Chapter 358 Accepting wealth from all directions

Chapter 358 Accepting wealth from all directions

In the main hall of the state capital, Li Yunxin walked in and raised his arms to report: "Your Majesty, the hometown righteousnesses in all counties have sent their local warriors to Fangcheng one after another. They will be separated inside and outside Fangcheng according to the order."

Li Tai took a look at the list of county magnates who had led Xiangqu to the city, and then nodded with satisfaction, and said to Li Yunxin: "It will take a short time for the Western Expedition Army to return to town, but there are traces of thieves in the territory. It is difficult to catch up, so we need to rely on these local heroes to guard the peace of the place. We must contact the people with benevolence and righteousness, and have enough food and drink. We must not just intimidate the people and prevent people from approaching me. "

Li Yunxin nodded quickly after hearing this. Now he was no longer an inconspicuous member of Longyou's tycoons. He held the banner of Li Tai and exercised the power of the Governor of Fangcheng on his behalf. Fansuo County was summoned. All the folk tunes are controlled by him, and he can be said to have great power. I feel more and more that this grandpa believes that he is really worthy, and he is much more powerful than that uncle Li Xian.

But in fact, not only Li Xian, but even Duguxin, the real governor of Qinzhou, is probably not more intimidating than Li Tai in the current state. Although Dugu Xin has a high position, he still needs to follow the rules when doing things, and he cannot be punished without guilt.

But during this period of time, Li Tai made people worry that he would lose control and go on a rampage, causing a bloody storm in the country. After all, it was already known to everyone that he wanted to hold a Buddhist ceremony to pray for his father, but the temple where he prepared the Buddhist ceremony was looted. In public, he was a stay-at-home guard in the state capital, but in private, he was a filial son who missed his father. No matter what, we must get to the bottom of it!

Of course, if he does not have matching abilities, no matter how angry he is, he will only become a laughing stock. If he dares to expand his attack area to all the powerful forces in the country, he will inevitably encounter resistance from the masses.

After all, Longyou has been in chaos for many years, and the people's vision is more realistic. It is difficult to scare them with a simple official title, and it must be matched with the strength of real people and horses.

However, after the news spread that the Liangzhou rebellion was put down, the intimidation power of the Qinzhou government naturally increased to a greater level. In addition, Li Tai also has tricks and a reason to break the rules for Xiaoyi. His aggressive attitude makes people feel that he may burst out the anger in his heart at any time.

Those who are tough are afraid of being aggressive. In this situation, of course no one wants to stand out and rashly attract Li Tai's hostile gaze to themselves. Therefore, we try our best to satisfy some of his modest requests.

Such as ordering all the powerful families in the territory to report the accurate situation of their tribes and villages. In normal times, everyone would naturally not listen to this. This is a tribe of people who are sheltered. How can they obediently expose their family wealth to others?

However, in this special situation, everyone generally does not want to get involved in this bad luck, not to mention that this is not a formal household expansion organized by the government. A brief explanation will clear up their suspicions and avoid adding other troubles. .

Of course, if all the powerful people in the realm are unwilling to obey this order with a tacit understanding and unified attitude, Li Tai will not really become an enemy of the masses. He will just laugh twice and punish himself with three glasses of wine, and just pretend that it is not the case. .

But this is of course impossible. If these powerful people could really abandon each other's prejudices and stick together closely, they would have become kings long ago, and there would be no need for outsiders to judge.

As long as someone takes the lead and sets an example, then such an imaginary rural alliance will not exist.

Li Tai should not be too familiar with the various operations of promoting rural sentiments and influence. Anyone who is willing to expose his or her family background must be a virtuous and innocent family, and they are the backbone of the countryside who protect the local customs and maintain the security of the territory. , now that the counter-rebellion army has not returned to town, we must rely on these local forces to protect the security of the territory.

Therefore, Li Taizhi took some of the materials confiscated from Guangming Temple and gave them to powerful families who cooperated with the investigation, and invited them to lead Xiangqu to help him maintain public security and order within the territory.

When these Xiangqu troops gathered, Li Tai was no longer simply intimidating, he really had the ability to destroy the Xiangqin order. The previous order of voluntary reporting of parts needs to be implemented without compromise. If anyone refuses to take the initiative to report it, I will bring someone into his home to check for myself!

These details of the rural situation were difficult for Dugu Xin to grasp even after several years in the town, but Li Tai easily obtained them. Having these underlying data is equivalent to mastering the password of the order of the countryside here. No matter what kind of operation is carried out next, it can be more targeted and have more impressive effects.

