Chapter 769: Step by Step

After the refugees migrated to Qingming and lived for a period of time, they would gradually integrate into Qingming, and there would also be a slight improvement in Human Renjian Yanhuo. The improvement of one or two could not be seen, but when the number was large, reaching the million level, the influence would be very obvious. Now that 10 million people suddenly poured in, the boundary of Human Renjian Yanhuo began to expand again, and naturally, the progress of cultivation was pulled down again.

But Little Wei Yuan did not intend to stop there. After all, there were still many aristocratic families in Xiang Rong and other three counties. They were like independent kingdoms, binding people firmly to the land, unable to move.

Little Wei Yuan first cut off the traffic inside and outside the three counties, then cut off the grain input of the three counties, and sent many spies to observe the livelihood. As a result, he found that people began to starve to death in many places, but all families were unmoved, preferring to watch people starve to death rather than allow them to leave the land.

Seeing that the strategy was ineffective, Little Wei Yuan had to take heavy action again.

After reorganizing Hanyang and Huang Ping counties, Little Wei Yuan returned to the Southern Military Machine Camp. The camp was stationed with 100,000 troops and stockpiled nearly a year's worth of grain and grass. When Little Wei Yuan was trapped in the illusion, the Zhao country tried to attack several times, all of which suffered losses.

In the central army camp, Little Wei Yuan looked at the special map in front of him, his brows furrowed. The map was painted with different colors on large and small plots, and each color block represented a family or aristocratic family.

According to the Tang Law, these civil official families had to pay taxes, but not much. Aristocratic families paid even less, less than 10% of the annual output. According to the Jin Law, civil officials did not need to pay taxes. This Jin Law was formulated fifty years ago, and as a result, in this short time, the entire Xiang Rong County could hardly collect any silver.

Xiang Rong County Governor Zhuang Zhong was directly pitted to death by Little Wei Yuan, but other families were still like an iron plate, and Little Wei Yuan's grain cutting was useless. Every family had stored grain, and the stored grain was definitely not enough for the tenant farmers on the ground to eat, but if it was only supplied to the main family, it could be eaten until the end of the world. So every family was determined, and as for whether the tenant farmers who farmed the land were dead or alive, the main family did not care, and could push the responsibility to Little Wei Yuan.

Facing such a situation, Little Wei Yuan was at a loss for a while. He also consulted the opinions of his staff, but many civil officials spoke in unison, feeling that taxing scholars was a big mistake and was going against the trend.

Therefore, Little Wei Yuan understood that once there was interest under a person's buttocks, it was like being welded to death. Without using iron-blooded means, don't think about them moving a bit.

Now there were only two roads in front of Little Wei Yuan. One was to modify the Jin Law. But this road was obviously impassable. The Jin Wang was approaching his old age and valued his posthumous reputation the most. Once this Jin Law was abolished and taxes were re-imposed on scholars, one could imagine how history books would write about it. So even if it was Little Wei Yuan, proposing to the Jin Wang to modify the Jin Law was also rejected.

The second road was military disaster. History books once recorded that a demonic cultivator wanted to seek fame, but had no background and no way to advance.

After failing the imperial examinations repeatedly, he encountered a time of great turmoil in the world where the people could not make a living, so he indignantly raised an army, attacked the then-dynasty's secondary capital, and immediately began slaughtering the noble clans. One prominent family with over ten thousand members was killed until only two young children remained. These two children were illegitimate sons unknown to others, and only because of this did they survive.

However, this demonic cultivator acted too ruthlessly, attracting the intervention of immortals, and was defeated and died. But after him, the descendants of two prominent families among the fifteen prominent families at that time were killed too much, and those with talent were all killed, and thus declined.

The attitude of these families was stubborn, and many people were locked in the prison for more than half a year, but still refused to bow their heads. The Right Minister directly arranged another marriage for his granddaughter, just as if this granddaughter's husband was dead.

After listening to the full report of the situation, Little Wei Yuan fell into deep thought and stood on the map for a whole day.

It wasn't until the next morning that Little Wei Yuan, who was like a statue, had an expression, pointed to the 116 largest families on the map, and said: "Invite these family heads to the camp for discussion. I want to see them at this time three days later, not one less."

