The Taoist ancestor is Cthulhu

Daozu is Cthulhu Chapter 430: Business routes are cut off

After leaving Sili Xiaowei Yamen, Li Fan could feel that there were many tails behind him, following him covertly and covertly, even without searching with his spiritual sense.

This is just as he expected. After all, in Changsi City, the capital of Gyeonggi Province, strangers who come in have to register and pay taxes. You are still a Nascent Soul monk who comes here, and you go to Sili Xiaowei Yamen. How could he not attract attention in a place with good ventilation from all sides, where he was surrounded by eye-catchers inside and out, and he even took the initiative to report his wealth, and even asked to visit him by name and name to meet him and sit alone in the capital?

Therefore, it is estimated that early this morning, the "Tingwei left and right supervisors enshrined Li Er" went into the city to meet with Sili Colonel Wen Zhang. The two were still at the juncture of the new king's succession. They discussed the assassination of the former king all night. It must have been written in the Di newspaper a long time ago, submitted to both inside and outside the Liguo Imperial City, and sent to the desks of all the feudal lords for preview, right?

Li Fan also smiled and didn't care. It would be better to say that it was part of his plan to alert the snake. Instead of looking for clues in the smelly ditch, he started wandering around Changsi City with a bunch of tails.

In fact, Wen Zhang did not trick anyone. Well, he actually bullied this stupid young man in Zhongyuan. He didn't know the seriousness of the internal struggle in Li You and deliberately concealed many secrets involving Li You. The mastermind of the two cases was also He hid a lot of information without mentioning it, and pointed out a wrong way to the sewer to Li Er like a fool.

But this was not a trick. On the contrary, Wen Zhang actually wanted to give Li Er a hand.

After all, compared to pursuing the truth, it is human nature to avoid taboos to protect oneself. And if 'Li Er', a Nascent Soul master from other places, really has no head to search for, not to mention being involved in the Li Qiu Palace to change the clouds. The strange fight damaged the harmony inside and outside Changsi City. Even if the fight damaged the flowers and plants on the roadside, I'm sure he, the Sili Colonel, would also be implicated.

But fortunately, this guy is still polite. Although he is a martial artist who eats with a knife and a master in the Nascent Soul realm, he has been in a place like Sanyuan. Unlike those rice bags from the Nangong family, he knows what is good and what is good. And he knew that when he entered the city, the first thing he did was to pay a visit to the police chief of the royal capital, which was considered to be a favor to him, so Wen Zhang planned to help this guy and seriously made some good suggestions.

If Li Er really followed Wen Zhang's instructions and went to the west of the city along the smelly ditch of Yong'an Canal to check the dyeing workshop, although he would not be able to catch the real culprit, he would definitely be able to catch something.

After all, the Yong'an Canal area, south of the West Market, is the "Kowloon Walled City" where three religions and nine streams are entrenched, and fish and dragons are mixed. At the beginning, Lu Jackal and his religious sect were planning to rebel in the workshop, and the Luo Jiao from Shatang Village were also hiding in the ditch to survive, and there were quite a few serious 'immortal thieves' carrying cases of human life on their backs.

So if 'Li Er' is really a thief sent by the Six Gates, if he goes in and takes a stroll, he can always catch a few fugitive criminals, right? It would be better if the witnesses were beaten to death, insisting that they were the remnants of the Black Lotus Sect and had harmed Lord Li. Then Wen Zhang will definitely cooperate!

When the time comes, you cut off the head and I stamp it with the official seal. Everyone shirks the responsibility and takes the body away to Sanyuan to receive the reward. If there is no evidence to prove it, whether it is the six gates or the Liguo court, both sides can communicate with each other. Isn't it wonderful?

So Wen Zhang kept Li Fan chatting all night, and gave him a lot of information, hinting at several places in the market where 'immortal thieves' might be hiding. It was clearly based on this idea of ​​killing someone with a borrowed knife.

