The Empress’s Gigolo

Everyone managed to get themselves off the wall but all the bones in their bodies appeared as if they were shattered. Although they felt a lot of hatred toward him, they seemed pretty sincere on the outside.

They naturally knew that they had been set up by him, but they really couldn’t control their facial expressions.

If they could, they wouldn’t be aboriginals anymore.

In fact, at that moment, most of the officials had a peculiar look on their faces. Many of them had this expression on their faces, but at the same time, they tried hard to remain calm and collected. As a result, their faces looked rather distorted.

“You guys think that I’m ignorant and can be bullied?!” the empress replied ferociously. She narrowed her eyes and glanced across the people below.

“Your subordinate wouldn’t dare!”

Everyone responded quickly, but the looks on their faces had given them away.

The empress got even madder when she saw this. They saw her upper body flash before a series of bricks starting raining on their heads like a deity scattering flowers. In that instant, there were fragments of bricks flying all over the main hall.

“Since you don’t dare, then shut up.” The empress gave them the side eye imperiously.

After that, Ren Baqian continued speaking, “Let’s first address everyone’s apprehensions regarding the empty imperial treasury. Given the current circumstances, it’s already pretty good that we are still able to sustain the current situation. If we use the funds for other things, it will create a shortage in some areas.

Ren Baqian finally said something that people were willing to hear.

“However, everything is developing and changing. The Yun Nation is smaller than Dayao, but their imperial treasury’s annual revenue from taxation is 7.5 times that of Dayao’s. At exactly 50 million taels, this is half the amount compared to Great Xia. Furthermore, this was still possible even when the warlords consolidated the troops. Why? Under such circumstances, why did the revenue of the Yun Nation’s imperial treasury surpass Dayao’s by so much?” Ren Baqian countered.

Everyone kept silent. These words struck some of them.

Ren Baqian continued, “The Yun Nation is rich in minerals. However, according to what I know, a large portion of their mineral mining was controlled by the warlords, leaving only gold and silver mining under the grasp of the dynasty. In reality, everyone knows about how the Yun Nation flourished and about the prevalence of their commerce.The majority of the revenue generated by the Yun Nation’s imperial treasury came from taxation. Only half of their commoners paid taxes each year, yet they already collected 30 million taels. If the entire Yun Nation paid taxes, they would be able to collect around 60 million taels of silver.

In fact, Dayao also followed the system of the Hao Nation and formulated taxation. We collect about 5 million taels in taxes every year, which is slightly more than half of the imperial treasury’s revenue. A large portion of these taxes were paid by merchants from various nations, and only a small amount came from our commoners. It’s true that the late emperor empathized with the commoners and waived or reduced taxes for them, but on the other hand, Dayao has no commerce! We also lack the grounds for commerce as well. The fundamental reason for this is that the aborignal civilians have no money and are in a situation of having to barter for essential goods. Naturally, they don’t have the grounds for commerce and aren’t taxed. Only by allowing the civilians to prosper can the grounds of commerce take shape. We can then collect more taxes and grow the imperial treasury. This is a virtuous cycle. A nation can only prosper if their civilians prosper. If the commoners are impoverished, the nation can never prosper!”

Ren Baqian gave everyone a lesson.

Tu Wan and people from the Ministry of Revenue looked pensive after hearing what he said because they had also thought of many of the things he mentioned. After all, it was unlikely that they hadn’t previously thought of these issues due to being in office for so many years. However, this was their first time hearing that the nation would only prosper when their commoners did. After some serious thought, they felt that this kind of made sense.

However, even the cleverest housewife wouldn’t be able to cook without rice. Even though they knew this fact, it wasn’t possible for them to change the current situation in just a short period of time.

Or rather, they didn’t have the ability to do so.

“In order to let all the commoners prosper, the nation has to develop. This gives rise to a paradox. The civilians will only prosper when the nation develops. The nation will only be able to collect more taxes when the civilians prosper. Dayao will only be able to develop when the imperial treasury has more wealth. If we were to advance step by step, there’s no telling how long it would take. However, we now have a shortcut, which is the Yun Nation. The Yun Nation’s resources and wealth are what we need. As long as we incorporate them into Dayao, the imperial treasury will abundant for once. Next, we can make use of this wealth to accelerate Dayao’s development. Yet, are we going to snatch their wealth from them? It would be just like the commercial sale of a bamboo pole if we were simply to snatch without governing them. We would only drag them into the trenches and cause them to be in a situation similar to what Dayao is going through right now.”

Ren Baqian stopped talking about the blueprint, approached the topic from another angle, and talked about how to develop the nation and the nation’s revenue sources.

He paused for a moment after talking and waited for the crowd to digest his words.

The things that he talked about were very simple, and even an ordinary junior high student would be able to understand. However, these Dayao officials were all deep in contemplation and needed a lot of time to digest these concepts.

It wasn’t that the junior high students from Earth were smarter than these Dayao officials, but that the two groups had different information channels. What they learned and what they knew were completely different as well.

Ren Baqian still had more to say, but decided to hold back instead. A backward civilization governing an advanced one would cause a cultural and financial regression in its initial stages. This had been proven multiple times.

In Dayao, such situations would be more severe since the aboriginals placed too much faith in military force and had a lower level of understanding for everything else.

For instance, the original the Hao Nation had been governed by the aboriginals for 70 years. One would be able to see a clear picture of the entire situation by simply looking at life in Tianjing Basin.

“Principal Ren, continue speaking your thoughts.” After some time, Shi Qing raised his head and gave Ren Baqian a smile.

