Datang: What's wrong with my fief being a billion points larger?

Chapter 219: A royal decree recruits craftsmen from all over the world, and the fiefdom is expanded again

Li Yuanji looked at Songtsen Gampo. He really wanted to know what decision Songtsen Gampo would make.

Xie Shufang and Cen Wenben also looked at Songtsen Gampo with great interest. They all knew how much Li Yuanji valued Songtsen Gampo. Now that the request had been made, they also wanted to see what Songtsen Gampo's final choice would be.

This time, Li Yuanji was asking Songtsen Gampo to show his attitude. Once it was decided, it would be real.

Songtsen Gampo was feeling extremely bitter and helpless at this moment. This was because Tubo was weak now and he had no capital to resist. Tubo had become hostile to the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty had chosen Yang Tong. Tubo had no other choice but to choose Li Yuanji.

But now, Li Yuanji was asking about his own choice. Songtsen Gampo knew very well that he would definitely be the king of Tubo in the future. Although this was his own decision, it already represented the future choice of Tubo.

Especially after seeing the advantages of the weapons here and the explosives just now, Songtsen Gampo was helpless and bitter. Resist? He no longer had any ideas. Once he resisted, he might be wiped out by thunder like Zhenla in the past.

After thinking for a while, Songtsen Gampo saluted Li Yuanji.

"I, Songtsen Gampo, pay my respects to Your Majesty. From now on, I will follow Your Majesty's orders and follow Your Majesty's side.

I beg the king to leave the language and heritage to the Tubo where I am. If I become the Tibetan king in the future, I will bring my entire clan to the king.

Li Yuanji looked at Songtsen Gampo and felt relieved in his heart, but his face was full of high spirits. Songtsen Gampo was now going to become his, Li Yuanji's, man.

After a moment, Li Yuanji slowly spoke.

"Since you are willing to follow me, I will not treat you unfairly. The language and customs of Tubo, including all ethnic groups in Tubo, can be preserved, but the language used in daily life must be Chinese. Everyone must learn Chinese and its customs.

This king can allow coexistence, but the Chinese language and the customs of the Tang Dynasty must be the main language, while you can retain your own things, including clothing and so on.

In addition, regarding the governance of Tubo, I will send people there and select deputy officials from within Tubo, and the people of Tubo will also be able to come here to study in the academy. The land of Tubo is my fiefdom, and the people of Tubo are also my people.

From then on, the Tubo land was divided into two parts, the eastern part was Fanzhou Prefecture and the western part was Zangzhou Prefecture.

Since you have made preparations, I cannot ignore the crisis that Tubo is facing now. You should make preparations and start to return in three days. I will send someone to accompany you. You should be prepared to inform everyone in Tubo of this decision. "

After hearing this, Songtsen Gampo had no choice but to agree. He knew that it was already very rare for Li Yuanji to make these concessions and preserve Tubo's various features. However, Tubo would no longer exist in the future.

Songtsen Gampo was very regretful at this moment. Why did they interfere in the fight between Li Yuanji and Li Shimin without authorization? In order to get what he wanted from Li Yuanji, he took a fancy to all kinds of things in Lingnan, but Songtsen Gampo could not have imagined that this matter would develop like this.

Songtsen Gampo now understood what it meant to lose the rice while trying to steal the chicken. He originally wanted to use Li Yuanji and borrow Li Yuanji's power to solve the internal problems of Tubo, and then strengthen himself. However, Li Yuanji did not play by the rules.

Now, he and Tubo have no other choice but to do this.

"Your Majesty's kindness, I will always remember it in my heart, and I will die for you."

Li Yuanji helped Songtsen Gampo to rise up and successfully accepted him. Li Yuanji was very happy. As for whether Tubo would rebel in the future, he had never considered it at all. His strength would only become stronger and stronger.

And even though Songtsen Gampo was younger than him, in terms of living longer, Li Yuanji could only say that Songtsen Gampo was still a younger brother, a younger brother among younger brothers.

Xie Shufang and Cen Wenben witnessed this scene and were extremely happy, especially Cen Wenben. He knew very well that the reason they could force Tubo to make this decision this time was not only because of the advantages of military equipment and gunpowder, but more importantly, because of Li Shimin's power.

