Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 386: What’s the point?
Xia Lin's work plan for today is to get up at 7:30 in the morning, wash up at 7:45, have breakfast, and go to the Chashi Yamen at 8:30 to start formulating a plan for clearing out the temples. The temples around the capital have come to an end, the land that should be taken out has been taken out, and the silver that should be paid has almost been paid out.

The next step is to start the work plan for the entire Gyeonggi Province. The difficulty of Gyeonggi Province is not that high, and even the difficulty of Gangnam Province is not high. The power in these places is relatively not dispersed, and they all belong to centralized areas, so the little bald donkey has no better way than to admit defeat.

But outside of Gyeonggi Province and Gangnam Province, the task is complicated. Not to mention that the imperial power does not have much real power in those places, just wanting to transport the money back from there is a matter of destroying people's money and killing their parents. The local warlords may not say it out loud, but they are probably saying fuck you three thousand times in their hearts, and may even mobilize local clans, temples, religious forces and other forces to counterattack. This is the difficulty in destroying Buddhism.

Fortunately, the clearance work in Gyeonggi and Gangnam provinces will probably be completed by the end of this year, and the bloody battle will have to wait until next year at the latest.

After arranging the work plan, Xia Lin turned around and got into the tense and exciting work of real estate coordination.

In fact, let alone the prince, no one in the world knows what kind of land can be sold for 160,000 taels per acre, and yet it is still in short supply.

Of course, the merchants just need to understand that buying land in this place is not buying land? What they are buying is the promotion channel of the merchant class, because Xia Lin inadvertently revealed that he would open a college here, which would be connected with the Imperial College, and outstanding students could directly enter the Imperial College.

This plan was directly approved by the Ministry of Rites, because Xia Lin said that he would help the Ministry of Rites expand the Imperial College, spend a lot of money to expand the Imperial College to train scholars for the country, expand the current scale tenfold, and increase the number of students admitted tenfold.

At present, every government office in the imperial court was in a tight spot, after all, they really had no money. Now that such a royally appointed God of Wealth had suddenly appeared, everyone naturally coaxed him to come and ask him to find some ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure. The Ministry of Industry was the first to get a hot meal. New city construction and old city renovation seemed to have nothing to do with the Ministry of Industry. With them doing things on their hands, it was impossible to say that there was no money.

With the example of the Ministry of Works, several other ministries came over after smelling the trouble. The Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Justice were more troublesome, but the rest of the departments, even the Honglu Temple, were included in Xia Lin's plan.

Back to the Ministry of Rites, they were initially worried that this would disrupt the officialdom, but Xia Lin dispelled all their doubts with just one sentence.

"It is true that being able to go to school means being able to become an official. But isn't the power of selecting officials still in the hands of the court? The sons of merchants want status, so give it to them. A status can be exchanged for thousands or tens of thousands of taels of silver, so why don't you want it? For you, what is the difference between picking one out of a thousand and picking one out of a thousand and eleven?"

"But Lord Xia, if someone sells official positions and titles..."

"That has nothing to do with your Ministry of Rites. It's the Ministry of Personnel's business, so naturally someone will investigate the Ministry of Personnel. Besides, even if we take a step back, is it better for an educated person to sell official positions or an illiterate person to sell official positions? Even if we take a step back, how many of the descendants of merchants today can't read? It's nothing more than a layer of window paper. The ancestral law you mentioned only says that merchants can't be officials, but it doesn't say that they can't study." After Xia Lin finished speaking, he leaned close to the ear of the Minister of Rites and whispered, "Minister Huang, a layer of window paper is worth ten thousand taels of gold. Even if it seems that the Ministry of Rites is not involved, what can you do if you charge each of them three thousand taels of school selection fee every year? People from other places who don't have property in the capital can't get in. Do you think they will have to fight for the future of their descendants?"

"Master Xia is wrong... wrong, I am just an assistant minister."

"Minister Huang, what's wrong? The Ministry of Rites is now empty. If you can get this done, the Ministry of Rites will be responsible for its own profits and losses in the future, and it can even donate some to the national treasury. Wouldn't your position as Minister be almost certain?"

The Minister of Rites clapped his hands and said, "Great! I present your auspicious words!"

And it is this method that gives the sons of merchants the opportunity to study in the Imperial College. This land is worth 160,000 taels per acre. If you don’t have money, don’t come. It’s not a forced sale.

While they were chatting, a greeting came from outside: "Zhongshu Tongshi Sheren, Ma Zhou is here!"

Minister Huang immediately stood up and bowed to Xia Lin: "Sir Xia, I will take my leave now."

"Goodbye, Minister Huang. I won't see you off."

"No, no, you're welcome, Master Xia."

He brushed shoulders with Ma Zhou, and the two of them bowed politely. Then Ma Zhou came to Xia Lin's office.

"Oh, who is it? It's Ma Xiang, the future prime minister of Wei."

