In this case, the message spread by Deng Xilong had no other effect except making Chen Yuan's reputation worse among scholars in other places.
However, Chen Yuan didn't care about Shilin's reputation at all.
Chen Yuan has long understood that public opinion is completely controlled by powerful people. If civilian officials say you are good, you will be good or bad, and if they say you are bad, you will be good or bad.
Just a little girl, dressed up casually.
Most of the people who control public opinion are talkative people, and Chen Yuan doesn't know how to use them.
It's okay to have a bad reputation, as long as it doesn't hinder my recruitment of talents.
Moreover, although Jingzhou is still hungry for talents now, it is not as hungry as before.
The counselors and civil servants under Liu Bei are already used enough at this stage, even a little too much.
In the future, more talented people will only be used as reserve talents.
The reason for this phenomenon is that Liu Bei's territory was limited, and he only had a place like Jingzhou.
The territory is not big enough and there are not enough people, so naturally there are only a few officials needed.
However, now is not the time to expand. If we attack counties in other places now, it will definitely be a rebellion.
Emperor Ling of Han is not dead yet.
Chen Yuan had a headache some time ago because there were too many talents but no positions. Nanyang Haoqiang immediately became a good guy.
More than 100 positions will be immediately vacant.
Chen Yuan could not be polite, so it happened that more than a hundred officials from Xiangyang crossed the Han River to Nanyang to serve as officials.
More than a hundred county-level official positions have solidly solved the problem of too many talents but no official positions in Xiangyang, and also laid a solid foundation for the prefectural and pastoral government to completely control Nanyang.
As long as these more than a hundred people can take root and implement the policies of the Prefectural Mufu, Nanyang will be under control.
However, the biggest problem at present is that the Nanyang powerful people headed by the Deng family will definitely not give up.
Although Chen Yuan has the upper hand so far, the longer the time goes by, the greater Chen Yuan's advantage will be. If Deng Xilong makes no other moves, Nanyang will really be controlled by Liu Bei.
Therefore, Chen Yuan estimated that Deng Xilong was going to destroy the cauldron and destroy the boat.
Chen Yuan called Qin Jie, Guo Youzhi, and Chen Zhen over to discuss what these Nanyang powerful men would do next.
"Three of you, now the Deng family has been completely at a disadvantage. In my opinion, they will definitely take big actions next, but I still don't understand what they are going to do. Do you have any ideas?
"
Chen Yuan wanted to ask for advice, gather everyone's strength to predict the Deng family's next move, take targeted precautions, and then catch them all in one fell swoop.
Qin Jie has been in charge of Nanyang for a year or two and is relatively familiar with Nanyang's tycoons. However, compared to Chen Zhen and Guo Youzhi, they are both from Nanyang, so naturally he is not as familiar with them.
Chen Zhen and Guo Youzhi looked at each other, and Chen Zhen motioned for Guo Youzhi to speak first.
Guo Youzhi did not refuse: "Military advisor, in my opinion, these people will probably incite the people to attack the government."
Um?
Before Chen Yuan said anything, Qin Jie said in surprise: "How dare they do this? How is this different from rebels?"
Qin Jie couldn't believe that Nanyang's powerful people dared to attack the government. This was tantamount to killing officials and rebelling.
Guo Youzhi knew that Qin Jie had misunderstood, so he explained: "When I first came to the public, they would not kill officials, they would only humiliate them!"
"What do you mean by this?"
"These people also know that killing officials is tantamount to rebellion, but humiliating officials is different. As long as the reputation of these officials is ruined, they will naturally be embarrassed to continue serving as officials here. This is a way for them to protect their own interests."
To put it bluntly, we won't kill you, but we can humiliate you, ruin your reputation, and make you unable to stay.
No matter how powerful you are, what can you do to me if you get out?
Generally speaking, if they have enough time, they will not incite the people to attack the government, because this kind of thing is a bit taboo after all.
They either use means to corrupt local officials and join in the conspiracy.
Money, beauty, fame.
You must have something you like. As long as you like it, then we will give it to you.
Once you accept this sugar-coated bullet, you will be at their mercy.
This is also one of the tricks used by powerful people.
It is also the most commonly used method.