Maybe this insidious and shrewd guy can also see that 'Li Er' is not a six-door worshiper, but so what? Maybe he's someone from the palace who specially arranged for this person to settle this matter?

In short, the former monarch is already dead, so there is no need to waste time, energy and financial budget on dead people. As long as this matter can be done well, the eyes of the adults above can be clear, and everyone can happily welcome His Majesty to the throne. That’s it.

But how could Li Fan let these people get their wish?

He mobilized a large number of people and came here to chat with an old guy like Wen Zhang, not just to serve as a spearman for these people and maintain harmony inside and outside the imperial city!

Yes, he came to Taiping Temple in Dayefang, Changsicheng.

Everyone knows that those Black Lotus Cult demon cultivators who broke into Mozhu Mountain were caused by the Taiping Temple, so what else is there to do? For the sake of the temple owner, spare the life of the Taiping Temple. If you don't die, just rush in from Zhengmen and beat him up, forcing the remnants of the Black Lotus Sect out.

Yes, 'strong' means being able to do whatever you want and do whatever you want.

I want to ask those trash guys in Taipingguan, can anyone stop them?

This time I'm going around a little bit more. To be honest, it's just to hide the clone so that I can do things more easily. Anyway, if I ask later, how do you know that the Taiping Temple is behind the Black Lotus Sect? Then Li Fan replied, it was all told by Colonel Sili and Lao Tzu last night. You can ask him.

Yes, what's wrong with this guy? This kind of cruel official will be killed with a stick if he gets in the way. Li Fan didn't pull his head off. He was already caring about the overall situation and keeping a wide berth, okay?

However, before rushing into Taipingguan and starting the fight, Li Fan had to wait a little longer. To scare the snake, he had to give the snake a chance to move.

So now Li Fan did not go straight into the city square to arrest people, but pretended to wander to the west of the city for a while, then went shopping in the West Market, drank tea and listened to music, and used the gold hairpins and baht that the Taifu Mansion had sent to pay the bill. I'm just here to travel at public expense, and I won't give up until my little case-handling funds are wasted.

The spies who followed him were not surprised. Before sending people to handle the case, they would visit nearby places to get some information. This was a normal operation, so they also followed him to spend money in the restaurant, drink tea and listen to music, and take turns to keep an eye on people. .

But when Li Fan sat in the restaurant and stared at the West Market for a while, he realized that something was wrong, so he didn't care about pretending. He just threw out several gold bahts and started looking for someone to inquire about the situation.

He was not asking about fairy thieves and assassins, or where the Black Lotus Sect's demonic ways were. He was asking about the population of Changsi City. Why was it so small?

The last time Li Fan came to Changsicheng was, ahem, five or six years ago.

At that time, the market was crowded with people, and many people passed by him. The avenue was busy and congested. If you were dazzled by the dazzling array of goods, you would accidentally get crushed in the ruts. If you still use the invisibility technique, your shoes will often be stepped on.

But it has only been a few years, and it is already a desolate scene in a literal sense. There are only a few horses and horses in front of the door, and the commercial buildings in the West Market are depressed.

What's wrong? How did Li You build the palace? How many years will it take to transform Changsi City into such a ghostly state? Moreover, Mozhushan actually doesn’t care about this kind of chaos in Changsi City?

So Li Fan chatted and asked the shopkeeper of the restaurant, the waiter who served the dishes, the actor who played the piano, the old man who was begging, and even the spies who were drinking tea at the next table, and he roughly understood what he had learned about leaving the country in recent years. What happened.

How should I put it? The poor livelihood of the people in Changsi City cannot be entirely blamed on that boy Li You, but the role this guy played from the side could not be said to be the culprit, but it must be said that it made things worse.

Well, didn’t the king just want to live in a new house, didn’t he just want to eat, drink and have fun for a few years? So what? For the lords of the Twelve Kingdoms, one person is worth ten thousand people, so it’s a big problem if they don’t even have this little money! And to a certain extent, civil engineering can also be regarded as stimulating domestic demand and promoting the development of the tertiary industry!

