Thief Emperor

Chapter 194 Raising troops to investigate crimes
This time's robbery...well, it was for purchasing goods. What was looted was just a dozen carts of salt and some miscellaneous items worth one thousand strings of cash.

All added up, the income was only a few thousand strings of cash.

If you really want to make a cash cow out of businesses like salt fields and mines, you need to occupy them for a long time. You won't get rich just by trying it once, and Li Yun didn't expect to get rich.

Now, he is just exploring a way to accumulate primitive capital in a short period of time.

So far, this approach is relatively successful.

Li Yun's other identity allows him to ignore the rules of the court. At the same time, his official identity can protect his secret identity.

This is equivalent to a group of robbers who can suddenly appear to rob and then suddenly disappear without a trace after the robbery. The local government has no way to deal with Li Yun.

However, although this way can accumulate wealth in a short period of time and is relatively safe for now, Li Yun can still remain sober at this time.

His bottom line is to be a local lord in troubled times. Since he wants to become bigger and stronger, this approach cannot be used often. It can only be used for emergencies, but cannot be relied upon to survive in this era.

Otherwise, you won’t be able to achieve great success and might even be worse than Qiu Dian.

After seeing the bags of salt being stored, Li Yun looked back at Li Zheng and Deng Yang beside him and said silently: "The Yuezhou Camp has been built up a little bit. From today on, let some people live in the Yuezhou Camp first."

He paused and continued, "Mingzhou will most likely trace the case to Yuezhou. If they send someone here officially, I will handle it. However, if they are tracking, they may send someone to this area to search for evidence."

"Everyone who participated in this incident today will receive three strings of cash and return to the camp. No one should tell anyone, Deng Yang."

Deng Yang lowered his head quickly: "I'm here."

"This farm is just vacant. You are to stay here with a hundred people and forbid any outsiders to enter or leave."

Deng Yang said without a word, bowed his head and clasped his fists, "I obey your command!"

Li Zheng frowned and whispered, "Brother, this might attract more attention. If they find out about this manor, it will be hard to cover it up."

"rest assured."

Li Yun lowered his voice and whispered two sentences. After listening, Li Zheng and Deng Yang nodded repeatedly.

Li Zheng smiled and said, "Second brother is still smart."

Deng Yang also looked at Li Yun with admiration. Li Yun looked calm, patted Deng Yang and Li Zheng on the shoulders, and said, "You stay here. I'll go back to Yuezhou City."

The two nodded immediately.

Only then did Li Yun ride his horse, leave the Yuezhou camp outside the city, and return to the governor's office in the city.

As soon as he entered the governor's office, Liu Bo came up to him, holding Li Yun's arm, wiping the sweat from his forehead, and sighed: "Second brother, you are finally back."

Li Yun smiled and said, "I just went out to do some work. Why are you making such a fuss? What happened?"

Liu Bo took Li Yun to the study room, where a thick pile of documents had been piled up. Liu Bo took a deep breath and said, "Second brother, these are the documents for the declaration of land in the counties of Yuezhou. According to your instructions, households with more than 50 mu of land must report to the government, and we will send people to verify it."

Liu Bo looked up at Li Yun and said with a wry smile, "There are more than 200 documents sent in the past few days alone, and documents from various counties are also being sent to the state. Second brother, we simply don't have that many people to verify these things."

He looked at Li Yun and whispered, "This matter can only be handed over to the county."

Li Yun sat down and flipped through a few pages. There were documents from all the counties, but only the documents from Shan County were relatively fewer. Most of the documents sent from Shan County were for land of more than 200 acres, and they were all marked and the land deeds had been checked.

Li Yun looked through it several times, then frowned and thought for a while, then said, "When I asked those people to come here, did I tell them that we had to report to the state because we were missing the land deeds to claim the 50 acres of land?"

Liu Bo scratched his head and said, "Second brother, I forgot..."

Mr. Li took a deep breath, sat down in his seat, picked up the pen and started writing documents.

The general meaning is that as long as the counties confirm the land deeds, they can return the land. If there is no land deed and the scale is more than 50 acres, the government will temporarily take over the land and find suitable people to cultivate it.

At the beginning, Li Yun asked the wealthy families in each county to claim land and report it to the state. His main purpose was to see if he could take this opportunity to get some land from the wealthy families.

It now seems that he has too few people under his command and cannot accomplish this task.

It’s not that he has no men under his command, but that there are too few people who can read and write, so few that they cannot complete the task of verifying the land.

