Thirty people were recruited to go to the county governor's house to copy, and together with the expenses of the officials and their families, half of the Linjiang treasury's cloth and silk had been spent.

It has been two months since the edict for the trial implementation of the New Deal was issued, but there is still no movement. The imperial court also sent an edict to question Li Xiaofei.

Li Xiaofei was about to write a statement directly to tell Liu Jian about the situation in Jiangling, but Hongrui dissuaded him.

"Along with the edict, there is also a letter written by His Majesty. The letter clearly states that it can be done easily. What's more, the edict is also very broad. I guess His Majesty means to give you a vague decree and let you go boldly.

Do it. If the rules and regulations are too clear, you will be constrained! As for personnel rights, it cannot be passed at the meeting. To break this situation, you have to use rogue methods!"

"Rogue tactics? Sister, you mean to dig a trap and trap all the officials in Jiangling City?"

"That's right! This trial of the new policy is something that offends people in the first place. It cannot be implemented without some extraordinary measures! As a last resort, you have to kill people!"

"Kill! Kill officials appointed by the imperial court? This is blatant confrontation with the imperial court!"

"In matters in the imperial court, you can commit crimes but not make mistakes. You can only be ruthless but not benevolent. You don't want to kill them, but once the new policy is implemented, they will be eager to kill your whole family!"

"But if you kill the court officials and turn Linjiang Kingdom into an independent kingdom, wouldn't that be considered treason?"

"You are stupid. King Linjiang is here. As long as you do everything in the name of King Linjiang, the court will come to beat you! Besides, I guess your majesty's intention is to raise Gu, or in other words, to

Raise a man-eating vicious dog! If you can’t become bigger and stronger here, collect money from the upstarts of Linjiang Country, and build an army that can compete with Cui Ju, then you will end up in a terrible end.

Tragic! The stronger you are, the safer you will be!"

It was a good argument about cultivating gu, and Li Xiaofei suddenly realized that Liu Jian asked him to try out the New Deal. First, it was to solve the problem of the empty treasury and unable to collect taxes. As long as the situation in Linjiang country was broken, whoever opposed the New Deal would Liu Jian put Li Xiaofei and his

Where are the new troops sent?

"But except for the three thousand weak guards of Linjiang Kingdom, I have no one to use now!"

"There are many scholars outside Jiangling City who come from poor families. They are eager to get ahead. If you are willing to use them, they will definitely do their best for you!"

"Haven't these great families been destroyed by Pharmacist Zhu? Why can't these poor scholars still get ahead?"

"New aristocratic families have begun to form in the imperial court again. If we can cultivate the power of poor families this time, I think there is hope that we can change this fate!"

"You think so much. It seems that this court matter is indeed too complicated! It's a pity that my sister is not a man!"

"While you are high up in the temple, if you don't think about things carefully, you will fall to pieces at any time! Women, I think that after thousands of years, there will always be saints who will appear so that women all over the world can study and become officials like men.

!”

"When recruiting talents, you may not be able to recruit the people you want right away, and you have to be more careful in case a traitor sneaks in!"

The next day, Li Xiaofei called Sima Ke and others to discuss continuing to recruit people.

Liu Zhengqing was the first to object: "I agree with recruiting people, but we don't have enough money and cloth anymore. Since we need people to do things, we have to give them lumi!"

Liu Zhengqing mentioned everyone's pain points, and everyone else looked at Li Xiaofei. After all, the past two months had been very miserable.

Li Xiaofei clapped his hands: "Bring it up!"

The guard Hua Xiaoan brought a plate of gold ingots and placed it on the table.

"Everyone, there are thirty gold ingots here, which belong to my house. They will be returned to the treasury today. Mr. Liu, please keep them. Believe me, after this month, we will definitely make a lot of money!"

"The Prime Minister is selfless, but this is not a long-term solution! I believe that we should expand our financial resources!" Gao Jingui, Cang Cao, spoke.

Li Xiaofei felt a little disgusted when he heard the word "open source". There are many people talking but few doing things. Where can we get open source?