What if the person who comes is really an incorruptible person with strong abilities?
Then they will use various means to transfer such officials.
Either through upper-level activities, or by using various despicable means to tarnish the reputation of such officials.
In short, Nanyang does not allow people who do not listen to us to exist.
This is the logic of Nanyang's powerful powers, and the reason why they have controlled Nanyang for more than two hundred years.
However, the situation is urgent now, and they don't know the origins and character of most of these more than a hundred people, and they don't have enough time to corrupt them.
Therefore, the only option is to tarnish the reputation and face of officials.
One of the fastest ways is to incite the people to attack the government.
Every powerful man has many servants in his house, and many secluded households.
What is a hidden house?
Some people often fled their native places in order to avoid being exempted from rent, taxes, and corvee labor.
After escaping from one's native place, one does not have to perform corvee service and one's name is not included in the household registration book.
There are also some people whose land was annexed by powerful landlords and lost their basis for survival, or whose families were ruined by the usurious loans of powerful landlords. In the end, they had to sell themselves to pay off their debts.
Many of these two types of people have become slaves of the powerful, and these people basically do not have household registration.
That is to say, it is not on the imperial household register.
This is the hidden house.
The existence of slaves and hidden households made the population controlled by powerful landlords more and more, while the population controlled by the court, that is, the state, became smaller and smaller.
Because these people are not listed on their household registrations and they do not own their own land, taxes cannot be collected.
As a result, the country can control less and less land and population, and eventually it will run out of money.
If the court has no money, it will lead to a series of consequences, which will eventually lead to a change of dynasty.
Changing dynasties means redistributing land and population. Because in the early dynasties, the population was small and the land was redistributed. The population and land directly controlled by the state actually increased.
As long as the policy of light corvee and low tax is implemented, a so-called prosperous age will come.
So, there is really nothing to say about the so-called prosperous age of feudal society.
This is the essence of the cyclical law of the rise and fall of dynasties.
Redistribution of population and land.
Nothing complicated, it's just that simple.
Therefore, great men in later generations understood this fundamental, encircling the cities from the countryside, carrying out agrarian revolution, relying on the masses in everything, etc., and finally established New China.
The fundamental difference between our Party and the Fruit Party lies in this place, the difference in the degree of control over population and land.
Although the Party seems to have a very large territory, in fact the land and population directly controlled by the government are far smaller than those of our Party.
This is one of the direct reasons why the Fruit Party lost.
Well, I can't say more, otherwise the mythical river crab beast will stretch out its pincers.
If any students are interested, I can write a side story.
A dog's head saves his life.
The powerful can use slaves and maids to pretend to be common people to attack the government, and they will never be able to find them afterwards.
This method is not often used by powerful people.
Because this method is a lose-lose approach.
Although one official will be squeezed out, the next official who comes will often take more severe measures against powerful local landlords.
Because no one is a fool, so they naturally know how their ex became their ex.
Any official with some ideals knows what to do.
However, the situation now is a bit special.
Because Jingzhou is actually controlled by Liu Bei now, Liu Bei will deal with them regardless of offending them.
So, they have nothing to fear.
That's it.
Guo Youzhi explained the relationship completely to Chen Yuan and Qin Jie.
Chen Zhen added on the side: "This is just one of their methods. They have a more powerful method, which is to default on tax arrears."
As mentioned before, taxes in this dynasty were all collected by the government entrusted by powerful local landowners.
The main reason was that the imperial court did not have so many officials and could not organize a large and efficient tax department.
As a result, the local powerful were entrusted to collect the money on their behalf.
This not only improves efficiency, but also saves administrative costs, so why not do it.
However, in this way, the power of tax collection is actually controlled by local powerful people.
There are too many doorways here.
When the central government was strong, local powerful people did not dare to go too far. At worst, they would just deceive the superiors and conceal the inferiors.
Pay less when you go up, and receive more when you go down.
It's just a matter of cleverly establishing a name and extortionate taxes.
Of course, there is a degree to this.
However, when the central authority no longer exists, they will not be polite.
Simply default or even refuse to pay.
Today's big men are already in this situation.
Even a few years ago, powerful people in various places were already showing signs of defaulting on their taxes.
This is one of the reasons why Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty wanted to sell his official position and get a title.
