My older brother said I'm invincible.

Chapter 134
The officials in Loufan were far too aware of the local illegal mining activities.

After all, these mines were turned into private mines in their hands.

After receiving Li Yuan's instructions, this group immediately took action. The mine owners in various places, like Liu Jizong, did not have time to react before their doors were broken down by officials of all ranks leading troops, and they were all arrested.

They acted swiftly and discreetly, after all, the mine owner never expected these people to dare to lay a hand on him.

Although no copper ore was found in these mines, the government uncovered seventeen private mines of varying sizes within just two days. Some of these were extremely large mines, comparable to some official mines, capable of accommodating nearly a thousand people for mining.

In large mines like these, the number of guards is greater than that of the local militia, but they still dare not resist. After all, the people leading these militia are officials. It is not a problem to drive away these militia, but once they are driven away, the next ones to come will not be militia.

Li Yuan, however, stayed at home with his wife. Since leaving Xingyang, he had been quite busy and hadn't been able to spend much time with his family. In the past two days, he had taken his wife to several well-known places in the city, where they were enjoying themselves.

The two-day deadline passed quickly. When the officials gathered before Li Yuan again, they looked quite pleased with themselves. Things had gone very smoothly; no one had escaped, and everyone who needed to be arrested had been arrested.

Li Yuan also kept his promise and did not investigate how these mines were transformed from government mines into private mines. Instead, he directly adopted the conviction report brought by Huangfu Zhao and others and decided to submit it to the emperor.

The evidence they wrote did not mention the government-run mines. They only said that these people were secretly mining and had not paid taxes. Of course, their identities were also revealed one by one, detailing who was whose son-in-law, whose daughter, whose relative, and so on.

Although Li Yuan was the main promoter, he basically did not participate in any actual actions. The subsequent events were left to be handled by these officials. Li Yuan ordered the officials to detain these criminals and await the emperor's decree.

At the same time, he instructed officials to appease the people as he had originally instructed.

This first and foremost involves rewarding filial sons and the elderly.

The local officials were mobilized to distribute rewards and relief to those who were well-known among the people, elderly, and without relatives or friends.

This was the first time in all the years the people of the county had ever encountered officials coming to distribute goods.

For quite some time now, neither the imperial court nor the local authorities have issued any rewards, but the frequency of looting has been increasing. The officials are all very understanding, saying that the new governor saw the people's suffering after his arrival and that's why he's doing this.

The people wouldn't be grateful for these things, but at least their opinion of the new governor had changed. Even if he was faking it, he was willing to pretend, unlike the previous governor who couldn't even be bothered to pretend.

After initially implementing this 'benevolent governance,' Li Yuan hurriedly began the second task.

He sent people to recruit more than 900 people in Jingle County to develop a large area of ​​wasteland in western Jingle.

The good news is that these wastelands west of Jingle are abandoned farmland, which saves the government from the work of surveying and planning.

In this era, developing arable land is by no means an easy task. The first step is difficult enough, requiring investigation of soil quality, water sources, and underground vegetation to determine what to plant based on local conditions. But now, they can directly move on to the second step.

Clean up the ground.

Trees in the development area must be felled, and their roots must be turned over. Weeds must be cleared away, and their roots must also be turned over. As for stones and the like, they will have to wait for the next step.

When the officials walked along the road, loudly announcing that the government was going to recruit laborers to work in the west of the city, the people in the city were quite surprised. Later, village chiefs and other officials also learned the details and began to spread the word to the people.

The Sui Dynasty's system still maintained considerable control over local areas, given that there was only one headman for every five households.

When they learned that this was a conscription, the people were still skeptical when they could get food for doing work in the past. But now most of the people in the city had been driven to the brink of despair, and they couldn't find any food at home. They had to resort to scavenging, which is the local term for scavenging. It means that they wander around all day and eat whatever they find.
On the first day, more than 300 people decided to participate.

The county government kept its promise and not only provided them with tools for their work, but also distributed grain to them. Since the work site was outside the city, the grain was given to them directly without being cooked first.

After discovering that there was indeed food available, more and more people participated in the recruitment.

The officials were somewhat worried that the large number of people would be too costly, but Li Yuan didn't care at all. The grain in the granaries was piled up like mountains, and there was no need to use grain from here during the war.

Following Jingyue County, the other two counties also began to follow suit. These three silent and almost dead cities came back to life in an instant. The people left their homes early in the morning, followed the village chiefs and other officials, and went to the outskirts of the city to receive tools from the officials. Then they went to their assigned areas to begin their day's work.

Li Yuan didn't distribute much food to everyone. After deducting the 'transfer costs,' each person could only receive a small amount of coarse wheat. However, there were occasional surprises. If Li Yuan came to check on them, they would receive more food, as well as some fruits and vegetables.

On one occasion, the officials slaughtered many pigs and let them have a sip of meat porridge. Although there was very little meat, just enough to taste it, they were already very content.

Li Yuan's reputation quickly rose among these common people, and everyone praised him.

The resistance I felt when I first arrived here has completely vanished.

This was good news for everyone, especially for the children of the Li family, because they could finally go out.

During this period, Li Erlang always eagerly awaited Chai Shao to come and pick him up.

However, it seemed that something had happened on Chai Shao's side, and he sent someone to inform Li Shimin that he should wait a little longer. Li Shimin did not complain. Even though they were now allowed to go out, Li Shimin was unwilling to go out again, for fear of missing out on Chai Shao.

Li Xuanba was by nature a quiet person and didn't like going out much.

Only Li Xiuning took the fourth child out to play.

The two of them would often go outside the city to watch the laborers work. Sometimes, the fourth brother would continue the tradition of learning from the third brother and bring some food to those people.

At this time, Li Yuan's memorial was also rapidly being sent to the imperial court.

In reality, the memorials from here were not far from Daxing or Luoyang. They were delivered by couriers along the way, traveling at breakneck speed, and it wouldn't take long. The only problem was that while the capital was easy to reach, the emperor was hard to find.

This sage really disliked staying in the capital. He preferred to travel around, and it was precisely because of this love of travel that he built so many palaces in various places for temporary residence.

Li Yuan was quite lucky. When his memorial arrived in the capital, the emperor had not yet set off. If he had arrived two days later, the emperor would have been heading west, and it would have been uncertain when the memorial would have reached the emperor's hands.

Because it was a memorial from the Duke of Tang, no one dared to delay it, and it soon fell into the hands of Yu Shiji, the Vice Minister of the Imperial Secretariat.

After the emperor ascended the throne, there were several powerful figures in the court, and Yu Shiji was one of them.

This man was skilled in calligraphy and poetry, and knew how to please the emperor. Therefore, after the emperor ascended the throne, he valued him highly and promoted him to the position of Vice Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, in charge of confidential matters and participating in court affairs.

The man received the memorial, glanced at it a few times, and without hesitation, immediately presented it to the emperor.

When he arrived at the sage's side, the sage was still somewhat busy.

Recently, the sage has taken a liking to falconry. He has summoned many falconers to his side to watch the falcons perform. The sage has also hinted to his attendants several times that he wants to gather all the falconers in the world to his side to perform for him.

Yu Shiji did not disturb the emperor's enjoyment. He waited until the emperor had finished playing before hurriedly handing over the memorial.

"Your Majesty, this is a memorial from the Duke of Tang."

Yu Shiji remained calm and did not fawn over the emperor, unlike Zhao Yuanshu.

"Oh?"

"Li Yuan's memorial?"

(End of this chapter)