Thief Emperor

Chapter 193 The Charm of the Old Profession
If you want to get rich quickly, it is very simple. Just reach into someone else's pocket and take out what you want, and you'll be done.

Of course, the premise for doing so is that you can bear the consequences of this action.

The first thing is that you can beat the opponent.

The second is that you can withstand the sanctions of the rules.

And now Li Yun has exactly this ability.

There wouldn't be too many people guarding a salt field, so if you could bring back a dozen carts of salt, you could sell it for a lot of money.

This thing is the hardest currency among hard currencies. It can be sold at a high price no matter where you are or at any time!
Moreover, he has the ability to fight against the government. After all, he is now the government official of Yuezhou. As long as he returns to Yuezhou from Mingzhou, he will enter the safe zone. The officers and soldiers of Mingzhou will not go to investigate the government office of Yuezhou.

Even if the Mingzhou government wanted to investigate, it might not have the ability to do so.

Chief Li changed out of his official uniform, put on only cloth clothes, and left Yuezhou City with more than a hundred people.

Although it took two days to determine the location of the salt field in advance, there were no high-precision maps in that era, let alone navigation tools. The group spent three or four days. After arriving in Xiangshan County, Li Zheng pretended to be a smuggler asking for directions and finally found out the direction of the salt field.

Although private salt and iron business was prohibited by imperial decree, where there were huge profits, naturally people would take risks, and private salt business continued despite repeated bans.

A large part of the private salt leaked out from the government-owned salt fields. Otherwise, the officials in charge of the salt industry would not have always held lucrative positions and made huge profits.

Of course, the officials in charge of the salt fields usually earn their money from legitimate salt merchants. Unless they are particularly short of money, they generally dare not risk being beheaded to engage in private salt business, especially small-scale private salt dealers, which is even more impossible.

However, in recent decades, the court's administration has been relaxed, and the imperial inspectors who inspected the salt industry have little control over the local areas. The local salt industry is now becoming increasingly loose and lax, and many private salt dealers can buy salt openly at the salt fields, which has almost become a routine practice.

In the evening of that day, Li Yun and others arrived near the Yuquan Salt Field in Xiangshan.

Although it is called a salt field, it is not a factory and does not have any large-scale production equipment. In essence, it is more like a small village where each household is responsible for making salt and then paying a fixed amount of finished salt to the court on a regular basis. The government will purchase the salt beyond the fixed amount at a certain price.

However, since it is a highly profitable industry, the purchase price that the government gives to salt households will naturally be much lower than the selling price.

On a small hillside, Li Zheng pointed to the dozen or twenty carts of salt already loaded onto horse-drawn carriages at the entrance of the salt field village, and whispered to Li Yun, "Second brother, over there."

Li Yun looked closely and saw that some salt merchants were already loading goods at the entrance of the salt field.

Li narrowed his eyes and said softly, "We'll do it later, when it's dark."

In this era, there were people who traveled overnight, but there were almost no merchants who traveled overnight. Although these goods were loaded overnight, most of them would not be shipped away until the next morning.

Li Yun and his companions waited for nearly an hour. When it got dark, he put on a mask, held a mace in hand, and waved his hand: "No need to hide, just do it!"

After saying that, he rushed forward first.

Every salt field is a cash cow. Since it is a cash cow, the government will naturally send soldiers to station there. There are more than a dozen soldiers guarding this salt field, but both in terms of combat effectiveness and numbers, they are far inferior to Li Yun and others.

Following a shout from Li, more than a hundred people behind him, all with their faces covered, rushed towards the Yuquan Salt Field.

Almost all of these one hundred men were born bandits and had been on the battlefield for a long time. After they rushed down together, they immediately began to divide the work without Li Yun's command.

Holding bows, more than a dozen government soldiers shot at the salt field, while some went to block the path to prevent the news of the Yuquan Salt Field from leaking out.

As a few feather arrows were shot out, three or four government soldiers from the salt field fell to the ground immediately.

Deng Yang, who was wearing a mask, shouted: "The thieves in Hexi are doing business, they only seek money, not lives, and they will not be killed if they surrender their weapons!"

As soon as he said this, the other officers threw their weapons to the ground without hesitation and knelt down to surrender.

Others have quickly blocked all the passages to the Yuquan Salt Field.

After all, they were an organized and disciplined anti-theft team. From the time Li Yun gave the order to take action to the time these people completely controlled the Yuquan Salt Field, it took less than half an hour.

By the time Li Yun and Li Zheng walked into the Yuquan Salt Field, the entire salt field was already under Li Yun's control. All salt households had closed their doors and no one dared to come out.

