Tibet.

Chapter 1467 The Deep Water
There was a reason why Li Ye chose Shannan West Road as a pilot area, and that was because Bashu was unstable.

"Shu was in chaos before the rest of the world was in chaos; Shu was not when the rest of the world was at peace."

Now the world has been at peace, but the hidden dangers of Bashu still exist. The reason is that Bashu is relatively closed, and the local powerful families are powerful and have never submitted to the jurisdiction of the court. For example, the military commanders Jia Xiu and Guo Qianren are both from Dongchuan powerful families, and the powerful families behind these warlords are very powerful.

Previously, Hebei was under separatist rule, and many warlords in Bashu saw the opportunity to establish their own regime and were ready to make a move. Finally, Li Ye took the lead in attacking Bashu and put down the separatist rule in Hebei in time, calming the restless warlords.

But this is only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution. These unstable factors still exist, especially hidden in the hearts of the powerful families.

The reason why Li Ye's army was able to sweep across East Sichuan and West Sichuan was because these powerful families hated Yongwang Li Lin, so they borrowed Li Ye's power to kill Yongwang Li Lin. That's why Li Ye's army was so unstoppable when it entered Sichuan, and counties and prefectures surrendered wherever they went.

But once Li Ye touches their interests, they will not hesitate to show their displeasure to Li Ye.

The most typical example is that Cui Yuan was dissatisfied with the salt monopoly order of the imperial court, and deliberately allowed his son to sell private salt and undermine the imperial monopoly pilot project. Why did Cui Yuan dare to openly confront the imperial court? Because officials from more than a dozen states supported Cui Yuan behind the scenes, and behind the officials of more than a dozen states were actually these local powerful families.

Historically, the Tang Dynasty divided Bashu. Dongchuan was called Shannan West Road and Xichuan was called Jiannan Road. This was to separate the army of Xichuan from the nobles of Dongchuan. However, this caused great harm. Xichuan was too weak to deal with the joint attack of Tubo and Nanzhao alone.

Later, the Tang Dynasty merged East and West Sichuan, and employed famous generals such as Yan Wu and Wei Gao, and finally stabilized Bashu.

However, in the past two years, Li Ye still has the support of the nobles in Sichuan. First of all, Li Ye actually merged East and West Sichuan. In name, there is still a distinction between Shannan West Road and Jiannan Road, but the government affairs are handled by the same team, with Wang Wei as the Inspector of Shannan West Road and Jiannan Road.

Another important reason was the military campaign against Nanzhao, which almost destroyed Nanzhao and completely eliminated the threat posed by Nanzhao to Bashu.

But it does not mean that we should indulge the nobles in Sichuan just to gain their support. This time, the Internal Guards conducted a survey of Shannan East and West Roads. The family of Xiangyang Du ranked first in Shannan East Road, with 3,700 slaves.

But compared with the Guo family in Hezhou, Shannan West Road, it was nothing. The Guo family was estimated to have 18,000 slaves, and this was data from ten years ago.

The Guo family built a castle on Diaoyu Mountain and isolated it from the outside. The internal guards could only inquire about the situation at the market at the foot of the mountain.

All the wealthy families in Dongchuan follow the lead of the Guo family. The head of the family, Guo Huaiyan, has a far greater influence in Dongchuan than the Inspector Wang Wei.

Then the representative of the powerful families in Xichuan was the Jia family in Qiongzhou. The head of the family, Jia Yuan, was known as the king protector and had a close relationship with the Liao people. His family had 3,000 Liao warriors and servants. Jia Xiu, the military commander of Qiongzhou, was Jia Yuan's younger brother.

Currently, the interests of the Jia family and the imperial court are consistent, and both want to guard against the invasion of the Tibetans. However, the Jia family has 15,000 slaves, owns half of the salt wells in Qiongzhou, and dominates Linqiong County. In fact, Linqiong County has become an independent kingdom of the Jia family.

This is the deep-seated reason why Li Ye wanted to promote the abolition order, and use it to crack down on the super-powerful families in various places.

But Li Ye took it step by step and first dealt with the wealthy families in Guanzhong and Chang'an, mainly the Guanlong nobles.

Then there are Shannan East Road and Shannan West Road. Actually, Shannan East Road is easy to deal with. He knows the Huang family and the Du family, so it is easy to control them. The difficult part is the wealthy families in Bashu.

In order to prevent the nobles in Shu from vigilantly colluding with each other, Li Ye deliberately did not include Jiannan Road, but only solved Shannan West Road, which might be able to paralyze the nobles in Shu.

However, there were also experts in Shu who had long seen through the emperor's real purpose in implementing the abolition order and used legal means to crack down on local tyrants.

The Guo family’s castle on Diaoyu Mountain certainly cannot be compared with the Diaoyu City of the Southern Song Dynasty. It also had high walls and many defensive fortifications.

