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

Chapter 778 How to defend against a dimensional reduction attack?
Sometimes it's not that these people aren't smart enough, but rather that their precision strikes, which transcend time and space, are a route they've never even considered.

Looking back at history, it's clear that countless people followed the path of "knife in hand, follow me," but the problem is that this always amplifies the role of the individual while ignoring countless glimmers of light. However, Xia Lin's operation this time clearly combined the influence of the individual with the will of the group perfectly.

By adopting a decentralized yet unified organizational structure, ordinary citizens, junior soldiers, and even mid-to-lower-ranking officers began to defect. Previously used tactics, such as smear campaigns and spreading rumors, became ineffective because reputation was a sensitive issue...

Let's put it this way: if someone stands at the city gate and tells the guards, "Open the city gates, and we will not commit any offenses against you," it certainly won't work, because these people may already have a long history of bad deeds, including murder, massacres, and plundering.

But if Xia Lin doesn't show his face, as long as his subordinates say "We are Xia Lin's men," the city gates will almost certainly open on their own to welcome the royal army into the city.

Then someone might ask, what if someone impersonates Marshal Xia to trick their way into opening the city gate?
No problem, of course. But you only get one chance. Anyone who dares to do this would be giving Xia Lin a legitimate reason to kill someone. Whether it's the leader of a faction or the general leading an army, they may have fools under their command or even be fools themselves, but they always have a few smart people.

You must know that the Turkic Protectorate is already eyeing the border with predatory intent. That's an iron army trained in the northwestern desert. If anything goes wrong here, they'll march eastward. Once they invade, it won't be a matter that can be resolved in a few words.

Meanwhile, the Polu army outside Xiangyang City to the south was also on high alert, waiting for an order from the front to attack Chang'an.

"These are my two plans. If you don't cooperate, I'll attack from the outside. If you cooperate, I'll attack from the inside. Of course, if you can cooperate, that's the best solution. Do you understand?"

Sitting in front of Xia Lin were the remaining leaders of the major clans, who sat there expressionlessly as Xia Lin described how to deal with them.

Even so, they were helpless, because the flames had already scorched them, and their power was blocked outside the pass. By the time they had launched a strong attack, they would have been reduced to ashes.

"I admit, I hate you to the core, but I also have to admit that your existence has a certain necessity. You can have wealth and status, but I don't want you to take it for granted anymore. Do you understand what I mean?" Xia Lin sat there, slightly tilting his head back and pointing to one of the old men: "Mr. Feng, I recognize you. You are the younger brother of Grand Tutor Feng of Great Wei. I wonder what your opinion is on this matter? I'd like to hear it."

Xia Lin's tone was not respectful, but no one present had any objections. On the contrary, the old man stood up shakily: "The Feng family has always upheld the Confucian ideals, studying poetry, books, rites, and music, so naturally we have no objection to the commander's words. Just a few days ago, I saw that the rebel army was poorly dressed and had meager food. The Feng family is willing to donate 40,000 shi of military rations, 50 carts of cloth, and 150 carts of coal and charcoal in the name of Confucius and Mencius to help the rebel army get through the winter."

"Excellent, excellent, excellent! As expected of a family of etiquette, the Feng family is indeed a pillar of our nation." Xia Lin clapped his hands and laughed: "Guards! By imperial decree of His Majesty the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Feng Wenjiu is hereby conferred the title of Loyal and Brave Man of the Northwest and granted a golden token of immunity from death."

Upon hearing this, Old Man Feng was overjoyed and, disregarding his advanced age, knelt down and kowtowed three times and nine times, saying, "Thank you for your great kindness, Your Majesty."

Those who witnessed this scene were extremely envious. They knew that the current situation was extremely precarious for them; the slightest mistake could mean certain death. The lessons of the past were still fresh in their minds, and they absolutely could not step into that abyss now.

With this as a starting point, bigwigs from all sides quickly began to generously donate. Xia Lin was not greedy, after all, these people had large families to support. He only wanted nine-tenths of the produce from these families; they could keep the rest, but the land had to be handed over. Soon, the land systems of the two countries would be merged, and the private land system would no longer exist. They could rent or lease the land, but all the land would be nationalized.

"Alright, today's conversation with you all has shown me your sincerity. I'm sure you've had enough of these days of fear and anxiety. I'll go and find a way to appease the people."

After registering the donated supplies from each household, Xia Lin stood up, smiled, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and left.

At this moment, a man surnamed You stroked his long beard and laughed, "How is he any different from those rebels? To put it bluntly, isn't he just asking for money and goods? It's ridiculous. Oh well, let's just treat it as sending away a beggar. It's a way to avoid trouble by spending money."

After he finished speaking, the people in the room hurriedly got up and rushed out. Master You even called out in surprise, "Brother Hanlin, Brother Chenjian, Brother Ziyou, why are you all so frightened?"

The three people he called out shuddered, exchanged glances, then bowed slightly to him before running away without looking back...

That very evening, the two families who donated the least had their homes stormed by enraged villagers, resulting in deaths and displacement. The once magnificent gates were now overrun by crows, a truly horrifying scene.