Li Shimin directly regarded Tubo as an enemy and supported Yang Tong, which resulted in Tubo having no choice but to be destroyed by Li Shimin, which meant that it was annexed by Yang Tong and would have lost everything. It would have become Li Yuanji's fiefdom, which at least allowed it to preserve the heritage of many of the Tubo ethnic groups so that it could continue to be passed on.

Li Yuanji then took the three of them to examine the explosives, learned about them, and left. As for the formula, it was kept strictly confidential.

After returning to the palace, Li Yuanji called Cen Wenben first.

"Jingren, I have something for you to do. I will issue a royal decree next. You must spread this royal decree throughout the country so that every place in the Tang Dynasty can know about it. At the same time, you must also let all the merchants cooperate. Yuanlin must also cooperate."

Cen Wenben listened and was extremely surprised.

"Your Majesty, may I ask what this royal decree is for?"

Cen Wenben was really interested in what could have happened that could have made Li Yuanji take such a big action.

Li Yuanji smiled slightly and continued, "This royal decree is to recruit craftsmen from all over the world, as well as those who want to devote themselves to the position of craftsman. Any craftsman who is willing to come to Lingnan will be given generous treatment by this king.

And for those who have made contributions, I can give him a title, give him land, and let his descendants go to the academy to study. The monthly salary is ten times that of the Tang Dynasty. That is, if the salary of a craftsman in the Tang Dynasty is one tael of silver, then I will give him ten taels! And give him land!

At the same time, everyone will have the opportunity to become an official directly. All officials in the Ministry of Works will be selected from among the craftsmen. Whoever is capable will be promoted!"

Li Yuanji's eyes were burning with enthusiasm. Now that he had mastered the basic principles and techniques of the steam engine, his next step would be to focus on overcoming the difficulties and putting the steam engine to use. As long as he could overcome them and apply the steam technology, all industries would benefit.

Trade, people's livelihood, transportation, military and other fields will all be greatly improved, and can also help him save hundreds of thousands of contribution points.

Although he has always been paying attention to, recruiting and cultivating the technical talents here, in Li Yuanji's eyes, there are still too few of them. To conquer the steam technology, a large number of corresponding talents are needed. Now that the basic principles and processes are in place, all that remains is to mobilize manpower and carry out comprehensive technical research.

Li Yuanji knew very well that this would be a very costly move, but he had to do it. Between spending money and spending contribution points, Li Yuanji was very inclined to spend money.

And most importantly, today is steam technology, and there will be others in the future, such as electricity and magnetism, oil refining, etc. There are too many, he not only has to train future talents himself, but also let the existing talents master the basic principles and processes he has exchanged as soon as possible. These technical jobs may not be done by those who read books. If you want to do these, you must be interested. Craftsmen are the most suitable target group. Later, targeted teaching will be carried out through industrial colleges to cultivate talents in this area, so as to increase the number of technical talents.

Cen Wenben was also shocked when he heard what Li Yuanji said. Not only was there such a wide recruitment of craftsmen, but the treatment was also so generous. Cen Wenben's heart sank immediately.

According to Li Yuanji's treatment request, how much money and grain would it cost? As for land? Land is secondary here. Wasteland is constantly being reclaimed, and the speed of population increase cannot keep up with the progress of wasteland reclamation.

The most crucial thing is such a huge expenditure, especially that all the officials of the Ministry of Works were selected from craftsmen, which was undoubtedly another subversive move. As for the title, Cen Wenben didn't know what to say.

A craftsman was given a title? Cen Wenben had never been able to connect the two together, but now it appeared before his eyes. Cen Wenben didn't know what to say.

Silence, still silence. Cen Wenben kept thinking. Officials and titles would only appear later. After all, Li Yuanji had said that there must be contributors. However, the expenditure of money was real and had to be made in advance.

Cen Wenben felt a headache at the thought of such a huge expenditure of money. Although Lingnan is rich now, this is due to the insufficient population compared to before. Now, millions of people are migrating in, which requires a huge amount of money and grain.

After deducting the military expenditures, the costs of water conservancy, road construction, and other miscellaneous expenses, Cen Wenben was really worried.

