Tibet.

Chapter 1366: Means of Merging Countries
Things were relatively simple after that. A few days later, the daimyos arrived at Dazaifu, where they were greeted by murderous Tang soldiers. Extremely terrified, the daimyos had no choice but to sign letters of allegiance and expressed their willingness to become subjects of the Tang emperor.

But this was just a transition. Half a year later, more than 30 county officials from the Tang Dynasty arrived in office. The Tang army arrested all the daimyo and their descendants on charges of conspiracy and rebellion, and sent them all to Jeju Island to be executed. All their property and land were confiscated.

As the officials took their positions and announced at the same time that the people of Jiuzhou Prefecture would implement the Tang Dynasty's tax system and be exempted from taxes and land rents for three years, the people on the island were immediately jubilant and expressed gratitude to the Tang Emperor for his kindness.

The taxes levied on Japanese farmers were extremely heavy. Not only did they have to pay rent, but they also had to pay taxes. After the implementation of the Tang Dynasty's tax system, rent and taxes did not have to be paid at the same time. If one rented the land of a former daimyo, which is now the land of the government, then after three years, one would not have to pay taxes. Only 20% of the harvest would be paid as rent each year, and the tax could be reduced or exempted in the event of a disaster.

If farmers rent land from other landlords, the other landlords will certainly not be willing to bear the taxes, and will have to pass them on to the farmers in the form of high rents, generally collecting 50% of the harvest as rent.

At this time, farmers had a choice. They could rent land from the government and enjoy low rent and tax-free policies, or they could work for the government and earn money to support their families without having to be farmers. Working for the government mainly involved building roads and cutting down trees.

You can even go to Liaodong to farm, exempt from taxes and land rent, and all the food belongs to you.

As Kyushu Island was changed into Kyushu Prefecture, Emperor Li Ye appointed Qiao Bin as the first prefect. At the same time, he changed the eleven states into eleven counties and formally incorporated them into the Tang Dynasty.

The court also sent all the Japanese prostitutes in Chang'an and Luoyang back to their hometowns to join the army. They were also victims of human smuggling over the years, and there were as many as seven or eight thousand of them. Their biggest advantage was that they could speak fluent Chinese, their customs had been completely shaped by the Tang Dynasty, they had gentle personalities, and they were generally young and beautiful. They were deeply loved by the Tang army garrisons, and they all married them.

The literati in the Tang Dynasty would take prostitutes as concubines, but would never marry them.

But it is not easy for ordinary people to get married, so they don’t care about a woman’s past, as long as she is a good person. Military soldiers are of low-class origin, so naturally they don’t care either.

After marrying these Japanese women, the imperial court promised to give them land and tax exemption for three generations. As a result, the 8,000 soldiers were willing to stay in Kyushu Prefecture, start families, and have children.

Of course, the cession of Kyushu Island was not so smooth. Three years later, the Kyushu Rebellion broke out. The participants were mainly the large landlords in Kyushu. The low tax and rent system of the Tang army seriously damaged their interests, resulting in no farmers willing to farm for them. After three years of resentment, the rebellion broke out. The 10,000 Tang troops ruthlessly suppressed it with an iron fist, killing thousands of participants in the rebellion, confiscating the land and property of the large landlords, and completely eradicating a major cancer that threatened the Tang Dynasty's rule in Kyushu.

At the same time, the land and mansions of these big landlords were distributed to 8,000 Tang army soldiers who were willing to stay in Kyushu. All of these Tang army soldiers were willing to stay in Kyushu only after they married women who returned from the Tang Dynasty, started families and had children. They became the new landlord class in Kyushu and were crucial to stabilizing the rule of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang Dynasty began to build schools on a large scale and required all children to attend school. Five years later, the Tang government officially implemented the policy of granting names and naturalization to all people in the nine provinces, mainly based on the five surnames of Li, Zhang, Zhao, Wang, and Liu.

These five surnames mainly refer to the Tang Dynasty soldiers who stayed in Kyushu and their married families. For example, if a soldier's surname was Zhang, his wife also followed suit and changed her surname to Zhang. Then his wife's family also benefited from this and changed their surname to Zhang.

Other low-class Japanese people did not have surnames. They were given surnames by county officials, usually Niu, Yang, Zhu, Tian, ​​Mi, Cai, Jing, Fang, He, Hu, Chai, Lin, Lu, etc.

An interesting thing happened. Originally, there were only tens of thousands of people in Jiuzhou Prefecture, but when they became naturalized citizens, it was discovered that the population was as high as more than 500,000.

This was because a large number of Japanese people from other places flocked to Kyushu with their families. They all wanted to become citizens of the Tang Dynasty, and naturally they got their wish. The imperial court stipulated that as long as they registered when becoming naturalized and swore allegiance to the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, they could be recognized as civilians of the Tang Dynasty.

Ten years later, Japanese declined and Chinese became the mainstream. Fifteen years later, Li Ge, a scholar from Hizen Prefecture, became the first local person in Kyushu Prefecture to pass the imperial examination. Fifty years later, all traces of Japan had almost disappeared in Kyushu Prefecture, including the inner identity of all the people. They all identified themselves as citizens of the Tang Dynasty and had nothing to do with Japan.

In the east of Japan, after the burning of Fujiwara-kyo, the Japanese royal family was almost wiped out, and the imperial court's direct army was also completely destroyed. As Li Chengshi led the Tang army to withdraw from Japan, Fujiwara Momokawa welcomed the grandson of the previous emperor, Prince Shirakabe, back from Awaji Island, made him the new emperor, and rebuilt the imperial court.

