All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 288 A single spark can start a prairie fire

"Leader!"

A salt trader came to report, "News came from the city: the new governor has arrived."

Chen Ran, who was watching the soldiers training, asked without turning his head, "Which one?"

These days, officials that the imperial court could send out of the country were basically from aristocratic families represented by the Five Surnames and Seven Families.

There is no need to ask the name, just ask which family the person is from.

"He is a member of the Qinghe Cui clan." Even the salt workers knew this. "He is from the same family as the previous governor."

"Hey."

Chen Ran, standing with his arms folded, sneered, "It's really a tradition of passing down the torch and serving as officials from generation to generation. If it continues like this, it will really become a caste system. It's a pity that no man in the Middle-earth would volunteer to be a Dalit!"

Since the Nine-Rank System, the class structure in Middle-earth has become extremely rigid and is already moving towards a caste system.

If it weren't for the intense turmoil and fighting in the middle, and the power struggle between the imperial power and the aristocratic families, it might have really developed into a caste system.

What's the passing on of the torch? Three generations of dedication are nothing. The aristocratic families have been high above and controlling everything for more than a dozen generations.

"Chief," the salt worker continued, "according to the rules, when a new governor arrives, the local heroes must show their respect."

"Give it to me." Chen Ran nodded decisively, "Give it to me according to the rules."

There’s no problem with giving gifts, they’re just for me to keep.

When the rebellion starts, all the money will be recovered with interest.

At this time, Chen Ran's mind was focused on training soldiers, expanding his strength, and stockpiling supplies.

The biggest reason why the Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi uprisings in history were able to develop rapidly and scale in the early stages was that they started the uprising on territory directly controlled by the imperial court.

If it were the territories of various local military governors, especially the territory of Hebei Military Governorate, those ferocious soldiers would be slaughtered immediately.

But the situation in the imperial court was different. Regardless of whether they were civil or military officials, everyone was a temporary official.

If you work for a few years and then leave, who would fight with you?
The people in the territories of the feudal states had a hard life, but they could still survive despite the hardship.

Because the Jiedushi and the guards all knew that they needed the people to farm and weave and do the work.

But no one cares about these things among the officials in the imperial court. They all squeeze them to death, wishing to squeeze every last bit of oil and water out of their bones and then sell the ashes for a good price.

This provides the most abundant soil for the uprising.

As long as someone takes the lead, countless people will immediately follow.

Chen Ran heard about the new governor and put it aside.

He is now busy training elite troops.

At this time, he was supporting nearly two thousand formally appointed soldiers.

These are not some refugees who are just making up the numbers with dung forks; most of them have military experience.

Ten years ago, a mutiny broke out in the Wuning Army. The imperial court mobilized troops to kill the rebellious soldiers indiscriminately, especially the Yindaodu, the core of the rebellion, who were almost wiped out.

The Wuning Army was abolished, and tens of thousands of soldiers became unemployed and became civilians.

These warriors only knew how to fight and kill. A group of them were recruited to go to the south to deal with the war against the Nanzhao Kingdom, including the Guilin garrison soldiers.

Later, Pang Xun led the Guilin garrison soldiers to fight back, and the troops of the former Wuning Army joined in the response, but they were defeated and slaughtered again.

The most unruly, arrogant and rampant ones were all killed.

The rest scattered everywhere to survive. Chen Ran recruited more than a thousand of them, and together with a group of carefully selected warriors, he formed an elite private army.

"Three thousand people is enough." Chen Ran calculated in his mind, "Salt cannot be sold in other places. It is enough to supply three thousand elite soldiers and make reserves. This is the limit."

"Encourage Huang Chao to take the lead and go for the route of hundreds of thousands of people."

"I'll follow behind and develop, taking the elite route."

The Tang Dynasty had no shortage of salt, and Chen Ran's salt could only be sold in a few nearby states.

If it is farther away, the local military governors will certainly not allow it. The states directly under the imperial court also have their own sources, and the momentum of business expansion has reached its peak.

These revenues can only support an elite force of 3,000 people at most, on the premise of storing a large amount of supplies.

If you want to make further progress, you can only soar into the sky.

"It's about time." Chen Ran stroked his chin, "Sell the salt-making formula to Huang Chao."

Huang's Fortress in Yuanju (Cao County).

"What did you say?" Huang Chao suddenly stood up, walked in front of Huang Cun and stared at him with a look of disbelief on his face. "Then Chen Ran, you want to sell me the formula for making snow salt?!"

Huang Cun nodded vigorously. "It's true. He told me so himself."

"How is that possible?" Huang Chao scratched his head vigorously and looked around at the Huang family members. "If you have such a recipe, would you sell it?"

Everyone shook their heads, and nephew Lin Yan simply stated, "Who would sell a chicken that lays golden eggs?"

Come to think of it, as long as you have the recipe, you can make money lying down for generations, how can you sell it?
"I don't believe it either." Huang Cun responded quickly, "But Chen Ran said that if we don't buy it, he will sell it to the private salt boss in Yunzhou."

The three states of Yun, Cao and Pu belonged to the Taiping Army and had frequent exchanges with each other. The leader of the private salt business in Yunzhou also bought salt from Chen Ran and then resold it.

The Taiping Military Town is directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, and the current governor is Prince Shou, who is far away in Chang'an City.

In history, Prince Shou Li Ye was the next emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

But now that Chen Ran is here, he probably won’t have this opportunity, unless Li Xuan dies early.

