A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 264 The Prince's Power
The morning breeze still carries a strong chill.

Li Yi tightened the collar of his battle robe and picked up the millet porridge to drink.

I ate too much meat last night, so I don’t want to eat any oily or meaty food this morning. I drink a bowl of millet porridge and my stomach feels warm.

When he arrived at the prince's tent,
The Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty was just about to have breakfast. On the table was a pair of freshly baked jade-tipped noodles, which Li Yi had eaten once at a palace banquet.

The thin-skinned buns filled with bear fat and venison are quite delicious.

I didn’t expect that Li Jiancheng’s breakfast in the army was so luxurious. Looking at the wrinkles on the leather, you can tell that this is definitely not the work of the rough guys in the army.

"Yesterday, a soldier hunted a bear, and Ren Can asked the chef from the Eastern Palace's food bureau accompanying the army to make these jade-tipped noodles. You should try them too."

Li Yi waved his hand: "I ate too much meat yesterday, and I'm still full this morning. I just had a bowl of millet porridge."

Li Jiancheng asked him to sit down and took the golden bowl with gilded lotus pattern from the attendant. The bowl also contained corn porridge with some newly picked elm seeds and tender shoots floating on it.

Ren Can, the Minister of Food, brought in a plate of Hu pancakes, placed them on the table, and then lit the incense burner beside them.

Jiancheng took a sip of porridge and put it down, then reached out and picked up a bowl of jade-tipped noodles, but did not use the silver chopsticks.

"Did you gain anything last night?"

"I've gained a lot," Li Yi told the story of how he sent notes to the three families of He, Zhou and Zhao, and then the three families came to see him at night.

He even told about the gifts that the three companies gave him as bribes.

"I didn't expect that these three local tycoons in Zhouzhi County actually had so much money and were so generous. I remember that the He family only donated 100 dan of military rations yesterday."

The prince opened his mouth and only gave one hundred stones of grain.

In response to Li Yi's invitation, they offered him 150 taels of gold and 500 mu of land, and were even willing to give him five girls from the He family, and promised to pay tribute to Li Yi every year.

acid,
Li Jiancheng felt jealous and wanted to kill these families.

While distracted, the filling of the jade tip noodles leaked out.
The aroma of bear fat and deer jerky made the hounds restless.

Li Jiancheng threw the bear white deer jerky bun, which he had just taken a bite of, to the hunting dog.

He picked up a Hu pancake to wipe his hands, and then threw it to another dog.

"You've gained a lot this evening. The three families gave you five hundred taels of gold, over a thousand acres of land, and a beautiful woman. This is much more than the military rations you gave me to suppress the bandits."

"I have ordered a list of all the money and property they promised to sell. When the time comes, it will be used to pay for military expenses, rewards for meritorious service, and compensation for casualties."

Li Jiancheng smiled and said, "It's okay if you accept it."

"If you accept it, it becomes bribery."

"Hahaha."

Jiancheng laughed a few times and picked up the millet porridge to drink.

Ren Can interjected, "General Manager Li should accept it and present it to the Eastern Palace for the Crown Prince to deal with."

Li Yi had no good feelings towards this guy: "Are you teaching me how to do things?"

Ren Can's face turned red because of being blocked.

Jiancheng said, "It's already the intercalary February, but the weather is still so cold. I just want to eat some elm seeds and tender shoots, but they're hard to find now. These elm seeds and tender shoots were only found by Ren Dianshancheng after searching several valleys early this morning on an elm tree that had sprouted early."

After breakfast.

The prince inspected his troops.

The soldiers lined up in battle formation, and a number of local powerful people were able to watch.

Li Yi walked up to the stage to select generals.

He took out the booklet that the prince had given him yesterday, and then explained in front of everyone what the He, Zhou, and Zhao families had confessed voluntarily.
"Yesterday, all three families expressed deep regret for their mistakes and are willing to mend their ways. Each family is willing to voluntarily hand over 150 taels of gold, 500 acres of land, and 500 dan of grain to the court to aid the army in suppressing bandits and providing relief to refugees."

