It can be seen that this time Li Huan successfully inherited the position of the Hundred Households of Langqi. Chen Yidao and Zhao Zhi were both much more relaxed. On the one hand, they felt that they had not let down their eldest brother Li Xian and did not let the Li family inheritance be cut off. On the other hand, they also saw
With the changes in Li Huan, I feel that the Li family has hope for a renaissance in the future.
Langqi Island has returned to its previous calm, and everyone is performing their duties. However, Li Huan, Chen Yidao and others do not take it lightly. The Fang family is a threat after all. With the precedent of ambushing Li Xian, who can guarantee that they will not
Will he choose to attack Li Huan?
Moreover, the hatred of killing his father was irreconcilable, and in the end only one family of the Li family and the Fang family could survive. Not only the Fang family knew this, but Li Huan also knew it.
During these days, Li Huan spent most of his time on cultivation, and the remaining time was spent on reorganizing the long-destroyed Baihu House on Langqi Island.
It has been over a hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and the local guards have long existed in name only. Not to mention other things, there are 235 soldiers on the roster of the Langqi Island Hundred Household Station. However, now there are only dozens of soldiers in the entire Hundred Household Station, and most of them are
They are all old, weak, sick and disabled.
In other words, the Li family has twenty or thirty capable servants. Otherwise, the hundreds of households in Langqi would not dare to say that they do not have any military strength. In fact, it is almost the same.
Although he had known about the corruption of the Ming Dynasty's local garrison for a long time, Li Huan did not expect that it had deteriorated to such an extent. Even if he wanted to restore the heyday of more than 200 people when it was first established, Li Huan could not do it for a while.
It's not that Li Huan doesn't want to, but the conditions of Langqi Island simply don't allow it. There are only two thousand people on the island, and there are only a few hundred strong people on the island. If two to three hundred strong people are spared, I'm afraid that the island's military households
, the people are going to explode.
Some of the old, weak, sick and disabled were dismissed, and then dozens of strong men were drawn from the military households, barely gathering 80 people. It was not that they didn't want more, but that they could only draw so many people.
Fortunately, Li Huan carefully selected 20 young men from the Li clan and more than a dozen families of servants who had followed the Li family for hundreds of years to add to the ranks of Li's servants.
In this way, if something happens on the island, Li Huan can pull out a team of about a hundred people, and he can barely protect himself.
In July of the 18th year of Hongzhi, two months have passed since Li Huan took over the charge of the Baihuguan of Langqi Island. In these two months, Li Huan's whole person has undergone earth-shaking changes, not to mention his cultivation level.
Come on, the inner breath alone is about to enter the second-rate realm.
More importantly, during this period, Li Huan completely took over the affairs of the Li family, large and small, and had a clear understanding of the so-called century-old family.
The Li family is located on Langqi Island, and can be regarded as a small local emperor. But if you really want to say how big the family business is, you really have to think too much.
Several generations of the Li family have not focused on that little bit of free money. In fact, the Li family can't even think about saving anything with the little food and salary that has been deducted from one level to another. Starting from the grandfather's generation, the Li family began to
He tried smuggling and selling private salt, but it was always a small business. Even so, he accumulated tens of thousands of taels of wealth over the decades.
In the meeting hall, Li Huan sat in the middle. Chen Yidao, Zhao Zhi and several stewards lined up on both sides. Looking at Zhao Zhi, Li Huan said: "Uncle Zhi, how is the problem with the salt road?"
Zhao Zhi frowned and said, "Sir, in the past two months, almost half of our ships of sea salt have been robbed midway. It can be said that we have suffered heavy losses..."
With a bang, Chen Yidao slapped the table and said angrily: "Damn it, the Fang family, if you want me to say it, we don't have to endure it anymore, just let me lead people to massacre in the dark night and the wind is high.
His whole family is full."
"The Fang family bullies others too much and confronts my Li family everywhere. They are trying to force us to death!"
Several stewards were also filled with righteous indignation. In fact, in the past two months, all the Li family's businesses have been deliberately targeted by the Fang family, and profits have been greatly reduced. Now even the salt road has been affected.
It can be said that this has endangered the lifeblood of Langqi Island.
The cultivated land on the huge Langqi Island is only a few thousand acres. It is impossible to support so many people with this small amount of land, so the lifeblood of Langqi Island lies on the sea salt.
