Chapter 233

Riot Story Part 1

According to the feedback from my henchmen, some readers feel that some processes of the riot are not very reasonable. Here I need to declare that all the riots in this volume are based on historical facts.

In this volume, I will share with you several riots used in this book in the form of easter egg chapters.

1. Suzhou Riot

In mid-May of the 29th year of Wanli, Sun Long stationed in the Suzhou Weaving Bureau again to discuss with local officials how to complete the addition of commercial taxes.

Local officials decided that part of it would be paid from inventory silver, and the other part would be taken from the people.

The news that it was taken from the people spread like wildfire, and for a time the people were surging and rumors were flying.

In early June, the machine households (bosses) began to stop weaving comprehensively.

This immediately cut off the livelihood of thousands of machine craftsmen and thousands of dyeing workers hired by the weaving households, who gathered at the gate of the Suzhou Manufacturing Bureau to ask for an explanation.

On June 6, more than 2,000 workers gathered near the Loumen in the northeast of Suzhou City, elected Ge Cheng, a machine craftsman from Kunshan, as the leader, and everyone entered the city to the Xuanmiao Temple Taoist Temple, the location of the silk weaving industry guild (the actual controller of the guild is generally the collection of production data holders), to hold a god-swearing ceremony.

When Ge Cheng swore to the gods, he asked everyone to only oppose the tax supervisor and his henchmen, and not to retaliate against the machine households, that is, the employers of the strike. The dyeing workers and machine craftsmen swore immediately.

Then Ge Cheng divided the people into six teams, each led by one person, holding a banana fan as a signal, and others followed with twisted sticks.

Then they began to slaughter tax officials outside the city—tying them up on the road, throwing stones, and smashing them to death.

After killing, Ge Cheng shouted, today's matter is to eliminate harm for the imperial court. If you take advantage of it, who in the world can believe it? Those who listen to my constraints stay, otherwise go!

Everyone swore to heaven again that this action was only aimed at the tax envoy and the tax officials appointed by him, and must not harm the local people of Suzhou.

Subsequently, Ge Cheng led a large group of people back to Suzhou City, and was not blocked by the garrison along the way.

The organizers of the riot all had "hand-folded papers" inserted in their waists in advance, on which were written the names and addresses of every tax official who needed to be punished—according to time calculation, it should be hundreds of detailed files prepared in advance.

Immediately after, the rioters organized to surround the residences of these tax officials and set fire to them.

Because there was a punishment list prepared in advance, this reduced the possibility of looting in the riot.

Even, Ge Cheng personally killed a dyeing worker who took the opportunity to rob a middle-class family. The demonstrators were therefore famous, and the local people welcomed them along the way.

During this period, the eunuch Sun Long begged the Prefect Zhu Xieyuan to send troops to suppress it but was refused.

The reason is that the army is used to resist foreign invaders. It is his dereliction of duty as a parent official that he did not arrest the organizers before the riot occurred; but since the riot has begun, sending troops to suppress it will cause large-scale civilian casualties and aggravate the harm of the riot.

In short, the eight characters "public anger is difficult to offend, holding firewood to save fire", had no choice, Sun Long could only flee to the home of a local wealthy family. (According to the research of Duan Benluo and Zhang Qifu in the 1984 paper, it should be Shen Shixing's home.)

By June 9, almost all tax officials were eliminated, and some fled to the prefectural yamen for refuge.

Ge Cheng and others began to post notices on the city gates of Suzhou, indicating that the purpose of this action was only to punish the tax envoy and his henchmen, not a rebellion against the imperial court.

At the same time, warn the people of Suzhou to pay attention to maintaining order and not to launch a rebellion by taking advantage of this action.

On June 10, the local yamen in Suzhou arrived late, and the Prefect and his subordinates rode into the street together to conduct peace talks with Ge Cheng and others.

The result was that Prefect Zhu Xieyuan announced the arrest of several tax officials who fled to the government for protection, that is, the fish that slipped through the net, and hinted that these tax officials would be executed later.

And the riot leader Ge Cheng stepped forward and volunteered to go to prison.

The riot was extinguished.

In the report to the central government afterwards, Governor Cao Shiping (the one who was demoted for using public vehicles for private purposes, and later vaguely promoted to Governor) memorialized to characterize this matter.

He said: "... but they (referring to the rioters) did not carry weapons (this is inconsistent with the county and prefectural chronicles, "Biography of General Wu Ge", "Dingling Note", etc.), nor did they rob property, notified neighbors in advance to prevent the spread of fire, and gave up some money to buy immunity from punishment.

When officials came to advise, they knelt down to plead guilty, saying that they only took action because the tax officials were too harsh, and would not harm the innocent. After Tang Xin (the tax official who fled to the prefectural yamen) and others were arrested, the crowd soon dispersed.

Ge took the initiative to surrender to the prefectural yamen, willing to accept punishment, so as not to implicate others. His angry emotions are also understandable.

The people of Suzhou are easily impulsive, easily believe rumors, and many are people who live on daily wages. They can only survive if they have work, and they will face death if they lose their work.

According to my observation, the closure of the dyeing workshop led to the unemployment of thousands of dyeing workers, and the closure of the weaving households led to the unemployment of thousands of weaving workers. These are kind people who maintain their lives by their own labor, but now they are forced to the end. I feel deeply pained by this.

The annual tax of the four prefectures is no less than several million taels of silver. What does the tax of 60,000 taels matter? If these taxes are not canceled as soon as possible, how to appease this important financial area?"

This is the content of the second half of the memorial.

Obviously, it is inconsistent with Sun Long's report.

Between the two difficulties, the Wanli Emperor finally chose a compromise.

So he issued an imperial decree, requiring the investigation of the responsibilities of Ge Cheng and other riot organizers, and requiring the Suzhou Prefectural Yamen to severely investigate the corruption and law-breaking behavior of those tax officials in prison.

And local officials made a biased interpretation of this imperial decree—yes, the imperial decree can be interpreted with a bias, which is a major feature of classical Chinese.

Finally, Ge Cheng and others were treated with courtesy in prison and released ten years later, while those tax officials were sentenced to death and became the victims of the imperial court to appease public anger.

As for commercial tax.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, commercial tax was never collected in the end.