Pu Yangkai looked at Cao Peng with incredible eyes.
Bu Zhi sat aside and looked at the stack of regulations in his hand seriously, feeling a little dizzy.
If these were done by an adult, such as himself, such as Deng Ji, Bu Zhao would never feel this way.
But the person who accomplished this was Cao Peng.
And the person who planned this thing from beginning to end was also Cao Peng.
A man who is only fourteen years old... Oh, well, according to Cao Peng, he will be fifteen years old soon! A fifteen-year-old boy may be able to go into battle to kill the enemy, and may be able to fight on the battlefield. But let’s talk about it.
Negotiation... Bu Zhao is really a little worried about Cao Peng.
After all, this kind of thing is a delicate job, and there is no need to fight and kill.
Cao Peng, however, looked depressed and said with a sad face: "My attack was too light. Those guys agreed without any discussion at all. If so, I would have raised the management tax to one thousand guan. Look at those guys
My grandson promised so happily, but eight hundred strings are missing!"
Puyang Kai smiled bitterly...
"Youxue, what do you use these taxes for?"
Bu Zhi put down the contracts, looked at Cao Peng, and asked softly.
"What it is used for, of course it is to raise troops."
"ah?"
"Otherwise, what's the point of setting up the Cao Bureau?"
Pu Yangkai couldn't help but narrowed his eyes, looked at Cao Peng, and after a while asked softly: "Do you want to suppress the bandits?"
Cao Peng stood up, walked out of the study, looked around, and then shouted loudly: "Hu Ban, please pass on the order. No one is allowed to approach the study for twenty steps."
"Here!"
Hu Ban is now almost the steward of the county government.
As Zhou Cang, Xia Houlan, Pan Zhang and Feng Chao were appointed one by one, it was often difficult for Cao Peng to shout around them as before.
Seeing Hu Ban's response, Cao Peng felt relieved and turned back.
"Mr. Puyang, Mr. Zishan... To be honest, Magistrate Deng has never stopped thinking about pacifying the pirates. But we all know that those pirates have eyes and ears hidden in the county. As soon as the Haixi County soldiers added, Haixi County
The thief will inevitably get wind of the situation and strike first to gain the upper hand.
Therefore, Magistrate Deng and I discussed and decided to declare to the outside world that we would only accept one hundred patrol troops and would not expand the number of troops.
But these soldiers must be expanded... As we gain a foothold in Haixi County, sooner or later the interests of some people will be offended. Although we are in peace with the pirates now, I dare say that sooner or later, between us,
There will be a conflict, a life-and-death conflict."
Pu Yangkai and Bu Zhi had expressionless faces and were silent.
In fact, why don’t they understand this truth?
However, they knew better that once they expanded their army, the pirates would never let Deng Ji grow bigger.
"You established the Cao Bureau..."
"Haixi needs stability, and the market needs stability even more. I used the excuse of regulating the market to secretly recruit soldiers. The number will not be too many, a hundred people will be enough. When the time comes, I will hand over these people to the fifth brother and the seventh brother.
Come to manage it, and use the name of the market to train soldiers and horses secretly."
"Build the plank road openly, but secretly build the warehouse?"
Bu Zhao's eyes lit up and he immediately understood what Cao Peng meant.
Cao Peng nodded and sighed softly, "Our strength is still weak after all."
He smiled bitterly and said: "If we have enough strength, why bother to be sneaky? There is nothing we can do about it. There are some things that County Magistrate Deng cannot come forward for, so I will be the villain. However, with such a small manpower, we can still
It’s not enough!”
"Youxue, take your time."
Puyang Kai didn't know how to solve the problem, so he could only comfort him with gentle words.
"Ha, I'm fine..."
Cao Peng took a deep breath and cheered up.
He suddenly asked: "Mr. Zishan, have Chen Sheng's properties been cleared out?"
"It has been basically sorted out... The property under this man's name is quite astonishing. In addition to the twelve shops in the North Market, he is involved in various industries, and there are still thousands of hectares of fertile land. His villa outside the city has
Thousands of villagers are all attached to Chen Sheng's name and are not registered with the government. This situation is not Chen Sheng's family, including many families, where the population is hidden... I have a headache now, what should I do with these thousands of villagers?
?How will these people survive if Chen Sheng's land is confiscated?"
Cao Peng thought for a while and said, "Grow the fields!"
"Um?"
"Imitating what Duke Cao did in Xudu, we will farm in Haixi."
"Farming... is one way. If we can cultivate fields, at least Haixi will no longer need to import grain and rice from outside, and we can also ensure that the warehouses are full. However, our population is not that large. Just a few thousand farmers can't
It is difficult to establish a climate and has little effect."
After hearing this, Cao Peng also felt a little headache...
What Bu Zhi said is indeed a real problem.
Over the years, due to repeated raids by bandits, Haixi people have rarely engaged in farming. This has also caused a very serious consequence, that is, Haixi County has been seriously affected by foreign influences. There is no livelihood industry, and everything depends on imports.
It is difficult to develop in the long term.
