I

Until the wheat harvest in various places was finished, Cao Fengji had not made any big move, and he did not even directly contact Concubine Tian, ​​the prince and the princess.

Moreover, he really started doing business, selling woolen textiles shipped from the north.

Authentic northwest goods are quite popular in Jiangnan.

Shaanxi and Gansu are the centers of the wool textile industry, and now they belong to Li Zicheng. It seems that Li Zicheng is also encouraging business development, otherwise goods from Shaanxi and Gansu cannot be easily transported to Nanjing.

There are mainly four types of wool textiles in Shaanxi and Gansu: silk, brown, felt and silk.

The one who keeps silent is like a woolen rope.

As for Mao Brown and Mao Xi, they are both sweaters. The former is of rough workmanship and is only worn by the lower classes; the latter can be understood as a wool coat, which is slightly more high-end.

In addition, Shanxi belongs to the northern silk weaving center: Songjiang in the south, Lu'an in the north, Yitianxia.

The "Lu'an" in this sentence refers specifically to the Changzhi area of ​​Shanxi Province, where the raw materials for textile silk come from Langzhong, Sichuan.

Li Zicheng has had a very difficult time this year. He wants to rule normally but can no longer rob him. The refugees in some prefectures and counties were resettled and reclaimed land last winter. As long as they have enough food to eat, they have to rely on commercial taxes to pay officials.

Wool textiles from Shaanxi and Gansu, silk fabrics from Lu'an, and salt taxes from Shanshan Salt Ponds, Li Zicheng relied on these to maintain his rule.

Zhao Han had some bad taste and actually summoned Cao Fengji for questioning.

Cao Fengji was frightened when he saw the official. He felt that nothing was exposed, so he was taken away. Unexpectedly, he was taken to see the emperor, and he immediately became excited. It was not only convenient for espionage activities, but also more convenient for doing business in Nanjing in the future.

In Cao Fengji's vision, it would be best to wipe out the Manchu Qing Dynasty within three to five years. It would be best for his family to be safe. In fact, it would be helpless to die in the rebellion.

However, he can no longer be controlled, marry a wife, have children, do business in Nanjing, and live a peaceful and prosperous life.

"The common people bow to your majesty!"

Cao Fengji peeked at the emperor and knelt down to kowtow with great respect.

Zhao Han smiled and said: "Get up and give me a seat."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Cao Fengji kowtowed again to express his gratitude.

Zhao Han asked the female officer to bring woolen textiles: "Are these your goods?"

Cao Fengji was worried again and answered cautiously: "Exactly. There are many woolen cloths in the northwest, and cotton cloths in the south of the Yangtze River. The common people sell the woolen cloths to the south and the cotton cloths to the northwest, making some small profits from them."

Zhao Han pointed at Mao Brown and said: "This kind of sweater is too rough and can't be put on the neck. It will show red marks in a quarter of an hour."

Cao Fengji said: "Reporting to your majesty, the brown woolen clothes worn by the poor are rough, uncomfortable and heavy, but they are very warm in winter."

Zhao Han pointed at Mao Xi again and said, "This kind of sweater is acceptable."

Cao Fengji took the opportunity to say: "If Your Majesty likes it, the common people will have people select the wool and make it into a gorgeous and warm fur cloak for Your Majesty."

"I will not take advantage of merchants," Zhao Han said. "Sell more of this woolen cloth. I plan to design a windbreaker myself and give it to civil servants and generals as a means of keeping out the cold."

What is a windbreaker?

Although Cao Fengji didn't understand what he heard, he still said excitedly: "The common people must live up to their trust!"

Zhao Han played with another piece of wool and said, "Can the wool rope be spun thinner? Use selected wool and spin it into wool. The thinner the better."

Cao Fengji still didn't understand, so he nodded and replied: "If it can be refined, it can definitely be refined."

Zhao Han ordered: "It's so thin that it's only two or three minutes as thin as this wool rope. If you can spin such fine wool, I will let the government purchase as much as you can bring."