Looking at this village called Yanchang, Li Yun said with a "tsk tsk" sound, and smiled at Li Zheng and said, "It would be great if this was our business."

There are also salt fields in Yuezhou.

However, the salt affairs were still managed by the court's salt officials, and almost all the income had to be handed over to the court. Li Yun, the head of a local government office, had no way to interfere in the salt affairs, otherwise it would be tantamount to treason.

But after learning about it over the past two days, I realized that this business really makes money.

Li Zheng was also looking around the salt field, but it was already dark, and it was pitch black, so he couldn't see anything. He scratched his head and said, "It looks like an ordinary village, but there is a salty smell everywhere." Li Yun said softly, "There are dozens of salt fields in Jiangdong, and each salt field provides at least 10,000 or 20,000 strings of cash in taxes to the court every year."

Li Zheng frowned: "This... is not much..."

"That's because there are too many rats."

Li Yun said, "I've been reading books these days, and in the early years of the Great Zhou Dynasty, this number could be more than ten times higher."

Li Zheng was shocked and whispered: "If we have a salt field, wouldn't we be rich..."

Li Yun smiled and didn't respond.

In certain special periods, taxes from the salt industry could even account for more than half of the court's total tax revenue.

While the two brothers were talking, a fat man was escorted to Li Yun by Deng Yang. Deng Yang kicked the fat man on the calf. He knelt down obediently and cried: "Please spare my life, please spare my life..."

Li Yun was wearing a pure black mask, revealing only his eyes. He looked quite scary. He stared at the fat man with a dim gaze and said calmly, "Today is the day when the salt merchants pick up salt. Where is the money for buying salt?"

The fat man looked sad and bowed his head, saying, "My dear, the salt merchants can come to the salt field to pick up salt with the salt tickets issued by the masters. We are small officials, not even officials, how can we see any money?"

At that time, the Great Zhou did not have a salt permit system, but it was unlikely that salt merchants would carry money directly to the salt fields to buy salt, so there was nothing wrong with what the fat man said.

Mr. Li narrowed his eyes and sneered, "The official is the official, the county magistrate is better off taking charge. If you want to carry the salt smoothly, you have to give him some benefits, right?"

The fat man knelt on the ground, full of fear: "Good man, good man, I only have a few dozen strings of cash to support my family..."

"Please raise your hand and spare me!"

Li Yun waved his hand and shouted, "Go search his residence!"

Deng Yang and others responded and turned away.

Li Yun kicked the fat man in the back and knocked him unconscious.

After dealing with the fat man, Li Yun went to count the salt carts and had people rob the salt merchants who came to pick up the goods.

These are all fat geese. If Li Yun’s main job now was not robbery, he would have tied all these people up to the mountain and extorted money from their families.

In the second half of the night, the money and finished salt from the Yuquan Salt Field were packed onto more than a dozen large carts and escorted on the road amid the desperate eyes of the government troops.

The fat official of Yuquan Salt Field has now passed away.

The salt merchants were tied to pillars with only their inner clothes left on.

The surviving government troops were also tied tightly to pillars and could not move.

It was not until dawn that salt farmers from the salt field cautiously came out to check the situation outside.

Amid the cursing of several government soldiers, the salt households finally untied the ropes for them. After escaping, the government soldiers hurried to the county town to find the county magistrate to report the news.

At this time, some of Li Yun's troops, dressed in ordinary clothes and disguised as civilians, returned to Yuezhou. The other part disguised themselves as salt merchants and servants and guards, and marched along the official road towards Yuezhou.

However, they were driving the carts slowly, and the salt carts were too conspicuous. On the third day, the carts were caught up by runners from Xiangshan County. However, Deng Yang and his men fired a few arrows and killed two or three runners. Then they scared the remaining runners so much that they turned around and ran away.

On the fifth and sixth day, the government troops from Mingzhou had not yet arrived, and everyone had already successfully returned to Yuezhou.

It took another two days for Li Yun to place the dozen carts of salt on a farm outside the city near Yuezhouying.

After all the salt was stored in the warehouse, Li Yun couldn't help but fall into deep thought as he looked at the white finished salt in front of him.

Li Zheng was beside him, and said with a smile: "What are you thinking about, second brother? Who are you going to send to do these things?"

Li Yun shook his head and said with a smile: "I was thinking that our old business still makes money quickly. It would be even better if we could build a copper mine."

Although salt is good, it is not as real as copper.

Since we have copper, we can create a money model...

Li Yun can even start minting coins himself!

(End of this chapter)