"Absolutely not."

Huang Chao immediately shook his head and said, "I can't sell it to anyone but the Wang family of Yunzhou."

The price he got from Chen Ran now was even cheaper than the inferior salt he had gotten before. But if Chen Ran withdrew and took salt from the Wang family in Yunzhou instead, the Wang family would definitely not provide him with salt at a low price.

"What's the asking price?"

"Fifty thousand strings of cash."

"Hiss~~~" Everyone in the room took a breath.

The price didn't scare them because it was too high, but because it was too low.

You should know that according to their private calculations, the annual income from private salt in the three states of Taiping Army Town alone is no less than tens of thousands of strings of cash. If it is sold to nearby states and counties, the amount will be even more.

This kind of business will not only make money for one or two years, but can be passed on to future generations.

How much would three generations earn in a hundred or eighty years?
"Buy it!" Huang Chao had the confidence to be a tyrant, and he immediately gritted his teeth and agreed, "But I don't have that much money. Go ask Chen Zihou if he can use something else to compensate."

Chen Ran replied quickly, "You can use food and horses to compensate."

Forget about horses. Horses in the Central Plains have always been expensive, and Huang Chao himself doesn't have many.

However, there is no shortage of food.

Among ordinary people, only one-third can directly use money to buy private salt. What should the rest of the people do if they are too poor to pay?
Of course, it means bartering with what you have.

The only thing ordinary people could afford was food.

After all, in the agricultural era, more than 90% of people were engaged in the primary industry.

Large quantities of grain were sent to Puzhou through secret routes of various private salt dealers. On the return journey, the carts were filled with excavated rock salt.

In fact, there are rock salt mines in Cao County, but they are buried underground and have not been discovered.

Chen Ran would not take the initiative to tell them that this thing is actually for industrial use and it would be a crime to give it to people to eat.

Not only did he sell the filtering recipe to Huang Chao, he also promised that he could come to Puzhou to mine rock salt at any time, and he could mine as much as he could as long as it could be transported.

The salt workers who served Chen Ran were naturally dissatisfied.

But Chen Ran did not lose their income, so there was nothing they could do even if they were dissatisfied.

The time came to the 13th year of Xiantong, and the power of the Little Ice Age began to show.

Floods, droughts and locust plagues broke out in almost every part of the Tang Dynasty, and the Central Plains were particularly hard hit.

The consequences of food disasters and reduced production are very serious.

The people were already living a hard life, and now they have suffered from the disaster and are almost dying.

What’s even more terrifying is that the imperial court fought wars every year and plundered the country endlessly.

In the year of famine, not only did they not provide disaster relief, but they actually increased their tax collection.

This is what it means for the people to live in misery.

The people at the end of the Song Dynasty and the end of the Ming Dynasty knew to pick up dung forks to resist when they were in dire straits, not to mention the people of the Tang Dynasty who were full of martial virtues.

Anti-tax and even uprising activities broke out in various places, but they were not strong enough and were quickly suppressed by the government troops.

Although the matter was not accomplished, it had already ignited the anger of people everywhere.

Now the spark has been ignited, and all that’s left is for it to spread across the Central Plains.

"It's time for the court to appease the people." Chen Ran heaved a sigh of relief as he looked through the intelligence reports from various places sent by his salt workers. "Reduce taxes, call on local tycoons to open soup kitchens. As long as we give the people a glimmer of hope, they won't take risks."

"If it really doesn't work, we should mobilize troops to various places in advance and put out the fire wherever there is a sign."

"What a pity." Chen Ran casually put the information aside and stood up to look at the world outside the window. "The Tang Dynasty court doesn't even know there is a disaster."

The imperial court did not know it was true, and the smart people in the imperial court were the same as the officials in the prefectures and counties across the country. Even if they knew it, they pretended not to know.

Because no one wants to take responsibility.

In the 13th year of Xiantong, two major events occurred.

One incident was the death of Zhang Yichao, the governor of Guiyi. The Uighurs and other Qiang and Hu tribes took the opportunity to seize states and counties, causing turmoil in the Western Regions.

In response, the imperial court mobilized troops to the west to defend against the attack.

Not only did he transfer troops from all over the Central Plains, but he also levied additional taxes to pay for military expenses.

The second thing was that the court wanted to transfer Zhenwu Jiedushi Li Guochang to Yunzhong Datong as a defense envoy, but was rejected. Li Guochang even killed all the court officials in the town.

Li Guochang was the leader of the Shatuo people. He followed the imperial army in battles everywhere. The former Guilin Army was pacified by Li Guochang.

His original surname was Zhuxie and he was a descendant of the Turks. Because of his merits, the Tang Dynasty gave him the surname Li according to tradition.

This person may not be well-known, but his son is a famous warrior with a great reputation in history books.

His son's name was Li Keyong!

The imperial court was determined to pacify this beast, so it once again drew troops from the Central Plains to deploy defenses around the area.

As expected, taxes were once again increased to pay for the military.

The people in the Central Plains were suffering terribly, and there was no money or food to pay taxes.

The government doesn't care about the lives of the people, they just want money, food and supplies.

Seeing that there was really no money to be made from the poor people, it was natural for them to turn their attention to the rich.

Naturally, no one dares to touch those who are related to the family.

However, salt merchants like Chen Ran and Huang Chao became fat sheep in the eyes of local officials.

(End of this chapter)