As for the Samana forces outside Guangming Temple in the county, Li Tai has no plans to continue taking action for the time being.

The harvest from Guangming Temple is so rich that it will still take a long time to fully digest it. Even if the scope of the attack is further expanded, it will be difficult to effectively integrate resources in the short term, leaving more than one can chew.

Secondly, the people of Longyou still worship Buddhism on the whole. Even if Li Tai wipes out all the Samana forces in Tianshui County, the Samana forces from other places will find ways to infiltrate, which will inevitably restrict a lot of his energy.

The reason why Li Tai was so eager to rectify the local forces here was because he knew very well that with the end of the Liangzhou War, Longyou's economic function far exceeded its military function in the territory of the Western Wei Dynasty.

In particular, a series of changes in the Eastern Wei Dynasty brought a lot of strategic changes to the Western Wei Dynasty, which caused Longyou's status in the overall strategic planning of the Western Wei Dynasty to plummet. Neither Tuyuhun in Qinghai nor the Turks who are about to replace Rouran are currently strong enough to pose much of a threat to Longyou.

In addition to conquering Hanzhong and further Shuzhong, Longyou still has a certain sense of geographical presence, and will be marginalized for a long period of time.

Of course, this does not mean that Longyou is no longer important. Guanlong and Guanzhong are one. Without the control of Longyou, the situation in Guanzhong cannot be said to be stable. The emperors and ministers of the Mid-Tang Dynasty were well aware of this.

And with the recovery of Silk Road trade, the hematopoietic ability brought by Longyou trade cannot be underestimated. After being included in the territory of the Western Wei Dynasty, Shuzhong and Jiangling were able to quickly integrate with the industrial environment of Guanzhong and complement each other. The cross-regional material exchange promoted by Longyou trade was also indispensable.

The benefits brought by the revitalization of business are a new growth area for all forces here, and there are no industry leaders who are the first to take the lead. In other words, everyone is in a state of fair competition in this field. Whoever can be the first to build a business order recognized by the masses will be the new boss.

The fundamental purpose of Li Tai's series of actions was of course to expand his power in Longyou, but if he just destroyed without building, of course he would not be able to gain long-term stable influence. Even if everyone respects him and fears him, it is of no use if the tea gets cold as soon as he leaves.

So after he used the excuse of tracking down the murderer to gain control of a large number of local forces, he then proposed the next goal, which is to build a large warehousing and logistics distribution center in Tianshui, as well as the largest trade market in the region.

Of course, the specific name is certainly not this. It is to build a very large city near the Wei River in the name of welcoming the triumphant army.

Although the project was approved in the name of the state government, it was only to make the subsequent financing and operation more convincing, but Li Tai did not intend to let the government get involved too deeply in each specific process.

First of all, the land for this new city belongs to Guangming Temple. The initial investment also came from the goods obtained by Guangming Temple. The labor used was mainly raised and provided by some temples in the county such as Wanfo Tang. The reason why they were so obedient was firstly because of Li Tai's condescension, and secondly because of the temptation of Master Tan Jing's offer of the official position of county capital Wei Na.

With manpower and material resources in place, the project started immediately and progressed rapidly, and soon it began to take shape. Li Tai also gave this logistics city a resounding name, called "Sifang City", which means that it will receive goods from all directions and prosper.

At present, Li Tai is very wealthy and can afford the cost of this city even if he pays it alone. However, he needs the cooperation of other personnel resources in the region to establish a complete set of warehousing, logistics and trade systems that can operate stably in the long term. Need to bring in partners.

Naturally, the first batch of partners were the local wealthy families who were the first to surrender to him. They needed to provide security for the logistics city. Then there are the wealthy families who have interests in Guangming Temple. Through one-on-one conversations, Li Tai persuaded them to convert the temple's dividend rights into shares in Sifang City and obtain dividends through daily maintenance of Sifang City.

The government is also a force that cannot be ignored. At the moment, their son-in-law has the final say in Qinzhou, but things may change soon.

Therefore, Sifang City must find a plan to get along harmoniously with the government to ensure that even if things change in Longyou, the person who succeeds Duguxin can accept the existence of Sifang City and dare not easily interfere with it out of interests. operation.

The plan conceived by Li Tai is for Sifang City to pay part of the journey and city tax for passing business travelers in daily operations. In this way, passing business travelers can get benefits and be happy to travel through Qinzhou's trade route, and the government does not need to increase Administrative costs and new fiscal revenue can also be obtained.