Then there is no way, this matter can only be put on hold.

However, Li Yun still did not give up. He was prepared to take a one-size-fits-all approach.

When war broke out in Yuezhou, those families that did not flee were ransacked by the rebels. Even the wealthy families who fled might not have taken all the land deeds with them.

Li Yun was going to take back all the land that was missing the title deed and was over 50 mu in size. Liu Bo scratched his head and asked, "Brother, I've looked at it these days and it's at least tens of thousands of mu, or even more. What do you want so much land for..."

"We don't have the manpower to plow the fields."

Li Yun touched his chin and continued, "I want to rent this part of the land to the tenants to grow crops. By the end of the year, we will collect 10% of the rent from them."

"What do you think, Lao Jiu?"

These fields were essentially fields that were temporarily confiscated by Li Yun. However, since Li had not yet rebelled, there was no way for him to completely confiscate the "property rights" of those wealthy households in the Zhou court. Therefore, he had no way to directly deal with this part of the land.

Renting the crops out to tenants became the only option.

Compared with the landlords who collected 30%, 40% or even half of the land rent, Li Yun only planned to collect 10%, which was basically the same as the taxes imposed by the government.

Liu Bo thought about it for a while and nodded, "This is a good idea, but I'm afraid the local big families won't agree. If they start making trouble, it will be difficult for us to deal with them..."

"It's already the end of the year, and the new governor of the imperial court will be here next year. If Yuezhou is in chaos, it will be even more difficult for my second brother to compete with the new governor..."

"Competing?"

Li Yun grinned, a hearty yet somewhat arrogant smile on his face: "I never thought of competing with him."

Before Zheng Wei came last time, Li Yun did think about how to respond after the new governor arrived next year, and how to gain as much power as possible in the struggle.

After Zheng Wei came, Li Yun had a clearer understanding of the situation of this era.

The world is in such chaos that it is on the brink of collapse.

If the governor is sensible, Li can still live in peace with them. If he is not sensible, then reality will naturally make him behave himself.

His eyes became firm, and he said, "We will send documents to each county. All the land without land deeds will be temporarily taken over by the government. As long as there is no way to verify the ownership of the land, the court will take care of it."

Having said that, he wrote the document himself, and then asked his subordinates to copy it five times, a total of six copies. He stamped his seal as the Sima of Yuezhou and had people send it to various counties.

After finishing this, Li Yun looked at Liu Bo again and asked, "Has Third Uncle come to visit me during the few days I was away?"

Liu Bo nodded: "Uncle San came back once and captured another 100 or 200 rebels and asked how to deal with them."

Li Yun's eyes lit up, and he whispered, "Send someone to deliver a message to Uncle San, telling him that if he catches anyone again, send him directly to Yuezhou Camp outside the city, and I will go and interrogate him personally."

Liu Bo nodded.

"understood."

…………

In the next few days, Li Yun did not move much. He basically stayed in the governor's office, trying to handle the political affairs of Yuezhou.

At this moment, it is no longer as difficult as it was at the beginning, and it has been handled quite smoothly. In addition, there are people sent by Li Yun in each county below, so his government orders are relatively smooth.

After a period of time, Li Yun actually basically took control of the entire Yuezhou administration.

A few days later, the governor's office received an official document from Mingzhou. The content of the document was very simple.

That is the Yuquan Salt Field in Xiangshan County, Mingzhou, which was robbed by bandits. After the bandits entered Yuezhou, they disappeared without a trace. The Mingzhou government hopes that the Yuezhou government will cooperate with them.

At the same time, Mingzhou Governor Zhu Tong will personally arrive at Yuezhou City in a few days to discuss with Yuezhou the relevant matters regarding the capture of the bandits.

After seeing the document, Li Yun was stunned at first, then he threw it aside and said with a smile: "I never thought that the governor of Mingzhou was so serious. Come on, come on."

Mr. Li narrowed his eyes and said, "At most, it's just a matter of treating us to a few meals."

Liu Bo took the document and looked at it, then looked up at Li Yun and whispered, "Second brother, I'm afraid they already have evidence, otherwise they wouldn't come directly here."

Li Yun was not in a hurry. He yawned and looked at Liu Bo: "Old Nine, can you do business?"

Liu Bo shook his head: "I have only done business with no capital."

"I want you to try it."

Li Yun smiled.

"It started with smuggling salt."

(End of this chapter)