Cao Peng asked: "Mr. Puyang, how many people do you think are hiding in the merchants' homes?"
"Oh, I have been sorting out the documents during this period, and I have also paid attention to this situation. The current hidden population in Haixi is about seven or eight thousand people? Well, it is about the same number. I estimate that it will only be more, and it will never be more than
This young man. What, why are you asking this?"
"Can you let them release these hidden people?"
Pu Yangkai and Bu Zhi looked at each other and shook their heads, "This, I'm afraid, will be difficult."
"What if there are benefits?"
"It depends on how big the benefit is...if it's small, these business bastards probably won't agree."
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, what was most important?
Answer: Population!
Unlike the era of hot weapons in later generations, the era of cold weapons relied on manpower.
Cao Cao pacified Qingzhou, but he refused to kill the millions of Yellow Turbans. Why? Because of the population!
In Soochow, the Sun family continued to wage war against Shanyue, encircling and suppressing the indigenous people... It was said to be a barbarian war, but in fact, what they wanted was population!
With people, we can cultivate land, fight wars, have children, and continue to increase the population.
Speaking of those powerful families, in addition to having prominent family backgrounds and inherited family knowledge, they also control a large amount of land and population resources.
How could businessmen like Haixi not understand this truth?
As Bu Zhi said, there is no huge benefit. Want them to give up their resources? It is very difficult, very difficult!
But the question is, what huge benefits does Cao Peng have to transfer?
It was late at night, Cao Peng was sitting in the room, rummaging through the box in front of him.
Nine links?
Can this be a fucking gift?
And this thing, isn't it just a finely carved doll? Do you think I am a child?
The items placed in the box were all ingenious and obscene items given to Cao Peng by the Haixi merchants through Wang Cheng. But to be honest, they were of no use.
Cao Peng had no interest in this thing at all.
However, he was very surprised that how could Wang Cheng have thought of this?
Is it accidental or has ulterior motives?
Tonight, Wang Cheng did not appear in Feiyang Pavilion. This was also done intentionally by Cao Peng...
He wanted to see how Wang Cheng would react! But according to Hu Ban's report, Wang Cheng was very calm and didn't even react at all.
For dinner, he ate in a restaurant in Xili.
Then he went home and went to bed...
This is not the reaction a normal person should have.
If it were Cao Peng, he would definitely be unhappy if he ended up not even being qualified to attend after such a busy time.
This guy is weird!
Cao Peng picked up the jade ball from the desk and started playing with it.
"Afu, why don't you rest?"
"Brother Hutou, I'm thinking about something!"
Wang Mai lived in the wing next to Cao Peng. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he found that the light in Cao Peng's room was still on.
He rubbed his eyes and said drowsily: "Afu, don't sleep too late. If you don't understand, don't think about it now and talk about it later."
"I see……"
Cao Peng put down the jade ball, but he didn't want the two jade balls to roll on the desk and accidentally knocked over the fish-kissed copper pin placed on the edge of the desk.
The copper town mouth fell to the ground with a muffled sound.
Wang Mai walked up quickly, picked up the copper town, played with it in his hand, and was about to put it on the desk when he suddenly said: "Afu, look at the mouth of this fish, it's really interesting."
"Um?"
Cao Peng reached out to take it and scanned it with his eyes.
With a slight frown, he quickly took the copper town in his hand, put it under the light, and observed it carefully.
"This fish mouth is indeed a bit weird. How do I feel..." Cao Peng raised his head, looked at Wang Mai and said, "I can't tell, but it seems to be different. Fish kiss, fish kiss... How do I feel?
, the shape of this fish’s mouth seems to be a lock core.”
"Yeah?"
Wang Mai took it and stared at it for a long time.
"No... In my opinion, you are just tired. You should rest early."
"Um……"
Cao Peng secretly felt lucky and nodded.
"Maybe, I'm just paranoid!"
"Afu, I think you've gone a little crazy lately! Why should you care too much about such wonderful and obscene skills?"
"Yeah, I think so too...wait a minute, what did you just say?"
Cao Peng stood up loudly, his eyes widening.
Wang Mai was startled and stammered: "I didn't say anything."
"You said it, you said that I..."
"Oh, I said you've been a little crazy lately."
"Not this sentence, but the next sentence."
Wang Mai scratched his head and said with a smile: "I mean, there's no need to be too concerned about this kind of ingenious and obscene skills."
Wonderful obscene skills!
He grabbed the fish-kissed copper ring and turned to look at the box placed next to him. His eyes were shining brightly, and his mind seemed to become much clearer in an instant.
Yuki Copper Town—Li Guangli’s treasure—the death of successive county magistrates—Wang Cheng—these strange things in front of him—Maicheng...
Cao Peng seemed to understand, and suddenly he felt a hairy feeling, and a layer of goosebumps suddenly appeared on his body.
"Afu, what's wrong with you?"
Wang Mai saw Cao Peng's face looking ugly, so he quickly stepped forward and helped Cao Peng.
"Brother Hutou, there is still one link left, one link!"
"What part?"
Cao Peng took a deep breath and said softly: "A link that can solve all mysteries!"
