Speaking of which, the inspiration for her latest idea was given to her by Mo Huaiyang.
The Great Qi Dynasty had regulations that monks and Taoists did not have to pay taxes, perform labor service, or serve in the military. They were also given preferential treatment in law, and the government would allow them to redeem themselves if they were guilty.
Mo Huaiyang's retreat into the temple suddenly cleared up Yu Zizhen's blind spot, making her suddenly remember that not only real monks and Taoists can live in temples, nunneries, and Taoist temples.
Temples, nunneries, and Taoist temples can absorb money and land, train warriors in an open and honest manner, and avoid heavy corvee and taxes. Most importantly, they can also serve as a kind of reasonable stronghold that Yu Zizhen can place in various places in Da Qi.
This is much more cost-effective and covert than opening an escort agency or forming a caravan.
While pondering who to send as the first batch of fake monks and fake Taoist priests, Yu Zizhen was writing his latest plan on paper.
They were busy until it was almost dark, then Yu Zizhen put down her pen and ink and asked Yuheng to invite Jiang Yunshan to her Lumingxuan.
Jiang Yunshan came quickly, bowed, and took the plan handed to him by Yu Zizhen about developing Buddhist and Taoist forces in various places. Jiang Yunshan read it carefully as usual.
After the inspection, Jiang Yunshan bowed to Yu Zizhen and said, "It's okay to build more small temples in the countryside. These small temples don't have any high monks in charge, and most of the people who visit are nearby villagers. Even if there are some irregularities, no one will take them seriously. After all, these small temples have always been informal. But it will be difficult for our people to be stationed in large and well-located temples."
The people of Da Qi believed that one's body and hair were given by one's parents and should not be damaged easily. Shaving one's head and pretending to be a monk was already a temporary solution. If one were to be given a scar on the head, most people would definitely not be able to accept it.
Yu Zizhen reminded him, "Not all monks in regular temples have to have their scars removed, and monks don't make up the majority of the population in those temples."
The more formal the temple, the smaller the proportion of monks. Because the temple occupies more land, it needs more hired farmers. Those landless people who cannot afford the heavy taxes and levies prefer to go to the temple and farm for the monks, becoming hired farmers with good status rather than selling themselves into slavery.
The same applies to Taoist temples. Unless you are a person with profound Taoist knowledge, it is indeed difficult to sneak into those formal Taoist temples of a certain scale, but ordinary people who farm also need Taoist temples.
Yu Zizhen didn't want to control the power of monks and Taoists. She just needed trustworthy people to use the capital as the starting point, spread out in all directions, connect the dots into lines, and weave the lines into a net, so as to build a huge information network for her.
Of course, to do intelligence work, she must carefully select personnel and train them in advance.
She said to Jiang Yunshan, "For large, relatively formal temples, nunneries, and Taoist temples, we will only deploy marginal people responsible for farming to collect intelligence and pass on information. As for those unpopular small rural temples, I will have people gradually fill them with armed forces when the time comes."
Jiang Yunshan nodded, approving Yu Zizhen's plan to exploit loopholes by gathering manpower, annexing land, and establishing an intelligence network.
Privately, he admired Yu Zizhen's ability to take advantage of loopholes, but at the same time, he did not forget to remind Yu Zizhen of one thing.
"By the way, Prince, it's easy to deal with poor areas. There are plenty of wastelands. At worst, our people can open up the wasteland themselves. But in rich places like Jiangnan, it will be difficult for our people to annex large amounts of land."
"Then put some people in there first." Good farmland and other things, once she kills all the corrupt officials and local bullies one day, she can pick them up for free.
Besides, Jiang Yunshan’s so-called “prosperity” was only relative to other places of that era. Yu Zizhen did not take this level of “prosperity” seriously.
What she is worried about now is where to find so many suitable candidates so that she can start from the capital and spread her own intelligence network in all directions, with temples and Taoist temples as the main line.
Oh, yes, besides being short of people, she was also short of money. However, the money she earned from robbing corrupt officials and the money earned by Wen Xiaoman and others were obviously not enough for her to continue causing trouble.
Thinking of this, Yu Zizhen quickly took out the book on textiles and printing and dyeing that she had asked the system to exchange for earlier.
She couldn't burn glass or make soap, otherwise her identity as a time traveler would be exposed. So after much thought, she finally chose to make reasonable improvements to the existing technology of this era.
She did not forget that killing the Lu family was only her first small goal.
In addition to the Lu family, she also had to conquer and recruit her nominal father, the King of Zhenbei, Chen Hushan's grandfather, the Duke of Jingguo, and Fang Huaiying's adoptive father, the Duke of Weiguo.
And they are just her second small goal. Her ultimate goal is Princess Wuwei in the original book who traveled from a more advanced world.
This person and her good brother Yu Zicheng are the final bosses that prevent her from completing the second task issued by the system.
She had to stop these two from taking power, she had to follow their path, and make sure they could never go back to the path of dominance that the original book had set for them.
In order to prevent Princess Wuwei from suspecting that she was also a time traveler, Yu Zizhen decided to follow the route of divine right of kings, rather than taking out many things that did not exist in this world and taking the route of hegemony through forceful conquest, so that Princess Wuwei would immediately target her and regard her as an imaginary enemy.
"Send this to Meng Tingru, the local squire in Kangping County." After carefully telling Jiang Yunshan how to gain Meng Tingru's trust, Yu Zizhen waved his hand to signal him to leave.
Jiang Yunshan touched the cover of the book, and his hand holding the book couldn't help but tremble several times.
"Prince, this..."
Seeing that he looked as if he had seen a rare treasure, Yu Zizhen couldn't help but sigh in his heart, "I knew it."
If there weren't so many illustrations in the book, she would have copied it again long ago. Jiang Yunshan would not have lost her composure as soon as she saw the paper of the book.
"Don't ask anything. This is a divine book sent by God. You are not supposed to know the details." If there is no way to explain it, then just don't explain it and just use the deception method directly.
Jiang Yunshan was obviously not easy to fool. Yu Zizhen's lie was not very sincere and made his eyes twitch a few times. However, he accurately understood Yu Zizhen's wish not to let him dig into the matter, so he bowed and said that he would never ask any more questions.
However, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he asked Yu Zizhen for a piece of cloth to wrap the book tightly. Then he asked Yu Zizhen for a small wooden box with a lock, put the thick cloth wrapped around the book in it, and locked it.
Yu Zizhen: ...
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