Chapter 1299: I

Right now, every man here was saying he wouldn't dare, but saying he wouldn't dare only meant he feared Zhao Jin would turn hostile on the spot and refuse to let anyone leave. The moment they got back to their home villages, they would stir up trouble at once. The Great Ming's officials hadn't been able to do anything about them for all these years, so what could a newly risen Xuzhou Zhao Jin possibly do? The powerful gentry were certainly all thinking along those lines.

At that thought, Ma Chonghao couldn't help smiling. The powerful gentry all believed that by banding together they could make things difficult for Zhao Jin. They might not necessarily win, but they could tie down the Zhao Family Army, create all kinds of trouble for them, and in the end force a compromise. The powerful gentry would think that way; everyone under heaven would think that way. They would all simply assume Zhao Jin was muddled, that Zhao Jin was young and rash and didn't understand how to win people's hearts. Ma Chonghao felt that if this were his old self, he would probably think the same, and nine times out of ten he would even seize the chance to do something.

But Ma Chonghao no longer saw it that way now. He had already learned what Zhao Jin's Xuzhou truly was, while the others did not know. The others did not know what kind of power the Zhao Family Army and everything connected to Xuzhou truly contained, nor what kind of terror it really was.

A smile lingered on Ma Chonghao's face, but his eyes were ice-cold. He watched the powerful gentry in the room, each with their own expression, and knew that in the worst case he would still have to handle the loose ends himself. Suppressing rebellions like this was, after all, exactly the Intelligence Department's job.

The powerful gentry were rooted in their localities, wealthy and mighty. Shielded by the official status that came with examination degrees, they had deep, tangled connections in the county seats, the prefectural cities, the provincial capital, and even the imperial capital itself. They had household slaves and trusted men working as clerks and runners inside the local government offices. Any move against them would be protected and obstructed from every side; the slightest whisper of trouble would reach these powerful gentry at once. If it truly came to action, these top-tier local overlords would strike without the slightest hesitation.

They kept martial instructors and bodyguards — these were the backbone of their private troops. Then there were the tenant farmers and long-term laborers who tilled the land for them — those able-bodied men were their main force. They could even call upon the outlaws and men of the rivers and lakes in the surrounding area; those rough men of the underworld could not possibly survive without the powerful overlords' tacit consent and support. What was more, the local garrison troops and government runners would all follow the lead of these powerful gentry, because their interests had long since become symbiotic and inseparable.

Because of all this, both official and private, the Great Ming court and its officials had no choice but to share the rule of the realm with them, reaching a tacit understanding: you collect yours, I collect mine, neither interfering with the other. And now, the powerful gentry and scholar-landlords were taking an ever-larger share, while the court and officials got less and less. They could only turn to exploiting the common people, which deepened this vicious cycle, which in turn made it even more impossible to check or manage the powerful gentry, forcing them to be ever more deferential instead.

Relying on the Great Ming's officials and its government troops, there was no way to deal with these powerful gentry. Ma Chonghao had thought it through in his mind: even if he himself commanded the Embroidered Uniform Guard, even if he could command the Eastern Depot, he could only move against one or a few of them. To move against all of them across several prefectures of Shandong was absolutely impossible.

But now it was different. The power he now held in his hands could be mobilized swiftly, could penetrate everywhere, and would face no outside interference. Whatever he wanted to destroy, he could destroy. Whatever he wanted to tear out by the roots, he could tear out by the roots. These powerful gentry thought they had done nothing wrong, thought they would bring trouble to Zhao Jin and force the Zhao Family Army to compromise. It never occurred to them that this was walking straight to their own deaths. Whether they could grasp that point would depend on their own good fortune.

By this point, the convivial atmosphere of the banquet had vanished entirely. The powerful gentry's faces were grim, but most had regained their composure. Whatever they were thinking in their hearts, whatever they were preparing to do, they had to leave this Linqing first before they could carry it out. Here, the knife truly was pressed against their necks.

A smile still lingered on Zhao Jin's face. The anger and fear in the expressions of the men at the banquet pleased him greatly. Zhao Jin's statement did not stop; he shifted the topic. "Zhao took Shandong precisely to accomplish great things. What must be taken, will be taken. But I did not come here to plunder your family fortunes and properties. On the contrary, I can make your family enterprises flourish and your sources of wealth expand."

Only when he said this did the atmosphere in the room ease slightly. If Zhao Jin had brought up these words out of nowhere, they would likely have been dismissed as empty boasts and deceit. But after the utterly merciless words that had come before, at this moment everyone actually believed him a few degrees more.

"You gentlemen amass land and exploit your tenant farmers and long-term laborers. After a year of bitter toil, who knows how much resentment you have piled upon yourselves, and how much profit have you actually made? The moment a famine year or a time of chaos arrives, these lands and people become the very source of disaster. Let me ask you gentlemen: you all believe these landed estates can be passed down from generation to generation. Over these past twenty years, have you truly earned much from these estates?"

Zhao Jin asked the question, but no one below answered. In this atmosphere, no one was going to take up the thread of conversation either. Yet every man knew in his heart: in times like these, buying land and collecting rent truly yielded no great profit. Year after year it grew colder; droughts, locust plagues, and popular uprisings broke out frequently. In many places you couldn't even find enough tenant farmers to work the land. Managing land and agriculture like this truly offered no profit to speak of. Still, every man had his own calculation: not earning a profit in twenty years didn't mean you wouldn't in forty. Land stayed here for a hundred years, a thousand years, forever. As long as you held it in your hands, it could be passed down through the generations.

