Chapter 352: Port Opening (19)

In the traditional sense, Zuo Family Village ceased to exist just like that.

Those owner-farmers and rich peasants from before were the luckiest. Not only did they escape the blow, they even expanded their family holdings a little, and had now already begun a new life.

However, good times never last more than three seconds. Under the world-ending climate onslaught of the late Ming, this group would probably face bankruptcy again in two or three years. When that time came, they would still have to sell their land to the farms opened by the Transmigrators next door, then board ships for the vast New World and begin a truly happy life.

The middle class had temporarily escaped a calamity, but the landlords of Zuo Family Village now faced utter catastrophe. Even if only the back taxes from past years were honestly pursued, it would be enough to shrink this group's family fortunes by the majority.

After being forced to sell off their land next, these landlords would lose the means of production by which they exploited others, becoming people who sat idle and ate through their remaining wealth.

So after going around in one big circle, this group began arranging to migrate again: they needed to go elsewhere to buy land and survive. In fact, some of them had already become rich peasants, and could no longer wear the hat of landlord.

Xiong Dao and the Land Requisition Office under his leadership naturally would not concern themselves with whether this group lived or died. The farther they rolled away the better; if they stayed, he would still have to think of ways to deal with them, which was too much trouble.

After squeezing out the upper layer and luring away the middle layer, what remained was the lower proletariat, who made up the majority of the population. This was the demographic a certain power base liked best: revolutionary bricks, to be moved wherever one pleased.

The thousand-plus tenant farmers of Zuo Family Village had now already begun the transformation process. Two-thirds of the able-bodied laborers and one part of the women had been driven to Zhang Sutan, the men to build the port, the women to cook. They had already changed from tenant farmers into hired laborers in fact. In the future, once these people were shipped away in batches, they would be further transformed into industrial workers.

The old, weak, sick, and disabled left in the village, along with one part of the laborers, began to re-level the land, preparing to sow the new-type crops shipped in by the main household. The surrounding area had already become a single contiguous large farm, a rarity in the Ming Dynasty, so the people remaining were enough to handle the farm work.

These people left as garrison had lost the right to manage the land, and also lost the right to independent accounting as individual households. They were now essentially the same as those workers in Taiwan, all hired laborers drawing wages at the "State Farm."

Although they were very unaccustomed to it and could not figure out the stakes involved, for the impoverished people at the bottom, they had no choice at the moment. If they did not handle affairs according to the new master's wishes, they would be driven away to become refugees, or seized to become slaves to pay off debts.

However, this confusion would vanish sooner or later. Though the farmers could not read, they could feel the improvement in their future living conditions. Not to mention that by the end of the year, once they saw the miserable state of those tenant farmers around them, they would turn around and put great effort into singing the praises of the new master.

Since the construction of the port was expanding slowly, the adjacent farmland like the Zuo Family Farm would still exist for one section of time. Exactly when this place would begin turning into residential areas and industrial land would still depend on the speed of the port's development.

In short, after expending a large amount of resources, the land requisition work regarding Zuo Family Village as a "test site" could be said to have achieved phased achievements.

This was the first time in the history of the Crossing Faction that they had carried out a transformation of a native social environment in the heartland of the Ming Empire. The whole matter was of great significance. Therefore, although this matter appeared on the surface to be presided over by Ming Natives, the Transmigrators hidden in the shadows were still very concerned with how the situation developed.

In the entire transformation process, the spirit of resistance and the strength of resistance displayed by the various classes of the Ming Empire were key subjects of investigation for certain people.

Xiong Dao's side had already collected a large amount of data and transmitted it back to the rear. In the future, based on how the situation developed, there would be continuous social intelligence summarized. This was all foundational intelligence for the Transmigration Nation's future large-scale social transformation in the Ming Empire, and was extremely precious.

Of course, the transformation operation regarding Zuo Family Village was only the first step of a long march of ten thousand li. This ordinary village could not represent the full picture of the Ming Empire. Following this, there were still difficult problems like the gentry and urbanization transformations waiting for the Transmigrators to break through.

In addition, since the speed of information transmission in the medieval era was quite slow, Xiong Dao's side dared not be careless. The subsequent effects brought about by the land requisition incident were currently fermenting. He had to keep his eyes wide open and fix them on public opinion, to prevent the situation from rebounding. Opening up a large farm in the heartland of the Ming Empire — this news was bound to attract the attention of those with intent.

Unknowingly, time had already reached the end of April. While matters at Zuo Family Village had temporarily come to a stage, the confrontation in the county seat between Master Xiong and Deng's Strike Agency was also about to yield a result.

To be honest, Deng's Strike Agency was not willing, from the bottom of their hearts, to oppose Master Xiong. The mutual hostility between the two sides, in the eyes of Grand Steward Deng Hu, was purely a misunderstanding plus taking a stray hit.

Yes, the agency had taken Wu Meng's order from Zhang Sutan and intended to send men to set fire to Bear Estate, but wasn't this normal business dealings? There shouldn't be any personal grudges involved in this, right? If you, Master Xiong, had paid up, we fellows would have handled Wu Meng for you just the same!... Shopkeeper Deng believed this was simply a matter of business. Xiong Dao should not pin the grudge on the agency, and certainly should not keep biting down and not letting go. Wu Meng had already escaped to Taihu, and the thieving brats had had their nest raided. Was this still not enough?

