Quick Wear: Random Cheats

Chapter 138: The Humiliated Woman Beheaded and Abandoned in the City (21)

"Well? I told you to capture the leader first.

Fortunately, we arrived in time. If they had really gathered an army of hundreds of thousands, although it would not have been difficult to deal with them, there would have been a lot of bloodshed. If we had just made a move, hundreds or even thousands of people would have died. If they were still fearless, or someone asked them to charge, they would have had to.

Violators will be executed immediately or their property will be confiscated.

Even if tens of thousands of people died, it would not be too much.

Now, only a few dozen people have to die."

A giant standing on the upper left of the mansion, in a very good mood, spoke a few words to his companions, then took out a large speaker from his bag:
"Ahem...quiet, can you hear me?

Listen to me, I am a disciple of Empress Yuanjun. Now, we have destroyed the residence of the Lingnan Jiedushi and taken over the entire Lingnan Road. You'd better be sensible and don't go out if you shouldn't.

If you have any opinions or want to resist, you can come out.

I'll just kill him once to save myself the trouble!"

Even without cultivation, a four-meter-tall giant's voice would be incredibly loud, let alone her cultivation and loudspeaker. Therefore, it's estimated that her voice could be heard by most of the city, and even those farther away could faintly hear it. Consequently, a large number of onlookers quickly retreated and hid in their homes within a second.

Are you kidding? When soldiers enter the city, most people have to hide, let alone monsters entering the city. To ordinary mortals, giants are basically equivalent to monsters.

In addition, the giant made it very clear that anyone outside would be treated as a rebel and would be killed.

As a result, no one dared to stay outside.

Soon after, the other giants also cooperated, carrying sticks dozens of meters long, talking as they walked, but they did not kill anyone they saw. Instead, they gave them a certain chance to react, and would not take action unless someone immediately resisted.

He walked around the city and killed three people.

They also went to the nearby military camp, severely intimidated the soldiers, and told them that Lingnan Road would now be under the jurisdiction of their Yuanjun Mansion.

Anyone who has opinions can speak up.

It can be a one-on-one fight or a group fight.

There is no doubt that no one came out to fight alone or in a group.

Similar operations also occurred in other important cities with garrisons. The main reason was that during the early siege, Tian Minghui and his team discovered that many of the city's defenders were actually unwilling to resist, and they did not dare to resist. After all, the artillery and the height of more than four meters were too scary.

However, due to the orders of officials in the city or generals, they had no choice but to resist.

Later, several of the Dingshui disciples, with their keen ears, overheard the city commander threatening the soldiers with inaction and the threat of their families' death if they dared to flee. Furious, they rushed back to camp, donned their pre-prepared, oversized full-body armor, and leaped directly into the city. They beat the commanders, including the city's high-ranking officials, to death and easily captured the city.

Few of those soldiers resisted at all.

As soon as the generals and high-ranking officials died, they all surrendered immediately.

Afterwards, when everyone discussed it, they all felt that this would be more efficient and would also result in fewer deaths. Although Tian Minghui and the others didn't actually like soldiers, after all, in this era, neither rebels nor official armies were good people, but they couldn't kill them all, as that would destroy many families.

Therefore, they naturally chose a method with fewer casualties and started to capture the leader first.

It can also be called a decapitation tactic.

As a result, in less than a month, they had essentially taken control of the entire Lingnan Dao. The reason they said essentially essentially was because they had only initially purged the top brass of Lingnan Dao. They hadn't touched the other major families, or even some smaller clans and factions, in other regions. It was hard to say if they had ulterior motives or were spies from other factions. After all, as long as they didn't resist, Tian Minghui and her team wouldn't kill innocent people.

It will take a long time to achieve perfect control.

At the same time, Ding Shui and his team did not have enough manpower.

Therefore, Tian Minghui and the others did not overly care about or suppress those large families. Instead, they methodically implemented the policies on Yazhou Island, such as infrastructure construction, land reclamation, factory construction, and the recruitment and assimilation of the natives...

Lingnan is different from other places.

In places like Luoyang and Chang'an, all the developable land has basically been owned by someone else, so there is no place to open up wasteland. At the same time, the place is full of big families, nobles and officials. No matter who occupies the place, it is difficult to do anything unless they completely massacre everyone.

As for Lingnan, it is a well-known place of exile.

The so-called big families here would be looked down upon in places like Luoyang and Chang'an, and would probably not even be listed in the clan annals. At the same time, no matter how much they looked down on the local natives, they still had to maintain good relations with them. If they really offended the local natives, two or three native tribes would unite to massacre them.