As soon as this word comes out,
All the local tycoons and powerful people were shocked.
I was shocked by their initiative and also shocked that they were willing to pay so much money and food.

Even though we know that these three families are the richest ones in Zhouzhi, they are all locals and know almost the details of each family.

One hundred and fifty taels of gold, five hundred acres of land, and five hundred dan of grain—this was not all the family's assets, but at least it was enough to make the three families skinned.

It is certain that he will suffer serious injuries, and even the 150 taels of gold alone may consume all the family savings.

"His Royal Highness has heard of this and has issued a decree pardoning the three families and letting bygones be bygones."

The families of He, Zhou, and Zhao felt very uncomfortable. They did not understand why Li Yi made the matter public and described the gifts given to him personally as gifts submitted to the court as atonement for his sins.

Although I don't understand,
But when they heard that the Crown Prince had issued an order pardoning their past crimes, they all breathed a sigh of relief. A gust of wind blew by, and they realized their clothes were already soaked with cold sweat.

Li Yi raised the folded book in his hand.
"This chief steward is very pleased with the honest confessions of the He, Zhou, and Zhao families.

There are many companies here that didn’t come to me yesterday. I’ll give you two more days.

Once the three days are up, we will deal with the situation as it should be, without further leeway."

When the review is finished,
The group of local tyrants no longer cared about hiding and went straight to Li Yi.

"Everyone, please line up at Yishou Palace, one family at a time. To save time, you'd better write a detailed document first, clearly stating everything that needs to be explained. I don't have that much time, and neither do you. Don't let two days pass and someone still hasn't lined up."

Li Yi said this,
Everyone looked for paper and pen to write down their reports.

Li Jiancheng saw all this and said to Wang Gui, "This Li Yi is indeed a man of both civil and military abilities."

Wang Gui nodded and said, "I think Li Yi's advice to Your Highness this morning makes a lot of sense. These Nanshan bandits are actually mostly refugees and starving people.

Since the Daye period, many people have been forced into the mountains to become bandits. Now that the Tang Dynasty has been established and Guanzhong is gradually becoming stable, we should focus on appeasing them.

Those bandits, if they surrender, should be pardoned, taken out of the mountains, and resettled in various prefectures and counties, with land and land allocated to them. There's no need for harsh punishments. Jiancheng disagreed. "Both around Sizhu Garden and at the entrance to Lantian Valley, there are bandits thronging the land, countless as the hairs on a cow. In times of chaos, severe punishments are necessary. If we don't execute a few of them mercilessly, they won't learn to fear our authority, and we'll never be able to eradicate them."

"We must use both suppression and appeasement, and we must suppress severely before appeasement."

The sun rises,

The prince personally led the troops into the mountains and ordered them to sweep away the bandit strongholds, no matter whether they were big or small, as long as they were bandit strongholds in the mountains, they would be swept away.

Even some of them were just refugees who came into the mountains to reclaim wasteland and build villages for self-protection, but Li Jiancheng still swept them away.

In front of the well-equipped government troops, those small villages didn't even have a few bows, so how could they be a match?

One after another, the villages were broken.
Whenever Jiancheng conquered a village, he would execute all the leaders and enslave their families. He would also single out some of the young and strong backbones for execution, choosing them completely at random, and whoever was chosen would be unlucky.

The rest were taken down the mountain,
As for the villages in the mountains, no matter whether they were bandit villages or refugee villages, they were all burned down, and the food and property in the villages were not taken away by the officials.

Even the crops and vegetables they planted on the wasteland they reclaimed would be destroyed.

To prevent anyone from coming here to become a bandit again!

"Your Highness, in fact, many of these villages can accommodate refugees. Register the cultivated fields here and distribute them to them..."

Jiancheng held the horsewhip in his hand and said, "Keeping it is just raising a thief."