In military households on the island, the people make a living by boiling salt. Cutting off the salt road on Langqi Island is equivalent to cutting off the livelihood of thousands of people on Langqi Island.
Zhao Zhi looked at Li Huan and said, "Sir, let's fight. If this continues, people's hearts will be in chaos."
Li Huan looked at the people in the hall and said slowly: "Have you ever thought about why the Fang family is so blatantly targeting us?"
Everyone was stunned, and Chen Yidao said directly: "Why else? They just don't want us to live well, and they made me anxious..."
Li Huan looked at Chen Yidao with a half-smile but said, "So what if I make you anxious? I don't think they are waiting for us to fall into the trap right now."
"ah!"
Zhao Zhi was surprised and said: "What you are saying is that the Fang family is deliberately provoking us, and the purpose is to make us get into trouble."
Li Huan said lightly: "Actually, if I think about it now, it's not that simple if the Fang family dares to ambush my father. If there is nothing to rely on, how can they dare to ambush the court officials? The position of one hundred households that I should inherit is even more difficult for my life."
Storm, this is definitely not something that a mere Fang family can do."
As he spoke, Li Huan glanced at a few people and said: "In this case, if we make a slight mistake, then we will be truly doomed!"
At this time, Zhao Zhi had calmed down, regained some wisdom, and said in deep thought: "That old guy Fang Duyan has always been ruthless and treacherous. I'm afraid it's just like what the young master said. The Fang family is deliberately irritating us."
Dumbfounded, Chen Yidao couldn't help but said angrily: "It's not just the Fang family that has hurt my eldest brother because of his feelings. Don't let me know who he is, otherwise I, Chen Yidao, will have to wipe out his whole family."
Chen Yidao looked up at Li Huan with an expectant look on his face.
Li Huan said slowly: "I don't know who the person behind the scenes is, but in half a year, no matter whose chess piece the Fang family is, I will lead people to destroy his Fang family first and collect some of the interest."
As he spoke, Li Huan looked at Zhao Zhidao: "Uncle Zhi, please pass on my order. The salt products produced by the military households and common people on the island will still be collected, but from now on, they will all be hoarded. In addition, I will collect as much as possible.
Those medicinal materials you need.”
Zhao Zhi nodded when he heard this and said: "Don't worry, young master, just leave everything to me."
He waved his hands to signal everyone to retreat, but Chen Yidao stayed.
Without the outsiders, Chen Yidao looked at Li Huan and said, "Brother Huan, isn't it too expensive? That's tens of thousands of taels of silver!"
When I thought about how generous Li Huan was, he almost spent all his remaining money to buy precious medicinal materials in order to assist the twenty servants in practicing martial arts.
On average, almost everyone has to spend four to five hundred taels of silver. In this era, it is definitely a crazy and wasteful move.
In this era, a dozen taels of silver was enough to cover a family's expenses for nearly a year, enough to buy an acre of good paddy field. This shows what it means to spend four to five hundred taels of silver on each servant.
Li Huan just smiled. He was also a time traveler after all, but unlike Chen Yidao, Zhao Zhi and others usually only knew how to hide their gold and silver wealth. The prerequisite for having money was to have the life to spend it.
The experiences of Li Xian and his predecessor made Li Huan understand something deeply, that is, the greatest sorrow for a person is that the money is still there but the person is gone.
If the confidants around Li Xian were stronger, the Fang family's ambush might not be successful. Therefore, the first thing Li Huan did when he took over the Li family was to control the force.
Those twenty young men were all carefully selected by Li Huan from the descendants of the Li clan and servants. First of all, their loyalty is guaranteed to a certain extent. In terms of qualifications, they are not just selected from a hundred, but each of them also has some martial arts skills.
talent.
In order to train these people, Li Huan also spent a lot of money, exercises, and medicinal materials. Two months later, everyone has successfully condensed the first inner breath. According to this standard, it means that there are two more people at once.
Ten third-rate players.
It's a pity that these people have just condensed their inner breath. Before their inner breath grows stronger and they learn how to use it, they are actually no better than ordinary people.
Seeing Li Huan smiling and saying nothing, Chen Yidao couldn't help but said: "If we had such good conditions for practicing martial arts back then, we would have already entered the first-class realm. That's Brother Huan, you are the ones in Beijing.
The prince's family, which is surrounded by mountains of gold and silver, may not be so generous in cultivating people."