“Hahaha, you’re so talkative.” Ma Zhou sat down. “I never expected that Lord Xia would be so comfortable in the capital. I was a little nervous before, wondering how Lord Xia would protect you if someone targeted him. Now it seems that Lord Xia is much more useful than me.”

"Does that mean I'm useful?" Xia Lin turned around and took a can of oranges for Ma Zhou: "It means money is useful."

Ma Zhou held up the can of oranges and sighed, "My Lord, you still remember that I like to eat sweets."

"Hey, why are you talking nonsense?" Xia Lin sat down and said, "Tell me, what brought you here, Master Ma?"

"I'm here for the royal family's business, the Secretariat." Ma Zhou leaned against the side, unscrewed the lid of a can and drank a sip of the sweet juice inside: "His Highness has a garden in the old city, with an area of ​​more than two acres. He asked Lord Xia to help him manage it."

Xia Lin raised his eyebrows: "Really?"

"Then I dare not say anything nonsense about this matter." Xia Lin smiled: "Okay, I understand."

After that, he unfolded the map and asked Ma Zhou, "Where is his place?"

Ma Zhou pointed to a mark on the map and said, "I wonder what Lord Xia is going to do with this place?"

Xia Lin stroked his chin and was silent for a moment before he spoke: "I plan to divide this land into two, and merge another ten acres of land into a garden. I will transplant rare flowers and precious stones from all over the world and build a top-notch garden with lakes and mountains."

"Oh? Why is that?"

Xia Lin pointed to the large area and said, "This place will be renamed... um... Humble Administrator's Garden. Yes, yes, Humble Administrator's Garden."

"It's a good name, but if this is the case, then His Highness..."

Xia Lin chuckled and pointed to the remaining acre of land: "This place, one acre of land, three million taels."

When Ma Zhou heard this, his heart skipped a beat. He looked up at Xia Lin in astonishment and said, "Master Xia... isn't this a bit exaggerated?"

"Exaggerated? Very good." Xia Lin cleared his throat and said in a bass voice, "It is adjacent to the royal family, the private residence of the supreme ruler, and it is the leader of Jiangnan. Looking at the Pearl of Jinling, you can see the spring scenery, and you can see the prosperity of the Qinhuai River on all four banks."

Ma Zhou covered his mouth when he heard this. He was tempted if this was told to others. After thinking about it again, he even wanted to embezzle some money to buy that place.

If you think about it carefully, adjacent to the royal gardens, enjoying the Qinhuai style and having an exclusive manor in this place, what kind of status does that require?
Wow...three million taels is a bargain, right?

"But at this price, who would buy it?"

"Buy?" Xia Lin laughed. "You have to rob! Is this your responsibility?"

"Exactly. It's not my turn to handle anything that's not difficult."

Ma Zhou's words made Xia Lin laugh out loud: "Hahahaha, it seems you are also the one who cleans up the mess. Not bad."

After saying that, Xia Lin smacked his lips, sighed and said, "Zhou, did I say a word to you?"

"What word?"

"Political review." Xia Lin knocked on the table. "You have to set up some rules about who can and cannot sell this land to. How can ordinary people live in a land with dragon energy?"

“It’s already so expensive, why do we still need to set a threshold?”

"The more this happens, the crazier they get. I won't say more about this. You should be more skilled than me and at a higher level. I will ensure that you complete the task successfully."

After Ma Zhou left, Xia Lin looked at the ten acres of land left in his hands, then glanced at the "Royal Gardens", his eyes rolled, and then he held back the last ten acres of land and did not sell it anymore.

Building a new city and renovating the old one will require a lot of money. The two plans will cost about 18 or 19 million taels. After all, it is a satellite city. Not only houses need to be built, but also roads need to be built, infrastructure needs to be built, and the price of materials will increase due to large-scale construction. So even though you make a lot of money at once, you will basically break even in the end.

And these last ten acres of land are the money he can earn this time. Of course, he can't make money from the royal land, and he may even have to pay for it, but it is this royal garden that determines how much he can earn from these last ten acres of land!
At this point, the real highlight has officially begun, as we now have money on hand.

Xia Lin has a problem. Although he repeatedly warns himself that wonders will harm the country, he personally likes to create wonders and likes things on a super-large scale. Whether it is war or construction, he always has a bit of ostentation.

This time, he gathered about 70,000 to 80,000 people on the construction team, which was much less than the number of people who built the dragon boat team during the Sui Dynasty, but it was still a wonder. However, he felt that this number was not enough, so he recruited another group from the surrounding counties. Anyway, they were paid for a day's work, so he brought the number to about 150,000. Anyway, his task was to spend all the money, without leaving any.

Some people may be confused here. He puts in so much effort but spends the money he earns. Isn't it a waste of time?
That would be too much of an underestimation of Xia Lin. Could he keep the money? But he used the money to buy Fuliang's materials and technology, and exchanged the money for Fuliang's industrial capacity. Then he collected taxes from the bottom up, and the money naturally went into his pocket. It was reasonable and fair.

The last ten acres of land is where he can really make money.

(End of this chapter)