Chapter 71: Give Gifts and Give Great Merit
"Ah..." Gu Hanyan was startled, turned back and took a look, "You deserve it! It's just a little swelling, why are you screaming like a grown man?"
"Damn, this isn't meat. Come here quickly and apply medicine on me." Tang Wen said in pain.
"Don't we have Ding Xian?" Gu Hanyan curled her lips.
"Aren't you my personal maid? If you don't apply medicine, who will?" Tang Wen said.
Gu Hanyan moved her lips and squatted down helplessly to apply medicine to Tang Wen.
Over there, the battle is drawing to a close.
The pirates who were still alive panicked and jumped into the sea. Most of them threw away their muskets and squatted on the ground to surrender.
"Master, Lord Tie is here." At this time, Zhao Du shouted outside. Tang Wen had just applied the medicine and looked up. Wasn't it Tie Wenjing?
"Junior brother, you have made a great contribution this time." Tie Wenjing strode in and said.
"Great achievement, senior brother, are you referring to pirates?" Tang Wen asked.
"Of course, you see, you have killed and captured so many pirates, probably hundreds of them. Pirates are treated the same as enemies who invaded the State of Chu.
The pirate court will record one military merit for you, and you have earned hundreds of military merits.
One military achievement is worth one hundred taels of silver. Haha, junior brother, you have earned tens of thousands of taels in one go.
Moreover, destroying the pirates is more impressive than donating silver directly. If your military exploits plus the silver you donated are reported to the court, it will be easier for them to agree to your promotion." Tie Wenjing said.
"Even if you promote me to the rank of first-class earl, I can only support a personal guard of four to five hundred people. Look at how big my Samui Island is. It cannot be defended without several thousand people.
This group of pirates openly stole my Tang family’s silver mine. There must be a bigger master behind them.
When the time comes, a large number of pirates will attack us, and our Tang family will be in danger." Tang Wen said.
"That's a problem." Tie Wenjing nodded, thought for a moment and said, "But it's not completely impossible."
"Brother, please tell me if you have any good ideas." Tang Wen asked.
"I haven't thought about it yet. I'll tell you when I do." Tie Wenjing said.
"Senior brother, you have made a great contribution this time." Tang Wen said with a smile.
"What merit have I made? The war in the northwest has intensified recently, and the court has mobilized 700,000 to 800,000 troops to fight against the Qin army.
Including miscellaneous labor, the number of people is over one million.
With so many people to feed and clothe, a lot of food, fodder and horses are needed.
The amount allocated to our Jiangzhou Prefecture by the higher authorities is five or six times that of Yanling County, and the officials in the prefecture are worried to death.
Because the higher-ups are pushing us hard, and if we don’t raise the required amount, both Lord Fu Yi and I will be punished.
By then, I'm afraid my life will be in danger." Tie Wenjing looked bitter and resentful. Tang Wen knew that he was playing the victim just to get him to donate money.
"The fact that we were able to wipe out the pirates this time was all thanks to your advice, senior brother. You are my military advisor. So, you also have a share in this military achievement." Tang Wen said.
Tie Wenjing was startled, looked at Tang Wen, and said with a smile, "You..."
"I'm telling the truth. Ask them if this is true?" Tang Wen asked Luo Yiwu and others.
"Yes, of course. It's all thanks to Lord Tie's proper planning." Luo Yiwu nodded quickly.
"Lord Tie is very smart and has a careful plan, and our Lord is in command. With the two of you working together well, it would be unfair if the pirates are not destroyed." Dongfang Ming said.
"That's right, thank you, Lord Tie." Li Liao clasped his fists.
"You guys, after hearing about this matter from my junior brother the other day, I, Tie, was just giving him some pointers and suggestions. It's still my junior brother who is really amazing." Tie Wenjing said shamelessly, stroking his beard.
Of course he understood that Tang Wen wanted to give away his military achievements for free, and Tang Wen had his own needs.
Tie Wenjing would certainly find a way to return the favor. To put it bluntly, this was just a deal.
Tie Wenjing wanted to be the co-magistrate of Jiangzhou Prefecture, and this batch of military merits came at the right time, so he could not refuse.
"Brother, you are too polite. If it weren't for your advice, I wouldn't know where to start..." Tang Wen said. The two of them praised each other for a while and then counted their achievements.
“Master, we destroyed 389 pirates in total, captured 208, and it’s hard to estimate how many escaped.
783 laborers captured by pirates were rescued and a batch of silver that had not yet been transported away was seized from the ship, totaling 180,000 taels.
508 muskets…” Li Liao came over to report after counting.