Guojiabao was actually a summer villa of the Guo family, and the three Guo brothers stayed in Hechuan City most of the time.

The head of the family, Guo Huaiyan, the second son, Guo Qinghua, and the third son, Guo Qianren, each had dozens of wives and concubines and gave birth to countless children. The promising children went to various counties to serve as officials, while the unpromising children went to various counties to serve as clerks. Together with their sons-in-law and disciples, they were basically spread across various counties in Dongchuan. The Guo family in Hezhou was like the Jia family in Qiongzhou. Their secret to wealth was to control the salt wells in Bashu.

The imperial court implemented a salt monopoly system in Bashu on a trial basis, and for this purpose killed Cui Yuan who resisted the court.

But in the end, the imperial court reached a compromise with powerful families such as Guo and Jia, purchasing their well salt at the price of 50 wen per catty, and marking the price up to 110 wen before selling it to ordinary people. The difference was the salt tax.

Of course, the condition was that these wealthy families were not allowed to sell private salt anymore. This barely stopped the proliferation of private salt in various parts of Bashu.

But the good times did not last long. Since the beginning of this year, private salt at 70 wen per catty has quietly appeared in the Chengdu market. Although the quantity is not large, the tentative meaning is very obvious. Once the court does not respond, private salt will immediately flood out next year.

The additional price difference of twenty cents per catty was enough to make the wealthy families in Bashu lose their minds, and the emperor's abolition order was promoted to Bashu at this time.

In the study, Li Zhennan, an aide, pointed to the self-inspection order on the table and said to Guo Huaiyan, "This is by no means a simple self-inspection notice. Even if the owner of the family declares and pays taxes truthfully, the inspection will still come. They will check all the account books and investigate the Guo family farm and salt wells. They will find that the salt production does not match the amount sold to the government. The gap is huge. How will the owner explain it?

There is also the source of the 20,000 salt workers. That is a serious crime of smuggling salt and smuggling with foreign countries. It is enough to bring the Guo family to ruin.

The 20,000 salt workers of the Guo family were actually Tang prisoners of war captured by Nanzhao in the battle in the ninth year of Tianbao and sold to the Guo family. It has been almost twenty years, and these Tang prisoners of war have adapted to the identity of salt workers and their lives have stabilized. No one mentions the past anymore.

Perhaps because of the long time, the Tang army did not discover this secret in the process of destroying Nanzhao. Once this secret was revealed, it would reveal a series of problems. The Guo family had been selling pig iron and weapons to Nanzhao for a long time, and the Guo family supported 10,000 able-bodied men and privately stored a large number of weapons.

Each of these charges is enough to get the Guo family confiscated and exterminated, but for decades no one dared to touch the Guo family, let alone investigate the Guo family, so they can be so unscrupulous.

Guo Huaiyan was silent for a moment and then said, "What do you think, sir?"

"I believe that we must give people a taste of their own medicine. The laws of the Tang Dynasty allow the legal acquisition of slaves. It is reasonable and legal for each of our families to acquire slaves. If the court wants to implement the abolition of slavery, it must first abolish the previous laws of the Tang Dynasty, and then compensate us for the abolition of slavery. It cannot be abolished whenever it wants, unless Li Ye did not inherit the Tang Dynasty. Patriarch, this is Li Ye's biggest weakness!

He claims to be the successor of the Tang Dynasty, so he must obey the laws of the Tang Dynasty. Without compensation, his current abolition order is unreasonable and illegal, or it is not applicable to slaves before the abolition order, but only to new slaves. "

Guo Huaiyan nodded, "That makes sense, then what about his slave tax law?"

"Master, if the skin is gone, where will the hair be attached? Once the abolition order is illegal and we win the fight, the slave tax will no longer appear. In fact, our goal is to resist the inspection. As long as it is delayed indefinitely, it will eventually come to nothing. We don't care if the court wants to investigate other places, but we can't investigate Bashu.

So we need everyone to resist collectively, just like we resisted the salt tax. In the end, both sides compromised. We acknowledged the abolition order for the sake of face, and then symbolically restored the freedom of a small number of old and weak slaves, allowing the government to provide for their retirement. We didn't care about it. The court gained face, and we also solved the burden of the old and weak slaves. Everyone was happy!"

"Well said. I will send out a call for heroes and call on everyone to boycott together. I will also reach a consensus with the Jia family of Qiongzhou, and the two Sichuans will fight against the imperial court's abolition order together."

Li Zhennan said slowly: "We must also call Erlang back from Chang'an as soon as possible and prepare for war!"

Guo Huaiyan was shocked, "Will there be another war?"

"When I say war preparation, I mean the worst-case scenario. I believe the court does not want to go to war. If both sides can make concessions and compromise, the problem can be solved. Master, the abolition order is not a big problem. I am worried that other issues will be brought up, and the court is unaware of these issues. We actually have the upper hand!"

Guo Huaiyan nodded, "Just do as you say!"

(End of this chapter)