A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 260 Yan Wang's death, Le Yi is in danger

The wealth of Qi State is second only to that of Huai State. It can even be said that if Huai State had not had larger land and a larger population, it would not be certain who would pay more taxes between Qi State and Huai State.

In addition to the basic land tax, oral tax, and salt and iron tax in Qi State, there is also a female lord. What is a female lord is simply a female branch.

Back then, Guan Zhong reformed laws, encouraged commerce, and increased taxes, the most critical of which was the establishment of female lords.In the state of Qi, when there were the largest number of daughter-in-laws, there were seven thousand five hundred families.The number is so large that it is the best among all summers.

These women provided Qi with a lot of money, almost reaching half of Qi's tax revenue.

When King Qimin of Qi State had just died, King Qimin was arrogant and extravagant, and he was very happy. He went to war with neighboring countries many times and spent a lot of money, so he levied a lot of miscellaneous taxes.

As a result, the taxation of Qi State was further increased. On the surface, the tax collected by Qi State was not high, and the agricultural tax was only one-tenth, but the sum of those exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes was twice as high as the regular tax.

It is precisely because King Min of Qi collected high taxes, after the Huai State occupied these cities and abolished the tax standards of the Qi State and changed them to the tax standards of the Huai State, these cities were quickly pacified.

The tax revenue of Huai State is not less than that of Qi State, but there are fewer exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes.More importantly, the reputation of the Huai royal family is far higher than that of the Qi royal family.This is also the reason why the people believe in Huai country more.

After occupying these cities, the Huai State carried out reforms and digested the spoils of war.On the other side, the battle between Yan State and Qi State is still going on.

After Huai State and Yan State divided the boundaries, Yan State continued to attack Qi State.Le Yi led a large army to attack Linzi, because the Qi army was defeated in a row, and there were hardly many troops in the country, so they were no match for the highly morale of Yan.

Le Yi drove straight in, besieged the city of Linzi directly, and then took more than a month to conquer Linzi, the capital of Qi.The remnants of the Qi State escorted King Qi to flee for their lives, but they were ambushed by Le Yi in advance. King Qi died in the rebellion, and the rest of the Qi army fled to Jimo under the leadership of son Zhang and Tian Dan.

Le Yi led the army into the city and ordered that after entering the city, no rape, looting, or murder is allowed. He also sent soldiers to maintain order, to occupy the treasury of Qi State, to seal the palace, and to treat the people of Qi State with tenderness.

Le Yi served as Prime Minister of Yan State for more than ten years. He has a high position and authority, and has great prestige. In addition, he has won consecutive battles in Qi State, and the soldiers are in awe and dare not surpass him.

When the army entered the city, there really was no riot. Le Yi also ordered people to kill the rioters who took the opportunity to cause chaos and looting, so as to win the trust of the people of Qi.After occupying Qidu, they even opened warehouses for the people to release food.

After stabilizing Linzi, Le Yi transported all the gold, silver and jewels in the treasury of the Qi State, the palace, the beauties in the palace, and the grain and cloth, and transported them back to the State of Yan.

King Yan, who was far away in Jicheng, was overjoyed when he learned that Le Yi had defeated Linzi in the first battle. He immediately took out a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry, fine wine, cattle and sheep to reward the soldiers.

When Le Yi led the army back to Jidu, King Yan saw a murderous army.

King Yan was very happy to see such a majestic army, and immediately stepped forward to stop Le Yi who was about to salute: "Xiangguo, you are a great talent who can assist the ancient sage king. I am protected by the gods, and you are assisted by you. The luck of the widow, I really don’t know how to repay you, so I took the land of two hundred miles as your fiefdom, and made you the king of Chang, which means that my country of Yan is prosperous!"

Le Yi was also very moved: "Since ancient times, there have been countless talented people, but most of them have been buried. It is your trust that I can make contributions. Just as there are always thousands of horses, but Bole does not often have them. This There is a wise ruler first, and then there are virtuous ministers!"

After King Yan rewarded Le Yi and the army, Le Yi led the army back to Qi again.After capturing Linzi, the capital of Qi State, last time, Le Yi did not attack the cities across Qi State. This time, Le Yi began to attack these cities.

In the next few years, Le Yi showed his might and led the army of Yan State to attack one city after another in Qi State.Seeing that Yan State's soldiers are so sharp, even Young Master Ji is very wary of Yan State. Tens of thousands of Huai State troops have been stationed in Qi State.

In just one year, Le Yi defeated 72 cities in Qi State, and only one city, Jimo, was left in Qi State.

After completing the capture of those cities in Qi State, Le Yi then personally led the army to attack Jimo.It's just because Jimo gained a lot of time to strengthen the defense when conquering other cities.

When the army of Yan State attacked Jimo, the city of Jimo had already been built by the people of Qi State.Le Yi led his army to besiege Jimo for more than two months, but he was unable to capture the city.

If the attack continues, the soldiers of the Yan State will definitely suffer a lot of losses, and the Yan State is originally a relatively weak country among the Bang and Zhou states, so Le Yi does not want to lose too much national power.

In addition, Yan State had already occupied all the remaining cities of Qi State, and Le Yi was not in a hurry to capture Jimo, so he sent people to besiege Jimo.

At the same time, Le Yi divided the cities that captured Qi, and re-divided all the cities into counties.He wrote to the King of Yan to promote the rule of benevolence in Qi State to win the hearts of the people.Reduce taxes on the cities that occupy the area of ​​​​Qi, abolish Qi's exorbitant taxes, respect local customs, and give preferential treatment to officials from all over the country, hoping to occupy Qi in this way.

If Le Yi can continue to rule Qi, after 20 years of benevolent governance, Qi will completely become the land of Yan.But just two or three years after Le Yi implemented benevolent government, King Yan suddenly passed away.

The strength of the Yan Kingdom is entirely supported by Yan Wangzhao and Le Yi and other virtuous ministers. The sudden death of Yan Wangzhao caused Le Yi to lose his strongest support.What's more strange is that Yan Wangzhao's health has always been good, this time he passed away very suddenly, without leaving any last words, and the Prime Minister Le Yi was leading the army outside, so he didn't know the situation at all.

This made Le Yi feel gloomy.

This kind of thing has happened several times in the Bangzhou kingdoms.Less than a hundred years have passed since Wu Qi of Wei and Jing Mu of Chu, and this happened again in Yan.

The king of Yan who had just ascended the throne did not trust Le Yi, and coupled with the slander of the old nobles of Yan who escaped the catastrophe in the palace of Yan, the king of Yan was very vigilant towards Le Yi. The credit of the country's secret guards.

Even the death of Yan Wangzhao had hidden guards involved.

After Prince Ji saw that the kings and ministers of the Yan Kingdom were wise and complementary to each other, he was very worried and reported the situation to Wang Xu, so Wang Xu asked the secret guards to help the old nobles of the Yan Kingdom communicate with each other.

What the secret guards didn't expect was that the old nobles of Yan State actually took advantage of King Yan's serious illness to isolate himself from the inside and outside, causing King Yan to die of illness.Sure enough, the temptation of power can make people ignore family ties, and he can do anything for the sake of his position as the king of a country.

(End of this chapter)