Following Shentu Yang’s departure with the army, Yin Shuhuai began planning the development of the Jiangnan region. However, Yin Shuhuai was not familiar with the Jiangnan of this era, so he instructed Zhao Bushi to gather intelligence on Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, and even Yizhou to help him finalize the master plan for developing the region.

Upon hearing the Emperor’s order, Zhao Bushi initially maintained a very reserved demeanor and asked what specific types of information His Majesty required.

Yin Shuhuai stated directly that he wanted everything. The imperial court needed everything from the networking power of the local prominent clans to the mountains, rivers, mountain passes, and storehouses of each province and commandery. As for why he asked Zhao Bushi to provide this information, it was because Zhao Bushi’s family, the Zhao clan of Xuzhou, was the largest local power. Having them provide the intelligence would undoubtedly guarantee every single detail was covered and yield twice the results with half the effort.

Faced with the Emperor’s words, which seemed to show trust and reliance but were actually a deceptive trap designed to cloud his judgment, Zhao Bushi did not lose his head. During his time as the Grandee Secretary, he had watched the young emperor’s clashes with the court officials from a detached perspective and concluded one valuable lesson: although the Emperor was young, he never acted without a clear purpose. Requesting information on the Jiangnan provinces at this crucial moment meant he definitely had a blueprint in mind. Furthermore, this blueprint would inevitably harm the interests of the local gentry.

Yet, the upright Grandee Secretary did not expose the Emperor’s plan. He did not say a single word to warn his family when requesting the data from them. He only instructed the head of the Zhao clan to take this matter seriously and send the requested intelligence to the capital as fast as possible.

Zhao Bushi’s caution and suspicion were well-founded. From the very beginning, Yin Shuhuai had never pinned his hopes for gathering Jiangnan intelligence on Zhao Bushi or the Zhao family of Xuzhou.

As a ruler who was already quite seasoned, Yin Shuhuai would not easily trust the moral integrity of Zhao Bushi and the Zhao family of Xuzhou—he was already used to being undermined by powerful aristocratic clans. He was even less likely to naively believe that the intelligence submitted by the Zhao family would be complete and neutral. However, he needed a public shield to make the world believe his intelligence came from the Zhao family.

As for the truly comprehensive and detailed intelligence, Yin Shuhuai had already secretly ordered the Night Owl spies covertly embedded in Jiangnan to gather it.

Before receiving it, Yin Shuhuai first drafted the general plan for developing Jiangnan.

The first step was agricultural colonies. Unlike the policy implemented after Goguryeo was incorporated into the Yin Empire’s territory, where military colonies were used exclusively, Yin Shuhuai intended to implement two forms of colonies in Jiangnan: military colonies and civilian colonies.

The military colonies involved handing the farmland over to the local garrison forces to cultivate, with the harvested grain going directly toward military rations. The civilian colonies involved recruiting displaced people to farm. The ownerless land in various Jiangnan provinces would first be reclaimed by the imperial court, which would then provide land, farming tools, draft oxen, and high-quality seeds to rent to the common people for cultivation. After harvesting the grain, the people would pay rent to the court. The rent was also set at a tax rate of one-fifteenth of the harvest.

This ratio was identical to the tax rate the common people used to pay when they farmed their own land. The only difference was that the people no longer owned the land; they had suddenly transformed into tenant farmers of the imperial court. Since they were tenant farmers, they naturally no longer had to pay other heavy and arbitrary exactions like the poll tax. This was a modified version of the “converting labor service into land tax” policy that Yin Shuhuai had invented by combining the complex situation of the Yin Dynasty.

In this way, the court could collect rent directly based on the land area allocated to the people and the summer and autumn harvests. This would prevent local wealthy elites from colluding with local governments to forcibly impose taxes that should have been paid by the elites onto the common people, or inventing various pretexts to extort them.

It effectively abolished the poll tax that the Yin Dynasty had used for over six hundred years.

Yin Shuhuai also had his own reasons for implementing this new tax policy specifically in the Jiangnan region.

After all, Jiangnan was not Goguryeo. Before becoming Yin territory, Goguryeo was a tributary state with wild ambitions. Whenever the imperial court was weak and vulnerable, this ungrateful backstabber would seize the opportunity to raid the borders, making them a political enemy.

After annexing Goguryeo, Yin Shuhuai felt zero pressure even if he turned all of Goguryeo’s land into military colonies. This was because there were no Yin citizens within Goguryeo’s borders. However, the Jiangnan region was different. Although Jingzhou, Yangzhou, and even the Ba-Shu region were far from the central court’s power hub due to their geographic locations, these areas were still administrative provinces personally established by the court. The local gentry and elites were also Yin people.

Since they were his own people, they could not be treated like enemies.

Therefore, Yin Shuhuai’s implementation of the new policy combining military and civilian colonies in Jiangnan took into account that Jiangnan was simply too far from the imperial capital core region. If they did not take the sea route, it would be difficult for the court’s influence to reach the Jiangnan area. Moreover, the local elites were overly powerful and entrenched. If they colluded with local officials to extort the people, the court would be too far away to do anything about it.