Within one day, the troops were divided into several groups and attacked dozens of villages, large and small. The large ones had hundreds of people, and the small ones had only a dozen people. Most of them were refugees who came to the mountains to reclaim land, but Li Jiancheng ignored them and believed that they were all thieves.

One size fits all.

All the huts in the village were burned down, the crops in the fields were destroyed, the leaders were all beheaded, and the rest of the people were moved out of the mountains.

Li Jiancheng was not satisfied with this.

After he had the people interrogating the people in those villages and learned about their transactions with people down the mountain, he picked out three big households.
"These three companies haven't explained themselves to you yet, right?"

"not yet."

"That's all right. Arrest them all, confiscate their property, and behead all the adults. The rest will be made slaves of the government."

Li Yi couldn't help but persuade him again: "Your Highness, we agreed to give them three days to confess and show leniency. Now there is still one day left, why not give them a chance."

"Today I have only just learned how many bandits there are in the mountains. They are all colluding with the powerful and wealthy down below. Those people deserve to be killed.

A group of bandits must be killed, and naturally a group of these wealthy people must also be killed."

Li Yi did not pity those wealthy families. They seemed to be full of benevolence and morality on the surface, but in fact most of them were full of thieves and prostitutes. These people were local tyrants, but every copper coin they accumulated was stained with sin and blood.

Collaborating with bandits is just an insignificant crime among their crimes.

Killing a few people is not a crime.
He just felt that Jiancheng was somewhat untrustworthy in the entire bandit suppression incident. Integrity is very important to the prince and the court.

But Jiancheng doesn't care,

He thinks dignity is more important.
He has the power of a prince and the power of the imperial court.

When dusk dyes the mountain ridges red,
The three families chosen by the prince were all among the most powerful families in Hu County. They went hunting with the prince during the day, but were suddenly dragged away by the guards of the Eastern Palace in the evening.

The drums started beating.

The prince once again summoned his soldiers and invited all the powerful men.

Ren Can, on behalf of Li Jiancheng, made a public verdict, produced evidence of the three families' collusion with bandits, and then sentenced them in public, beheading the men on the spot, and enslaving the women and children.

All the family property was confiscated by the government.

"cut!"

Following Ren Can's order,
The heads of the three families and their adult sons who had come were brought onto the stage. They were trembling with fear, their bodies trembling as they shattered, and they kept begging for mercy.

One knife at a time,
Heads rolled around and blood splattered.

Below the stage, the soldiers cheered loudly, enjoying the fun.

The wealthy and powerful people who were invited to watch were so frightened that their legs were shaking, and some of them even became paralyzed.

The He, Zhou, and Zhao families of Zhouzhi County, who were pardoned in the morning, were extremely grateful that they had taken the initiative to find Li Yi last night and offered a very sincere price.
Look at the Liu, Zhang, and Qin families in Hu County. They are prominent families next door, and they are very familiar with each other and can even be considered relatives.

After the execution,

Li Yi was surrounded by a group of wealthy people. Regardless of whether they had finished writing the materials or not, they all lined up and waited to confess.

Each of them was very frank, confessing everything related to the bandits, not daring to hide a single thing. Moreover, after weeping bitterly and regretting their actions, they generously offered large amounts of money, food, and even land as tribute.

In order to survive, some people really spent a lot of money. They took out all the food and money saved at home, and even handed over most of their land, just to exchange it for a pardon from the prince.

The fate of the Liu, Zhang and Qin families in Hu County really scared them completely.

In order to obtain pardon, these people not only confessed everything about themselves, but also told others about the situations they knew about others.

one night,

The hands of the clerks and soldiers in the army were sore from writing.

There are several thick volumes of files recording the events.

Li Yi picked up one of the scrolls that recorded the money, grain and land they promised to donate, and the total amount was astonishing.

In one fell swoop, the wealthy families in Zhouzhi and Huxian counties were practically wiped out. The accumulation of generations of people was largely snatched away in one fell swoop.

Looking at these, Li Yi only felt the cruel law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak, the big fish eat the small fish and the small fish eat the shrimp.

(End of this chapter)