The Villain's Counterattack

After the three-year mourning period was over, Yang Kang and Wanyan Honglie held a grand ceremony in front of Bao Xiruo's tomb, and the court issued an appointment letter to him, appointing him General Jinghai, Marquis of Jiaodong, and granting him a fiefdom of 500 li. He was given full military and political power and could command up to 30,000 troops. However, he had to raise supplies himself. The annual supply for the first three years was 100,000 taels of silver, which was then reduced to 30,000 taels.

Yang Kang accepted the imperial edict without changing his expression, and then stayed in Prince Zhao's mansion for a month. He actively recruited available people in Zhongdu, including craftsmen, doctors, failed scholars, and retired veterans. He spent tens of thousands of taels of silver and recruited a total of 3,000 people. Then he led 200 boy scouts and these 3,000 people to Shandong.

The army traveled along the waterway at a fairly fast speed, but Yang Kang stopped at every place. He personally visited every larger city he passed by, left two or three failed scholars and five or six retired veterans, and bought a small courtyard as a contact point for future use.

The local authorities dared not offend this man, who had the audacity to lead his troops into the residence of a third-rank official in Zhongdu. If anyone accidentally angered this man, it would be a waste of their lives to lead his troops into the mansion and kill them. Furthermore, he had only left behind six or seven men, "bought" a house, and had strictly stipulated that they would "rent" a storefront in the future. The local authorities were submissive, promising full cooperation, and only then did they send a very satisfied Yang Kang away.

Of course, there are also people with good backgrounds who look down on Yang Kang. Once the two sides start to quarrel, Yang Kang will not be polite and will take action directly. He does not need his subordinates to take action. He can beat the opposite group of people with his bare hands. The Jin people have one advantage, that is, they worship the strong. Yang Kang uses practical actions to tell them that I am the strong one!

My fist is strong, and I am a tyrant. You are not willing to obey me. Why, do you want to give it a try?

It took nearly a month to reach Beihai City. Yang Kang's first order of business was to gather all the gentry. He had only one message: "I have purchased your land. All gentry and local tyrants will be transferred to industrial and commercial enterprises. Annual payments will be distributed based on the amount of land held, ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 taels." If you don't agree, get out of Jiaodong. Now, it was Wanyan Kang, the Marquis of Jiaodong, who was in charge.

As the saying goes, a powerful dragon cannot overpower a local snake. Unbeknownst to the local gentry, Yang Kang had already completely taken control of the local garrison a year earlier. Some surrendered on the spot, some asked for a few days' grace, and some stubbornly refused to budge. Yang Kang set a three-day deadline, after which he would forcibly collect the levy!

Then all the officials were called together, half of them were laid off on the spot, and the remaining half were all replaced. Then, 3,000 old and weak people were laid off from the local 8,000 troops, and 3,000 of the remaining 5,000 people were divided into naval forces and only 2,000 people were left in the army. However, the 1,000 retired veterans who came with them came in handy at this time.

As soon as Yang Kang issued a recruitment order, the two hundred boy scouts who had sneaked into Jiaodong before brought their men to join. In just five days, there were ten thousand more men, including three thousand naval forces and seven thousand land forces, all of whom were burly and strong men.

Then the Quanzhen Sect persuaded tens of thousands of people who had become bandits to surrender, retaining 20,000 usable people and distributing land to the rest to return to civilian life. Those stubborn gentry actually contacted thieves and bandits everywhere to try to resist. Three days later, Yang Kang led people to search their homes, publicized the letters of communication with bandits, and drove them all out.

However, Yang Kang did not exterminate the clan, nor did he kill even a single person. He simply allowed them to take away all their belongings, and confiscated all other books, land deeds, and properties.

Since ancient times, the victors have been kings and the losers have been bandits. Being able to keep the remaining wealth and escape unscathed, this group of gentry could not hate Yang Kang. However, those books were the foundation of family inheritance. After their earnest pleading, Yang Kang ordered someone to copy a copy and originally allowed them to take it away.

His "kindness and mercy" won the favor of other gentry, and his tyranny and tyranny won the submission of the Jin people. It's not that there were no troublemakers, but these people quickly collapsed under the charge of Yang Kang and the Boy Scout cavalry. All the captured rebels were forced to do labor reform to build bridges and roads.

Just one month after he took office, the territory was in turmoil and huge changes occurred. Just because they were allocated land, the people settled down. Those bad guys were able to jump around but could not make much waves. The bandits and horse thieves either surrendered or were captured in front of the Boy Scouts and Quanzhen Sect masters, and joined the army of labor reform, providing a large amount of free labor for the development of Jiaodong.

