Chapter 822: The Justinian Plague

If one didn't borrow money to speculate on gold-silver spreads, one would never be driven to suicide; the spread between gold and silver coins still fluctuates, and as long as Great Ming continues expanding, these spreads will persist due to real-world information-driven volatility—holding physical assets and waiting is entirely feasible.

But anyone driven to suicide has almost certainly leveraged their positions many times over, utterly unable to withstand even the slightest disturbance.

Great Ming once had such an example: a respected juren starved to death in Shanghai County, where gold and silver lay everywhere; his name was later used by Yao Xu Guangqi to create the Sun Sun Shangli Index, to measure price fluctuations and prepare for Great Ming's currency issuance.

Sun Sun Shangli held many magical artifacts, all purchased during the spirit-summoning craze, expecting their value to rise—but the great monks periodically introduced new artifacts, rendering Sun Sun Shangli's holdings worthless.

Wang Qian was never truly ruthless; his tactics didn't even match his nickname "Wolf of Yanxing Tower"—he wasn't a wolf at all, but rather somewhat gentle.

In contemporary Taixi, King Philip of Spain issued gold bonds, overissued them recklessly, causing collapse; Philip then defaulted and restructured—this was already his third gold bond issuance, hurtling toward its third collapse, and all who believed in Philip lost everything.

Bruges, a principal city of the Hanseatic League, established marine insurance about a century ago; this insurer rejected claims at a rate of 37%, nearly four in ten claims vanishing without trace; shipowners insured heavily, only to face endless excuses for denial.

Maritime trade in this era was a perilous business; many shipowners staked their entire fortunes, even borrowed money, on their vessels—once a ship sank, they became paupers; the Bruges Marine Insurance Company feared no such paupers' tantrums—if things got too messy, they simply hired two vagrants to make the troublemakers kill themselves.

Bruges Marine Insurance didn't deny claims based on circumstances—it denied them based on wealth.

London's money market lay on Lombard Street; England's Queen's finance minister, William Cecil, was the Earl of Burleigh; seven years ago, William declared that for a certain period, Lombard Street would admit deposits but allow no withdrawals—silver and gold deposited there would be seized by the finance minister.

All gold redemption notes in circulation were suspended; these gold reserves were used to maintain the scale of privateers—a period lasting twenty-six years.

These privateers ultimately helped England defeat Spain's Invincible Armada.

Yet Lombard Street banks didn't need physical gold to redeem their own notes; they began lending and issuing gold notes at will, unafraid of the harm they caused, for there was no meaningful oversight—bankers handled business entirely according to personal whim.

England defeated Spain's Invincible Armada, yet the Northern Alliance of the Netherlands became the "Carriage of the Seas"; England's "Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets" arrived too late, due to the English government's credit collapse.

Wang Qian truly wasn't ruthless; compared to Taixi's financial scholars, Wang Qian's morality towered higher than Kunlun Mountain.

Deng Deng Zilong, the Viceroy of Elder Jinchi, defeated the largest tribe of the Kurin and captured vast numbers of Kurin people; Wang Qian had this story adapted into a play, sung from north to south of the Dajiang.

It was meant to make the investors of Yanxing Tower clearly understand that the gold-silver exchange rate would undergo massive fluctuations.

Great Ming now had its own stable gold acquisition channels, with enormous reserves and high output.

Modified fast sailing ships, converted into star-gazing vessels, departed from Songjiang Prefecture in March for North America, seeking new gold mountains; the natives there traded natural gold nuggets for Great Ming goods—finding gold mines was merely a matter of time.

Previously, due to massive silver inflows, the distorted gold-silver price of 1:16 would gradually revert to the normal 1:5 ratio.

Even so, Wang Qian was still cursed at; some brokers even charged at him with knives—only to be kicked away by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who merely kept them at a distance, taking no further action.

Wang Qian wasn't ruthless enough; had he been more heartless, he could have continuously driven up gold prices during this period and sold off, likely causing even more people to jump to their deaths. His lack of ruthlessness stemmed from his morality.

As Minister of Rites Shen Li said: morality is too lofty to govern a state, but without morality, the state will cease to be a state.

Inside Yanxing Tower, some rejoiced while others grieved; gold was being heavily sold off, yet others were rapidly buying it up; trading speed had noticeably accelerated from its previous sluggish pace.

Some believed gold prices would rise further, since a giant crocodile was absorbing gold without limit; many had guessed that the Emperor had appointed Wang Qian to collect and store gold for the imperial treasury; across the entire market, gold flowed out overall, while silver flowed in.

