Princess Promotion

Yao Chuguang, dressed in plain clothes, stood in front of a crude porridge stall, holding a spoon firmly in his hand, filling the queue with hot porridge one spoonful at a time.

Her movements were gentle and patient, and every smile was like the spring sun, warm and sincere.

The people in the city took the bowls of porridge, all with expressions of gratitude on their faces, and looked at this approachable nobleman with admiration.

In the shadows not far away, Lord Xiao and several other civil officials watched the scene in amazement.

In their view, the king of a country should be high above the temple and his majesty should be inviolable. How could he serve porridge to the untouchables in the streets? It is simply an insult to society.

What puzzled them even more was that Yao Chuguang's attitude towards them, the civil officials, was usually condescending and arrogant to the extreme. Today's change was really hard to accept.

Just as everyone was talking, Yao Chuguang suddenly stopped what he was doing and slowly turned around.

Her expression instantly changed from gentle to stern, and the light in her eyes was as sharp as a knife as she scanned each minister. The air seemed to freeze, and everyone felt an invisible pressure.

"Did you see it clearly?" Yao Chuguang's voice was cold and clear, and every word seemed to be taken out from an ice cellar, making people shudder.

"What I am doing today is to make you understand that the people are the foundation of the country, and a strong foundation brings peace to the country. As important officials of the court, you should understand and care about the people's feelings and livelihood."

The ministers looked at each other in bewilderment. They realized that Yao Chuguang's intention was to ask them to put down their airs and get close to the common people. In their opinion, this was simply disgraceful and a great insult to their status.

However, facing Yao Chuguang's unquestionable gaze, no one dared to refute.

Seeing that the ministers were angry but dared not speak, Yao Chuguang turned around with satisfaction and continued to serve porridge with a gentle smile on his face.

Elder Xiao watched Yao Chuguang's face change faster than turning the pages of a book.

Ministers: Hypocrisy

Xiao Ge Lao: Extremely hypocritical

Yao Chuguang knew that his actions were simply heretical in the eyes of Elder Xiao and others.

I have only heard of respecting the wise and humble, but I have never heard of respecting the poor.

I guess they felt that they would eventually destroy themselves. They came to power by illegitimate means, were absurd and stubborn, and did everything that a tyrant could and could not do.

These aristocratic families could not do anything to Yao Chuguang in the military for the time being.

But they can start a public opinion war first, slandering each other, and if three people say something too many times, it will become true.

It was obvious that the aristocratic families were annexing land and harvesting the grain and land of the people below.

In good years, they store food, and in bad years, they use this food to harvest the fields of the poor.

Then they shouted every day that the people had to work hard and that taxes and labor service should be reduced. In fact, in the end, it was the taxes of the landlord families that were reduced, and the labor service was reduced for the tenants of the landlords.

Finally, when the poor could no longer make ends meet and rose up in rebellion, the aristocratic families would say with a righteous look on their faces that they had long been dissatisfied with the imperial court and that they would fund their rebellion.

All the means used by the landlords to oppress the peasants are legal and in compliance with regulations. When the lower class people can no longer make a living and don’t know who is making their lives so miserable,

The emperor is the shining target, and these noble families who usually say they would go through fire and water for the emperor will say that all this is caused by the emperor being a tyrant.

This is why it is said that the aristocratic families are permanent but the emperors are transient.

But when it comes to the war of public opinion, Yao Chuguang, a social animal who has been baptized by the modern Internet, may not win a one-sided victory, but it is indeed unlikely that he will lose.

The first step in the war of public opinion: selecting the target.

Although there are many classes in this world, they are generally divided into two parts: one is the noble families, doctors and scholars, and the other is the poor.

In order to consolidate their imperial power, emperors of all dynasties had to control military power and form alliances with major families.

After all, you can conquer the world immediately, but you cannot rule the world immediately.

Therefore, many emperors pursued the reputation of being respectful to the wise and humble. Although they could not say how well they treated the aristocratic families, at least they managed to be gentle and polite on the surface.

But all this came to an abrupt end when it came to Yao Chuguang. Yao Chuguang had almost stepped on all the weak points of the aristocratic families.

When asked to reduce taxes, she did the opposite, saying that the tax on land with less than ten mu would be halved, and for land above ten mu, an additional tax of one cent would be collected for every additional ten mu.

The ministers were so frightened that they never dared to mention tax reduction or exemption again.

Every family of theirs owns thousands of acres of land. With this tax collection method, wouldn't they lose almost half of their fertile land in one tax payment?

