Episode 15
Shen Yishi colluded with local officials Zheng Michang and He Maocai, and used honey traps and false land purchases to create a huge political turmoil.All this was hidden from Yang Jinshui, an important official of the imperial court. It was not until the incident was revealed that the truth of the conspiracy was revealed.
Shen Yishi, a silk giant with 25 workshops and 3,000 looms, could weave 548 pieces of silk every day.However, life was not easy for the richest man.Not only did he want to fill the deficit in the national treasury, but he also wanted to give Zheng Michang, He Maocai and corrupt officials in the capital a share.In order to maintain his business, Shen Yishi had to collude with Zheng and He and buy an acre of land with ten shi of rice to barely make ends meet.
In this conspiracy, Shen Yishi deliberately used the name of the Weaving Bureau to buy fields to attract Yang Jinshui's attention.He expected that Yang Jinshui would report to the court. If something unexpected happened, the court would have more confidence in Yang Jinshui.However, after Yang Jinshui learned the inside story, he hated what Zheng Michang and He Maocai did.
After the cabinet learned of the incident, it urgently ordered Zhejiang officials to confiscate Shen Yishi's property and allocate it to the military.In order to shirk responsibility, Zheng Michang and He Maocai passed the matter to Gao Hanwen.Desperate, Shen Yishi chose to set fire to himself, but four boxes of bribery account books fell into the hands of Zheng Michang and He Maocai.
In fact, Shen Yishi had already been exploited to the point where there was very little left.His inventory of raw silk could only sustain the workshop for weaving for twenty days, totaling 10,960 pieces, which was 489,440 pieces short of the 500,000 pieces the imperial court needed to sell to the West.There are only a hundred pieces of silk left in stock.This conspiracy turmoil put Shen Yishi into a desperate situation.
At the same time, the internal affairs of the Ming Dynasty became increasingly corrupt, and Japanese pirates had been infesting the southeastern coast for ten years.Amid this internal and external troubles, Hu Zongxian, the governor of Zhejiang Province, took charge of the deployment, and the Qi Jiajun led by the famous general Qi Jiguang became the main force in the decisive battle against Japan.In this year, a war concerning the life and death of the country began on the southeastern coast of China.
