Thief Emperor

Chapter 296 New Wuzhou!
As an agricultural civilization that has existed for thousands of years, land is of vital importance to every Chinese descendant.

Even those famous scholars who retired to the mountains and forests all dreamed of having their own two acres of land.

People of this era, once they make a little money, most of them will not use all of their income for the next round of investment, but will start buying houses and land.

Simply put, it means buying a house.

In the past, when the imperial court still had some influence over the south of the Yangtze River, Li Yun could not divide the land openly. Only in places like Yuezhou that had experienced major changes could he carry out his equal land distribution plan.

But after suppressing the Luzhou Rebellion, Li Yun himself was very clear that he had violated the taboo of the court. Even if the court would not deal with him at the moment due to the situation, it would most likely keep a record of him and settle the score with him later when the court had cooled down.

Therefore, Li Yun no longer has to blindly follow the rules of the court. Although he still holds the title of Governor of Wuzhou in name, in fact, he has to start doing some of his own things.

For example, dividing the land.

He planned to spend some time to sort out some land in Wuzhou, take control of it in his own hands, and temporarily rent it out to poor tenants for cultivation. In the future, when his subordinates made contributions, he would reward them with land.

This is a huge temptation!
Even for a general like Li Zheng who already holds a high position under Li Yun, the land is a great temptation.

After hearing what Li Yun said, Li Zheng couldn't help swallowing his saliva. He looked up at Li Yun and whispered, "Second brother, this..."

"If we do this, it will really be a riot..."

"What are you afraid of?"

Li Yun glanced at him and scolded him with a smile: "Just do it if I tell you to. If anything goes wrong in the future, at worst we brothers can just pack up and go back to the mountains to live as bandits again."

"Why are you still afraid of the imperial court?"

Li Zheng grinned and said, "Yes, at worst we can go back to the mountain!"

At this point, Li Zheng rolled his eyes and suddenly laughed, "Second brother, you have already married a woman. If we go back to the mountain, before we go up the mountain, second brother must find a wife for me as well."

Li Yun glanced at him, and the latter quickly lowered his head and ran away.

The next day, Li Zheng took several hundred people and went to various places in Wuzhou to recruit soldiers in the name of the governor's office.

Two days later, Xu Ang arrived in Wuzhou and was invited by Li Yun to the governor's mansion. After they greeted each other and had a meal together, Li Yun took him to his study and talked about serious matters.

"Brother Xu, you're here just in time."

Li Yun pointed to a pile of documents on his desk and said calmly, "I am going to deal with the wealthy families in Wuzhou. These are the documents related to these wealthy families."

Xu Ang walked to Li Yun's desk, picked up a few documents, looked at them, and then asked, "What do you plan to do, sir?"

"Try to find their guilt."

Li Yun said softly: "At the least, the land will be confiscated, and at the worst, the house will be confiscated."

Theoretically speaking, Li Yun doesn't need to do all these troublesome things now. He already has one or two thousand soldiers in Wuzhou, and Zhao Cheng's troops will be back from Luzhou soon. By then, with the addition of the troops from Yuezhou, the number of troops under his command will directly reach five thousand.

This number can be applied to all the big families in Wuzhou.

However, in a time of great change, what a true king's teacher should do is not to destroy the order, but to rebuild a new order in an order that is about to collapse!

Everything must be done according to the rules. Otherwise, no matter how strong Li Yun's military force is, his rule will always be in chaos and he will never have a stable rear.

Therefore, even if you want to deal with these big households, you have to follow the rules, at least to make outsiders convinced.

After reading a few documents, Xu Ang looked up at Li Yun and said calmly, "Sir, let me handle this matter. I will be able to handle most of it within two or three months."

Li Yun looked at Xu Ang and said with a smile: "Most of these are local gentry and noble families. They are intertwined and difficult to move easily. Brother Xu, are you sure you can deal with them within two or three months?"

"no problem."

Xu Ang took a deep breath and said to Li Yun, "Sir, these people who were able to rise from the local level, become prominent, and even dominate a whole village or county, occupying a large amount of land, one by one, it can be said that almost none of them are good people."

He said silently: "Good people can't do these things. If you check, you can find out the problems."

“But the final difficulty is.”

He looked up at Li Yun and said in a deep voice: "The difficulty is that once these local forces feel that they are in danger, they will not sit and wait for death, but will definitely launch a final counterattack. Originally, a county government or even a governor's office might not be able to withstand the counterattack of these local forces, but the envoy is different."

