"Good!" The third scholar was overjoyed when he saw that the other party was an expert and carried a sword like himself.

"And if that's the case, we should use some means to keep Jiangnan stable and not cause trouble for the court, so as to avoid disaster; and we should persuade the emperor not to really send a large army south... If another 10,000 or even tens of thousands of imperial troops go to the southeast, that would be a great victory!" The fourth scholar saw that the conversation was on the right track, so he quickly stepped forward with his sword, and then bowed to the other party. "May I ask your name, brother? Why don't we write a joint letter?"

"Wait a minute, why..." The two who started the conversation became even more confused, but after looking at each other, they felt that they could not follow the other's train of thought at all, and the conclusion drawn by the other party made them feel very uneasy. "This joint letter..."

"It's simple." The swordsman who interrupted at the beginning smiled and explained. "Nothing special, my two brothers, do you remember the emperor went to Louwailou to drink before? The emperor came in person, so he didn't have to pay, but the accompanying Shao Yaban paid anyway, which was more appropriate behavior... And now the emperor wants the local tycoons to pay for the poor, so he has to use power and status to exchange for the scholars' loyalty to suppress the tycoons, and give them some ways out so that they don't have to overreact... And this public pavilion is where the emperor pays."

At first the two of them were overjoyed...it turned out that this public pavilion was a place where officials used their status to do business with people like them. After hearing this, they naturally came to their senses.

Then, the four of them quickly exchanged their names. The first two were just ordinary useless scholars who had no history for half their lives, but the third one was actually from the famous Lu family in Yuezhou, and his name was Lu Xi. The fourth one was a little more ordinary, just a down-and-out scholar from Wuzhou, and his name was Chen Yi.

After the four of them knew each other's names, they naturally elected Mr. Lu to be the leader. They prepared to write a letter to express their determination to the government and see if they could get some profit from the government's deal... However, just as the four of them were about to discuss it in detail, they heard a commotion at the monument under the dilapidated Leifeng Pagoda in front of them. It took them a long time to find out what was going on.

It turned out that after the internal official Lü Benzhong had erected a monument to commemorate the previous Jianyan Wulin Conference, he directly brought up a matter, saying that the emperor was determined to stay in Jiangnan until the land tax was successfully implemented here before returning to Beijing, but he was determined to use the imperial court as the foundation and temporarily set up an imperial gazette. He asked Mr. Lu to handle it, but he wanted the famous scholars in the cabinet who were familiar with the original learning, loved the country, and were loyal to the emperor to help him with this task... Jiangnan had been longing for the gazette for many years, and when this was said, some sloppy scholars could not help but disregard the etiquette and recommended themselves on the spot, which then caused a commotion.

Being so far away, the four of them could only watch, but none of them were talented writers, and Lu Benzhong's behavior clearly confirmed their previous speculation that the government did want to carry out some political bribery of the scholars and wealthy people in the southeast.

So, the four of them looked at each other, but they all determined to take advantage of this opportunity to climb Phoenix Mountain, so they turned around and retreated, preparing to return to where they were staying and have a little discussion... Among them, Chen Yi, whose family was a little poor, only rented a farmer's spare house in the countryside outside the city, and then was invited by Lu Yi to live in his own villa. Gradually, he got to know the other party's similar difficulties and twists and turns. In addition, the other party was also a rare martial artist. The two of them discussed current affairs, fencing and reading together, and they immediately became close, which is needless to say.

Two or three days later, with Lu Xi's great effort, he managed to put together a memorial and asked his nephew to help check for typos. Then he officially submitted it.

When the documents arrived at Fenghuang Mountain, they were naturally classified by Ren Baozhong and sent to the emperor because they were entirely about the land tax and levy.

After reading it, Emperor Zhao was indeed a little moved. He mentioned this matter again when Lu Yihao and Xu Jingheng came to Phoenix Mountain to make a routine report the next day:

"If I understand correctly, the meaning of this document is probably that the scholars in the southeast will do their best to cooperate with the great government, and hope that I will not send the imperial camp army south? What do you think, gentlemen?"

"I think this is fair. For now, the scholars and wealthy people in Jiangnan are more or less sensible." Xu Jingheng was the first to express his opinion after reading the document. "Even the current land inventory of temples and monasteries is going smoothly. It is not necessary to send the imperial army south to Nanjing to station..."

Let me add one more thing here. Whether it is to distribute the tax according to the land or to never increase taxes, the prerequisite is that there must be a unified land tax and a large-scale land inventory... Land tax is a unified cleanup and preparation of household registration, and land inventory is the inspection of land. This is a necessary prerequisite for any large-scale tax reform.

After Emperor Zhao made up his mind at the martial arts conference, Li Gang put everything aside and retired to his hometown. He then led the two ministers, Lu Yihao and Xu Jingheng, to carry out comprehensive local inspections and a small number of land inspections starting from temples and monasteries.

"Temple is temple." Back in front of him, in the Phoenix Mountain Palace filled with the cries of crows, Lv Yihao really disagreed with Xu Jingheng. "As for temples, the monks can escape, but the temples cannot. The Taoist sect has always been the property of the emperor, and can be flattened and rounded at will. However, the monks are bareheaded, and you can tell at a glance that they can't hide. Even if they are dissatisfied, they are at most cunning and treacherous. How dare they really resist the government? But after the temples, we will start a large-scale and comprehensive land inspection from Liangzhe. This move is tantamount to taking food directly from the mouths of those powerful households (rich and powerful)... If something goes wrong, the government will only have 3,000 soldiers in Phoenix Mountain. Who dares to take the responsibility?"

The last words were obviously a reminder to Xu Jingheng that you are just a retired person who has been re-employed, and I am the real Southeast Envoy.

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