When Li Qin's banquet was halfway through.
Li Xuanshang left the meeting and returned to his residence, citing feeling unwell.
After entering his residence, he dismissed everyone and summoned one of his trusted confidants, asking him:
"Where is Sun Kaiyang? Have you found out where he went?"
"Reporting to the general, we have found out. He is dead. On the day Zheng Chenggong's navy was completely annihilated, he jumped into the river and committed suicide."
The trusted confidant reported the truth to Li Xuanshang.
After hearing his confidant's answer, Li Xuanshang nodded and then waved for his confidant to leave.
Li Xuanshang sat alone in his seat and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
He then called a servant to brew him a pot of tea.
I kept telling myself, what are you afraid of?
You didn't do anything.
Your contact with Sun Kaiyang was clearly motivated by a desire to mislead Zheng Chenggong.
It was all to help his uncle eliminate Zheng Chenggong's navy.
He helped his uncle get rid of this worry.
Don't be afraid, don't be afraid.
Nobody knows.
As Li Xuanshang sipped his tea, he repeatedly hypnotized himself in his mind.
His actions were reported to Li Qin after the banquet ended.
Li Qin listened to the report from the person in front of him and asked:
"You said that my nephew, after returning home, dismissed everyone and talked to his confidants about some things."
Is someone alone drinking tea in the lobby?
While looking at the memorial in his hand, Li Qin asked the people monitoring Li Xuanshang below.
The man knelt before Li Qin and assured him that this was indeed the case.
After Li Qin found out, he waved his hand and told him to leave.
He then closed the congratulatory memorial in his hand and casually tossed it onto the table in front of him.
My nephew is really something.
Hi.
Finally, Li Qin shook his head.
Although I don't know the details, I'm sure he's hiding something from me.
It seems we can't leave Jiangnan to him; we should keep him by our side and bring him back to the capital.
When we need him in the future, we'll bring him out again; when we don't need him anymore, we'll keep him in the capital and support him with high-ranking official positions and generous salaries.
But if Jiangnan isn't handed over to him, who will?
This is a major tax-paying area.
If he didn't hand it over, Li Qin looked at the map of Jiangnan in front of him.
Moreover, with such a large area and such abundant resources, I wouldn't feel comfortable entrusting it to anyone.
Finally, Li Qin picked up a pen and drew a vertical line from north to south on the map of Jiangnan.
It divided Jiangnan in two.
Li Qin looked at the map of Jiangnan, which had been divided in two, and nodded in satisfaction.
good.
Dividing Jiangnan into two parts and managing them separately would be a good solution.
As a result, important towns in the Jiangnan region, such as Anqing, were reassigned to another region.
Even if they wanted to establish a separatist regime, the difficulty would increase dramatically.
Moreover, doing so would also divert the strength of Jiangnan.
At that time, I will send a trusted general to each of these two places to garrison them, and a member of the imperial clan to assist him, as well as governors and other officials, so that they can supervise each other and each of them has the authority to submit secret memorials to him.
In addition to leaving local garrison troops in Jiangnan, he also planned to set up a large military camp in Jiangnan.
Officials who did not serve in Jiangnan were directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial court and belonged to the Beijing Garrison.
He composed entirely of his most trusted and loyal troops, stationed in Jiangnan to keep a close watch on the region.
Especially the landlords and gentry in Jiangnan.
Although Jiangnan is the most prosperous place in the world, it is not an easy task to collect money from them.
If I really want to impose heavy taxes on them...
They would absolutely dare to resist taxes with armed force.
Therefore, I must leave my most elite and trusted armed forces in Jiangnan to completely suppress them.
Anyone who dares to resist taxes with armed force, regardless of their identity.
Chop them all up.
I refuse to believe I can't get money from them.
I am now very clear that I will have many places where I will need to spend a lot of money in the future.
We must find a way to collect the money from Jiangnan, a region that is heavily taxed.
Those landlords and gentry who wanted to evade taxes in Dawu, when they came to me, they had to pay me.
He was well aware that, not to mention the future when he was purging those feudal lords.
Those feudal lords would absolutely not surrender without a fight.
They will most likely end up fighting each other.
I must be prepared for the war expenses if we end up fighting them.
There is also the issue of managing the situation after the Yellow River breached its banks.
The Yellow River has never been thoroughly managed, and I have to take over this mess.
There's also the grand voyage he'll undertake, and even dealing with the problems on the grasslands.
He even considered sending troops to the Western Regions to try and expand his strategic buffer on the mainland.
These all require money.
And now, in this world, Jiangnan is the wealthiest place.
In addition, his conquest of Jiangnan was too smooth, without any fierce battles.
This resulted in no major damage to the economic foundation in Jiangnan.
At the same time, there is another problem: the old forces have not been eliminated, and they still have great influence and organizational power in the local area.
They would never give up their own money for nothing.
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