A general asked: "What if someone refuses to come?"

Little Wei Yuan said lightly: "Not coming is despising this official. I don't care if they are willing or not, anyway, not one can be less three days later. If the living don't come, the corpses will do."

The generals received the order and immediately led the army out of the camp. For a time, there were crying and scolding everywhere in the three counties, and people who went to the capital to file a complaint were endless.

Three days later, at noon, Little Wei Yuan walked out from the back hall and sat in the military machine tent. At this time, there were more than ninety people and a dozen corpses in the tent.

Little Wei Yuan asked: "How many families are left?"

"Back to the Lord, those families have already abandoned the land and fled, and there is no one in the house."

Little Wei Yuan's eyes swept over the family heads, suddenly smiled, and said: "I have cut off the grain for more than half a year, and the family heads are still full of red light and fat ears. It seems that ordinary means really can't deal with you!"

One person immediately shouted: "Little Wei Yuan! You use such poisonous schemes, the people are miserable, aren't you afraid of retribution?!"

Little Wei Yuan was not angry either, and said: "Whether I will have retribution is hard to say, but you are about to be unlucky."

That family head was actually not afraid, sneered: "Do you know who I am?! I tell you, my clan uncle is..."

Little Wei Yuan waved his hand, and someone nearby raised his knife and fell, directly beheading the family head. Everyone screamed, and finally changed color.

Little Wei Yuan said lightly: "If the backer at home is not first-rank, and not a close relative of an immortal, don't say anything about background, it's looking for death instead. I asked everyone to come this time, I don't want your money, nor your land, but taxes must be paid. You can use people to pay taxes, one strong person for three taels of ordinary silver.

I don't care how this person came, as long as there are people. You can send people home to send letters now, everyone eat more today, this is your last meal. The next meal is when I see people. Without people, you can just starve for now."

Subsequently, Little Wei Yuan left, and the family heads looked at each other. Although many families had signed a defensive alliance and agreed to die without paying taxes, Little Wei Yuan wanted people this time, which sounded acceptable.

Only the land remains unchanged for ten thousand years. As for people, they are like wild grass in the fields. After one crop is cut, another crop will emerge. So many family heads loosened, wrote letters home, and asked the family to count the tenants and pay people to pay taxes.

After dealing with the aftermath of the three counties, Little Wei Yuan returned to Human Renjian Yanhuo. At this time, the progress in the World Fragment had reached the predetermined node, and the road illuminated by the lamp fire had been built in a circle, dividing a plot of land with a radius of a thousand feet.

Little Wei Yuan personally led the team, led nearly a thousand cultivators to thoroughly clean up the divided plot, killed all the hidden monster resentment souls inside, and harvested three wisps of Dao Profound Qi.

The road was still being built forward. Every thousand feet built, it would begin to build to both sides, and then build back, dividing the World Fragment into isolated thousand-foot squares, and then Little Wei Yuan would clean them up one by one.

Beside the light gate, a small city of considerable scale had been built. The city was full of furnace lamps burning Qi Luck. Even if the cultivation was only at the beginning of the Dao Foundation, one could walk freely in the city. And mortals without cultivation could move indoors.

Many people were extremely intelligent, but their cultivation was mediocre. After these people entered the World Fragment, they immediately pushed the research progress significantly, restoring the original appearance of this world bit by bit.

As the road continued to advance, a hundred-foot-high building appeared in front of Little Wei Yuan. Its upper half had long been destroyed, and he didn't know how high it was originally. But just looking at the remaining part, it was enough to make people admire the ingenuity of the outer world architecture.

In front of the building was an open space, now all dirty black mud. But Little Wei Yuan had experienced the illusion and knew that this open space must have been a brocade-like lawn back then. In the outer world where every inch of land was worth an inch of gold, such a large lawn was a symbol of wealth.

There was also a rectangular wall standing in the mud, and there were a few words on the wall, which should be the name of this building. But Little Wei Yuan didn't recognize any of these words, so he could only ask someone to replicate them and send them to the rear for research.

At this time, a light fell on Little Wei Yuan's face. He looked up and found that some floors in the building were actually still lit.

Little Wei Yuan suddenly had a feeling of hair standing on end.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 770 =====