Ren Baqian promptly said, “As a result, we can’t destroy the Yun Nation. Instead, we should peacefully develop it and maintain its prosperity. Subsequently, there will be at least tens of millions in revenue coming in annually, which will be sufficient to make the imperial treasury abundant. With Her Majesty’s ability to govern, she definitely won’t allow the Yun Nation to fall back into a state where the warlords exalted themselves and took in at least 50 million taels of silver for themselves. We will then make use of their talents and riches to spur them on and develop Dayao.”

Ren Baqian’s thoughts were part of the national policy of China; on one side, making use of the nation’s support to develop technology while on the flip side, using the wealthy to encourage the rest.

“What I mentioned previously about treating the captives well and also paying them wages was exactly for this goal.”

“Everything else is feasible, but not this!” Tu Wan immediately raged when Ren Baqian mentioned the money.

Ren Baqian’s face turned black. Even though Tu Wan was a woman, if he had a choice, he would really want to kick her out.

Before he could even speak up, the empress immediately shouted coldly, “Tu Wan, shut up!”

Her aura was also released, which pressed down on Tu Wan like a huge mountain.

“Currently, the most urgent thing to do is to build three cement roads in order to strengthen transportation and ensure that there are no obstructions during the process. The first road stretches out to the Yun Nation and is the most important one. The second road leads to Ping City, whereas the third one leads to the Sixty Thousand Mountains. Other than these three roads, there’s also a large amount of foundation construction that needs to be done. As such, the amount of manpower we require isn’t small—it numbers in the millions. In addition, during the incorporation of the Yun Nation into Her Majesty’s governance, we can’t oppress them like we did previously.

On one hand, we need to consider the public opinion of the Yun Nation. On the other, we need to give those captives some hope. They can only display their greatest efficiency when they have the hope to survive. Consequently, we have to set them free sooner or later. However, those captives will already be experienced craftsmen by that time, and we will need to think of another plan to make them stay…”

Ren Baqian repeated to the crowd what he had previously said to the empress.

The importance of making the captives stay was justified by their value as craftsmen and by the impact that it would have on Dayao if the millions of them returned to the former Yun Nation’s territory.

After this speech, the time was already close to noon. Ren Baqian’s mouth and tongue were already dry from all the talking.

He looked at Tu Wan, whose entire body was drenched in sweat. The empress’s aura froze her in place. It was as if Tu Wan was carrying a mountain, and she couldn’t even open her mouth.

Ren Baqian turned around and said to the empress, “Your Majesty, release Minister Tu!”

Tu Wan then stumbled and almost fell to the ground.

“After we occupy the Yun Nation, things may not necessarily go according to what Principal Ren said. As for paying them wages, I will never agree to it. If you insist, you can only find someone else to take my position.” Tu Wan remained stubborn after she managed to stand firm.

Fortunately, other than Tu Wan, everyone else was already thinking deeper thoughts about Ren Baqian’s words.

“As a matter of fact, the situation at the Ministry of Revenue will already be much improved by then. However, if everyone is concerned about the bareness in the imperial treasury, we don’t have to pay the captives with actual gold and silver. First, we can give them cash vouchers in place of silver. Then, we can exchange these vouchers with the merchants for silver.”

When Ren Baqian was done talking, someone immediately inquired about the cash vouchers.

Ren Baqian then went on to explain about the vouchers. In reality, they were just ordinary paper vouchers. They could be exchanged for silver, which meant that the imperial treasury didn’t have to immediately hand out the silver.

Taking this opportunity, Ren Baqian further planned to set up banks and introduce bank notes. The captives would be the first to use those bank notes. Once they were released, they would easily be able to accept them.

Ren Baqian had been fed up for a while with the situation of having someone else hold a sack of gold for him whenever he went shopping on the street.

“At that time, if the imperial treasury still doesn’t have a comparatively large improvement in terms of taxation, I’ll be responsible for this sum of money,” Ren Baqian eventually said. “With the glass factory and the spices, I believe that no one will have any qualms about my ability to pay?”

“Principal Ren makes sense.” After Shi Qing nodded first, everyone followed in succession.

Ren Baqian’s words had indeed persuaded them.

Not only did the officials not have any qualms about Ren Baqian’s ability to pay, but the revenue generated by the spices had already made them envious. Everyone was aware of the harvested quantity of this batch of spice. Besides, all of them were already paying close attention to this matter.

Once Ren Baqian managed to sell off this batch of spices, the imperial family would make ten years’ worth of income.

As such, nobody had a single qualm, so the only remaining issue was Her Majesty’s approval.

After all, these things belonged to Her Majesty.

As for the empress, she naturally wouldn’t object at this point in time.

By now, even Tu Wan didn’t object. She was fine with it as long as Ren Baqian wasn’t divvying out funds from the imperial treasury. If it really turned out like what he said with tens of millions of taels of silver being generated in revenue every year, then she wouldn’t object to using funds from the imperial treasury.

Since there wasn’t any objection from Tu Wan, the others followed suit as well.

None of the people present ever considered the Yun Nation’s opinion of these plans. Even though Zi Donglai had only conquered 50 plus cities and occupied about ten percent of the Yun Nation, everyone had already regarded the Yun Nation as meat on the cutting board.

Ren Baqian talked so much that the first thing he did was gulp down a few large bowls of water after he returned to the empress’s quarters.

No matter what, he had finally managed to persuade the aboriginals and was able to carry out his plans.

He also managed to announce the policies for the Yun Nation and obtained initial approval from the court. With this approval, it would be much easier for him to implement plans in the future.