If it were a time of peace, and the leader of a country, together with his princes, ministers, civil and military officials, indulged in pleasure and did not mess with the people, the country would not be defeated.

But as I have said many times, these are troubled times.

Therefore, the biggest problem encountered by Changsi City was not the inaction and greed of pleasure of the king, nor even the general pattern of court corruption, corpses, land annexation, etc., but a purer, more direct, and more painful blow.

The trade routes in Changsi City were cut off.

Kunlun in the west, Kun Kingdom in the north, and Xun Kingdom in the east. The trade routes on three sides were cut off due to the impact of the war. The business groups that brought countless goods to Changsi City disappeared, and there was a serious shortage of capital flow and logistics chain.

Mozhu Mountain in the south has recently been fully armed and has shifted to strategic defense. The main focus of the viewer's energy and financial resources is on organizing farming, preparing for war in the north, and destroying mountains and temples. The monks in Mozhu Mountain themselves also need to consume a lot of supplies to produce spells and magic weapons to prepare for war. Since they can't buy resources in Changsi City, even the trade route from Mozhu Mountain in the south has been quickly cut off.

This would be a devastating blow to Changsi City, a large city with a population of 2.4 million.

You must know that after years of operation in Liguo, land annexation has indeed become serious. Most of the millions of local people living in the southwest corner serve the princes and nobles, including officials, soldiers, scholars, merchants, servants, and craftsmen. Most of them do not have their own land. The vast and high-quality land outside Changsi City is entirely the property of the clan. The Guo family alone has more than 40 waterwheels and mills, but the Liguo people in the city have no land of their own. Having no place to stand is the reality of society.

But no matter what, relying on the status of Liguo's capital and the advantages of Nanguo's trade center, the common people in the city can work for dignitaries, purchase and resell goods from various places, work as middlemen to make profit, and provide hotels, accommodations, security guards and repairs. Supply and other service industry activities can also be engaged in financial services, and pawnshops can exchange gold and silver for interest. No matter what, life will definitely be richer and easier than that of farmers in border areas who cultivate fields.

But now that trade routes are cut off in all directions, and there is a serious shortage of funds and goods, it has naturally led to the collapse of the economy and cut off the means for most people to make a living.

What's even worse is that if the trade route is cut off temporarily, after so many years of savings and development, Changsi City is the center of Liguo after all, and the viewer will not let so many people go hungry, right? Times are tight, right? A little bit can still be maintained.

But at this time, I want to explain the ‘obligations’ of the people of Liguo, or the people of Immortal Palace, and all mortals in the world.

One is called taxation, and the other is called corvee.

This was a rule that had been set since the Immortal Lord period. After all, it was a brutal race war at that time. The qualified cultivators went out to conquer the demon clan and expand their territory. Those mortals who could not cultivate had to do nothing and needed to produce and work. Responsible for maintaining the logistics of the four vassals and eight vassals of Immortal Palace and the twelve armies.

Specifically, taxes are the direct payment of money and food. For example, the official taxes stipulated by the state and still in use today include oral tax, calculation tax, household tax, mountain tax, donation fee, land rent, capital calculation, city tax, and baht rent. Tariffs, etc., and there are even more miscellaneous taxes and donations imposed by local governments. Needless to say, Li Guo, especially in a place with developed industry and commerce like Changsi City, has the most tax items.

Corvee labor is to provide physical labor for garrison work, build city walls and water conservancy, make ordnance and armor, inspect inland Zhouxian, transport money, grain and military equipment to the front line for rotational border garrison.

It is also known that the civil engineering works for the overhaul of Liqiu Palace were all allocated in the form of corvees. Moreover, the majority of the money for the project was naturally earned by the contractor and the eunuchs. The people of Changsi City were only assigned voluntary labor. If they did not want to carry bricks at home and do hard work, they would have to go to the front line to deliver military rations. And this kind of thing would definitely not be possible. It will be distributed to wealthy families like the Guo family, but in the end it will all be distributed to the people in the southwest city.

