That night, Li Qin returned to Xuanfu and continued to review the political and military intelligence in his hands.
Today's negotiations with Jiang Xiangyang were quite fruitful.
Using military force, they forced him to hand over half of Datong's taxes.
He agreed and sent tax collectors to Datong to collect taxes.
With half of the taxes from Datong, plus the counties and prefectures in Shanxi that were about to be completely taken over,
His fiscal revenue can definitely increase significantly, and the huge fiscal deficit will be greatly alleviated.
Moreover, Hong Chengchou of Shaanxi has already submitted a memorial of surrender.
The imperial edict appointing him has already been issued.
Next, let's see if we can also send tax collectors to Shaanxi to collect taxes from there.
If taxes from Shaanxi were also collected, his fiscal deficit would be largely alleviated.
They even had surplus funds to build a navy in preparation for future conquest of Jiangnan.
He then took out Zhang Hengshuo and the military intelligence reports that Li Xuanshang had given him during this period.
During this period, thanks to their conquests, most of the prefectures and counties in Shanxi have fallen into their hands.
In reality, their actions in Shanxi were hardly a campaign against the enemy.
It was more like a takeover; after they had fought against Yang Zhiyong's troops who were retreating south, they were essentially receiving orders.
They encountered virtually no significant resistance throughout Shanxi.
Upon seeing their banners, officials throughout Shanxi surrendered the city.
In some places, people even sent people to contact them on their own initiative, saying they wanted to surrender the city, without even seeing the army, just because they heard that their army was coming.
Among these people, according to Zhang Hengshuo's report, he encountered a general named Qi Wenbai at the Jingxing Pass.
That man actually led the army all the way to the walls of Taiyuan.
At the beginning, Zhang Hengshuo did not understand the situation in Shanxi. He told him that as long as he could persuade Taiyuan to open up the city, he would submit a memorial to him and allow him to inherit the official position.
But the final result left Zhang Hengshuo speechless.
Because he discovered that Qi Wenbai was leading the way, flying their flag, all the way to the city of Taiyuan.
Therefore, he did not know whether this counted as Qi Wenbai's achievement.
Should we give him this credit?
So he wrote directly to Li Qin, telling him about the whole process.
Let Li Qin make the ruling.
He saw the situation reported by Zhang Hengshuo at that time.
That set the tone for the whole thing.
This is undoubtedly thanks to Qi Wenbai, and a great one at that.
He used our banner to intimidate his way to the gates of Taiyuan.
That was clearly his voluntary surrender, abandoning darkness for light and coming to our side. He then claimed to be the vanguard of the army, persuading the garrison commanders and officials of various cities to surrender, and finally even persuaded the gates of Taiyuan to be opened.
This person has made great contributions and should be set up as a role model and widely publicized.
As for his hereditary official position, of course it should be allowed to remain hereditary.
I want the whole world to see that the surrender conditions I, Li Qin, have proposed are real and valid.
What official position would you hold in the Jinling imperial court, or under any other governor or noble?
If you don't perform well after a few years, you might be dismissed.
Look at my terms: if you surrender to me, I will keep your official position.
If someone, like Qi Wenbai, surrenders and then makes great contributions, not only will they retain their official position, but their descendants will even inherit it.
From now on, your family will be officials for generations to come, with secure jobs, and you'll never have to worry about being forgotten once you leave the family.
Why don't you surrender now and then work for me to the death?
What if you promise too many hereditary official positions?
Of course, we'll wait until we've pacified the world, then find a reason to take it back.
What did you say?
You're saying I breached the contract? We agreed on hereditary succession, and now you want to take it back later?
I'm the one who initiated this, so the final interpretation right is in my hands.
Back then, the founding emperor of the Great Wu issued so many iron certificates of immunity from death to those meritorious officials.
In the end, they were killed without warning.
They just took it back like that?
Anyway, I'm in the midst of a rebellion and entrepreneurship now, so I can make the pie as big as I can.
Make more friends and fewer enemies.
Bring those minor enemies to your side, make them your partners, and work together to deal with the main enemy.
Once the main enemy is defeated and the dynasty is established, you will inherit the title of emperor, while others will inherit the titles of dukes, marquises, or official positions.
Once I paint this rosy picture, you'll all be working your butts off.
This is tantamount to dividing up one's own dynasty, taking the largest share, and becoming the major shareholder.
They hold medium or small shares, becoming shareholders and minority shareholders.
You're working hard now not for me, but for yourselves.
Once the dynasty is established and the company goes public, everyone will share the profits, and generations will live and die alongside the nation.
How great is that? Your status has directly changed from an employee to a company shareholder.
It's just that once the company goes public and the dynasty is established, he'll gradually eliminate you shareholders.
What I want is 100% control of this dynasty.
However, that's a matter for the future.
What he needs to do now is to establish Qi Wenbai as a role model and show it to the world.
As long as we establish him as a role model, we can show him to officials, landlords, and gentry across the land.
This will greatly reduce the difficulty for me to unify the world.
In many places, things will be just like Shanxi today.
Faced with their own attack, entire cities surrendered without any resistance.
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