The only person in all of Great Ming capable of absorbing such vast quantities of gold was His Majesty alone.

Others believed prices would fall, because silver inflows were declining—a trend; Great Ming's silver inflows had dropped by two million taels over the past two years; with gold flooding in and silver receding, gold's abundance and silver's scarcity meant gold prices couldn't remain high.

Whether gold prices would rise or fall, Wang Qian himself didn't know—but he knew the market now had divergent views; as long as there was divergence, there was room to maneuver—and he could profit.

The gold seized by the Jinchu Viceroyalty came from spoils; the three Kurin tribes' largest tribe had found vast amounts of gold but lacked reliable smelting techniques, so they collected it as sacrificial offerings; mining at the Great Gold Mountain had already begun.

Yanxing Tower had gone mad; some waved silver notes, buying gold certificates in bulk;

others wept with faces covered, utterly heartbroken; some screamed at the top of their lungs; some stared with bloodshot eyes at those who had grown rich, lamenting their own missed opportunities; others wandered out of the trading hall like soulless corpses.

To Wang Qian, this place was an amplifier of human depravity: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust—these were the Seven Deadly Sins of Taixi's faith, the seven most vile primal sins of human nature, fully laid bare in Yanxing Tower.

Li Yashih and Matteo Ricci were both missionaries; Ricci defined gluttony as wasting food, while Li Yashih was more worldly—he saw gluttony as excessive obsession with something: drunkenness, opium abuse, wasteful goods, or extravagant indulgence in pleasure.

This was a metaphor; Great Ming had similar expressions: "wine pools and meat forests."

"I must go to the palace—arrange a carriage to Tonghemen." Wang Qian looked bewildered, shook his head hard, stepped out of Yanxing Tower, and headed for Tonghemen.

He went to Tonghemen to report his gains and deliver a batch of twenty-seven ten thousand taels of gold.

On the way to Tonghemen, Wang Qian clearly seemed lost; he had seen too much human ugliness, making him question whether humanity deserved the title "lord of all creatures."

"Your servant bows before Your Majesty. May Your Majesty's health be well." Wang Qian bowed deeply, facing a figure he rarely encountered: Prince De, Zhu Zhu Zaiyu.

Prince De Zhu Zhu Zaiyu was even harder to see than the Emperor; His Majesty had issued the highest protection order for all Ge Wu doctors, agricultural doctors, and medical doctors—visiting them required submitting an application at the Northern Town Commandery Office, and only after the Emperor's personal approval could one gain access.

Beside Prince De Zhu Zhu Zaiyu sat the Grand Shen Yiguan Chen Chen Shigong.

Zhu Zhu Yijun smiled and said: "Rise, sit and speak."

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu leaned forward, full of excitement: "Dr. Chen discovered through the microscope that under natural selection, even all living things evolved wheels—but only in extremely primitive life forms, like tiny microbes, whose flagella are actually wheel structures."

"But more complex organisms avoid wheels, because using wheels requires roads; four-legged structures have greater reproductive advantage; when roads are impassable, four legs are far more conducive to survival."

"Indeed—even the Shang King's chariots broke axles." Zhu Zhu Yijun fully endorsed Zhu Zhu Zaiyu's words; Shang Kings' chariot accidents were carved on turtle shells and animal bones.

Zhu Zhu Yijun then asked curiously: "Why do humans build roads while animals don't? I've noticed some animals have strong construction abilities—like subterranean palaces built by burrowing creatures."

This question was hard to answer; His Majesty always had strange ideas—if animals learned to build roads, wheels would become even more efficient.

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu thought a moment: "We've observed all animals are profoundly selfish—not in a pejorative sense, but as a descriptor: their territorial instincts are extremely strong."

"They build subterranean palaces for themselves; even social animals rarely engage in road-building—work done for others—because numbers are insufficient, so roads and wheels never evolved."

"We may conclude that our current wheels are, in fact, humanity's evolved, more convenient limbs—faster, farther, more efficient."

"Perhaps one day, we'll grow wings and fly to the heavens."

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu's perspective was fascinating: to him, based on natural and human selection, human inventions—long and short weapons, bows, spears, firearms, cannons—were all like animals' evolved fangs and tusks; inventions like wheels were simply for running faster, longer, farther.

It was a profoundly interesting perspective.

The Ge Wu Academy remained obsessed with powering gliders with steam engines, narrating how humans would fly; to Zhu Zhu Zaiyu, humans growing wings and soaring to the heavens was inevitable—reaching the nine heavens to pluck the moon, diving the five oceans to catch turtles—no distant dream.

