Chapter 373 Bribery
But compared to the grand ceremony, Jiang Tangtang still focused on infrastructure and agriculture. As for her plans for universal education, now was not the right time. The disaster had just ended, and most people were still struggling to make ends meet.
When people can barely afford to eat and wear clothes, it is unrealistic to talk to them about education, human rights, gender equality and monogamy.
If the economy doesn't reach a certain level, even if the law prohibits the buying and selling of human beings, people will still sell their children to survive. Only when people reach a certain level of prosperity can they pursue higher things.
The current solution is to ensure that the people have enough food and warm clothing.
Of course, in addition to vigorously developing agriculture, we also need to build roads and canals, shorten the distance between different places, and develop commerce.
In recent years, Lingnan has also built many roads. Although these roads have been widened and paved with stones and sand, such roads are not solid.
Maintaining a smooth road requires considerable manpower and resources.
After the devastation of war, natural disasters, and epidemics, the population of the Great Zhou has plummeted. Jiang Tangtang doesn't want to waste manpower on road maintenance.
She thought of the smooth and solid modern roads and felt an urgent desire to make some cement.
Moreover, after the cement is pounded, it can not only be used to build roads, but it is also of great benefit to the water conservancy and construction industry.
There are so many things she wants to do, and she has to do them one by one.
The first thing to do now is to ensure the implementation of public ownership of land.
The common people were naturally happy about Jiang Tangtang's newly announced land distribution system, but this affected the interests of the aristocratic families.
These people are bound to cause trouble.
Even if they don't dare to make a fuss openly, they will still make small moves in private.
Jiang Tangtang guessed correctly.
In order to protect their own reasons, many noble families were discussing countermeasures. After the previous attempt to send women to Lu Shiyan to prevent the implementation of the new policy failed, these noble families came up with many new ideas.
In addition to creating obstacles for newly appointed officials and preventing the implementation of new policies, some people also gave newly appointed officials money and women in an attempt to bribe local officials so that the officials would pretend to obey the policies but actually disobey them.
At this moment, Mr. Hu was giving gifts to the newly appointed county magistrate in southern Xinjiang.
The county magistrate sent to Lin'an County in southern Xinjiang this time was Qu Siyuan.
Qu Siyuan was unwilling to leave the officialdom and hoped to make some achievements in Lin'an County and return to the center of power. Naturally, he would not accept the gift from Mr. Hu.
But Ling Yanli, who came with them, didn't think so.
She believed that everything she was going through was Jiang Tangtang's revenge. If Jiang Tangtang wanted to take revenge on her, how could she possibly give her husband a good future?
Since the future is hopeless anyway, I might as well make more money and become a rich and idle person.
Besides, the Emperor is far away, so even if less land is distributed to the untouchables, Jiang Tangtang will not know about it.
So, when Mr. Hu came to her after being rejected by Qu Siyuan, she accepted the benefits given by Mr. Hu without hesitation.
To impress Ling Yanli, Master Hu had invested heavily this time. Not only did he promise Ling Yanli that 30% of the profits from the Hu family workshop would go to her as a gift, he also gave her several sets of priceless jewelry and several large boxes of silk and satin.
Ling Yanli couldn't remember how long it had been since she had bought new clothes.
At the beginning, as the Western Rong army approached the capital, everyone was panicked and had no mood to buy clothes.
After a series of disasters, it was already difficult for her to survive, so she had no time to buy clothes.
It was not until she went to Lingnan at the beginning of this year that she gradually calmed down.
At that time, due to the drought of the past two years, the textile industry was almost at a standstill. Most of the cloth and clothes sold in the shops were old goods.
She doesn't like poor styles, but good styles are too expensive and she can't bear to spend them.
Seeing several large boxes of good materials, she happily took them and gestured with them.
When Qu Siyuan came back and saw the room full of boxes and cages, his expression suddenly changed. "Are you crazy? Do you want to kill the Qu family?"
Ling Yanli put down the cloth and said calmly, "I'm not asking you to give all the land to those low-class people. I'm just asking you to do some tricks when distributing the land and give the low-quality land to those low-class people. How can this harm the Qu family?"
Qu Siyuan looked at the woman in front of him, and felt that she looked more and more unfamiliar. "Have you never thought about the consequences of doing this?"
"Do you know how far Linyuan County is from the capital and Lingnan?" Ling Yanli asked, "How could an imperial envoy come to inspect this godforsaken place?"
Little did she know that Jiang Tangtang was thinking about inspecting various places at this moment.
Traveling was a very difficult task for emperors throughout the dynasties. In addition to the emperor's safety, transportation in ancient times was also very backward, and travel could take ten days or half a month.
But these problems do not exist for Yu Jiangtangtang at all.
She had the Tiger Protection Corps, so she didn't have to bother mobilizing troops. As for transportation, she had the Gugu. It was faster than a modern airplane, so getting anywhere was a piece of cake.
The only drawback was that the vehicle was too small to carry accompanying officials, so she had to do many things herself.
But this is not a problem. Jiang Tangtang decided to treat the inspection trips to various places as a tour.
But there are a lot of things going on in Lingnan now. She also has to worry about the design competition and the oil workshop affairs. Even if she has Gugu, she will not have time to inspect every place.
So Jiang Tangtang decided to pick two places to walk around for the time being.
When Lu Shiyan came back, he saw Jiang Tangtang holding a pen and looking at the map on the table in deep thought.
Lu Shiyan walked over, hugged her from behind and asked, "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about where to go." In Jiang Tangtang's mind, there are too many important places, and she wants to go to them all. It is precisely because of this that she can't make up her mind for the moment.
Because I was thinking about something, my answer was a little absent-minded.
Her words were incoherent, and Lu Shiyan certainly didn't understand what she meant. He leaned over and asked, "Where do you want to go?"
Jiang Tangtang had already circled several places on the map. Seeing that he asked, she simply told him what she was thinking. "Can you help me think about where to go?"
Lu Shiyan looked at the map and thought for a while before saying, "Southern Xinjiang is too far away. Officials may have just arrived by now. I think you should put the distant places aside and go to the closer places first."
Jiang Tangtang held her forehead and said, "Look, I'm so confused that I didn't even think of this." She was really worried for nothing.
"You were busy with too many things, so you didn't think about it for a while." Lu Shiyan raised his hand to rub her solar plexus.
Jiang Tangtang closed her eyes and enjoyed his service, but couldn't help but examine herself in her mind.
To be honest, before traveling through time, she was just an ordinary person.
She never thought of becoming an empress.
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