12dz Chapter 118 Rebellious Officials of the Former Dynasty 49
Chapter 118 Rebellious Officials of the Former Dynasty 49
Ling Yi, who deliberately orchestrated everything, watched the bloodshed unfold like a calm chess player.
These newborn children, once they grow up, will become a major threat to the Central Plains in a dozen years.
Ling Yi fed the barbarians honey laced with poison, so that after a period of suffering, they would usher in a brighter future.
But unfortunately, she is still in the future.
She planned to open a trading post within three years, settle the nomadic peoples within seven years, and expose their children to Central Plains culture within ten years.
In her plan, Tongcheng will no longer be a border city, and the border of this dynasty will be pushed all the way north.
Geographically, it encompassed these barbarian tribes, and culturally, it completely swallowed them up.
When these children grow up, they will not become part of the new hay bale.
Some of them would try to pass the imperial examinations, some would farm or herd livestock, and some would go to work in factories.
In short, regardless of the method, everyone must feed her grass and milk her, contributing their share to building a beautiful court.
what?
Such a long-term plan requires the support of the imperial court and preferential policies.
In just one year, she has amassed 10,000 warhorses. In a few years, surely the world will still be hers?
The emperor in the palace had tens of thousands of cavalry.
Of course, it's best to avoid rebellion if possible. After all, every human being's labor power is worth cherishing. Rather than pointlessly sending people to their deaths, it's better to have Xiao Yao's biological father willingly pass the throne to him.
"Yi-Yi is always like this. She is doing the kindest thing, but she always finds these strange excuses."
Xiao Yao listened to Ling Yi's grand plan, resting his chin on his hand and smiling as he looked at her.
Under his gaze, Ling Yi silently turned her head away: "Don't talk nonsense, how am I kind?"
She's maximizing her profits!
What kind of war?
Go and help her farm, weave cloth, and cook delicious food!
Humanity's greatest value lies in creating a more comfortable living environment, not in meaningless deaths!
Xiao Yao looked at Ling Yi with a grin: "Yes, yes, you're absolutely right, hehe."
The next moment, Ling Yi pinched his mouth into a chicken beak.
The AI, watching Prince Rui grow increasingly composed yet still jumping around in front of her with a cold, sarcastic gaze, warned, "Say one more word, and I'll be sleeping in the barracks tonight!"
"Ugh!" Xiao Yao crossed his mouth, which made Ling Yi coldly release him, and reward him with an even colder look and an absolutely cold back view.
The AI asked in a businesslike tone, "How's the iron pot situation?"
Xiao Yao pressed his face against the cool tabletop to ease the blush that had risen from Yi Yi's excessive closeness to him.
His handsome face was distorted into a strange shape, and his voice became muffled: "We have increased production. In addition to selling them inside and outside the city, we can store up to two thousand per month."
After discovering iron and coal mines one by one, which turned stone into gold, the smelting business in Tongcheng developed to a new level.
After the emperor was informed, the newly smelted iron was used to replace weapons on all four sides, while the ironworks that were on the verge of being phased out were turned into iron pot manufacturing plants.
The people in the city discovered that the price of the iron pot had dropped by more than half.
So they all praised them, saying that they were indeed worthy of being a prince and princess, as they could even bring down the price of iron pots, in addition to the price of mutton.
Before being called the Iron Pot Princess, Ling Yi ruthlessly extinguished this unhealthy trend.
Despite the lavish celebrations throughout the year, Tongcheng still managed to generate a surplus from the continuous sales of its goods.
Xiao Yao exchanged the surplus for tea and salt, which were stored in warehouses outside the city, intending to make them, along with iron pots, the three great tools, and dump them on the grasslands.
In everyone's common sense, salt and tea are the hard currency of the grasslands, which can be exchanged for gold and cattle and sheep.
Counterintuitively, the same goes for iron pots, which are even more expensive than these two.
During the Song Dynasty, an iron pot could sell for over a hundred taels of silver on the grasslands.
The Mongol Empire, which ruled the Central Plains for a hundred years, couldn't even manufacture iron pots during the Ming Dynasty. They could only afford to let the nobles living in tents drink a sip of boiled milk tea by robbing and buying at high prices.
The iron pot that sells for less than one tael in Tongzhou City has already been priced at twenty-five taels in Ling Yi's plan, ready to be wielded on the grasslands.
Moreover, apart from the initial batch of customers, anyone who wants to buy a new pot later has to bring their old pot to exchange it!
As for whether anyone will engage in smuggling because of the huge profits?
Were her cavalrymen unable to lift their swords?
The officials sent from the capital found Ling Yi's outlandish idea of ripping off tourists utterly unbelievable.
People from the grasslands aren't stupid; would they really buy it?
But when the market opened, when iron pots were in short supply, sometimes costing as much as forty taels per pot, and when iron pot traders emerged, they finally realized...
People from the grasslands are really stupid!
But sometimes fools are lucky. After two years of raiding, the nomadic tribes suddenly discovered that as long as you trade with the court in the south, the vampire queen and her cavalry will not raid your tribe.
But if you insist on doing business with the Arabs from the Western Regions, giving them gold and jewels...
Hehe, the princess's iron hooves will arrive tomorrow!
After several tribes were wiped out, the clever nomadic people of the grasslands finally figured out the pattern and actively joined the commercial activities of the border markets.
Are they afraid of the princess?
They really need what comes from the Southern Dynasty!
Those woolen cloths that cost tens of taels of silver per bolt, cashmere cloths that cost hundreds of taels per bolt, and all sorts of anti-freezing and anti-cracking ointments are really useful!
The princess could have simply robbed them, but instead, she chose to use products made from sheep she bought cheaply from them to rip them off at exorbitant prices.
Your Highness, that's kind!
In the first year of Lingyi's robbery, the barbarians cursed the queen and wished her to die on the grassland.
In the second year after Lingyi's robbery, the barbarians feared the queen and hoped someone could defeat her.
In the third year of Lingyi's robbery, the barbarians cursed those ignorant tribes for not buying goods from the princess's market and dragging them down with them.
In the fourth year of the queen's abduction, the barbarians sang praises to the invincible goddess and sincerely offered her gold and silver.
The merchants with the keenest sense of smell were the first to send their children to the new city outside Tongcheng, so that they could learn the Mandarin and culture of the Central Plains.
In this way, they would not suffer losses at the hands of the increasingly cunning merchants from the Central Plains.
Then came the wealthy nobles, who needed their children to come here to enter the academy built by the princess and cultivate a relationship with her.
Finally, there were the barbarians who couldn't survive because of newborns and too many widows who couldn't afford to raise them. They heard that the new city was full of gold underground, and that if they worked hard, they could find a piece that would belong to them and feed their families.
The new city that Lingyi meticulously built, capable of accommodating hundreds of thousands of people, finally began to exert a population siphon effect on the grassland as planned.