So they really can't make any waves.

Furthermore, there is a lot of room for development in Lingnan. Tian Minghui doesn't need to grab the land resources they have developed over the years. What Lingnan really lacks is people, not arable land.

So Tian Minghui doesn't need to target them at all.

She simply ignored them and focused on mobilizing all the ordinary exiled population from outside Lingnan, as well as the local indigenous people. Some were clearing land, some were working, and some were studying. They were so busy that they had no time to care about those families that had existed for no more than a hundred years. As long as they didn't cause trouble, Tian Minghui really didn't bother to care.

And even if Tian Minghui doesn't care about them.

Just the large-scale development alone is enough to get them into trouble.

Because what Lingnan lacks most is population, even if those big families have already cultivated a lot of cultivated land, they cannot rely entirely on their own family members to cultivate it. If a family’s land can be cultivated by its own family members.

What kind of big family is that?

He can only be considered a small landlord, or even a rich peasant.

Therefore, they must hire people to farm, or rent the land to others for cultivation, and the rent and profit sharing can be quite demanding. While Tian Minghui and her colleagues have a variety of advanced agricultural equipment, it still requires people to learn and use it. They haven't yet developed the technology to the point where artificial intelligence can operate agricultural equipment to reclaim large areas of land.

In order to reclaim more land and store more food as soon as possible to cope with possible wars and famines in the future, Tian Minghui and her colleagues are willing to spend money.

Those who were responsible for reclaiming the wasteland received fifty kilograms of grain and one or two taels of silver every month, and the reclaimed land would be owned by Yuanjun Mansion. Because they were paid for the work, rather than reclaiming the wasteland themselves, it was natural that the reclaimed land would eventually be owned by Yuanjun Mansion.

However, everyone who participates in the reclamation can rent 100 acres of land after the land is reclaimed. The Yuanjun Mansion will collect 20% of the rent, and no other miscellaneous taxes are required.

You only need to pay 20% of the rent, and there are no other taxes.

Now Tian Minghui and others have abolished all the overt taxes and levies, including the head tax and the land tax. Rent is not a land tax.

Because Ding Shui once said that collecting money from the grassroots is the most troublesome and most disgusting thing. It is also the intermediate link that is most likely to breed corruption and intensify the contradictions between the court and the people. No matter how troublesome it is, it is better to collect it through invisible taxes rather than asking for money directly.

So what they mainly did at this time was to take over the unowned land, minerals and other resources into the hands of Yuanjun Mansion, and at the same time open various factories owned by Yuanjun Mansion.

And dominate and control the core trading market.

Taxes can be subtly added to the prices of goods and the market circulation links. Moreover, a large amount of collective assets is enough to bring enough funds to Yuanjun Mansion, so it can live well without collecting heavy taxes.

When they did this, the people cheered.

But the big families had a headache because many people rented their land or cultivated it for them for a year, and after paying taxes and rent, there was not enough food left to eat, and they had to rely on various grains and wild vegetables to maintain their food.

In short, the income is far less than that of reclaiming wasteland and farming for Tian Minghui and others, not to mention renting the land that Tian Minghui and others have reclaimed and improved. Therefore, after harvesting the crops in the land or after the lease period expires, most people give up renewing the lease and run to work for Tian Minghui and others to reclaim wasteland.

The result is that it is useless for those big families to have a lot of land. What’s the point of having a lot of land if no one cultivates it?

No one has planted it for three to five years.

It will soon degenerate into wasteland.

In this regard, those who dare to make trouble will be directly liquidated. We do not believe that they have not done anything bad. Those who do not make trouble and come to negotiate and solve the problem in a friendly manner will also be given two choices.

Or sell the land to Yuanjun Mansion.

Or they could buy their farm tools and hire people to do the work at a high price. With the help of those farm tools, they could complete the cultivation of all their current land with only one-tenth of the number of people as in the past, if they also used the high-quality varieties and fertilizers provided by Shangyuan Junfu.

There is no problem in doubling the land yield.

As a result, some people sold a large amount of land, while others gritted their teeth and spent money to buy a lot of advanced agricultural tools, high-quality seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. from Tian Minghui and others, and hired some workers at high prices to continue farming. Because the land tax exemption was not only for ordinary people and those without land, the Yuanjun Mansion was not limited to them.

But everyone is treated equally.

Some people did the math and thought it was okay. If what Yuan Junfu said was true, even if they hired people to farm the land at a high price, the final profit would be much higher than before. But others thought the current tax exemption was just a gimmick, and who knows how many tricks they would have to resort to to collect all the confiscated taxes.