As for Sifang City, part of the operating profits are used in exchange for living space. If the Qinzhou government wants to take action on Sifang City in the future, it will need to consider alternatives to this part of the fiscal revenue and the impact on the overall business environment.

At the same time, the fees and municipal taxes paid are produced in daily operations, so a mature, reliable, professional and standardized management team is needed to maintain operations.

Li Tai had proposed many reforms when he was in the Taiwanese government, and his own estate has been cultivating relevant talents in the past few years. By then, whether it is recruiting personnel from Guanzhong or training them locally in Longyou, the management rights of Sifang City will be firmly in Li Tai's hands.

Of course, it will take a very long time for Sifang City to truly play its irreplaceable commercial role. One of the key factors is to allow the masses to adapt to the existence of Sifang City at the beginning of the revival of trade routes, and then make it a commonplace existence and a natural choice.

Therefore, not long after the construction of Sifang City began, Li Tai began to promote it. He used various reasons to give warehouses of different sizes to people in the state with free use periods of varying lengths.

Through the people's desire to compare, they gradually gained a sense of topical presence, and from the beginning, they subconsciously ruled out the option of building their own warehouses, since it was free anyway. When Sifangcheng matures, both its scale and efficiency will be enough to crush potential competitors.

Once a large amount of timely and effective logistics and warehousing information is mastered, various financial businesses such as lending and pledging can be carried out accordingly, reducing the financing costs and difficulty for Silk Road merchants.

In the future, we can further counterattack the Longyou Temple through this series of financial actions. When you encounter difficulties, praying to gods and worshiping Buddha may not be effective, but Sifangcheng can really help you.

It was certainly difficult to carry out large-scale financial and capital operations in this medieval period, but it was not without room for maneuver. The ancient business of loan sharking was not just a way for temples to make money. Even the Tang Empire, which was at its peak, used it as an important means to supplement government administrative expenses.

As an important passage of the Silk Road, Longyou has such a tradition and such demand. Now it has sufficient objective conditions. Li Tai certainly does not want to miss this new opportunity.

His qualifications and base are undoubtedly far inferior to those of the North Town warriors led by Yu Wentai, but as long as he can seize some big opportunities in the future, Lu's great cause is expected to succeed! At least he had decided on the new hematopoiesis point in Longyou.

Li Tai is not boasting. In the few months since he came to Longyou, the situation he has created and the personnel foundation he has laid have exceeded Dugu Xin's achievements in the past few years.

Of course, it’s not that he looked down on his father-in-law. After all, without the support given by Dugu Xin and the successful suppression of the Liangzhou rebellion, Li Tai’s idea would not have been implemented no matter how good it was.

His achievements are based on Duguxin's previous years of operation. Just like the Wuchuan Group came to Kansai under the leadership of He Batayue, it was under the leadership of Yuwentai that it truly gained the strength to carry the title. . Cause and effect, the origin is deep.

Just when everything was proceeding in an orderly manner under Li Tai's plan, an unexpected piece of information suddenly tightened Li Tai's heartstrings.

"Signs of a large number of people and horses were found in the northern border? How many people and horses are there? Where did they come from?"

Li Tai looked at Heland, the governor of Lueyang County, who went to the state capital in person to report the matter, and asked in surprise.

After hearing this, Heland said: "It was accidentally discovered by a shepherd in the county. I went to investigate in person because of my humble position. I saw about three thousand soldiers on foot and cavalry, coming south via the Wating River. It seems to be a country. "Zhongjiawu has not seen any signs of bandits plundering the counties, but there are no envoys to inform the counties. The northern counties are not fully equipped, so I came quickly to inform the envoys, please take precautions."

After Li Tai heard this, he felt strange in his heart. More than 3,000 horses were already a very considerable force. In Qinzhou, where the army was heading west and the interior was empty, it was definitely an armed force capable of plundering counties. strength.

Such a group of people suddenly appeared in the territory and came from the Wating River in the north. They most likely came from Yuanzhou. But Li Tai didn't receive any notice at all, which was a bit confusing.

Is it possible that someone could follow his previous tactics and send troops to sneak into Qinzhou to stir up trouble?

No matter whether the other party is friend or foe, it is always right to be cautious. If the army had just left the country and there was no force in the country, Li Tai would have to be blind in the face of this situation. But he had made a previous operation and gathered nearly 20,000 people from all walks of life and strong men around the city. , with soldiers in hand, I naturally don’t panic.