"The grassroots people will send their men back to the north immediately!" Cao Fengji was overjoyed. He felt that he was going to make a fortune.

Zhao Han didn't care about this. He was a craftsman. In addition to engaging in counterintuitive schemes and following the clues to arrest other craftsmen, he could also use this person to develop the northern woolen textile industry. Let him send people to deliver the news to stimulate the development of woolen textiles in advance. In the future, the north can be unified to pick fruits, and the Mongolian herdsmen can also be won over through woolen textiles.

In the Ming Dynasty, the northwest wool textile industry developed greatly, but due to the quality of wool, it was basically difficult to reach the level of elegance, so cashmere could still be accepted by the rich.

However, cashmere production is too low, and goats are rarely raised in the northwest and grasslands!

Zhao Han decided to vigorously guide and promote it. The worst ones were made into felts, the better ones were made into carpets, the better ones were made into brown cloth, and the better ones were made into windbreakers and woolen yarns.

Although Zhao Han doesn't know how to knit sweaters, he has already made wool. What's the difficulty in knitting sweaters?

This is not a trivial matter and is highly involved in politics.

As long as the wool textile industry can thrive, the northwest economy can be developed, the northwest more stable, and many grassland herdsmen can be bound together.

Zhao Han must take action personally, otherwise it will be difficult to promote windbreakers.

And if the emperor wears a trench coat and appears in public several times, it is guaranteed that dignitaries will imitate him! The queen wore a knitted sweater, met with official wives several times, and personally taught those official wives to knit sweaters. It would be popular in Nanjing within a year or two at most.

Then, it gradually spread across the country.

Zhu Yuanzhang did many such things. He set an example and single-handedly changed China's hundreds of years of tea-tasting habits. The establishment of royal tea gardens was stopped, group tea tribute was prohibited, tribute was replaced with cheap loose tea, and boiled tea was replaced with brewed tea. As a result, China's tea industry flourished, and tea spread from wealthy families to common people.

Cao Fengji said goodbye to the emperor and came back to the street, feeling like a dream.

His meticulous work in the Qing Dynasty was actually appreciated by the emperor, who even placed an order for him personally, saying that he could eat any amount of goods shipped.

Royal merchant!

Cao Fengji suddenly felt the urge to go back and surrender, and from then on became a true imperial merchant. But he was afraid that the emperor would be angry and snap his head off, and he was also afraid that the ghost of Manqing Xizuo would linger and kill him quietly in the middle of the night.

Damn those Tartars for delaying their own future!

Seeing a great opportunity but failing to seize it, Cao Fengji hated the Manchus deeply. As for the family members who stayed in Liaodong, he deliberately ignored them. Anyway, he was still very young and would definitely have another son and a half daughters.

Cao Fengji sat in a sedan chair home, thinking of ideas all the way.

He wanted to find out all the details hidden in Nanjing, and then surrender to the emperor to arrest them. In this way, it will not only make you safer, but also make great contributions to the Nanjing court.

It was not easy to operate. Although he was a craftsman himself, he only knew two other craftsmen. One is his clerk, and the other is a Shanxi merchant from Yangzhou. He usually sends the clerk to Yangzhou to spread news.

Alas, take your time, don't rush.

This is not a spy from the Second World War. It is so far away from Liaodong. Even the transmission of important information is measured in months, let alone more complicated operations.

Back at his residence, Cao Fengji recorded the content, which was nothing more than the supplies that Emperor Datong wanted to purchase.

This information must be sent out, including food prices in Nanjing and various large-scale material mobilizations. In addition, information and public opinion must also be conveyed, ranging from the academic trends in Nanjing to the trivial family affairs of Nanjing's important ministers - this can be learned from the mouths of scholars through literary meetings.

The spy technology is very crude. It only knows how to keep a running account, but does not know how to summarize and refine it. Moreover, the intelligence system is also extremely rudimentary.

