The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 155

The court had received information about these Frankish people a month or two earlier, but at that time Jiajing had just ascended the throne and the court had no time to attend to other matters.

In the original history, this group of Franks was wiped out by the Ming Dynasty's Embroidered Uniform Guard, and their leader Magellan was beheaded by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Therefore, in terms of combat strength alone, Zhou Chu's eight hundred soldiers were more than capable of annihilating them. Zhou Chu estimated that these Francois had crossed the ocean, and even if they had Francois cannons and flintlock muskets, they would have long since run out of ammunition. It was questionable how many bullets and shells they still had.

Moreover, the fighting style of these Western pirates is far too primitive, making it not difficult to take them down.

However, to be absolutely certain, Zhou Chu wanted to wait until the first batch of his own breech-loading cannons and flintlock muskets were manufactured before going to Tuen Mun Island to completely wipe out these breech-loading people.

In this way, Tuen Mun Island became his training ground, and it wasn't just Tuen Mun Island that was there, but the entire Hong Kong.

With these artisans from the Southern Garrison, the first batch of firearms will be manufactured very quickly.

The distance from Beijing to Suzhou is more than 2,000 li. In this era, the marching speed of infantry was 30 to 40 li per day. The Zhou and Chu troops were all on horseback or in carriages, and their marching speed was about 100 li per day.

Along the way, Zhou Chu encountered more than a dozen bandit ambushes and three inn fires. He felt that his journey was not much different from that of Tang Sanzang on his pilgrimage to the West.

After being ambushed by bandits several times, Zhou Chu's soldiers now each had a warhorse.

Zhou Chu divided the cavalry into many squads, positioning them in front, behind, to the left, and to the right of his own troops to ensure the safety of the artisans he was stationed with.

Each of these craftsmen was extremely valuable to Zhou Chu.

Even if the next batch of craftsmen is transferred from the Southern Garrison to Suzhou Prefecture after arriving in Zhouchu, it will still take at least a month for them to arrive in Suzhou Prefecture.

After traveling for more than twenty days, Zhou Chu overcame countless difficulties and dangers, and finally arrived in Suzhou.

Adding to the month Zhou Chu spent in the capital, nearly two months have passed. The Imperial Guards who had been sent to various places to confiscate property have all returned to the capital. When the amount of money confiscated was tallied, Lu Wanshan trembled as he looked at the documents in his hand.

The amount of money was more than 500,000 taels of brocade, more than 30 million taels of silver, and more than 800 million strings of copper coins. Lu Wanshan had never seen or even heard of so much money before. At this moment, he missed the days when the Commander was in the capital. He thought back to when the Commander saw so much money and just smiled faintly.

Lu Wanshan felt that compared to the Commander, he was only slightly better in martial arts, but otherwise he was utterly useless.

On his way to the palace, Lu Wanshan's heart pounded, as if he were holding not a document to confiscate his property, but a cannonball from a red-coated cannon.

In the past two months, Chu Li has stirred up a huge uproar in Jiangnan. First, she sold off large quantities of borrowed raw silk through various merchants, causing panic in the market. At the same time, she spread various rumors through the beggars of Rongmen singing lotus flower ballads, such as that raw silk was unsaleable and could not be sold at a good price.

Most ordinary people and small business owners are ignorant; once they see that the market trend is not right, they dare not buy raw silk even more.

That's how the market works: the more prices drop, the less people dare to buy, fearing they'll be stuck with unsold goods; the more prices rise, the more people rush to buy.

By the time Zhang Ziyi and the others realized what was happening, the price of raw silk had already been driven down to an extremely low level by Chu Li's continuous dumping of shares.

By the thirteenth day, Chu Li began to arrange for a large number of people to continuously purchase raw silk. At this time, many raw silk merchants were afraid that they would not be able to sell their raw silk. As soon as they saw someone buying, they couldn't wait to sell it immediately.

By the time they realized what had happened, two days had passed. Chu Li's people had bought up countless raw silks, which accounted for about half of the entire Jiangnan market. By then, Chu Li had run out of money.

The money that could have bought 30% of the raw silk in the entire market was used to buy 50%.

When half a month had passed, Chu Li brought the agreed-upon raw silk, intending to return it to Zhang Ziyi.

But as the vice president of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce, Zhang Ziyi couldn't let it go so easily after being tricked by a woman. He immediately gathered countless thugs, wanting to get rid of Chu Li. Once Chu Li was dealt with, wouldn't all her goods and money be his?

Even though Zhang Ziyi is very wealthy, he still finds it difficult to remain calm when faced with such a large sum of money.

He never expected that this woman was backed by the Embroidered Uniform Guard. When hundreds of Embroidered Uniform Guards came out wielding embroidered spring knives, Zhang Ziyi was dumbfounded.

He had no choice but to accept it, even though it was not an easy thing for him to openly clash with the Imperial Guards.

But the matter was far from over. Another month passed, and because there was a 50% shortage of raw silk in the market, the price of raw silk rose day by day. Even local powerful families like the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce couldn't control this increase. There was simply too much shortage in the market, and the supply couldn't meet the demand. Countless cloth shops were waiting to cook rice and simply couldn't afford to wait any longer.

In just one month, the price of raw silk skyrocketed to eighty coins per catty, double the original price, and it continues to rise.

The next batch of raw silk will take at least another month to arrive, and the production cycle for a single batch of raw silk can take several months.

Seeing that the market was about to spiral out of control, Zhang Ziyi convened all the raw silk merchants of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce to discuss the matter. Among them were many local powerful figures, many of whom had relatives holding official positions in the capital.

Ultimately, everyone decided to surround the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guard) office in Suzhou and force Li Xingruo to hand over all the raw silk in her possession.

“Chief Li, I’m trying to talk to you nicely. You’d better know your place, or even these Imperial Guards won’t be able to protect you.”

Zhang Ziyi looked at Chu Li in front of him, his face dark and gloomy.

It's no wonder he's in a bad mood after being schemed against like this by a woman.

"Is the Zhang family planning a rebellion?"

Chu Li appeared extremely calm, but her palms were sweating profusely. She had never expected these powerful figures from Jiangnan to be so lawless, even flipping the table. If they wanted to attack the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Chu Li would truly be helpless.

"The Li family is really joking. In this Suzhou Prefecture, our word is law."

Zhang Ziyi sneered.

"Oh! Who's so arrogant? Daring to block the Emperor's view?"

At this moment, a slightly mocking voice rang out, followed by the sound of countless warhorses pounding the ground.

Chu Li breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that long-lost voice.

"Weighing instrument, you've finally arrived."