"

Su Qiao took a deep breath and looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, asking with unyielding resolve.

"Your Majesty, bitter? What is bitter?"

"Indeed, it is bitter that they move bricks in the brick kiln every day!"

"I can even say that I cannot endure that bitterness!"

Zhu Yuanzhang immediately countered.

"Then why are you still so aggressive?"

"But even if it is bitter, their lives will be better than before!"

"One year ago, a jianbing guozi on Qianmen Street cost ten cash! Now it costs thirty cash!"

"Does the difference amount to merely thirty cash?"

"The work in the brick kiln is tiring, but isn't it better than starving?"

"At least they do not have to guard their meager plot of land every day, kneeling on the ground and begging Heaven for favorable weather?!"

Su Qiao's words echoed within the prison cell.

Zhu Yuanzhang took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, looked at Su Qiao, and asked.

"Must it be this way for Great Ming to prosper?"

"Yes, it must be exactly this way!"

"Why?"

"Because Great Ming currently cannot let everyone have enough to eat!"

"Only this way can we force the potential of Great Ming to emerge!"

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Su Qiao in disbelief, as if he did not recognize Su Qiao.

"You drive people to death, and yet you claim it is for the good of Great Ming?"

"How can it not be said to be for the good of Great Ming?"

"Only one Shopkeeper Sun died, but the children of Jin Ling will have books to read starting this year!"

"Only one Shopkeeper Sun died, and no one in Jin Ling will die on a sickbed because they cannot afford medical treatment!"

Zhu Yuanzhang roared until his voice was hoarse.

"That surnamed Sun was also a human life!"

Su Qiao immediately retorted.

"But are the frozen corpses by the roadside not human lives? Should those children be doomed to be blind fools for their entire lives?"

Old Zhu stared fiercely at Su Qiao and reminded him.

"But rice must be eaten bite by bite; one cannot become Fatty by eating a single bite!"

"Your Majesty should also know how many people, having eaten one bite less today, will not live until tomorrow."

"If we delay another year, how many children in Great Ming will miss the best age for beginning their education?"

"Has Your Majesty calculated these things?"

Su Qiao knew.

He had personally opened a Pandora's Box.

The things inside this box would alienate people and distort them.

But what he is doing now.

Is precisely the place where the vast five thousand years ultimately lost.

Looking across the three dynasties of Song, Ming, and Qing.

The so-called sprouts of capitalism had already existed.

But why, from beginning to end, did this sprout never grow into a towering tree? The crux lies here!

This sprout, relying merely on employment relationships, is not enough.

Only lending.

Can release it.

And only lending.

Can possess the true power to alienate people.

Everyone likes money.

This statement is not wrong.

Money and currency possess an innate attraction for humanity.

But when money accumulates into a string of numbers.

It no longer possesses such powerful attraction.

But the people who truly control this string of numbers are precisely the most elite group within the entire race.

When these people no longer pursue those numbers.

What follows is the stagnation of the entire race.

The Song was so, the Ming was so, and the Qing was likewise.

Only by employing various means to constantly zero out the numbers in these people's hands will they truly exert their utmost to push the entire ethnic group forward.

Thereby causing the entire ethnic group to burst forth with even greater vitality.

And this is precisely the fundamental reason why this giant beast cannot take root and sprout on this land.

For its growth must inevitably be accompanied by filth and blood.

And countless people will certainly be driven to the point where they cannot survive.

And in the Central Plains.

When driven to the point where they cannot survive, death is not the only path.

And the other path is the great taboo of all past generations.

This also dictates that for this sprout to emerge, more prerequisite conditions are needed.

More often than not, before that sprout can even spread throughout the entire Junxian, it is already detected by the local Junmu and strangled in the cradle under the pretext of ill intentions.

What Su Qiao must do now.

Is to personally pull out this seedling!

And now, borrowing the might of the Great Ming Treasure Notes, Su Qiao has already opened this box.

This.

Su Qiao cannot close.

Old Zhu cannot close it either.

What Su Qiao needed to do has already been done.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared fiercely at Su Qiao.

For a long time, he said nothing.

"I cannot argue with you, but you must know that water can carry the boat, but it can also capsize it; the common people are not you."

"Even if what you do is perfectly right, once the common people feel it is wrong."

"Then there will be more bones frozen to death!"

Old Zhu does not understand the grand principles Su Qiao spoke of.

But Old Zhu knows.

When the common people cannot survive.

They will rise up with their banners.

They will cause chaos throughout the land, and at that time, more common people will be displaced!

Having spoken, Old Zhu turned and strode away.

The emperors in the chat group were also watching Su Qiao in the scene, at a loss.