However, Master Xiong replied: Not enough.

For a certain Xiong who had an overall plan, since he was going to open a port locally and establish a state within a state, then any power base that could possibly pose a threat to the New District in the future was on his cleanup list. So now it was not a question of whether Deng Hu wanted to stop, but a question of whether Master Xiong would let him off. You want to run after acting tough?

And so the aftermath of this matter was deliberately blown up by Xiong Dao.

When Wu Meng escaped to Taihu and Deng Hu once again asked a middleman to come bearing gifts to seek peace, the demand raised by Master Xiong was still just as vicious. That arsonist thief that day stole the family heirloom Glass Bicycle from me, the Master, and now Wu Meng has carried it off to Taihu. Since you, Shopkeeper Deng, wish to make peace, either bring the bicycle, or bring ten thousand taels of silver in compensation.

Deng Hu did not know what that blasted Glass Bicycle thing was, but he did know that nothing had been lost from Bear Estate that night. So Shopkeeper Deng now completely abandoned his illusions and began a standoff with the men from Bear Estate.

At the start, the two sides still traded offense and defense. Around Bear Estate, many idlers appeared overnight, and at night people began throwing torches and incense coils over the walls to harass them.

However, first, those who went to cause trouble at night never returned. After the hidden sentries lying on the walls identified all the outsiders clearly, these people, even in the daytime, all vanished as well.

What terrified Deng Hu the most was that these people all disappeared without a sound, creating absolutely no disturbance. Even the hidden sentries he had specially arranged could not be found... Having lost over a dozen elite brothers, Deng Hu now completely ceased all activity. He tightly sealed off the information, then suspended all business, and began to prepare arms and feed horses, ready to meet the opponent's revenge.

The tense confrontation between the two sides continued like this for nearly a month, and then Deng's Strike Agency could no longer hold out.

After all, a black society organization like a strike agency ultimately had to open for business and work. If they didn't work, what would the brothers eat? So after a month of being jittery and seeing that the opponent had taken no excessive action, Deng Hu could finally no longer suppress the voices below. The brothers thus began taking on jobs again.

This time's job was very ordinary. Butcher Zhang of the city's west side and Steward Xie were contesting the "Pig Path," and both sides were recruiting men and buying horses, preparing for a big fight. So Butcher Zhang invited the familiar Deng's Strike Agency to back him up.

"Pig Path," in the terms of later generations, meant "live pig purchasing and sales channels." In a super-rich county like Jiading, the annual sales volume of live pigs was over ten thousand head, so this was a big business.

In the medieval era, guilds were everywhere, and the live pig trade was naturally no exception. Butcher Zhang was the chief boss of the "Meat Stall Alliance" of the city's west side. He and the several dozen meat stalls under him monopolized nearly one quarter of the pig and sheep slaughtering and sales share of the city's west side.

And Steward Xie was the owner of the "Swallow Guest House" in the city's west side. Steward Xie was a professional operator of chain restaurants. Not only did he have business in the county seat, he had also opened several branches in various places around Su Hang. He was a man of influence in the local catering industry, and could be considered wealthy and powerful.

The discord that arose between these two sides over the "Pig Path" was, to speak of it, an old, longstanding conflict. The Restaurant Alliance wanted to drive down the price of live pigs, and the Butcher Alliance naturally had to struggle fiercely to resist.

This kind of commercial dispute was very common. Just like the labor negotiations in the NBA, the supply and demand sides, at intervals, would always openly array their forces, exhaust every means, negotiating while struggling, until an agreement was reached.

So for this "Anti-Restaurant-Alliance Price-Suppression Operation," Butcher Zhang had invited the familiar Deng's Strike Agency to be his backing, preparing to play a big game with the one surnamed Xie.

Why play a bigger game this year? Because this time Steward Xie had proposed a concept: the Restaurant Alliance would internally organize a pig-slaughtering institution of its own, and from now on, cut out Butcher Zhang's group of channel operators.

... This kind of concept, which pulled the firewood from under the pot, was naturally something the channel operators could not tolerate. So for this negotiation, Butcher Zhang prepared to first deliver a few ruthless blows, to let the one surnamed Xie know his power before talking.

The plan proceeded very smoothly.

After Shopkeeper Deng Hu took the job, he first led his brothers, together with the pig-slaughtering men under Butcher Zhang, in two pitched brawls against the thugs hired by Steward Xie.

During this period, both sides suffered casualties. However, this was all within expectations. Moreover, the employer had silver to settle matters with the families and the authorities, so the morale of both sides remained high, and the brawling would continue.

Next came a stroke of genius from the butcher's side. After Deng's men obtained accurate information, on a night so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face, they accurately intercepted the Restaurant Alliance's team returning from buying pigs in the city's east side.

After hacking several dozen live pigs to death and throwing them into a stinking mud pond, and then breaking the legs of all the villagers and workers transporting the pigs and dumping them on the official road, the elite members of the Deng Family Strike Agency returned in triumph.

... Back on the city's west side, everyone received a warm and enthusiastic reception from Butcher Zhang. Not only was a large sum of reward silver handed out, there was also fine wine and braised pork elbow to enjoy.

Then, early the next morning, a shocking piece of news stunned Butcher Zhang and Deng Hu into utter shock: Steward Xie was dead.