To be honest, as long as Cao Fengji's boss is arrested and tortured, a lot of them can be uncovered.

Xu Ying is also investigating Cao Fengji's online presence, and she already has a clue. She can just keep an eye on the guy who delivers the news.

There is no exciting spy plot, because spies in ancient times have not developed to that extent. It's nothing more than making friends with key figures through various means, either buying them off, or instigating rebellion. If that doesn't work, just simply inquire about the information.

In ancient times, officials had a very poor sense of confidentiality. They often drank and chatted, and they could get information while chatting.

Of course, ciphertext technology still exists, otherwise the identity will be easily exposed.

Cao Fengji wrote all the information into an encrypted letter and handed it to his buddy along with the intelligence from the first half month: "Take it to Yangzhou and hit the road with other guys."

It was normal to send workers north this time. The emperor placed an order, and Cao Fengji asked someone to prepare woolen textiles.

Yang Yiqin was the craftsman. He followed other normal workers and was targeted before he left Nanjing.

The guy got off the ship in Yangzhou, took the information to a large house, handed Cao Fengji a greeting card, and was put in very smoothly.

A middle-aged man followed him here and watched Yang Yiqin enter the house, so he stayed nearby and waited. In the evening, before Yang Yiqin came out, the middle-aged man left silently.

The middle-aged man came to the inn, called the third shopkeeper into the room, and told the specific location of the house: "Focus on this house and see who they have contact with. It is best to send people to infiltrate their business."

The third shopkeeper was surprised and said: "The superiors sent people to strictly investigate the merchants, but I didn't expect that it turned out to be a salt merchant."

The middle-aged man said: "We should continue to investigate the businessmen."

The three major business gangs in Yangzhou are: Shanshan Gang, Jiangxi Gang and Huizhou Gang.

Due to the success of Zhao Han's rebellion, both the Jiangxi and Huizhou gangs benefited from this, and the merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi were squeezed out. In particular, the Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants had a very small share of the franchise. Whether it was for profit or out of hatred for Zhao Han, it was normal for the Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants to serve as spies for the Tatars.

The Shanxi salt merchant who was targeted at this time was also related to the famous officials Wang Chonggu and Zhang Siwei, and could be regarded as a collateral descendant of Wang and Zhang.

After Zhang Juzheng's death, Zhang Siwei succeeded him as the first assistant, and he didn't know what he was doing.

Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu were nephews and uncles. One was the chief minister of the cabinet and the other was a feudal official. Both of them came from salt merchant families. Gao Yongchun, the imperial censor at that time, said after inspecting the salt affairs: "The bad salt laws are caused by the power of the big merchants." He barely reported the ID numbers of Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu.

Even so, Gao Yongchun was forced to resign by Zhang Siwei.

After Emperor Hongzhi's salt law reform, Shanxi salt merchants began to decline. It was Zhang Siwei and other Shanxi ministers who, under the banner of reforming the salt law, reshuffled the cards during the Wanli period and made the Shanxi and Shaanxi salt merchants once again become tyrannical.

For the salt merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi who have settled in Yangzhou for a long time, Zhao Han has cut off their financial path, which is a sworn enemy!

A month later, Xu Ying reported the progress of the investigation: "The Shanxi merchants Wang, Zhang, and Fan in Yangzhou, as well as the Shaanxi merchant Li, these salt merchants all have problems. Either send news to the Tatars, or send news to Li Zicheng . Here in Nanjing, there is a ginseng merchant named Ai who is very suspicious, but nothing has been caught yet. Your Majesty, do you want to arrest him for interrogation? "

Zhao Han also wanted to watch a gripping spy movie, but the investigation went surprisingly smoothly.

The professional skills of ancient spies were too rough!

There is nothing to gain from luring the snake out of its hole. It is just a bunch of literati drinking and complaining. If they really want to defect to the Tatars, I am afraid they will be scared half to death.

Really boring.