King Jianning didn't know what his father was worried about in Fengxiang Mansion, but he couldn't share his father's worries in Longyou.
He still has a lot of troubles on his hands that he can't solve.
There were not many soldiers in Shazhou and Guazhou, so they managed to capture the Moli and Doulu armies by relying on the money and food confiscated by Dasuo Maungyue.
But now that there are more Yumen troops and a group of guards from the north, the money and food in Li Yan's hands is now tight again.
Although military towns on the border such as Baowen Mountain Shouchuo Prefecture have their own farming operations, these Shouchuo Prefectures are all near the border deserts and the land is quite desolate. Even just relying on farming operations is not sufficient.
After taking over several Shouchufu and Yumen Pass on the border, Li Yan naturally had to take on the problem of feeding so many troops.
Baowenshan Shouchufu did not surrender for a month under the siege of the Uighurs. This kind of integrity naturally needs to be commended.
In order to reorganize the defense against the Uyghurs, several beacon fortresses guarding the capital must be renovated, weapons must be updated and repaired, and war horses need to be replenished.
These large expenditures fell on Li Yan's case, and this time King Jianning finally understood the difficulties of being the leader.
It stands to reason that Longyou is already considered a relatively wealthy place in the Tang Dynasty. With the help of Da Suo Mao Yue, Longyou's taxes, taxes, and corvee services have also been maintained within the acceptable range of the people.
By cracking down on the powerful, and adding the money and food provided by the monks of Leiyin Temple, this month's money and food were finally distributed.
But raising such an army still made Li Yan feel stretched.
It’s no wonder that before the Anlushan Rebellion, many ministers in the imperial court proposed to abandon Longyou, also because the expenses of Longyou were too high!
And all this is under the circumstances that Longyou has mobilized 200,000 troops into the pass. Longyou alone cannot support the food and drink expenses of 200,000 troops.
In the past, the imperial court transferred a huge amount of materials to Longyou every day. It can be said that Kaiyuan's strong financial resources supported Longyou's expansion.
Historically, when the Tang Dynasty's national power declined, it quickly abandoned Longxi, just like the Eastern Han Dynasty decisively abandoned the Western Regions.
Sitting in front of the case, Li Yan took a good look at the income and expenditure records of the Ba Mansion compiled by Jiang Lun.
Shazhou and Guazhou generally have a balanced balance of payments. Relying on a large group of enthusiastic and dedicated players who do not pay a penny in wages, the income and expenses of the two states are now basically the same. The cost of building water conservancy projects and reclaiming wasteland is basically the same.
There is no need for Li Yan to post money.
Li Yan also ordered the abolition of many exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, but also improved the treatment of officials and servants.
Originally, the tax collectors in the governor's office were unpaid. These government servants were serving as yamen servants for the governor's office and were voluntary labor.
However, voluntary labor would waste one's own fields and work hard in the governor's office. These tax collectors did not have the spirit to serve the people, so many methods of extortion were derived.
For example, if you don't write off the debt for a dead person, you still ask the people to pay the rent to the dead person.
For example, inferior fields are counted as superior fields to exploit ordinary people.
These "free" tax collectors actually get more money from the people.
While the tax collectors only exploited the people, the officials of the Fa Cao bankrupted the people.
A few days ago, Zhou Hao, who was in charge of the Fa Cao in the Shazhou Governor's Office, brought up a case. This was a Fa Cao's yamen who deliberately falsely accused his neighbor of stealing cattle and put the man of the neighbor's house in jail.
The government officer then went to the neighbor's house and said that he had the ability to smoothen the relationship and that he could get the man out of the cell as long as he gave him money.
The family visited several times, and the man who was falsely accused was locked by the jailer next to a excrement bucket, and had to eat out of the excrement bucket every day.
The family couldn't bear it, so they could only use their money to bribe the yamen servant to let him steal people.
Unexpectedly, after taking the money, the government servant was still greedy and even occupied the family's Yongye field.
It was the son of this family who was dissatisfied and went to the Fa Cao to file a complaint, and the matter was revealed.
This yamen servant was arrested by Zhou Hao, and several cunning subordinates were also captured from the Fa Cao. They were all sentenced to be beheaded.
Seeing these subordinate officials who were usually domineering and exploiting the people being killed, the people naturally clapped their hands and cheered.
But Zhou Hao also wrote to Li Yan at the same time, because there was no salary in the Tang Dynasty, and many officials' families were very poor.
These critical departments have great powers, but they do not have a penny of income. The former governor's office also tacitly allowed them to exploit the people on their own.
As long as no one is killed, the governor's office will turn a blind eye.
If a few subordinate officials really go too far, then the governor's office will arrest them and kill them to quell public resentment.
But in the final analysis, relying on personal moral sentiments to do things, not paying money and asking subordinates to abide by the law, this is the Tang Dynasty court playing rogue.
The law-abiding people were deprived of food, and the common people were oppressed to get promoted and get rich. This pattern of bad people expelling good people was also one of the reasons why the grassroots government of the Tang Dynasty continued to deteriorate.
In order to allow these subordinate officials to support themselves, Li Yan included them in the ranks of eating the imperial food, and specially allocated a sum of money to the governor's office to provide these subordinate officials with regular salaries.
At the same time, the business assessment is also strengthened. If the subordinate staff fails the assessment, they will be eliminated. Anyway, there are still many players waiting to become officials.
After being able to receive his daily salary, King Jianning brutally killed several cunning subordinates, which greatly frightened these cunning subordinates.
Nowadays, the officials in Shazhou and Guazhou governor's offices are law-abiding and the people praise them highly.
However, Li Yan has no choice but to use these subordinates. Players have no long-term motivation for doing things, and it is impossible to work peacefully in the game.
The talents we have trained ourselves are not yet able to take over these jobs, so we can only slowly eliminate those with the worst reputations. Only when we have the people we have trained ourselves can we truly manage the government.
However, with the addition of hundreds of people eating the imperial grain, Li Yanba's mansion's expenses increased a lot.
There is also money needed to reorganize the Doulu and Moli armies, to demobilize and resettle the old, weak, sick and disabled soldiers, to pay regular salaries to ordinary soldiers, and to improve daily food benefits.
Now Li Yan can only rely on exploiting players and continue to draw blood from merchant players to maintain Bafu's balance of payments.
The only thing that makes Li Yan feel gratified is that Bafu can be said to have made a lot of money from the two wars with Tubo and Uighurs.
It’s no wonder that the border troops during the Kaiyuan period were all thinking about war. War was really a good opportunity to get rich overnight.
In the last battle with Tubo, a large number of cattle, sheep and weapons and equipment were seized. Although Tubo's weapons were backward and the Tang Dynasty looked down upon them, merchants from the Western Regions did.
There are also a large number of cattle and sheep brought by Tubo, which are now cheaper for Li Yan.
The war with the Uighurs was the same some time ago. A large number of Uighur horses were captured. If these fine horses were transported to the pass, each one could be sold for several thousand dollars!