However, any regime must be based on strength. A court without military strength and financial support will have no authority. This is especially obvious in Japanese society, which only believes in strength and not morality.

When the new emperor ascended the throne, only seven of the more than fifty daimyos across the country came to pay homage and congratulate him, while the rest just watched from the sidelines.

In the second year, the five daimyos of Sanyin Road, Nagato, Iwami, Izumo, Hoki, and Inaba, collectively went to Chang'an to pay homage to the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. They were all canonized as county kings, and their countries were protected by the Tang army. When the news spread, it caused a sensation in Japanese countries, and various countries sent envoys to Kyushu to pay homage to Qiao Bin, the prefect of Kyushu of the Tang Dynasty, hoping that Qiao could recommend them to go to Chang'an for pilgrimage.

In the third year after the establishment of Kyushu Prefecture, the king of Iwami Province sold a piece of land in the northeast to Kyushu Prefecture. At the same time, Kyushu Prefecture bought Sado Island from Echigo Province. Soon gold and silver mines were discovered in Iwami Province and Sado Island, triggering a craze for mining in various countries in Japan.

Three silver mines were discovered in Iwami Province, making it the largest silver-producing country in Japan. In particular, the largest silver mine in Japan was discovered on the land sold to the Tang Dynasty. An unprecedented large gold mine was also discovered on Sado Island, so Sado Island was renamed Kinzan Island.

As the Tang Dynasty began to implement large-scale mining and smelting of the Iwami Province Silver Mine and the Kinzan Island Gold Mine, the Tang Dynasty's gold and silver smelting technology was also passed on to Japan. From then on, gold, silver and cypress produced in Japan were continuously transported to the Tang Dynasty in exchange for Tang Dynasty silk, porcelain and various daily necessities. In the fifth year of Jiaxing in the Tang Dynasty, Mino Province and Echizen Province clashed over a border river containing gold sand. This was the Mino River Incident, which opened a turbulent era of thirty years in which wars broke out among Japanese countries for gold and silver resources.

The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty successively conferred titles on nearly fifty daimyo over a five-year period, promoting the state of Reiji to a vassal state, which had a profound political impact. Although the Japanese emperor and the imperial court continued for nearly a hundred years, in fact, their influence was limited to the Nara area.

A hundred years later, due to long-term inbreeding, the reproductive capacity of the imperial family became weaker and weaker, until the last emperor died of illness, and the emperor became extinct. Shogun Fujiwara no Kaneshige announced the abolition of the emperor, proclaimed himself Shogun Tensho, and led the army to attack various countries. In the end, he was easily defeated by 10,000 Tang troops from Kyushu Prefecture. The Fujiwara family was destroyed, and Japan entered the Warring States Period with no leader.

Thirty years later, the Tang Dynasty completely annexed Japan and began to implement the Kyushu Prefecture model on Honshu Island. Decades later, Japan completely disappeared in the long river of history.

In early November, Guo Ziyi arrived in Chang'an, and with him came nearly a thousand flat-bottomed tugboats loaded with various spoils of the Liaodong War. The spoils belonged to the Bohai Kingdom, the Khitan and the Xi tribe. The richest of them was the Bohai Kingdom, which had seized six thousand large boxes of gold and silver treasures from the Japanese fleet, as well as iron ingots, copper ingots, timber and various precious medicinal materials that were prepared for the second and third batches.

The spoils of war of the Khitan and Xi tribes were mainly various leathers and medicinal materials, including more than one million pieces of high-quality sheepskins, and tens of millions of cattle and sheep, which were left in the Liaodong pastures and not brought to Chang'an.

Of course, Li Ye and the court had already reached an agreement on the distribution of spoils of war. The gold, silver and treasures would go to the inner treasury and the left treasury half each. As for the other materials, the court would select some precious items to present to the emperor, and the rest would all go into the national treasury.

Li Ye met with Guo Ziyi and the generals and gave them all generous rewards. Among them, the chief commander Guo Ziyi was conferred the title of Prince of Fenyang and Grand Tutor, but Guo Ziyi repeatedly refused to accept the title of Prince. Finally, he was conferred the title of Duke of Qi with a real fief of 500 households. At the same time, he was appointed as the Privy Councilor and Co-Prime Minister, and was rewarded with a garden house in Chang'an.

Other generals were given high titles and generous rewards.

In the imperial study, Li Ye specially met with Zhang Dian.

Zhang Dian was originally one of the 300 servants of the Pei family in Zhangye. He followed Li Ye to Suiye and was later promoted by Li Ye to become the king of scouts of the Tang Dynasty. Now he has become a local lord.

"Your humble servant Zhang Dian pays respect to His Majesty the Emperor. I wish Your Majesty a long life, long live, long live!"

Li Ye smiled and waved his hand, saying, "General Zhang, long time no see. Please stand up quickly!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Zhang Dian stood up, as straight as a pine tree.

Li Ye asked with a smile: "How old is General Zhang this year?"

"Your Majesty, I am forty-two years old this year!"

Li Ye sighed, "Time flies by so fast. Those who followed me back then were all young soldiers in their twenties, but now they are all middle-aged."

"I can still serve Your Majesty for another thirty years!"

Li Ye smiled and asked, "General, have you ever dealt with the Shiwei tribe in Liaodong?"

"Your Majesty, when I was chasing Yelu Salad, did I have any dealings with the Southern Shiwei?"

“What’s it like dealing with them?”

Zhang Dian thought for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, the people of Shiwei are very simple and honest, but their nobles are generally arrogant and have no respect for the Tang Dynasty!"

"What about the Heishui Mohe?" Li Ye asked again.

(End of this chapter)