Steam turbines and gliders becoming human wings—this was also the Ge Wu Academy's own five large brick houses.

Hearing this, Wang Qian felt relieved: humans were selfish enough, but these animals seemed even more so; to the Ge Wu Academy, selfishness was a neutral term, not a pejorative—it was a universal trait of all flora and fauna.

"We discovered that the Geda Plague originates from rats—the very plague Taixi calls the Black Death; 'plague of rats' is more accurate—it spreads via fleas, transmitting pestilence to all; the weaker the rats, the more easily they fall ill." Zhu Zhu Zaiyu's face turned grave.

The preceding was an interesting observation from the Dissection Institute; preventing the Geda Plague, the Black Death, and rat plague was the true reason Zhu Zhu Zaiyu and Chen Chen Shigong came to Tonghemen.

The Black Death ravaged all of Europe; according to Li Yashih's rough estimate, at least one-third of Taixi's population perished in the medieval Black Death outbreak; the outbreak didn't end there—it dragged on for over three centuries.

Recurrent rat plague continued in Taixi; each outbreak saw people resort to every bizarre method to hunt down the demon: killing witches, cats, purging, bloodletting, inducing vomiting, fumigation, using toads, bathing in urine, and more.

Even Taixi's aversion to bathing stemmed from the Black Death outbreak—without hot water, bodies became more vulnerable to illness, eventually becoming a cultural norm—not from ignorance of cleanliness, but from fear of death.

Even today, due to terrible urban conditions, London in England still suffers recurrent rat plague outbreaks.

In contrast, Lisbon in Portugal, thanks to targeted sanitation reforms, became the only place in Taixi free of rat plague.

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu sighed: "The Eastern Roman Empire once showed signs of revival; a thousand years ago, Justinian I ascended the throne in Constantinople, becoming Emperor of Rome; at that time, Justinian and his general Belisarius swept forward, expanding territory with unstoppable force—the revival of Rome seemed imminent."

"Then, Constantinople erupted with the Black Death—no divine lightning, no hellfire, no war or slaughter—people died rapidly; those Justinian sent to bury corpses soon became corpses themselves."

"Justinian even dug dozens of massive pits; corpses piled up faster than they could be buried; new corpses became the earth covering them; people widely believed this was divine punishment—this plague utterly extinguished the flames of Rome's revival; everyone began questioning Justinian's rule."

"People widely believed this plague, sweeping across the entire Roman Empire, was divine revelation—a punishment sent to halt Rome's revival."

"Later, the people of Taixi named this plague the Justinian Plague."

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu feared the Emperor didn't grasp the danger of the Geda Plague, so he gave an example: even in Great Ming, people still regarded Taixi as civilized—only ancient Rome, perhaps; other nations, including the "Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets," Spain, fell short.

The "Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets," Spain, was a state where divine authority overshadowed royal power—a concept Great Ming struggled to comprehend.

This was why Chen Chen Shigong sought Zhu Zhu Zaiyu to petition the Emperor: when governance crises arise, it's better for someone from the Zhu family to speak.

Chen Chen Shigong bowed: "Your Majesty, the Geda Plague: after contact with rats or flea bites, victims suddenly develop small lumps on limbs, then lose appetite, experience dizziness and fever, vomit like rotten watermelon flesh; one infected, the entire household perishes."

"The capital has over three million souls; Songjiang Prefecture is no less populous. If the Geda Plague erupts in the capital, I dare not imagine the consequences."

Discovering the Geda Plague's link to rats required returning to Suiyuan.

During Wang Hua's pacification of Suiyuan, Great Ming discovered cowpox to prevent smallpox; later, another deadly plague—the Geda Plague—was found; initially, Grand Medical Officers sought a cowpox-like method to prevent it, but failed quickly—it seemed two entirely different disease mechanisms.

In tribes overrun by rats, the Geda Plague erupted more frequently; after detailed interviews with survivors, Great Ming's Grand Medical Officers fully confirmed the disease chain—more tenacious than smallpox.

"Your Majesty, another animal carries this pestilence: the marmot. Grasslands teem with marmots; nomads follow water and grass, and so do marmots; they carry multiple pestilences—hunting, touching, or biting can transmit them to humans." Chen Chen Shigong added another discovery from the Dissection Institute.

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu immediately said: "Your Majesty, the imperial highways connect north and south; grassland goods reach Great Ming more easily. I've seen marmot pelts sold in the capital. My concern isn't paranoia—slight carelessness could mean total defeat."