Xu Ang whispered: "Your Excellency has enough power to suppress the counterattack of these local forces. Therefore, this matter may be as difficult as ascending to heaven for other states and counties, but it is not a difficult task for you, Your Excellency."

"But there is one thing I still want to tell you, Lord."

Li Yun was thinking about what Xu Ang said, and he quickly said, "Brother Xu, you say."

"It's not difficult to do this in Wuzhou, but once you're done, your reputation will spread everywhere. If your power expands to other places, you may encounter fierce resistance from local forces before you even get there."

Li Yun sneered and said, "I want them to resist. If they don't resist at all, I will be embarrassed to kill them."

"Just do it."

Li Yun narrowed his eyes, his murderous intent was revealed. "If there is any counterattack, I will take it."

Xu Ang bowed his head and saluted, saying in a deep voice: "People say that the county magistrate ruins his family and the governor exterminates his clan."

"This is exactly what I am good at."

The riot in Xiangshan County was instigated by local forces. The bandit leader Guo Ming was even a thug of those local forces, and Xu Ang's family died in that riot.

Xu Ang naturally had no good feelings towards the local gentry, so it was just right for him to do this job.

Then, Magistrate Xu took all the documents related to the local gentry on Li Yun's desk, put them into his arms, and then strode out of the governor's mansion.

At this point, the most sinister civil servant under Li was born.

The impact is far-reaching.

………………

In a blink of an eye, a month had passed since Li Yun returned to Wuzhou.

During this month, in addition to transforming Wuzhou, he also set up a new barracks outside Wuzhou City.

That day, Li Yun brought Su Sheng to inspect the new recruit camp. At this time, there were already seven or eight hundred new recruits recruited by Li Zheng in the camp. After Li Yun took Su Sheng for a walk, he looked at Su Sheng and said with a smile: "Brother Zixing, are you willing to bear the grievance?"

Su Sheng smiled dumbly and said, "The Su family has been fleeing all the way, like a dog that has lost its home. How can they talk about being wronged now?"

He looked at the new barracks and said slowly, "Leave this to me. From now on, I will be Erlang's general."

At this point, Su Sheng took a step back and saluted Li Yun with his fists clasped: "Greetings, Your Excellency."

Li Yun quickly helped him up and said with a smile: "I dare not. For the time being, I will let Brother Zixing help me here. If I achieve something in the future, I will definitely help you achieve something else."

Su Sheng looked up at the new recruits' camp, then looked at the Wuzhou camp not far away.

He knew very well that the people of a state could never support so many soldiers.

However, Li Yun was still recruiting new soldiers and had great ambitions.

His ambition is already obvious.

Su Sheng looked up at Li Yun.

"I just follow Erlang and don't think about anything else."

…………

Just when Li Yun was arranging the camp for new soldiers outside the city, an old man with gray hair and beard had quietly entered Wuzhou City.

At this moment, as order in Wuzhou City gradually returned to normal, the city had become much more lively than before. There were many vendors hawking their wares, and the street shops on both sides of the road were also gradually becoming busier.

The old man walked on the street, looking at the scene in Wuzhou City, and couldn't help but nod secretly in his heart.

There are chaos everywhere now, and along the way, the scene in Wuzhou City is already quite good.

While walking in the city, I suddenly saw a street intersection where a large group of people were crowded together watching, making it impossible to get through.

The old man squeezed for a long time but couldn't squeeze in, so he pulled the young man next to him and asked, "Little brother, what happened in there? Why are there so many people watching?"

"behead."

The young man was also trying to squeeze in. He turned around and looked at the old man with a foreign accent. He was quite excited and said, "The young master of Mr. Zhang's family committed a murder a few years ago. Envoy Li was very observant and found out about it. He is going to arrest him."

"Mr. Zhang has only one son. He didn't want him to be arrested by the government, so he started a quarrel with the government. Isn't this..."

The young man gloated: "The whole family, young and old, has been arrested. Now Mr. Zhang will be beheaded soon."

The old man was a little curious: "You don't want to use your connections, so you just go and force the government to do something?"

"Who knows."

The young man said casually, "I heard that it was used, but it didn't work. Li Shijun doesn't accept bribes."

"Our new envoy Li is very capable, in the past month."

"He has taken care of six or seven big families. None of the envoys in the past were as strict as Li."

In the end, the old man was unable to squeeze in to watch the beheading. He could only look at the execution ground helplessly, and left with his hands behind his back, muttering to himself, amid cheers as the head fell to the ground.

"Li Zhao, Li Zhao."

(End of this chapter)