Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Chapter 258 The legitimate son Li Xiang
Without household registration in Wu County, those refugees are essentially still refugees.

What poll tax do refugees pay?

Which refugee family will have land?
In addition, even the land tax is exempted, so these refugees who are clearly farming the land and living and working in peace and contentment in Wu County don't even have to pay any tax.

"This is taking advantage of the Han law." Zhang Zhao said angrily.

"What nonsense!"

Li Ji said seriously.

"Hundreds of thousands of refugees have poured into Wu County. I have already tried my best to prevent the refugees from starving to death. Where can I find enough manpower to register and naturalize the refugees one by one?"

"This is not because I want to exploit the loopholes in Han law, but because Wu County simply does not have so many manpower."

"Without corresponding household registration, how can I collect the population tax from those refugees? This is against Han law and I will not do it."

At this moment, Zhang Zhao finally knew what it meant to be eloquent.

Caring about the people?

Instead, the money and grain to ensure the operation of Wu County's government were collected by repaying loans, and then allowed the people to recuperate.

"Furthermore, those loans have to be done. After all, the current treasury and granary are almost full of rats. In addition, if the refugees are given land and houses unconditionally, how fair will it be to the local residents of Wu County?"

After a pause, Li Ji continued.

Li Ji obviously didn't want to pay even a copper coin tax to the court from the refugees, so he exempted the refugees from the land tax and population tax at the same time in this way, and then collected it from the refugees through the so-called return of loans. Wu County government tax.

"When will Mr. Zikun plan to register those refugees as naturalized citizens?" Zhang Zhao asked again.

"Currently, the government offices are short of manpower. I'm afraid it will take three to five years to find enough manpower."

If it were Gu Yong, he would never ask for the root cause like this, but would make a confused choice.

Even though Li Ji was powerless to bite him to death, Zhang Zhao was sure that Li Ji did it on purpose.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao has now fully reacted.

But what Li Ji didn't know was that Zhang Zhao did not return directly to the main hall after leaving. Instead, he found Liu Bei and recounted the conversation he had just had with Li Ji.

However, the Han Dynasty had not completely collapsed, so Li Ji was naturally unable to change the taxes of the Han Dynasty. Even if he wanted to reduce the burden on the people of Wu County, it was impossible.

Li Ji watched Zhang Zhao's leaving figure and tilted his head slightly, missing Gu Yong a little.

Or do you still cherish the Han Dynasty?

Therefore, in addition to ensuring that there were no other miscellaneous taxes, Li Ji temporarily exempted the refugees who fled to Wu County from the land tax and head tax in this loophole.

Or is it simply a matter of getting to the bottom of things?
However, Li Ji actually knew that the land tax of the Han Dynasty was relatively light nowadays, but the population tax was quite heavy. Coupled with the rampant corruption of corrupt officials and the increasingly serious land annexation, this would gradually lead to the deprivation of livelihood for the people at the bottom.

After Zhang Zhao was silent for a while, he took the bamboo slips and retreated.

Zhang Zhao didn't know what his position would be. It seemed that it was necessary for Jin Yisi to observe more.

The death of the emperor is not far away, and only after the Han Dynasty has completely collapsed, Li Ji can really start to change the taxation method under Liu Bei's rule.

If a great talent who could resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees and increase the cultivated land several times in a very short period of time, how could he fail to register and naturalize those refugees if he really wanted to do it?

Li Ji frowned slightly and then replied.

Finally, Zhang Zhao concluded. "My lord, from what I have seen above, Li Zikun probably has no intention of being a Han Dynasty person, and that's why he came up with such a clever name, hoping to siphon off the taxes that should belong to the imperial court for his own personal use."

Liu Bei, who listened silently, stroked his beard and said. "Is this happening?"

Immediately, Liu Bei seemed to think about it for a moment before continuing.

"In this case, Zibu will act according to Zikun's words for the time being. Don't alarm Zikun. We will secretly investigate and weigh before making a decision."

"Yes, my lord."

Zhang Zhao nodded, then turned and left.

After Zhang Zhao left, Liu Bei turned around and asked Xiahou Bo beside him. "Ji Chang, what do you think is the purpose of Zhang Zibu's behavior?"

"Bo dare not lie." Xiahou Bo replied.

"I'm afraid, it's probably nothing more than a desire to fight for power..."

Liu Bei murmured, with a hint of regret in his tone.

Originally, Liu Bei thought that Zhang Zhao was a talented person in government affairs, and he intended to train him to be Li Ji's deputy in government affairs. This would also make Li Ji's life much easier.

Unexpectedly, it had only been less than a month since Zhang Zhao had entered the government office. After realizing that Li Ji was almost alone in charge of the entire government office, he had some thoughts.

"However, Zikun's policies are indeed sensitive in one or two ways. If you are not careful, they will be exploited and criticized. Ji Chang, you have to help Zikun keep an eye on it and don't let any unfavorable remarks about Zikun leak out in the market."

"Yes, lord." Xiahou Bo replied.

Liu Bei thought for a while and then continued.

"Also, write down what Zhang Zibu said just now and send it to Zikun for review. Whether Zhang Zibu should be reused, temporarily used, or discarded, let Zikun decide for himself." Yes, my lord."

