Chapter 43: Such Taxation Has Never Existed Since Ancient Times

"Young Yun!" Uncle Li arrived at the bedside just a step ahead of Li Fu.

Yun, a bit puzzled, looked at Uncle Li. Why was Uncle Li so agitated that his hands were trembling? After calling out his name, he just muttered a few times, almost losing the ability to speak.

Li Fu, being a scholar who practiced self-cultivation, was in a slightly better state than Uncle Li.

Suppressing his inner excitement and a trace of uncertainty, he reached out and grabbed the Zhanlu sword from Yun's arms. The moment he touched it, the calm Li Fu barely managed to maintain was instantly shattered, and the pale flush from the morning cold quickly gave way to a deep red across his face.

"How is it?"

Yun noticed that Uncle Li's voice was trembling.

Li Fu raised the sword, examining it closely in the bright morning light. One must ask, how many people in this world have ever been able to hold the Zhanlu sword in their hands?

The blade was pitch black throughout, yet this darkness lacked any dullness; instead, it possessed a clear, profound sense of weight. The longer he held it, the more he could feel the sword's piercing edge, vaguely instilling a heart-pounding sense of dread.

With a start, Li Fu instinctively handed the sword back to Yun.

"Well? How is it?" Uncle Li asked urgently when Li Fu remained silent.

Li Fu took a long, deep breath before speaking. "It should be the true Zhanlu. Furthermore, this sword has already been unsealed, which means it rightfully belongs to our Li family. According to ancient records, this sword is said to choose its master of its own accord. The longer I held it just now, the more my heart raced in alarm, which is why I hastily returned it to Yun."

Uncle Li's eyes brightened as he looked at Yun. "Yun, what do you think of this sword?"

Yun looked somewhat bewildered.

What kind of mysterious nonsense were his father and Uncle Li talking about? Choosing its own master?

"I don't think much of it. It looks pretty, though." As he spoke, Yun dragged the sword, wobbling as he stood up, and tried his best to lift the hilt and pose with it.

Every boy harbors the dream of becoming a swordsman; it was simply cool.

Li Fu exchanged a silent glance with Uncle Li.

It was now certain that this must be Yun's sword. The weapon was remarkably heavy; even Li Fu found it somewhat strenuous to hold, and lingering too long with it brought a crisis-laden sensation that the blade might cleave downward at any moment.

Yet Yun, being so small, carried it with such effortless ease, dragging the sword back and forth as if treating the legendary Zhanlu as a toy devoid of temper.

This clearly proved that the sword truly chose its master!

Even more thrilling than witnessing one of the famous swords of history was the fact that this sword had chosen Yun—and Yun was his very own son! He had always maintained that Li Fu possessed the grand ambition of rebellion, and the heavens would never treat him so cruelly as to let his grand aspirations wither away unfulfilled during his lifetime.

With that matter settled, only one final issue remained. Uncle Li motioned for Gouzi to step outside first.

Gouzi was truly a man of somewhat stubborn loyalty. As he had stated before, having chosen to follow Yun, he would listen solely to Yun, placing even Xin Niang's words behind Yun's commands.

When Uncle Li told him to go out, he actually hesitated, looking toward Yun instead. Only after seeing Yun nod did Gouzi turn and run out, carefully closing the door tightly behind him.

***

Once they were certain no one else was around, Uncle Li spoke up. "Yun, where did you get this sword?"

Uh...

Yun hesitated for a moment.

Then, looking toward the chests of gold, silver, and jewels piled up in the room, he pointed to one of them and said, "I woke up from a dream last night, and just then, a sword fell down from the top of that chest. It looked a lot like the sword I was holding in my dream, so I asked Gouzi to bring it over for me."

That was the truth. After waking up, because the dream of the great dragon and the ancient sword had felt so vivid, Yun had instinctively searched around his bed.

He had found nothing.

Then he heard a clatter in the room, and a sword tumbled down from the stack of chests filled with gold, silver, and jewels.

