Seeing the appearance of the Li family head, the prefect gave a wry smile and said:
"I warned you long ago not to try to take shortcuts. But you wouldn't listen, and look what happened this time! You almost got yourself into trouble. In my opinion, you should be content. There are so many people in the Li family, and each of them has three acres of land. That's already a special favor for your Li family."
The head of the Li family gritted his teeth and said:
“My Li family originally owned over a thousand acres of land, but after all this, we’re left with only a little over a hundred acres. How can we accept this?”
The prefect sneered and said, "You didn't say that before. Your Li family are business people, so you should understand that there are gains and losses in business. You can't let this loss ruin your mindset."
Upon hearing this, the head of the Li family gritted his teeth, unable to utter a word for a long time. Finally, he could only sigh and say:
"Fine, I'll just consider this my own cleverness."
The prefect spoke calmly:
"It's not that you're being clever, but that your opponent is smarter than you. Don't you think His Highness the Crown Prince would allow such a thing to exist?"
Since he intends to implement land reform, he naturally won't allow such opportunistic behavior. You should be thankful that he didn't directly punish you for this.
If he has a bad temper and gets angry at your behavior, a single sentence could kill you. Sometimes, you need to think about the consequences.
The prefect's words served as a wake-up call for the Li family head, causing him to realize his mistake. He then said to the prefect:
"So, His Highness the Crown Prince knew about this matter?"
The prefect smiled but said nothing more.
The head of the Li family could only swallow his anger and dare not say anything more.
After all, the prefect was right; although he lost some benefits, he at least saved his life.
Meanwhile, the other powerful families and noble landowners were facing almost the exact same situation as the head of the Li family.
They eventually realized, albeit belatedly, that the land was distributed among individuals, not collectively allocated to any one person.
This directly thwarted their plan to use a fake population to acquire more land.
This incident left those opportunistic and cunning aristocratic families and landlords feeling both helpless and heartbroken.
But since things had come to this point, they had no other choice. After all, once they came up with this opportunistic method, they voluntarily handed over the land they had in their hands.
Now that the land has been handed over in the first place, and the land distribution order has been carried out normally, if they were to stand up and say anything again, wouldn't they be contradicting themselves?
As a prominent family, they still possessed this much dignity.
However, the first thing they had to do after this incident was to drive out all the beggars and vagrants who were pretending to be family members from the mansion.
After all, they no longer have any value to us, yet we still have to feed and drink them. This unprofitable business can't continue like this forever.
Unfortunately, although they wanted to cut their losses in time, Zhu Yunwen refused to allow it.
He also spread the word that he would be visiting the mansions of those powerful families for a few days each.
The reason was that they were very supportive of the land reform policy, which made Zhu Yunwen admire them greatly, so he wanted to have more contact with them.
What does it mean to kill someone by destroying their spirit? This is what it means to kill someone by destroying their spirit.
After all, these powerful families don't genuinely want to support any policies.
It's just that I tried to gain an advantage, but didn't actually get one.
Zhu Yunwen, however, still expressed his gratitude for their support of the policy, which would obviously cause these aristocratic families immense heartache and distress.
The key is that you can't say it out loud; you have to act as if you genuinely support the policy.
There was another problem: Zhu Yunwen would also have to eat and drink at their homes.
If it were just Zhu Yunwen eating and drinking alone, that would be fine.
If it were just the Li family, they would simply eat and drink well with Zhu Yunwen.
However, those vagrants and beggars who were impersonating members of the Li family also had to eat with them, and they couldn't be allowed to leave the Li family for the time being.
After all, these imposters were always there whenever Zhu Yunwen came before. If Zhu Yunwen were to come again now, these "family members" would be gone, and they would naturally be unable to explain themselves.
Zhu Yunwen's purpose in going to these families for meals was actually to make them bleed money again, so that they would not be able to drive away the beggars and commoners who had been brought in to impersonate family members.
It must be said that this move was truly ingenious, leaving those powerful families completely helpless.
This is precisely why these powerful families feel so helpless and desperate.
But Zhu Yunwen wanted to use such methods to deal with them. He did not intend to punish them openly, nor did he intend to use his status as the Crown Prince to deal with them or convict them.
Instead, we should use the enemy to defeat the enemy. Aren't they very interested in interests? Then let them lose interests and let their cleverness backfire.
Using such methods to deal with them will cause them greater harm and more direct damage, making them feel more heartbroken.
Sure enough, when Zhu Yunwen arrived at the Li family that day, the head of the Li family greeted him with a smile, but there seemed to be tears in his eyes.
Clearly, Zhu Yunwen's arrival was no longer as welcomed as before.
But there's nothing you can do. He's the grandson of the emperor. He's come to your residence to thank you for your support of the policies. How could you not welcome him?
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