Li Xuan's way of treating the founding fathers was not very special. He did not want to kill all the founding heroes like Zhu Yuanzhang, but he also did not want these founding heroes to continue to be in power and shake his rule.
So he adopted a compromise approach, depriving them of their power, and then recalled them all to the capital. First, they were given a sinecure, and then they were gradually withdrawn from the military and political affairs for two terms. In addition, they were also given titles and salaries.
As long as they stay honest, they will be rich and prosperous.
Li Xuan treated Fang Dongquan favorably because of this consideration.
On the one hand, it is to reward him for his contribution back then, and on the other hand, it is to compensate him for giving up military power in his early years. Finally, it is also to tell others: I, Li Xuan, still treat heroes well, and I will not start killing people like Zhu Chongba after unifying the world.
A hero!
Well, although among the core senior leaders of the two military and political periods of the Tang Dynasty, there are actually very few founding fathers who have real power.
Even Liu Bagou and Hao Bainian, who are called ministers on duty in the Royal Study Room, are actually severely restricted and have no special powers.
However, while reducing the real power of the founding fathers to stabilize the regime, some superficial things still need to be maintained.
Fang Dongquan is a very typical example. When he retired, he retired with the rank of Army General, and his title was promoted again and again. Now he is a Marquis, second only to the Duke.
And this time, Li Xuan did not treat him badly when he was granted a land grant!
Li Xuan granted him the title of Marquis of Lu Nan. The title came from the fact that the fiefdom he was granted was located on the island of Borneo in the south of Luzon Prefecture.
Naturally, the fiefdom Fang Dongquan acquired could not be the entire Borneo. It was a huge land of more than 700,000 square kilometers.
His fiefdom is located in the northern part of Borneo. However, even if it is not the entire Borneo, its area is beyond the imagination of everyone in the court.
Because Li Xuan directly divided Borneo into two parts on the map, and gave him the entire northern part of Borneo as a fief.
The total area of the fiefdom reached 320,000 square kilometers, which was larger than the area of ordinary provinces in the country!
Moreover, among the 300,000 square kilometers of fiefdom, a full 30,000 square kilometers were private land directly granted to him by Li Xuan, the kind with title deeds.
This also led to Fang Dongquan instantly becoming a super landowner with the largest private land area in the entire Tang Dynasty.
When Fang Dongquan heard that the canonization edict stated that the Holy Emperor had directly conferred half of Borneo to him, as well as 30,000 square kilometers of private land, he, who was already over sixty years old, could not even stand.
stable.
You still need the support of others to be able to kneel down and worship the Holy Emperor, and finally complete the entire canonization ceremony!
And this canonization, compared with the previous small-scale canonization, caused a sensation in both the government and the public!
Although Borneo is a wild land even in the Southeast Asia region, it is a fiefdom of more than 300,000 square kilometers and more than 30,000 square kilometers of private land. Even if it is barren, if it is developed properly
If so, it represents countless interests!
Fang Dongquan received so much land through canonization, and the other fifty or so nobles were not far behind. They were very generous to the hero Li Xuan, and gave away the land as if they were free of charge.
In fact, these lands do not cost money. For example, Borneo is actually still under the control of the local indigenous people. The Tang Dynasty established several coastal ports and trading stations there, and did not control Borneo at all.
bring the continent under effective rule.
Li Xuan just kept his mouth shut and didn't feel any pain at all, but everyone in the government and the public didn't care!
Borneo is still under the control of the local indigenous people. Is this a problem?
There is no problem at all. Even without the military taking action, they can hire the White Water Bodyguard Company to kill the local indigenous regime!
So it doesn't matter whether there is actual control now. What matters is a name, the name of the Holy Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. As long as you have this name, the subsequent things will be very simple!
Even if this nobleman is a pauper, he can still get the favor of many capitals. What, worry about not being able to pay back the money does not exist!
There is still a huge area of private land, and there will still be fiefs and salaries in the future. Many investors are not worried about not getting their money back.
If you can find a gold mine or something on private property, you could make a fortune.
You must know that the Holy Emperor granted fiefdoms very casually, just by drawing straight lines on the map. Moreover, Nanyang is rich in products, and gold mines have been discovered in many places.
According to the relevant laws of the Tang Dynasty, the owners of private land also have the right to exploit the minerals underground on the private land. Of course, if you want to develop minerals, you can, but you still have to pay taxes, and the tax rate is not small.
Especially for precious metal minerals such as gold and silver mines, the tax rate is quite high. Basically, most of the gold dug out has to be used to pay taxes. However, after deducting the cost of mining and refining, there will still be a huge amount of the remaining gold.
profit.
