Chapter 218: A Visit from My Mother's Family
Jiang Tangtang is vigorously carrying out infrastructure construction, while Lu Shiyan is also building a military defense fortress in full swing.
In fact, as soon as the war ended, Lu Shiyan began to prepare to repair the city walls and build a new defensive fortress.
Because the military defense fortresses reinforced on Baodao Island were very successful, the construction of city walls and fortresses in various parts of Lingnan was also entrusted to Fu Jingchu.
Fu Jingchu took the workers and traveled all over the Lingnan border, re-measured and designed the blueprints.
The new fortress not only allowed soldiers to avoid enemy arrows, but also had weapons such as crossbows and catapults built on it.
If this fortress is repaired, half of the troops needed to defend the city can be saved.
Lingnan is thriving, with all aspects of development moving in the right direction. The only downside is that it's too expensive.
Jiang Tangtang has spent almost all of the gold and silver that she had taken from the secret vault of Xiang, Song and others, leaving only some large ornaments and antique calligraphy and paintings that are difficult to cash in.
Jiang Tangtang was just thinking about how to get another large sum of money when Yuan San came hurriedly to report, "Madam, someone is coming from the Anyang Marquis's Mansion."
"Who?" Jiang Tangtang took a while to realize that it was someone from the original owner's family.
In fact, she had completely forgotten about the original owner's marriage, so it was not her fault.
She was on the road to exile when she first crossed over, busy struggling with her obesity and survival. Then she was busy with her career, and then there was the war...
In addition, the original owner's family was far away and had no sense of existence, so wouldn't they have been forgotten?
She tried hard to look through the original owner's memories, wanting to know about the situation in Anyang Marquis' Mansion.
"The people who came said they were your second uncle and second aunt... After the border officials verified it and confirmed that they were not lying, they sent someone to bring them here. They are waiting outside now. Do you want to see them?"
"My second uncle!" Jiang Tangtang stretched out her voice and showed a look of disgust on her face.
As far as she knew, this second uncle should be Jiang Caiwei's biological father!
What bad luck!
"Don't worry about him for now. Ask the people from the General Staff Office to come and discuss the matter."
There are now two military staff offices in Lingnan. One is the Left Military Staff Office that followed Lu Shiyan to conquer the world, and most of its members are military talents.
The other one followed Jiang Tangtang's right staff, which was full of ambitious people who helped her make plans and assisted her in governing her country.
However, Jiang Tangtang had seen too much in the future and had a wide range of knowledge, so she often came up with countless ideas without them having to speak.
These people went from being unconvinced at first to feeling both admiration and shame in the end.
Now their main role is to help improve Jiang Tangtang's ideas after she comes up with them, taking into account some problems that Jiang Tangtang has not thought of, and also to ensure that her ideas are implemented perfectly.
However, Jiang Tangtang called these people here today because she wanted them to help her find a solution.
When everyone arrived, Jiang Tangtang's first words were, "I called you all here today mainly to get everyone to brainstorm and discuss how we can increase fiscal revenue."
Money has always played a huge role in rebellion.
Whether it is the weapons soldiers use to fight, or the military pay and rations, money is needed everywhere.
If there is a lack of military pay at a critical moment, it will be a disaster for the soldiers on the battlefield.
If the army is defeated, those who depend on it will not have a good fate.
As soon as this question was raised, everyone in the staff office frowned and fell into deep thought.
After a while, Wen Min, the oldest scholar in the staff office, said, "How about increasing the tax rate a little? Honestly, the taxes set by Madam are too low. It's like giving the land to the people to farm."
As soon as he finished speaking, Qin Chi objected, "That's inappropriate. It's your people-friendly policy of reducing taxes that has allowed the general and your wife to rise in reputation, allowing more people to regard you as the masters of the world. Wouldn't increasing taxes ruin your reputation?"
Someone else said, "Why not impose a security tax on the noble families who have moved to Lingnan for refuge?"
"If we only accept noble families and not ordinary refugees, I'm afraid we won't be able to convince the public. If we accept everyone, how will we set the price? It's impossible to charge one tael of silver for ordinary refugees and one thousand taels of silver for noble families, right?"
Everyone was talking at once, but no one had a good idea.
Watching everyone arguing, Jiang Tangtang had an idea. "What do you think about building some houses on a busy street and letting them buy them?"
Since it is not convenient to ask the aristocratic families for money openly, just let them pay willingly.
In fact, it was mainly because she suddenly thought of modern methods of generating local fiscal revenue. In addition to real estate, there are also ways to increase taxes on businesses and try issuing government bonds.
Jiang Tangtang shared several ideas she had come up with.
The first few ideas have all received widespread praise, except for the national debt, which no one quite understands.
Jiang Tangtang briefly explained, "What it means is that the government will borrow money from the people, and then we pay them a certain amount of interest."
This would require the government to have great credibility to be implemented, and she was not sure if it could be done.
The staff were not sure either, but no matter whether it would work or not, they decided to give it a try.
Jiang Tangtang was discussing details such as the location of the house and the selling price with his staff when another servant came.
"What's the matter?" Jiang Tangtang felt a little tired and raised her hand to rub her temples.
The servant said somewhat embarrassedly: "Madam, your second uncle and second aunt are making a fuss outside. Do you want to send someone to send them away?"
Jiang Tangtang asked nonchalantly, "What are they making a fuss about?"
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