Xiahou Bo responded, his eyes showing some sympathy for Zhang Zhao.

Such secretly instigating the relationship between the lord and Mr. Zikun, not to mention that the lord seems to be calm, I am afraid that he has secretly been put on a blacklist in the mind of the lord.

Even if Mr. Zikun doesn't mind this matter at all, I'm afraid he won't be able to be reused by his lord in the future.

When Li Ji received this account of Zhang Zhao's words, he couldn't help but laugh.

Originally, Li Ji was thinking about Zhang Zhao's intention and position in making such detailed inquiries, but he didn't expect that it was actually to fight for power.

However, Li Ji thought deeper than Liu Bei.

Zhang Zhao was Sun Quan's teacher in the original trajectory, and Sun Quan's "checks and balances" approach could not be said to be deeply influenced by Zhang Zhao.

In this way, Zhang Zhao's purpose is clear at a glance.

It's not that Zhang Zhao didn't understand the close personal relationship between Liu Bei and Li Ji, and he also understood that Liu Bei had Han Dynasty in mind.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao judged others by himself, and what he judged was that when Liu Bei knew that Li Ji was disrespectful to the Han Dynasty and was in charge of power, he would build a close confidant to check and balance Li Ji.

Typical of the Soochow style, it can only be said that Zhang Zhao is worthy of being Sun Quan's teacher in the original trajectory.

'It's a pity that the land belongs to Soochow and the people are from Shu Han...'

Li Ji said secretly, but did not deliberately pursue Zhang Zhao's intention.

It's time to employ people. If Zhang Zhao can still use it, then use it again.

The worst thing is, Zhang Zhao likes the method of checks and balances so much, then just send him to some places suitable for this method.

And there is no doubt about Zhang Zhao's talent.

With Zhang Zhao's cooperation, not only was the government office still running smoothly without Gu Yong, but many loans to the government were also confirmed and implemented one by one.

At first, many refugees who had just settled in Wu County were quite confused. However, after learning that they would not have to pay any taxes for the next three years, they only had to repay the Wu County government 400 to 500 yuan per household per year. Almost every refugee praised Liu Bei.

After all, compared with the taxes stipulated by the Han Dynasty, the money and food needed to be given to the Wu County government was almost half less.

Liu Bei's already high reputation in Wu County has been greatly improved again.

At a time when the people of Wu County had almost truly entered the stage of living and working in peace and contentment, Mrs. Gan and Cai Zhaoji gave birth to their sons on the same day in July, both boys.

This incident made Liu Bei very happy for half a month, not only because of the future, but also because of the coincidence and fate between him and Li Ji, and he sighed many times.

"In this life, we were not born in the same year, same month, and same day as Zikun, but you and I were our legitimate sons, born on the same year, same month, and same day. There is no doubt that we are brothers by destiny."

Because Mrs. Gan had dreamed of swallowing the Big Dipper before giving birth, Liu Bei still gave his legitimate son the nickname "Adou" and enthusiastically took the initiative to name Li Ji's son "Li Xiang". With great talent, his son should also have the appearance of a prime minister.

Li Ji could only accept Liu Bei's high hopes with a smile.

In fact, regarding his expectations for his legitimate son, Li Ji believed that as long as he was not a treacherous and evil person who brought harm to the people, that would be enough.

If Liu Bei finally conquers the world, then as long as Li Ji can enjoy his old age, his descendants will be rich and worry-free, and there will be no need to fight at all.

On the contrary, a double prime minister can sometimes easily cause fear.

Therefore, Li Ji often felt that it was okay for his son to be a waste. If he could become something, he would become something; if he couldn't, he would just lie down.

And Liu Bei did not forget to make Liu Adou and Li Xiang brothers as they agreed in the past, and he expected them to support each other throughout their lives and be brothers in love during the 100th anniversary of their legitimate sons.

Since Li Xiang was born an hour earlier, Li Xiang is the elder brother and Adou is the younger brother.

However, compared to Liu Bei who devoted a lot of love to these two young children, Li Ji paid more attention to Yizhou and Yingzhou.

The development of Yizhou was as expected.

With the full cooperation of Guan Yu and Gu Yong, in the past half year, a small city has been established in Yizhou based on the prototype of the camp. The contact with the Yizhou survivors was also quite smooth, and there was no major friction.

On the contrary, the Yizhou survivors were greatly shocked by Guan Yu's strange and majestic image, and they almost worshiped Guan Yu like a god descending to earth.

In addition, it is the record of Xu Fu's eastward journey that Jia Xu spent a long time forging, and it is almost time to be unearthed.

As Wu County's autumn harvest ended, a large amount of grain almost filled Wu County's granary, and Wu County had also been working hard for more than half a year, which can be said to be "a well-equipped army with sufficient food".

Coupled with the fact that Gan Ning's reputation as the "Jin Sail Thief" spread more and more widely, it was natural for Wu County to use excuses to expand its navy.

Today, Wujun's navy alone has more than 15,000 troops.

This made Li Ji, who had been deliberately patient, even feel a little impatient.

Before the Han Dynasty officially entered the troubled times, it first kicked Yingzhou off the chessboard, and pacifying the troubled times also required a large amount of gold and silver minerals in Yingzhou.

Wouldn't this be a double blessing?

(End of this chapter)