Viscount Wantan, who had sealed Wantan Island before, discovered a gold mine on his private property. Although the measured reserves were not large, it still made Wang Shanxi a huge profit.
The gold mine hasn't even been mined yet. He has already made a fortune by setting up a company and then selling the shares. Not to mention that he has retained more than 60% of the gold mining company's shares. From now on, he can still
Earn a steady stream of profits.
Of course, gold mines cannot be found everywhere, but even if it is not a gold mine, other minerals can be found. Even if there are no minerals, various other specialties can be found. If not, farming is also possible.
When the amount of land reaches a certain level, no matter what you do, you will actually make money.
To a certain extent, although the land that Li Xuan granted to the nobles had fiefs and salaries, in fact these were only good in name at most, unless there were some places with particularly great development potential and very high expected taxes.
, in fact, they didn’t have much money, but the private land that Li Xuan directly gave them was a huge amount of wealth.
Fang Dongquan acquired more than 30,000 square kilometers of private land. Just looking at this amount is terrifying.
After the canonization was completed, Fang Dongquan couldn't wait to summon everyone in his family, as well as professional managers of some industries controlled by his family. He had only one goal in gathering everyone, and that was how to accept the fief and develop it.
You must know that Borneo today is still under the control of the local indigenous people. The Tang Dynasty officials only set up trading stations in several coastal areas to trade and provide supplies to merchant ships.
Although Fang Dongquan has been canonized as Marquis of Lü Nan, he still has to rely on himself to turn these fiefdoms into reality.
Otherwise, you would think that Li Xuan was so free that he casually awarded tens of thousands of kilometers of private land, not to use the power of these nobles and capital to immigrate and develop numerous overseas territories.
Wang Shanxi was a very good example when he was granted the title of Wandan. After Wang Shanxi was granted the title of Wandan, he used the power of his family and borrowed the power of capital to hire himself in just a few months.
The mercenaries, that is, the Whitewater Company's escorts, and then subsidized the local garrison military expenses, etc., eliminated the remaining indigenous forces entrenched in the central area of Banten.
Subsequently, they vigorously recruited immigrants to go to Banten.
After such a complete set of measures, the Wang Shanxi family has completely established a foothold in Wandan and gained a lot at the same time.
The development of Banten Island has also been accelerated, not only providing a new place for many landless and landless farmers in the country, but also creating a large amount of tax revenue.
This has brought Banten's immigration development to a new level of development.
With Wang Shanxi setting a good example at the front, Fang Dongquan and others will naturally follow suit!
After this preliminary discussion, Fang Dongquan personally found the Baishui Bodyguard Company and prepared to hire the company's armed guards to develop his fiefdom.
But when Fang Dongquan found the Baishui Bodyguard Company, the person in charge of the company said with regret: "Now the company's strength has basically been assigned tasks. How about you wait for three months, Mr. Hou? After three months,
, our company has a group of manpower, at least five hundred people!"
Fang Dongquan never thought that he would be late!
Although this Baishui bodyguard company was famous in the early years, it only took on some ordinary merchant ship escort work. However, since it took over the employment of Viscount Wang Shanxi Wandan, it has made its own reputation in Wandan!
This time, Li Xuan consecrated more than fifty nobles at the same time. Fang Dongquan could think of finding Baishui Company, and so could other nobles. So, after Fang Dongquan came to apologize, more than ten nobles successively found Baishui Company and took away the company's armed guards.
Sold out.
But without Butcher Zhang, Fang Dongquan wouldn’t be able to eat pigs with hair on them.
There are more than two dozen domestic bodyguard companies in the country, including Baishui Company. Basically every province has a bodyguard company, and in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, which have a large number of overseas trading companies, there are even more.
many.
Well, these bodyguard companies are all wholly owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises and supervised by the military. Their managers are basically retired military officers. All their armed guards are retired military personnel and they basically do not hire ordinary people.
Each of the above-mentioned companies has the same bodyguard protection business license, but among them, Baishui Bodyguard Company does a better job.
Soon, before Fang Dongquan could find him, a bodyguard company came to his door. The person in charge, Sun Kaiyi, told Fang Dongquan that his company now had more than 600 elite armed guards ready to accept the mission, and he would be happy to work with him.
Fang family cooperation.
But in addition to the ordinary employment conditions, they still have additional conditions.
That is, they hope that Fang Dongquan will pay the commission in advance, and the entire commission!
Regarding this, Fang Dongquan had a look of disdain on his face: "We haven't even seen the shadow of Borneo yet, but we want all the commission. Are you stupid or am I stupid?"