"How many twenty-year spans do you gentlemen have in a single lifetime? Think again about yourselves and other families — how many generations have your estates been passed down, how many years have they lasted? Can they truly be passed down through the generations?" Zhao Jin continued. These words again struck at what was weighing on everyone's minds. Landed estates shifted and were annexed; family fortunes rose and fell. Ancestors painstakingly built up a great family patrimony, only for descendants to squander it to nothing. Some descendants tried to hold on, but the great tide was impossible to resist, or they themselves failed to earn an examination degree and were then encroached upon and stripped by others — all manner of such things.

Yet even so, when everyone thought it over, in the world as it was now, there truly was no family asset more reliable than land. Only land could be passed down. No matter what the times were like, as long as someone worked the land and it produced grain, that was the foundation. That gave you peace of mind. No matter how glibly Zhao Jin talked, he was only scheming to seize everyone's land and people. He simply could not be trusted.

"I want a steady, uninterrupted supply of grain at low prices. I want manpower that answers only to me, with no intermediary layer in between. That is why I hope you gentlemen will relinquish the land and people in your hands. Of course, I will not take them for nothing. You will all be able to sell them for a fair price." Zhao Jin stated his intentions very directly.

When the men attending the banquet heard this, even their surface-level pretense was close to cracking. Their faces showed either anger or terror. Often they would raise their heads for a glance at Zhao Jin, then lower them again, utterly disregarding even the basic courtesy of watching and listening to the speaker. This Zhao Jin truly was an overbearing, unreasonable bandit, finally revealing his true nature. Wasn't this just wanting to plunder everyone's family property and fortunes? With a blade in hand, he wanted to commit such tyrannical outrages. In that moment, who knows how many hearts sneered coldly. You think your Xuzhou troops are fierce and strong — perhaps they truly are — but so what? If you lose the hearts of the people and the millions of common folk in Shandong rise in chaos, do you think you can suppress it? When the day comes that you need to bow your head, there won't be a courteous and polite occasion like today's!

Zhao Jin paid no heed to the expressions and reactions of the men below him. He simply continued, "Those willing to cooperate with Zhao, Zhao will not treat them shabbily, nor will I let you take the money and sit idle until it's gone. The reason Xuzhou is so wealthy is precisely that it has vigorously promoted industry and commerce. I will promote industry, commerce, and trade throughout Shandong. You gentlemen can invest your money, take part in management, or simply sit back and earn interest. This is far more lucrative than any landed estate. This is the true path to wealth."

As he was speaking, some of the powerful gentry below even revealed cold sneers, thinking to themselves: You, Zhao Jin, may be young, but don't treat us all as if we're just as young and ignorant as you. You really won't let a single coin slip away, will you? First you buy up everyone's land, and then you set a trap to swallow that money too. Isn't that just outright robbery? Wouldn't drawing your blade directly be more straightforward? Since you've already taken things this far, why go to all the trouble of such an elaborate scheme? In that moment, the powerful gentry even felt ready to die. At worst, they would leave their lives here; the sons and younger kinsmen back home would surely know what to do.

After Zhao Jin finished speaking, however, he made no threats, nor did his attitude turn forceful. He simply raised his cup with a smile in a gesture of salute. The response from below was stiff and wooden. No one had the heart to eat anymore.

The smile on Ma Chonghao's face, sitting off to the side, grew even stronger. A large portion of the wealth he himself had amassed over many years was invested in industry and commerce — something Zhao Jin permitted. The two liquor workshops in Jining and the cloth shop in the capital were all gushing sources of profit. Because Ma Chonghao had many connections, both open and secret, in the capital, he transported Xuzhou's strong liquor and cotton cloth, the great timber from Pi Island and special products from beyond the passes, and all manner of foreign goods through various channels into the capital, making a huge fortune. So he knew just how immensely profitable this industry, commerce, and trade truly was — far better than buying land and collecting rent.

From beginning to end, the powerful gentry present had been guessing at Zhao Jin's intentions, yet it never occurred to them that Zhao Jin was not employing any euphemisms or veiled allusions. He was simply telling them the plain truth and pointing out a way forward for them. Managing farmland was troublesome and exhausting, inviting suspicion and forcing you to deal with all manner of people. If they used that money to engage in industry, commerce, and trade instead, living in cities and towns, they would save worry and effort while living in wealth and comfort. Judging by the trends in Xuzhou, the future would certainly lean toward and emphasize industry, commerce, and trade.

In this great era of dynastic change and upheaval, the sooner you boarded Zhao Jin's ship, the sooner you rode the wind and waves, the greater the benefits you would reap, and the higher your status would be. Your family and descendants would have limitless prospects. If you failed to keep up, then nothing more needed to be said.

Thinking to this point, Ma Chonghao couldn't help shaking his head. Most of the powerful gentry in the room had by now come to regard Zhao Jin as an enemy, or were gripped with fear and anxiety over their own futures. Yet how many of them could realize that Zhao Jin was pointing out a future and a way forward for them, and was pointing out a bright and open road? If they did as Zhao Jin said, their descendants would truly enjoy inexhaustible blessings.

If they followed his instructions, their family would be treated as one of their own. The family's sons and younger kinsmen would be absorbed into the Zhao Family Army's system and employed in various civil and military capacities. A change of dynasty was imminent. To be absorbed and employed at a time like this was to be a follower of the dragon, with a vast and distant future ahead. Zhao Jin was not only giving them wealth, but also giving them a future. Yet who could perceive this? They all probably thought Zhao Jin had come to seize their property by trickery or force.

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