What made them most upset was that Yao Chuguang was even stricter with them, scolding them at every turn, as if they were her family's servants.

But even with such humiliation, they did not dare to leave, because if they really dared to resign, Yao Chuguang would really go to the streets and recruit people to be officials.

It is said that the person in charge of the Ministry of Revenue was an accountant that Yao Chuguang found in a restaurant.

They were so scared that they didn't even dare to take sick leave, for fear that Yao Chuguang would just find someone else to take his place if he was unhappy.

Yao Chuguang had never intended to form an alliance with these aristocratic families from the very beginning, even though these people seemed to be servile.

He always talks about propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame, and looks like he is concerned about the country and the people.

In fact, they all talk about morality, but all they think about is business.

People are just talking about it, who would actually do these things?

Yao Chuguang always chose the real poor people. The gentry would definitely disdain to deal with the poor.

Yao Chuguang started from here. Most of the people were illiterate, and a lot of information was passed on by word of mouth.

Many times, the decrees issued clearly state that taxes should be reduced, but when they reach the closed villages, where no one in the village is literate, the decrees are still determined by what the gentry says.

Yao Chuguang had no choice but to find another way and trained a group of storytellers.

Nowadays, there are actually very few entertainment options for ordinary people. Watching a play is a luxury. Only a few poor people are willing to spend money to go to the theater to watch a play.

Being able to go to a teahouse and listen to a storyteller tell stories was already a very luxurious entertainment.

If we talk about government decrees and laws directly, it will be too boring and the people may not understand.

Yao Chuguang compiled some stories and added decrees and laws to make them easy to understand.

Liu San lived in peace for two days, and at first he was afraid that he would be dragged out and beheaded at the next moment.

As a result, two days passed and nothing happened except that the food was a little insufficient and not enough to eat.

However, his heart did not calm down because of this. Instead, he became more irritated because he had nothing to do.

After all, when people have too much free time, they start to think about random things.

Early in the morning of the third day, the cell suddenly became lively.

It was called a prison cell, but in fact it was just an open space with a few tents set up. If it weren't for the explosives buried around the open space, they could have easily escaped.

The jailer brought in bundles of hemp ropes, bamboo strips, and wood with him.

Several old men in rough linen clothes followed behind them, their faces full of traces of time, and they were obviously experienced craftsmen.

The jailer stood in front of everyone and said in a loud voice: "Those who can weave straw sandals should stand on the left, those who can weave bamboo baskets should stand on the right, those who know carpentry should go to the front, and those who don't know anything should stay in the middle."

Liu San hesitated for a moment and chose the team that made bamboo baskets.

For someone like him who came from a poor background, apart from carpentry that required complex craftsmanship, making straw sandals and bamboo baskets were basic skills. Even if he couldn't make them very well, at least he knew how to make them.

After they lined up, the prison boss handed him a bundle of bamboo sticks, briefly gestured at the shape and size of the basket, then turned and left, seemingly not intending to supervise their work.

At first, Liu San thought that the jailer would pick out a few lazy people to make an example of them, but he didn't expect that the jailer would be indifferent the whole time.

Soon, some people began to slow down their movements, and some even stopped weaving bamboo baskets and started chatting.

There are also some people who, although they are still working, it is obvious that their attention is no longer on the task at hand.

Their movements were slow and disorderly, their eyes wandered around, and they glanced towards the prison door from time to time, fearing that the prison boss would suddenly come back.

In such an atmosphere, Liu San's heart was inevitably shaken. He saw that everyone around him was slacking off, and his heart couldn't help but waver.

But he had nothing else to do, so he just took his time doing the job since it was easy.

It was almost noon when Liu San finished the first bamboo basket. He carefully took the finished product to the receiving stall.

The steward sitting there took the basket, examined it carefully, and took out a wooden plaque from under the table and handed it to Liu San. There were characters engraved on it that he didn't recognize.

The steward said calmly: "It's a medium-quality product. You can go to the exchange office to get the money."

Liu San was stunned. He had never thought that he could make money in prison.

He looked at the steward in confusion, and the steward explained, "Each basket has a corresponding wage. The more you make, the more you earn."

Liu San walked quickly to the exchange office. After the person there confirmed the wooden token, he really gave him three copper coins.

He was lazy in the morning and only managed to weave one bamboo basket. If he had continued at his previous speed at home, he could have made at least four or five bamboo baskets a day. That would have been fifteen copper coins, and more than four hundred to five hundred copper coins a month.

Liu San's hands trembled slightly. Oh my God, being a prisoner actually earns more than being a soldier!