Zhu Zhu Zaiyu and Chen Chen Shigong sought to convince His Majesty: Great Ming stands at a critical historical juncture; if it follows Justinian's path, its revival may be broken.

Seeing the danger yet doing nothing to prevent it will exact a terrible price.

"Then what should we do?" Zhu Zhu Yijun smiled. "I'm not saying you're exaggerating—you analyzed the Black Death and Geda Plague, digging deep to find answers. I respect the Ge Wu doctors' research, just as they respect the infinite principles of all things."

"So give me concrete methods—how can we prevent the Geda Plague from erupting in Great Ming?"

"I have a memorial on rat extermination, humbly requesting Your Majesty's review." Chen Chen Shigong finally handed his memorial to the Emperor; Li Li Shizhen was old, and all Dissection Institute affairs had gradually passed into his hands.

Chen Chen Shigong proposed six directions to prevent plague spread, all centered on rat extermination and sanitation.

To prevent the Geda Plague from spreading unchecked, action must begin in every corner of towns and countryside—especially killing or driving away rats and marmots on the grasslands to uninhabited lands.

"Sanitation" means creating hygienic environments and clean towns—this must be incorporated into the Performance Evaluation System; in the Grand Medical Officers' view, good sanitation blocks pestilence and eliminates many epidemics.

Chen Chen Shigong believed drug development was vital, but prevention was more vital—creating hygienic environments truly reduced illness.

Zhu Zhu Yijun studied it long, then said: "Both of you, I approve this memorial. Entrust it to the Grand Medical Officers. I don't want Justinian—I don't want Great Ming's revival to abruptly end. I entrust this to you."

Zhu Zhu Yijun still trusted Chen Chen Shigong and granted him full authority to oversee this matter—just as cultural industry workers must possess culture, medicine must follow professional advice.

"Your servant obeys." Chen Chen Shigong took a deep breath and bowed.

"We take our leave." Zhu Zhu Zaiyu, amid his busy schedule, took time to accompany Chen Chen Shigong to petition the Emperor—to persuade him to implement this policy; at least, no metropolis over a million souls must suffer such a plague.

Otherwise, Great Ming's revival might truly stall halfway.

Even if it caused no great harm, a horde of base Confucians would leap out screaming "Heaven's warning!"—Zhu Zhu Zaiyu would not allow this!

They had barely suppressed the trend of twisting the "infinite principles of all things" into "Heaven's will"—it must not recur.

Zhu Zhu Yijun watched their retreating backs, feeling moved; in some ways, they had been right.

In the late Ming, in the sixth year of Emperor Chongzhen, Shanxi began to erupt with rat plague;

in the fourteenth year of Emperor Chongzhen, the plague spread from Gansu, Shaanxi, and the Ordos region into the North China Plain, then swept across the entire country with the peasant uprisings;

It took great effort to suppress the trend of distorting the principle of infinite phenomena in nature as divine mandate; it must not be allowed to resurface.

Zhu Zhu Yijun watched the receding backs of the two men, feeling a pang of reflection; in a way, they had been proven right.

In the late Ming, sixth year of Emperor Chongzhen, plague broke out in Shanxi;

In the fourteenth year of Emperor Chongzhen, the plague spread from Gansu, Shaanxi, and the Ordos region into the North China Plain, and then, carried by peasant uprisings, swept across the land from south to north;

From the fourteenth to the sixteenth year of Emperor Chongzhen, Beijing suffered three successive large-scale plague outbreaks; children vanished from the streets, and with or without coffins, the nine gates counted over two hundred thousand dead.

When the plague erupted in full force, people widely believed the Ming dynasty's mandate had expired; ultimately, Emperor Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself from the crooked neck tree on Your Majesty Mountain, and the Ming fell.

"Am I that stingy?" Zhu Zhu Yijun sighed and shook his head.

When Chen Chen Shigong pulled the emperor's tooth and triggered an inflammation crisis, Zhu Zhu Yijun didn't care—he had refused opium for pain, so let fate decide life or death. But Chen Chen Shigong cared deeply; after that, he refused to meet the emperor alone, always accompanying Li Li Shizhen or Zhu Zhu Zaiyu.

"Minister Wang, have you struck it rich again?" Zhu Zhu Yijun asked, smiling at Wang Qian.

Wang Qian bowed respectfully and handed over the ledger: "Here is the account book for two hundred seventy thousand taels of gold, Your Majesty. Perhaps it's best to shut down Yanxing Tower Trading House."