"Brother, these 180,000 taels of silver were originally produced by my Tang family's silver mine.
Therefore, I decided to add another 120,000 taels, totaling 30 taels of silver to the court, which will be handed over by Jiangzhou Prefecture on my behalf.
As for this group of pirates, you, senior brother, will send someone to escort them to Jiangzhou Prefecture for disposal.
At that time, I will issue a certificate of the elimination of pirates to the Jiangzhou Prefecture, and you, senior brother, will be the military advisor for this expedition.
Brother, you will take all of these back with you." Tang Wen said.
"Okay, Junior Brother has solved Master Fuyi's urgent need, I'm sure Master Fuyi will be happy.
When the time comes, I will report the current situation of Koh Samui to Lord Fu Yi.
The island needs defensive forces, and we will try to solve some problems for you." Tie Wenjing said.
"I need a group of people that I can fully control, whose food, clothing, housing and transportation will all be provided by my Tang family, instead of sending a navy to garrison here.
Brother, you know clearly what kind of people the court's navy are. They all look down on others.
If you come over then, it will only cause trouble for me." Tang Wen made a request.
"I'll find a way!" Tie Wenjing nodded. He sent someone to receive the silver and issue an official document.
Jiangzhou Prefecture sent a large number of detectives to escort hundreds of pirates away in an emergency of eight hundred miles.
That night, hundreds of laborers were brought to Tang Wen's camp.
Zhan Dongwen and his gang started to act as agents again, taking these people to the toilet, washing, and eating in the cafeteria... and the injured were treated free of charge in the medical room.
The next day, he took them to visit the dam project. It turned out that Zhan Dongwen had done this several times and was becoming more and more skilled at it.
He also specially asked Gu Hanyan to train a group of commentators to help Tang Wen brag as they walked.
The results are out.
More than one hundred of the 783 people chose to go home, while the remaining nearly six hundred chose to stay.
Among them are dozens of experienced craftsmen in smelting, which will provide the foundation for building a simple smelting plant in the future.
"Ding Dong, you have accumulated 600 points of popularity, and you can start the eleventh time travel."
The landlord space responded, and immediately, more than 600 people rushed towards Tang Wen frantically.
Tang Wen discovered that Dongfang Ming had the greatest popularity, and the group of people he brought back were of excellent popularity and quality.
The popularity of those old craftsmen was surprisingly not low, almost reaching the level of Dongfang Ming.
However, it seems that the popular colors on their heads are a little different.
This shows that one does not necessarily need to be highly skilled in martial arts to be more popular.
It may be that the experience, knowledge, and craftsmanship accumulated by these old craftsmen can also boost their popularity.
However, the pirates were selective in choosing their laborers, so this group of people basically had ninth- or tenth-grade skills, and there were even dozens of seventh- or eighth-grade warriors.
Because smelting requires strength, and moving stones also requires strength .
And the people they picked were basically bachelors, because bachelors didn’t have that many side effects.
If you choose someone who has a family, he or she will definitely think about family every day and will not be able to concentrate on work.
Moreover, if the main laborer of the family is missing, people will also report it to the police.
If the government received more cases of this kind, it would certainly attract their attention. However, no one cares about these bachelors.
After more than ten minutes, Tang Wen picked up the knife and used it to destroy his internal energy. Suddenly, the internal energy coming out from the tip of the knife was half a foot long.
Tang Wen was quite clever, and while absorbing the popularity, he also swallowed a tonic pill, and used all his strength to push, pressure, stimulate, and squeeze the potential of his whole body, thus improving his skills.
And the 'Nine Revolutions of Fish and Dragon' actually entered the third revolution, with one jump reaching a height of fifteen feet.
Looking up, the data on the big screen in the landlord's space has been updated:
Popularity Index: 3030
Land area: 2456 hectares
Wealth Index: 403,000 taels of gold.
Martial arts level: early sixth level.
Ceremonial load: 1,600 tons.
Travel time: eighty days.
The number of men and horses exceeded 3,000, the wealth index soared, the skill level exceeded seven, and entered the early stage of the sixth level.
Tang Wen slapped the trunk of a small tree one meter away, and his internal energy slowly spurted out, like a wisp of light yellow smoke blowing past.
The small tree just shook as if it was blown, and the effect was not very good.
It seems that although I have stepped into the threshold of releasing internal energy.
However, we must make the inner power truly exert its killing power.
You also need to constantly condense and sharpen your inner energy, and become proficient in its bursting and attacking techniques.
Feeling that the supplies he had should be able to last for another month or two, Tang Wen decided to open the second door to see what kind of place that was.