In fact, ever since the late emperor passed away, the court had been caught in a vortex of continuous power struggles between imperial in-laws and eunuchs. Over a dozen years, the Yin Dynasty had changed emperors four times. The factional struggles were so intense that the central court simply had no time to manage regional military and administrative affairs.

Before Yin Shuhuai traveled to this era, the taxes from Xuzhou, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, and other places had long since ceased to be collected. Warlords everywhere expanded aggressively, and the Luoyang court was reduced to a mere formality. This could be clearly seen from how local elites had ruined major court initiatives time and again.

Even the four provinces of Qing, Xu, Yan, and Ji, which were not too far from the imperial capital region, could erupt into rebellion due to the court’s land surveys, let alone the Jiangnan commanderies thousands of miles away. The local gentry had long been accustomed to the emperor being far away, and they completely ignored the central court.

However, this was actually a good thing, as it also meant that the local Jiangnan gentry had very little influence in the imperial court.

Yin Shuhuai had previously asked Fan Juan to investigate the ancestral homes of all civil and military officials, discovering that very few officials came from the Jiangnan commanderies. The highest-ranking capital official among them was Grandee Secretary Zhao Bushi, who had been promoted by Huo Yan right before his death. Before that, Zhao Bushi had actually served as the chancellor of a vassal state for decades.

From this, it could be inferred that the power of the Jiangnan gentry in the court was not large. This also meant that if Yin Shuhuai wanted to implement new policies in the Jiangnan area, the opposition in the court would be almost negligible.

As for whether the local Jiangnan gentry would oppose the court’s new policy, Yin Shuhuai was not worried at all.

Jiangnan at this time was not the land of milk and honey from later generations. Without an economic foundation, how could there be a superstructure? Even if the local gentry had painstakingly managed the region for centuries, they would still find it difficult to withstand the Yanguo elites led by Shentu Yang in terms of wealth and combat power, especially combat power.

Not to mention that the court’s expedition to suppress the rebellion was also meant to rescue the Jiangnan gentry, who were already surrounded by the rebel army.

Yin Shuhuai expected that since they held no advantage in either moral standing or combat power, the gentry elites, who always knew best how to weigh pros and cons and hedge their bets, should know that only by cooperating with the court’s new policy could they continue their comfortable lives. If they refused to cooperate, the court, having the ability to go to Jiangnan to suppress the rebellion, could also fail to arrive in time, resulting in the gentry elites being completely slaughtered by the rebel forces.

Furthermore, Yin Shuhuai would not solely exploit the local gentry. While pushing forward the agricultural colonies, he would also encourage the local elites to engage in commerce, using greater profits to lure them in. Just like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, Yin Shuhuai would use high-quality salt, horses, silk, and even “luxury goods” newly developed by the livestock processing workshops—such as scented soaps, incense, wool woolen cloth, and down cotton coats—to do business with the Jiangnan gentry.

Indeed, after nearly two years of research, the artisans of the Palace Workshops had finally developed premium scented soaps, incense, wool woolen cloth, and down jackets that met Yin Shuhuai’s standards, completely unlocking an all-in-one commercial system of breeding and processing.

Currently, the production work in several processing workshops was booming. Over the past few months, various goods had accumulated to a certain volume. Yin Shuhuai intended to sell these products to Jiangnan, and even to the Western Regions through the maritime and overland Silk Roads.

If the Jiangnan gentry were willing to cooperate, that would be ideal, and everyone could make money together. If they were unwilling, the matter could only be handed over to Shentu Yang.

This was the benefit of possessing absolute military power. It was like painting on a slightly flawed sheet of white paper; there was no need to worry about the original stains on the paper. One could simply splash ink and wield the brush to cover it completely.

It was just that Yin Shuhuai’s favorite method of covering was “firepower” coverage.

Therefore, the attitude of these Jiangnan gentry was not important to Yin Shuhuai at all.

As long as Shentu Yang led the army of one hundred thousand to suppress the rebellions in the Jiangnan commanderies, the development of Jiangnan would become a certainty. At that time, Yin Shuhuai would also have the court immediately open the granaries to distribute food and relieve the disaster victims. Through a system of providing relief work instead of direct handouts, the rebels and displaced people would be put to work building water conservancy projects and digging canals. Ensuring that the court’s warships could cross Jiangnan directly into the heart of Shu from the sea would maximally strengthen the court’s control over Xuzhou, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Yizhou, and other places.

Once the court’s army could reach Jiangnan within a month, the local gentry, even if they wanted to stir up trouble, would have to carefully consider whether they could defeat the court’s endless stream of a million-strong army.

To ensure the Jiangnan gentry clearly recognized the massive gap between the two sides, Yin Shuhuai decided that the court’s expenses for suppressing the rebellion in Jiangnan, relieving the victims, and digging the canals would all be paid for by the local gentry and elites.

After all, the court sending a massive army all the way to Jiangnan to suppress the rebellion was precisely to save their lives.

How could they not show their deep gratitude for such life-saving grace!

Yin Shuhuai believed that he would not even need to say much about this matter. Shentu Yang, who had previously displayed incredible prowess against the Xiongnu and Goguryeo, would handle it flawlessly.