"Oh?" Zhu Zhu Yijun finished reviewing the ledger and looked at Wang Qian in surprise.

Wang Qian frowned and said, "I'm not afraid of divine retribution—I know profiting this way harms my moral virtue. But my virtue is already spent; I don't care about this little more. I'm mainly worried that the lust for profit will sweep across the entire Ming, and then propriety and ritual will collapse."

Wang Qian didn't even need to fear being made a scapegoat and executed to appease public anger, for even on the massive matter of the Official Selection Law, the emperor never held Wang Qian responsible.

To this day, Zhang Zhang Juzheng wonders why Wang Wang Chonggu, that old fox, was so eager and cooperative in the matter of the Official Selection Law.

It was perfectly natural for Wang Qian, as a scholar-official, to fear that the lust for profit would corrupt the moral fabric of the realm.

Since ancient times, profit-seeking by merchants has always drawn criticism—for example, in the Analects, Book of Li Ren, Confucius said: "The noble man understands righteousness; the petty man understands profit," establishing "righteousness" as the moral standard for scholars and "profit" as the petty man's goal.

Not only Confucians held this view—Legalists agreed too. The Book of Shang Jun stated: "Let merchants not buy grain, farmers not sell grain," aiming to suppress merchants and force the population back to farming.

In Han Han Feizi's Five Vermin, merchants were classified as one of the five vermin, accused of hoarding goods to profit from timing.

The Records of the Grand Historian: Treatise on Equalizing Standards records that Emperor Emperor Gaozu forbade merchants from wearing silk or riding in carriages; under Emperor Wu, the Poll Tax on Merchants and the Informant Tax on Merchants were successively enacted, imposing heavy taxes on merchant wealth.

By the Tang dynasty, merchants and artisans were barred from taking the imperial examinations; in the Song Code, it was explicitly codified to continue the rule that "merchants and artisans are different categories" and ineligible for the exams; in the early Ming, Emperor Taizu declared merchants to be those whom the sovereign must suppress.

But the Ming was somewhat better: artisans and temporary merchant registrations could still take the exams, since the military colony system required the use of merchants in conjunction with the Grain Exchange Law.

For example, Wang Wang Chonggu's family had long been merchants; he was registered as a commoner, but to travel and trade, he needed a merchant registration—yet this trading experience did not disqualify him from taking the imperial examinations.

Wang Qian's family had been merchants for generations, so he understood well the harms brought by the lust for profit.

After much hesitation, Wang Qian said, "Your Majesty, the Ming is undergoing renewal, and the lust for profit has already begun to rise. Yanxing Tower clearly amplifies this sentiment. It would be better to shut down this trading house outright."

"In Yanxing Tower, so many are sharpening their knives, waiting to reap the profits of leveraged money, yet people still rush in one after another."

"It's not about shutting it down immediately. Right now, Yanxing Tower only takes in, doesn't issue new tickets, forbids small-ticket trading, and slowly withdraws large tickets—aiming to close the trading house completely within three to five years."

"If money is needed again, we can reopen."

Wang Qian proposed a phased closure plan—orderly shutdown, not like Felipe's abrupt closure of the Madrid gold bond exchange, which defaulted outright. Shutting down Yanxing Tower and defaulting would damage the state's and the emperor's credibility.

"I've considered this idea myself. Good," Zhu Zhu Yijun said after a moment's thought. "Use the recent wild fluctuations in gold and silver prices as justification—claiming it causes endless harm—and shut it down."

The Ming's shipbuilding supply chain is now fully mature; the plan for everyone to become shipowners can be temporarily concluded.

Northern merchants and northern capital can now proceed along the imperial highways to the Maritime Trade Office to participate in ocean trade.

Zhu Zhu Yijun also felt Yanxing Tower should be shut down—more and more people were borrowing money to enter the market, undermining the Ming's stability. As Wang Qian said, there were no winners in this trading house, only survivors.

This was tied to state fiscal policy: though Wang Wang Guoguang had retired, Zhang Zhang Xueyan was an even more extreme conservative than Wang Wang Guoguang.

Zhang Zhang Xueyan believed state borrowing was disgraceful. If the court lacked funds, compel the powerful to donate; if they refused, confiscate their property! If that wasn't enough, conquer Japan, then find a way to seize the rich silver mines of South America—never borrow!

This was the Ming state's extreme conservative faction.

The emperor owes money? The whole world belongs to the emperor!

Zhu Zhu Yijun and Wang Qian agreed to shut down Yanxing Tower, but their plan sparked a massive uproar—immediately drawing opposition from nearly everyone.