"Master Gao, may I ask if it is open source from paper?" Li Xiaofei said very rudely.

"Master Prime Minister, you are the Prime Minister of Linjiang Kingdom. King Linjiang is now in the palace. If King Linjiang wants to boil salt, make wine, cast money for mining, local officials have no right to interfere. They only need to pay the taxes to the court!"

Everyone's eyes lit up. Gao Jingui, who usually doesn't speak, was so shocked when he spoke for the first time.

Li Xiaofei stood up and was furious: "It's your grandfather's fault, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Master Prime Minister, you didn't ask me before?" Gao Jingui looked honest.

Since you can boil salt, make wine, cast money and mine, there is hope.

Liu Zhengqing said he had no capital, but Sima Ke said he could post a notice to recruit powerful businessmen to join in the business.

Cao Wuxin said that there was a lack of manpower, and that the industries run by the county governor's office would definitely be destroyed. Li Xiaofei waved his hand: "We still have three thousand guards! Who are we afraid of? We will arrest anyone who causes sabotage!"

With a clear path to making money, what are you waiting for? Notices for recruitment of talents, notices for investment, and notices for army expansion were posted like a snowflake.

As soon as the notice was posted, people came to the Prime Minister's Office to ask for an audience.

However, as Hong Rui expected, most of the people who came to the recruitment hall in the first five days were teachers, fortune tellers, and some who wanted to defraud an official to make money.

On the sixth day, three middle-aged men wearing straw sandals and linen clothes arrived, and they seemed to have ambitions to save the world and serve the country.

Li Xiaofei asked Hongrui to come with them to meet these three people. After some questioning, Hongrui was a little disappointed.

These three people are all nerds. They all talk about some big principles. When asked how to handle some official duties, they can't answer them.

Hong Rui was about to send them away, but Li Xiaofei kept these three people here: "None of the three gentlemen have ever been officials, nor have they ever been errands in the yamen. It is normal for them not to know how to handle official duties. These things can be done first.

Learn!"

Hongrui was stunned for a moment, and immediately agreed to Li Xiaofei's words: "You three might as well stay and deal with some simple official documents first!"

"Thank you, a real man studies to save the world and serve the country, not to copy and write as a clerk!" The three of them went out without looking back.

Seeing that he could not recruit the people he wanted, Li Xiaofei became a little anxious. Hong Rui suddenly remembered someone: "Xiaofei, what does Brother Xiang Xiaoyu do?"

"Brother Xiang, he was the pavilion chief back then! He is indeed a talent!"

"That's right, for what we have to do now, we have to rely on the pavilion chief to collect money and recruit young men! Aren't those officials working in disguise? Let's drain the salary from under the cauldron!"

On the seventh day, Li Xiaofei sent people to invite all the 134 pavilion chiefs from Linjiang Kingdom, and agreed to hold a banquet to entertain these people in the courtyard of the Prime Minister's Mansion five days later.

Of the one hundred and thirty-four pavilion chiefs, one hundred and twenty came, and the rest were busy and could not come.

It was unheard of for a state minister to entertain a pavilion chief at a banquet. In the past, it was very rare for the pavilion chiefs to have a meal in the county government office.

But now the newly arrived Prime Minister actually directly entertained these little pavilion chiefs.

The pavilion chiefs all wore the best linen clothes at home and brought chickens, ducks, fish and other items to the door of the Prime Minister's Mansion.

The guards had already invited them in one by one, and the chickens and ducks they brought were scattered around the Prime Minister's Mansion, making it very lively.

Li Xiaofei bowed his hands to them one by one on the steps. Some of the pavilion chiefs cupped their fists, knelt down, and even raised their hands.

After finishing the meal, the plate was licked clean. It was not that Li Xiaofei was stingy, but that the pavilion chiefs had endured two days without eating just to have this meal.

between meals,

Li Xiaofei basically figured out the population and land of this Linjiang country, and also figured out the properties and forests of the big families.