After a while, Cen Wenben spoke in a deep voice.

"Your Majesty, I understand that you want to recruit craftsmen, but if you do so, the expenditure on money and food will be too huge. I'm afraid we can't support it here. How about halving the salary and controlling the number of people coming?"

Li Yuanji listened to Cen Wenben's words and shook his head.

"No, the treatment cannot be reduced. It is already difficult to get them to come from all over the Tang Dynasty. In addition to Li Er's obstruction and the distance from their homeland, if they are not treated well, why would they come?

As for limiting the number of people, it is even more undesirable. The advancement of various craftsmanship depends entirely on whether these craftsmen can create more new things. We must attach importance to this, and the more people in this area, the better.

And as I said just now, it is a long journey far away from my hometown to Lingnan. Even with such generous treatment, there will not be as many people coming as imagined. Many people prefer to be content with the status quo and are unwilling to come.

There is no need to say much about this matter. Just do it. It will be best if more people can come.

At the same time, if our caravan meets people who are willing to come in the Tang Dynasty, we can escort them over. Anyway, as long as they are willing to come, we will help them and ensure they arrive here safely.

Please help me polish this royal decree, and then stamp it and pass it out."

Li Yuanji is extremely firm in his concept of talent development at this moment, and he will not waver no matter how much Cen Wenben says.

Actually, doesn’t he know what Cen Wenben said?
No, Li Yuanji knew it very well, even better than Cen Wenben, but technological development must proceed, and he must also carry out technological reforms. If everything depended on him using contribution points to exchange, he would really be grateful.

In other words, this system does not support recharging money to exchange for contribution points. If it were possible, you would think he would just take out all his money and exchange it for contribution points.

Everything is fine here now, from the beginning to now. The next period of time is the most important. The application of steam technology, even if it takes several years or even decades to develop, is worth it in his eyes.

Li Yuanji was very excited thinking that once steam technology was widely used, all aspects would benefit.

Thinking about this, Li Yuanji suddenly remembered something and immediately looked at Cen Wenben.

"Jingren, there is one more thing. Send someone to explore the coal mountain. All coal found within my territory must be protected. No one is allowed to mine it!
At the same time, within the Tang Dynasty, we must try our best to obtain the mining rights of Shicoal Mountain, and then mine the coal and transport it back. This matter must be taken seriously, and the price must be suppressed.

As for the reason to the outside world, just find a reason that won’t arouse suspicion.”

Li Yuanji suddenly thought that once steam technology was widely used, the value of coal would rise sharply, and using the heat generated by coal combustion to drive steam engines would undoubtedly be the best way.

And this coal, no, it is called coal nowadays. No one cares about this thing at all. It's not that no one burns it, there are people, but those who burn coal are ordinary people, which also leads to extremely low prices of coal.

The imperial court doesn't care about coal nowadays. It only controls a part of it so that ordinary people can use it. The other part is in the hands of the aristocratic families, most of which no longer mine coal.

Because of the cost of mining coal, they might not be able to sell it. If the price went up, basically no one would buy it. In addition, the imperial court also had affordable coal.

As for why the rich don't use it, it's because the pungent smell produced by burning coal is unbearable. Today, the smoke from coal has not been properly solved, so the rich burn charcoal.

Charcoal can also serve the purpose of keeping warm in winter. The key is to use some high-quality charcoal, which produces almost no smoke and is much more comfortable.

The common people made charcoal and sold it for money, and burned coal themselves. Although it smelled unpleasant, it was cheap and lasted longer, much longer than charcoal.

Every winter, countless people burn charcoal and sell it, and it has become a business for many people to make a living.

After hearing this, Cen Wenben was very puzzled. He knew about coal. It was a thing that no one wanted if it was thrown on the road except for ordinary people who had no other options. However, why did Li Yuanji value it so much now?

Although he was very puzzled, Cen Wenben did not ask any more questions. Li Yuanji had proved it too many times that things they often did not take seriously would produce miraculous effects in Li Yuanji's hands.

With this idea in mind, Cen Wenben agreed immediately.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty. I will definitely do a good job on this matter."

(End of this chapter)