Early the next morning, the very same Mr. You who had been talking about giving away beggars just yesterday, personally approached Xia Lin and said in an extremely obsequious tone, "General, I discussed this with my family yesterday, and everyone here feels that you are all exceptionally kind and benevolent. They also feel that I, as the head of the family, should not continue to act this way. Therefore, today my family has decided to triple the amount of the donations we received yesterday. We will only keep some for winter, and the rest will be given to you for your distribution."

“Oh, that won’t do. Your family has 472 people, 42 horses, 190 cows, 1,220 sheep, and 300 pigs. You definitely need to leave more for the people and the horses to eat.”

Upon hearing Xia Lin's words, Master You's face turned pale and his heart raced. But being an old hand at the game, the old fellow simply rolled his eyes and said, "No need for the commander to trouble himself. Hand over all the pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, and dogs to the commander."

“This isn’t right…” Xia Lin looked troubled. “I don’t necessarily want anything from you, I just want your attitude. This is too much. I’m not some bandit or robber.”

"Not much, not much." Master You bowed deeply, "I only ask that the Commander-in-Chief leave me with a good reputation."

"Ah, in the vast Qin River Valley, to have someone as righteous and insightful as Mr. You is truly a blessing for the people." That afternoon, someone brought a plaque to the manor with gongs and drums, inscribed with the four characters "Heart of the People."

Master You led his entire family out to greet him. At this moment, his most beloved second son said to him with a face full of resentment, "Grandpa, we exchanged all our possessions for these four worthless words?"

"The word 'broken'?" Master You sneered. "Look at the Chang family next door. No one has even bothered to collect their corpses. You call that the word 'broken'? I paid money to buy your lives! With these four words, you can hide behind the wall and watch them beheaded. The word 'broken'? That one word is worth ten thousand taels of gold!"

Once the plaque was hung up and firecrackers were lit, Master You then set up a banquet on the street, claiming it was to celebrate acquiring the plaque, but in his heart he knew it was just paying off some interest.

As expected, some wealthy households were subsequently attacked by the crowd, but the You family remained peaceful and quiet. Even when the procession passed by their house, no one gave it a second glance, because they all knew that there was nothing left in the house.

In the following days, most of the wealthy merchants, celebrities and nobles in Chang'an were squeezed dry, and their land was also taken back.

Now comes the most important step, but Xia Lin cannot do it; it must be done by His Majesty the Emperor of Li Tang.

The Li family was a prominent clan in Longxi, and their land had all been taken back. This incident led to the death of the Li family patriarch from a heart attack. The new patriarch was quite clever and took the lead in handing over the land deeds.

Soon, around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the land deeds for 93-94% of the cultivated land within the Tang Dynasty had been collected. Then, the land was remeasured and redistributed according to the number of people. However, this time it was different from the past. This time, a contracting and leasing system was adopted, just like in the Wei Dynasty. Land was listed as one of the items that could not be bought or sold.

Farmers may be uneducated, but they are definitely not stupid. This model is absolutely profitable for them. The real victims are the aristocratic class who have hoarded a lot of land. Normally, they should have retaliated at this point, but they only made a few sporadic attempts before falling silent.

Because they discovered they couldn't bounce back at all; Xia Lin's drastic measures had left them with no room to bounce. Their few sporadic attempts to resist were no longer enough to really cause any trouble.

The reaction to all of this was simpler than Xia Lin had imagined, because his plan included underhanded tactics like a "returning home group," but none of that happened. These landlords, gentry, and nobles were really too weak. Originally, they were working with the ruling class to torment the lower classes, but now that Xia Lin had blocked them from both sides, these people became rootless trees. Their so-called power was truly laughable.

The clan problem was relatively better in the north, mainly because the Five Barbarian Invasions had scattered most of the northern clans, and Xia Lin's attack had further damaged the already weak clan relations in the northwest.

The rest is up to them to make trouble. Anyway, Xia Lin has also formulated an action plan for all the people he sent out, so as long as nothing particularly big happens, there won't be any problems.

"It's probably time for me to go back too." Xia Lin said this unexpectedly while eating in San Niang's room that day.

Are you leaving already?

"If I don't leave soon, someone will drape a yellow robe over my head."

Xia Lin's mockery carried a chilling terror. San Niang paused, looking up at him in astonishment: "Then you can be the emperor. It's not impossible for me to abdicate in your favor."

"You're overthinking it. I'll never become emperor," Xia Lin said with a smile. "You don't need to worry too much. I've given you the plan and scheme. Just follow it step by step. I've also written to Lao Zhang to come over. You two can discuss the merging of some basic national policies between the two countries."

"Then why don't you just merge the two countries together?"

After this incident, Third Sister was actually quite disheartened. She sighed and said, "Anyway, my words are less effective than yours as the emperor."

"It's not the right time yet." Xia Lin waved his hand and said, "Let's solve our own problems first, and then talk about it when the time is right. Otherwise, if we force things, both sides will run into problems."

"Hmm...when will you come again?"

"I can't just come here whenever I want; it's scary when I go out. I can't go out during the stable period; it will cause panic. If you miss me, just come find me. Speaking of which, I haven't even told your dad yet. Do you think I should go over?"

"Forget it, don't let him get annoyed by you."

(End of this chapter)