This month, Yang Kang not only did not earn a single tael of silver, but instead spent tens of thousands of taels. He then reorganized the navy and reorganized the army, each of which required a large amount of money. However, Yang Kang directly sent a fleet to escort a batch of sea salt to Zhongdu. This high-quality sea salt called snow salt immediately caused an uproar among the top leaders of the Jin Dynasty.

After learning that this was a fine product that Yang Kang had gathered hundreds of craftsmen for two years to research and develop, and that it required dozens of processes to create, and that the monthly output of a thousand people was only three thousand kilograms, he immediately gave up his thoughts.

They only saw that snow salt required a large investment but had a low output, but they did not see that a large amount of low-end crystal salt was also produced. It was slightly better than green salt, but the output was far higher. These low-end crystal salts were directly promoted by Yang Kang to the cities along the way, and the subordinates he had left behind found people to act as agents. They did not even need to do sales themselves, they were only responsible for communication and accounting.

Moreover, the price of these crystal salts is unified. If the price is raised or adulterated, the qualification will be revoked, and the supply will be reduced or not at all in the future. This measure made the officials of those cities very unhappy, but because the supply was not in their hands and they really couldn't afford to offend that gentleman, they had to accept it. Moreover, the profit margin left for them was as high as 100%, so it was naturally impossible to refuse such a business that was sure to make a profit.

Those enlightened gentry in Jiaodong all started making seafood, turning all the fish they caught into salted fish. Yang Kang provided the salt, recipe, and process, and he only took 20% of the net profit, a truly unscrupulous act. However, the fishing boats came from Yang Kang's shipyard, and all the fishing tools were also produced in Yang Kang's workshop. Even the fishing range and time were planned.

Immediately afterwards, Yang Kang started to catch kelp and seaweed on a large scale, and brought hundreds of chefs to study the preparation and storage of these things. Under Yang Kang's guidance, after a month of practice, they developed hundreds of dishes that could use these things, all of which were extremely delicious.

Yang Kang waved his hand and directly sent the thirty people with the best cooking skills to Zhongdu with a large amount of kelp, seaweed, sea cucumbers, fish, shrimp and crabs, preparing to open a Jiaodong seafood restaurant.

Yang Kang took Qiu Chuji to visit talented people everywhere. Shandong has been a gathering place for literati and scholars since ancient times, and they also took a detour to the hometown of Confucius and Mencius. However, the gains were not great. Instead, they caught a lot of horse thieves and bandits. Some of the more criminals were sent to labor reform, and those with ability and conscience were enlisted in the army.

Qiu Chuji saw that Yang Kang was extremely powerful and suppressed him with the army everywhere, but the result was that the people had fields, workers had workshops, merchants came in an endless stream, gentry welcomed him with smiles, and the army was full of fighting spirit. Under the tyranny, there was actually a hint of prosperity that could only be seen in prosperous times.

The navy acted directly as a merchant ship, using crystal salt to exchange for a large amount of silk and satin from the Song Dynasty, and then went to Liaodong to exchange for a large number of cattle and sheep. The navy's strong bows and crossbows hunted a large fish that was seven feet long, and one fish could feed ten thousand people. This big fish was full of treasures, and its skin was the best water-resistant clothing. The bones were made into specimens by Yang Kang and directly presented to the Jin emperor. The Jin emperor was very pleased and almost issued an order to exempt Jiaodong from taxes this year, but was stopped by the Jin ministers.

This is a bet that concerns Yang Kang's final title, and it cannot be treated so lightly.

Then, a Jiaodong seafood restaurant sprang up, using ingredients sourced from the sea, creating dishes that were surprisingly delicious and mouth-watering. Later, Prince Zhao's palace hosted a banquet featuring an entirely seafood menu, including sea cucumbers, abalone, lobster, and countless other delicacies. After the banquet, each guest was presented with a beautiful, foot-long conch, a promotional gift for Yang Kang that naturally delighted everyone.

The soup with kelp and seaweed is extremely delicious and there is no shortage of salt. Rich people naturally would not miss it. They also bought a lot of other sea vegetables and hired a chef who specializes in seafood.

This caused the demand for the cooks Yang Kang sent to be insufficient, so he sent a letter to each family to send their own cooks to Jiaodong to learn, and then return home after learning. The rich and powerful could do it. Even the poor could buy hard salted fish, which had both meat and salt, was easy to carry, and was simple to prepare because it was already cooked.