Without even realizing it himself, the moment Yun laid eyes on the fallen sword, he felt an immediate fondness for it, prompting him to ask Gouzi to fetch it. At the time, Gouzi had complained that it was too heavy, his face turning red from the strain, until Yun finally went and picked it up himself. Yun, however, had thought it was quite manageable—perhaps Gouzi simply hadn't slept well and lacked strength.

As for why the place where Yun lived had so many chests filled with gold and treasure, it was because the various valuables previously confiscated by Ma Yi had been temporarily stored in this room by Uncle Jiang for safekeeping.

Although the Zhao family were wealthy landowners in the lower reaches of the Lang Ridge, and effectively the richest family in the village, the house did not have an abundance of rooms. Once Uncle Li, Li Fu, Le Dan, and the others moved in, accommodations became rather cramped.

Since there weren't enough rooms, and this particular chamber happened to be the Zhao family's master bedroom with the finest conditions, Yun had no choice but to share his living space with the chests of gold and silver.

Uncle Li cast an astonished glance at the piles of treasure. The items seized from Ma Yi were numerous, filling half the room. Aside from this sword, there were daggers inlaid with various precious stones, prime tiger pelts, large composite bows, and more. He simply hadn't expected the Zhanlu sword to be hidden among them.

Yet, seeing that Zhanlu had not even been carefully wrapped or stored properly in a box, it was clear that Ma Yi had acquired it from who-knows-where and tossed it aside casually, completely unaware of its value and having no idea that this was the legendary Zhanlu sword.

"Time and destiny! Zhanlu was veiled in dust, simply waiting for Yun," Uncle Li said, looking at Yun with satisfaction as he let out a long sigh and smiled.

This was precisely like the founding Emperor Li Hongwu back in the day, when a humble peasant family had used the dust-covered Chunjun sword merely as a wedge of scrap copper to prop up a corner of a wall. Yet the moment the founding emperor obtained it, Chunjun instantly shed its rust, turning radiantly sharp and peerlessly magnificent, becoming the most noble and supreme sword in the entire realm.

"Yun, keep this sword safe. Since it has chosen you as its master, then your suggestion yesterday regarding how to handle that batch of grain shall be carried out entirely as you said!" Li Fu patted Yun's shoulder in high spirits.

"Really?" Yun dropped the sword and immediately bounced up with excitement.

Just yesterday, he had been fretting over having to write a major academic thesis on people's livelihoods—a prospect that gave the little scholar a massive headache—only to have his father tell him he didn't have to write it after all!

Hahaha.

Yun was about to leap off the bed to eat breakfast when Uncle Li panicked and rushed forward to catch the Zhanlu. This was a sword symbolizing the Dao of benevolence, the ultimate blade of rulers and lords.

"Don't throw it around!" But the moment Uncle Li stretched out his hand to grab Zhanlu, he felt the exact same piercing, razor-sharp aura Li Fu had experienced, sending his heart racing wildly. This sense of unease made him instinctively pull his hand back, ultimately failing to catch it.

It appeared he was even less capable of wielding this sword than Li Fu, as Li Fu had at least been able to pick it up and examine it for a moment, the palpitation only growing stronger the longer he held it until he could no longer bear it.

Perhaps it was because Li Fu was Yun's father?

For a rare moment, Uncle Li felt a twinge of envy and jealousy toward Li Fu... Ah, he suddenly found himself amused. Here he was, at his advanced age, actually letting such emotions bubble up over a sword.

***

Yet this was the Zhanlu sword of benevolence.

"Yun, you must put this sword away properly. Do not display it casually to others, but above all, never toss it about carelessly," Li Fu said, simply picking Yun up from the bed and echoing Uncle Li's repeated warnings.

Yun glanced at the black sword his father called Zhanlu and obediently nodded.

If this truly was Zhanlu, it would be an antique in the future and needed proper protection. College student Yun had studied archaeology, and his memories included historical records concerning the Zhanlu sword.