Hong Rui and others wrote down the names of these pavilion chiefs and the areas under their jurisdiction one by one.

After the meal was over, Li Xiaofei had a general idea, and twenty pavilion chiefs were left behind.

These twenty people are either honest in speech and behavior and familiar with the situation in other people's jurisdiction, or they are generous and generous people with martial arts.

Li Xiaofei directly appointed these twenty people as captains of Linjiang Kingdom's Sima Biejia who had joined the army, rewarded them with some money, and asked them to stay and assist him.

These people were naturally overjoyed and accepted it readily.

The business of attracting investment went very smoothly, because Li Xiaofei was very generous and offered a 40-60 share. The palace only wanted 40% of the profits, and 60% went to the merchants. They also provided military protection, so the merchants were naturally happy to come and do business.

Once you have an industry, you will have the confidence to recruit new troops.

Within a month of Jiangling, the new army of 3,000 men had been recruited, and a new military camp was built outside Jiangling City.

Of the original three thousand Linjiang National Guards, Li Xiaofei only left two hundred able-bodied ones to guard the palace, and the rest were sent to the Jiufang Salt Fields and Mines to garrison and protect them.

Li Xiaofei has told the twenty-eight centurion captains that anyone who comes to cause trouble will be arrested first, regardless of the reason.

In less than a month, hundreds of people were arrested, including many petty officials from various counties.

The county magistrates and the Jiangling County Sheriff rushed to the Prime Minister's Office and demanded an explanation from Li Xiaofei.

Li Xiaofei didn't see them at all, and even if he did, he would chase them away.

Wang Qingzhi, the governor of Jiangling County, led the people away angrily. Before leaving, he told Li Xiaofei that he would write a petition to impeach Li Xiaofei!

However, there were indeed many submissions, but there was no response as if they were lost in the sea.

With money and soldiers, Li Xiaofei finally issued a proclamation requiring every household to pay taxes according to the acres of land and forest.

As Hong Rui expected, some big families actually united and sent servants Ding Buqu to fight against Li Xiaofei's tax collection team.

Li Xiaofei had already known through the pavilion chiefs where some wealthy families hid their private soldiers and property, and he was waiting for them to rebel.

Although the combat strength of Li Xiaofei's newly trained army is very low, they all know that Prime Minister Li is willing to give up rewards and keep his word.

Li Xiaofei promised that after they wiped out these big families, 30% of the property seized would be used to reward the new army.

Under the heavy reward, the fighting power burst out, and the private army was just a ragtag group, and they were all defeated in less than a month.

In order to get more rewards, the captains of the new army forced local officials to announce various crimes of wealthy families, including those who had not rebelled.

Suddenly, Linjiang country was full of people. No one dared to mention the ancestral system anymore, let alone not pay taxes.

However, Linjiang Kingdom is too close to Xiangyang, so such a big thing happened, which naturally shocked the government and the public.

There was a lot of talk in the court about killing Li Xiaofei to apologize. Fortunately, the emperor, Liu Mingge and Murong Ling insisted that Li Xiaofei did the right thing and overcame the public opinion to save Li Xiaofei.

At this time, they realized that the emperor wanted to rectify not only the Linjiang Kingdom under his nose, but the entire Liang Dynasty.

At the same time as the numerous articles of impeachment against Li Xiaofei for killing innocent people, there were also 500 carts of gold, silver, jewelry and money sent by Li Xiaofei to escort.

Liu Jian was shocked. He did not expect that a Linjiang country with a radius of 300 miles could actually find 500 carts of property. This shows how much wealth these wealthy families have accumulated in the past relying on that unrealistic ancestral system.

It is imperative to implement the New Deal! Anyone who opposes will be killed!

But at this time, Liu Mingge began to have opinions. What he opposed was not the New Deal and the way it was implemented, but that the New Deal, which abolished the ancestral system and collected taxes violently, was only a temporary policy. If he wanted to truly replenish the national treasury, he must start from other aspects.
Chapter completed!