Originally, business travel was cut off and there was no income, but now he had to work voluntarily for the king, and he was exhausted all day long without even having enough to eat. Naturally, the people were filled with complaints and anger.

And don’t forget, there was also the problem of the excessive issuance of Shengang money during the same period.

The Immortal Palace Shen Gang Qian system has already entered collapse. Sanyuan has lost its ability to manage local areas, and the right to mint money has naturally been controlled by local powerful men. Not only are the clans of the twelve countries annexing land and plundering the assets of merchants and citizens, but the proliferation of private money has also become a common problem faced by the twelve countries. .

Of course, it's not just the Sanyuan and Nangong families who are exchanging bad money for new money. The imperial courts of the twelve countries, local aristocrats, and even the private banks in Changsi City are all minting coins on a large scale, and they are exchanging bad money for good money.

Li Fan has seen counterfeit Shengang coins before. The difference was only in the content of Shengang's gold energy, but it was still full of copper. The mortal eyes could not tell the difference. But now, let alone Shen'gang's gold energy, even the copper coins are different. The texture of the food is starting to look rough.

The same goes for Li You, a second-rate fool. The country was already financially tight and could not make ends meet, but for the big house in Li Qiu Palace, new clothes, rewards from the imperial army, and the huge expenses for the polo banquet, this guy also worked hard. He actually listened to the advice of those idiots in the inner court and used the Shengang money from his internal funds to re-baht, casting one penny into two pence for use. Selling officials and conferring titles was a common way to make money...

The kings of the country took the lead and made a lot of mistakes, so you can imagine the behavior of the nobles below. The Guo family took the lead, and private companies were rampant, and land was annexed and plundered.

As a result, the income of the people who left the country dropped sharply and their burdens skyrocketed. At the same time, their assets began to shrink significantly, and prices skyrocketed. UU reading www.uukａnshu． ｎet However, the national finances are on the verge of collapse, and the wealthy families cannot collect taxes at all, and they are still using money internally and externally.

In this situation, if it were any other country among the twelve countries, the situation would have collapsed.

But if we don’t specifically say that the Li country is rich and powerful, the people are strong, and there are many talented people, even in such a situation, it has not collapsed yet! It's still stable!

This is also because of the support of friends and businessmen. There are wars in all directions, and the protagonist can at least feed the people of a country, so the situation is not serious yet, and everyone feels that they can get over it if they endure it.

Then the big one came.

In order to make up for the shortage of national finances and military expenditures, and to deal with the flood of bad money, under the auspices of the censor Li Hongxian, Li Wenrao, the doctor of Duzhi, launched the Duzhi Division to prepare for the border extension and treasury strategy to rectify the situation. National Finance.

To put it simply, salt, iron, silk, horses, water, wine, etc. were all exclusively handled by the Duzhi Division directly under the Ministry of Household Affairs. At the same time, local taxes no longer collect Shengang money, but instead collect silk and cloth, and all debts are paid off in kind, and the cloth and cloth are settled. In an instant, Shengang's money collapsed. In Changsi City alone, 120,000 pieces of cloth were stored in one year. Even the concubines who left the Qiu Palace went crazy and dyed cloth...

As for the special products collected locally, all the local specialties will be collected and liquidated in the Beibian treasury of each prefecture, state and county, and will be used as a priority for the Beibian military supply. The remaining part, or the goods that are not used by the front line, will be transferred to the Yantse treasury. They were dispatched by Du's dispatchers and transported to various markets for sale as military supplies.

To put it bluntly, in the future, Li Guo will only focus on farming and fighting, and there will be no need for the profession of 'businessman'.

As a result, the small citizens of Changsi City went bankrupt one after another. Anyone with some connections sold their ancestral property, or simply fled their country of origin, dragging their families with them and becoming refugees, and came to Mozhu Mountain to open up wasteland.

Why come to Mozhu Mountain?

Because Mozhu Mountain is now a Xuanmen, the people of Xuanmen never pay taxes to the Immortal Palace.