According to those records, Zhanlu had changed hands among numerous masters, with its final owner rumored to be the famed Southern Song general Yue Fei who resisted the Jin dynasty. After Yue Fei and his son were framed and murdered, the Zhanlu sword vanished completely without a trace.

Yet, once the memories of college student Yun fully integrated, child Yun had long since realized that this era differed from the history college student Yun had learned. The current Liang dynasty, the Zhou dynasty previously established by the Li family, and other entities were things Yun had never encountered in his previous studies.

He had not expected history to be so different, nor that the Zhanlu sword would still exist.

Soon, right in front of Li Fu and Uncle Li, Yun dragged Zhanlu back into its scabbard, wrapped it carefully in cloth with much huffing and puffing, tucked it away securely, and finally went off to eat.

After breakfast, Yun asked his father about the condition of the Zhao family members.

Late last night, the medicinal powder in those braziers had finished smoldering away. Deprived of the medicine to numb their nerves and relieve the pain, the members of the Zhao family had begun howling in agony during the latter half of the night.

The physician was already treating them, but the results were poor; it was estimated they would not survive. There was nothing to be done about that; they would simply have to leave it to fate.

However, since Li Fu had just agreed to allow the refugees to settle in Long County and support them in reclaiming wasteland, Yun immediately pressed the matter after finishing his meal.

Li Fu smiled and said, "Don't worry. However, Yun, settling and opening up wasteland for so many refugees is no simple matter; we must establish a proper framework for it."

This matter should be handled swiftly rather than sluggishly, though Yun agreed that Li Fu's reasoning was sound. He immediately instructed Uncle Jiang to fetch the four treasures of the study, pulled Li Fu over, and began discussing the procedures for land reclamation.

"Father, there are far too many refugees. If we settle them all in the lower reaches of the Lang Ridge, it certainly won't work. We must disperse them and establish villages based on population size.

Furthermore, even when opening up wasteland, we cannot let them do it haphazardly. We should allocate land to them using family household size as the basic unit. Once the plots are divided, the entire village will cooperate to clear the wasteland during the first year to minimize the difficulties of solitary reclamation. In the second and third years, the newly cleared land will yield some crops, but the soil won't have recovered yet and the harvest will be meager, so we will levy no taxes.

On the contrary, because the wasteland harvests will be poor over the first three years, we can lend them grain, seeds, and farming tools. By the fourth year, we will require them to repay only the principal of the loan. Starting in the fifth year, we will collect a tax of one part in fifty; in the sixth year, one in forty; and by the seventh year, we will follow the Liang dynasty's tax code and levy one part in thirty."

Yun ran out of breath after speaking all at once, stretching out his little arm to take a bowl of goat's milk handed to him by Gouzi, gulping it down until there were milk stains at the corners of his mouth.

In truth, he didn't even understand what the tax rates of the Liang dynasty were; everything he just said was based on the detailed explanations Li Fu had given him over the course of the morning.

Actually, the founding emperor of the Liang had been a sensible ruler. During his reign, he emphasized a low-tax system and even temporarily abolished the heavy corvée labor previously imposed on the common people, replacing it with a system of government-paid employment.

However, as land annexation grew increasingly severe in the later period, accompanied by rampant official corruption, the central government's tax revenue steadily declined. Consequently, the low-tax system was gradually abandoned during the middle and late periods, and corvée labor was reinstated as a mandatory, unpaid obligation for the common people. The one who completely gave up and shattered the vessel beyond repair was the Daoist Emperor, who simply overturned the table entirely.

Although his policies temporarily boosted central tax revenues, the upper classes who controlled vast amounts of land and wealth still managed to evade taxes. Instead, the continuous burden fell squarely upon the small peasant farmers, pushing the seemingly resplendent empire into an increasingly precarious internal crisis.

Not only that, but the system of provincial governors also caused the central court to lose control over the various prefectures. It could be said that the Daoist Emperor's methods were utterly akin to quenching thirst with poisoned wine.