So he decisively sold all the land.

Either try to do business, or just run away.

But regardless, the entire Lingnan Road quickly stabilized, and everywhere was hiring, and construction was underway everywhere, whether it was clearing land, building factories, or repairing roads. Everyone had work to do, which meant everyone was paid and had money to spend.

In addition, Yazhou Island has sufficient production of grain, fruit, fish and meat, which continuously supports Lingnan Road.

Less than two months after Jiedushi Cui Yu died.

Lingnan Road became prosperous.

The most obvious change is that most people no longer have pale faces, and they can basically eat their fill. There are also various fruits and meats available, and at least there is no shortage of salted fish.

These are days they never dared to imagine in the past.

Even if Cui Yu is resurrected now.

I guess the people would have to chop him to death quickly.

We are not stupid. Who would give up the good life we have now and go back to the hard life in the past?
It was probably around this time...

The commendation decree from the Daqian court was finally delivered, sent by a team of seven or eight eunuchs.

That’s right, the decree to commend Cui Yu.

When he sent someone to write a petition in advance and sent it to the capital Luoyang at full speed, the court in Luoyang did not think that he would lie or that he would have any difficulty dealing with a governor of Yazhou Island.

They just think Cui Yu is too shameless.

Yazhou Island has always been under the jurisdiction of his Lingnan Dao. If something happened, he should have been held accountable. Now that he has sent people to suppress it, it is nothing more than a way to atone for his sins. He even has the nerve to ask for credit for it.

As a result, the civil and military officials in the court were divided into two attitudes. Some people believed that an imperial edict should be issued to reprimand him, while others believed that no matter what, he was helping to stabilize the situation and was willing to give the court face by submitting a memorial.

The imperial court couldn't let the Jiedushi feel too cold-hearted.

If you don't reward them but reprimand them, you will never know what happens in the areas under the jurisdiction of those Jiedushi in the future.

Neither side could convince the other.

But no one suggested verifying the truth of the matter.

As a result, after a month of haggling, they finally decided to give him some verbal commendation, a nominal position, and a few tributes, and sent a few eunuchs to deliver the things, and those eunuchs were not in a hurry.

After wandering around for a month, he finally got here.

After entering Lingnan Road, they didn't think too much or ask anything, and went straight to the Lingnan Jiedushi's residence marked on the map. When they arrived at the place and saw the plaque with the three words "Yuanjun Mansion" in it, they realized something was wrong and were arrested.

Then, without any torture, they told everything they knew. Tian Minghui was speechless when she received the news. Cui Yu was too confident.

First submit a memorial to request merit, and then send troops.

"Lingnan Road is already large enough. It will take a long time to digest, master and develop it thoroughly. Even if we have the ability, there is no need to continue to occupy more territory. Otherwise, we can give the little emperor some silver as we agreed before and buy the position of Jiedushi."

"I think it's okay!"

"So what should we say? We can't just say we've succeeded in the rebellion, we still have to hide it!"

"Why not tell those eunuchs directly that it was Cui Yu who was actually planning a rebellion and had already ascended the throne, proclaiming himself the King of Lingnan. Our Empress Yuanjun couldn't bear to see the people suffer, so she sent us disciples to destroy him and take over Lingnan.

Anyway, the person is dead, so we have no right to say anything."

"Can they believe it?"

"Who cares if they believe it or not? Whether they want to believe it or not, we're telling you what we're saying, and they have to believe it. Just based on how quickly we eliminated Cui Yu and took over the entire Lingnan Road, anyone with a sound mind in the imperial court would have guessed that our strength couldn't possibly be any weaker than Cui Yu's.

He might even be much stronger than Cui Yu.

They must be crazy to offend us."

"Yes, if you give a few hundred thousand taels of silver, the poor little emperor will be stunned. In my opinion, it's no problem if you don't give money."

"You don't understand. Giving them money not only shows off our financial strength, but also makes them think we're timid and easy to bully. After a few years, when we completely control the entire Lingnan Road, I think there will be no shortage of people to attack us. Then, won't we be forced to resist?"

"Oh, so that's what you mean. Oh my god, you guys are so mean. I didn't even think of that..."

"Other people's greed is none of our business."

"No matter how rich we are or how much we flaunt our wealth, that's no reason for them to rob us. If they do, it will be only natural and reasonable for us to fight back in order to protect ourselves. But we can't show weakness either.

We haven't had time to expand in recent years.

So you still have to be careful about the scale.”

"Okay... let's do this."