The court has no money.
Now it's even more excessive. Taxes from many counties and counties have basically stopped being handed over to the court and have been withheld by themselves.
The reason is very ready and simple. The Yellow Turban bandits are in chaos, the place is exhausted, the people are in poverty, and there is no tax to collect. I go to the court to show mercy to the people and exempt them from taxes this year. I am in tears. I am very grateful.
Well, this is a memorial written by a county governor to the emperor.
Do you think the emperor can avoid exemption after seeing such a memorial?
Therefore, the emperor can only exempt it.
But is it really exempt?
Not necessarily, maybe some officials really sympathized with the people and exempted them from taxes this year.
But there may not be one such official in a hundred.
The remaining ninety-nine may not only not be exempted, but may even get worse.
Of course, this may not be the fault of officials, but the fault of powerful local landlords.
They don't care if you can afford the taxes.
It's good if you can afford it, but even better if you can't afford it.
If selling off the land is not enough, then sell yourself to pay off the debt.
As a result, wouldn't the powerful landowners occupy more people and land?
This is one of the reasons why in troubled times, the power of powerful local landlords can grow rapidly.
The court has no control over them.
Originally, because Liu Bei had helped Nanyang to kill the Yellow Turbans, Nanyang's powerful people still paid taxes as in previous years.
But now, they can completely default.
The reason is also very grand and upright, the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
In short, the Yellow Turban Rebellion has almost become a universal excuse for local counties to default on tax payments.
Just throw all the blame on the Yellow Turban thieves. This is political correctness.
It was time to pay this year's taxes. One of Chen Yuan's purposes in going to Luoyang this time was to hand over Jingzhou's taxes to the emperor.
Nanyang accounts for a large proportion.
If Nanyang's tax revenue cannot be raised, then things will be a bit serious.
Because Liu Bei had already informed the emperor how much taxes Jingzhou would have to pay.
Without Nanyang, the amount would not be right.
It will trigger a political crisis at that time.
This move is a bit cruel.
After listening to the introductions of Guo Youzhi and Chen Zhen, Chen Yuan nodded: "So, they will use these two methods to deal with us next?"
Guo Youzhi and Chen Zhen nodded: "If nothing happens, this should be it. Of course, the Deng family may have other actions, but that is not something we can speculate on."
The implication of the two men's words is that they do not rule out the possibility that the Deng family will be destroyed together.
However, Chen Yuan didn't think so.
These powerful landowners will not be so cruel that they will die together.
Even if Deng Xilong wants to do this, other people in the Deng family may not do it, and other Nanyang powerful people may not have the courage.
At that point there will really be no turning back.
The five thousand county soldiers are not for show, and the tens of thousands of Jingzhou troops are not for fun.
Therefore, Chen Yuan speculated that he would still fight within the rules of the game.
Of course, even if they really want to die together, Chen Yuan is not afraid.
Just kidding, I was with Lu Bu and Zhang Liao, plus Zhou Tai and Wei Yan. As long as they could save their lives, there was only one fate for these people, and that was death.
However, this will cause turmoil in Nanyang.
Chen Yuan's purpose was not this. He wanted to bring a complete Nanyang under the rule of Jingzhou.
So, we still have to fight.
But now that you know what actions they are going to take, it is much easier.
Let slaves and hermits pretend to be ordinary people to attack the government?
That's too easy, just kill him and it's over.
This may seem cruel and ruthless, but in fact it is just about saving people.
As long as the leading few are killed, the rest will definitely be captured without mercy.
As for tax arrears?
Chen Yuan said hehe.
Do you want to default on the money you owe him, Master Chen?
Such a person has not been born yet.
As long as they really dare to do this, Chen Yuan must let these people see what it means to be angry with thunder, what it means to sweep fallen leaves in the autumn wind, and what it means to steal a chicken but lose the rice.
However, there is indeed a problem.
That means there may not be enough manpower.
What else can you say? Just shake people up.
To be honest, Chen Yuan never expected that his trip to Nanyang would turn out like this.
The main reason is that Deng Xilong's move of resigning as a whole was indeed a bit unexpected.
It doesn't feel like a scheming old fox at all, but rather like the work of a foolish young man.