Chapter 479: Robbery
As a ruler, one must have a forward-looking vision.

Otherwise, we will fall behind at every step, such as the issue of expanding the city of Jinling.

At present, Jinling, although of a high rank within the Great Zhou Dynasty, is a “prefecture” level above prefectures and counties, is also a fairly large city. In the entire Jiangdong, perhaps only Qiantang can be compared with Jinling.

This is also the reason why Li Yun chose Nanjing as his base at first sight.

But even so, with the expansion of Li’s power, even if the current Jinling is enough, the future Jinling will definitely not be enough.

Two years ago, when Li Yun just took over Jinling, the total number of people living in Jinling city was less than 200,000.

The entire Jinling Prefecture, including the counties under it, should have a total of about 100,000 households.

A city of this scale was considered absolutely large and quite rare in the late dynasty.

After all, it had been a long time since Jinling last served as the capital, and even when it was the capital before, it was just the capital of a secluded dynasty.

As Li’s power stabilized and the salt-introduction system attracted many salt merchants and many people who migrated from the Central Plains to Jinling, the population of Jinling city has now increased by tens of thousands.

Moreover, according to the current trend, the population may continue to increase, and then the existing city will not be enough.

Jinling is definitely an extremely important city for Li Yun. If he can unify the world in the future, it is hard to say whether this place will become his capital. But if he cannot unify the world, this place will definitely become his capital.

And if he really had the destiny and accomplished great things, Jinling would at least become a secondary capital, so building this ancient city would become a natural thing to do.

Du Qian had only mentioned it casually. After all, Jinling was not particularly crowded at the moment. He had not expected Li Yun to react so strongly. He was stunned for a moment, then said with a smile, “Sir, Zhuo Guangrui meant to expand the city to the south and increase the size of the existing city by another 30%. This way, even if Jinling’s population increases in the future, it will be able to accommodate them.”

Li Yun thought about it and suddenly said, “I think that Jinling City can be bigger. For example, we can double its current size. It would be best if it could become a giant city that can accommodate a million people in the future.”

“A population of one million…”

Du Qian’s expression froze when he heard this, and he sighed silently.

During the Zhou Dynasty, there were once two huge cities with a population of one million, but now they no longer exist.

One was once the capital, and the other was once Luoyang. Both were destroyed by Wang Junping and in the war.

When the capital city was at its peak more than a hundred years ago, its population once approached two million, so that even the prime minister could not afford to buy a house and could only rent one in the capital city.

Before Wang Junping’s rebellion, the capital had a population of nearly one million. But when Du Qian returned to the capital last time, the population was less than 400,000.

After Du Qian sighed in his heart, he looked at Li Yun and said, “Master, I don’t think we need to take such a big step. Expanding the city is a big project, which is time-consuming and laborious. If we make Jinling City too big, many places will be abandoned in the future.”

He looked at Li Yun and said, “Your ambition is not to stay in the southeast. In the future, you will look to the Central Plains, and even to Guanzhong. Once you take over the Central Plains, you will have the huge city of Luoyang available.”

“If we take Guanzhong, we will have a huge capital city…”

Li Yun thought for a moment and said softly, “Those are too far away, and… may not be appropriate.”

Li Yun was not clear about what kind of world this was, but he was very clear about one thing: both the historical process and the geographical environment were somewhat similar to the Li Tang Dynasty in his original world.

If the historical process continues in a similar way, then in the next one or two hundred years, the precipitation belt will move slightly eastward, causing the east to gradually prosper.

It is really hard to say where the capital will be built at that time.

“Anyway.”

Li Yun smiled and said, “I strongly support the expansion of the city. Southeast also needs a huge city to serve as the core of Southeast.”

Du Qian thought about it and nodded, “Okay, I’ll discuss this with Zhuo Guangrui in a few days. I think we can start construction after the New Year and the beginning of spring.” Li Yun nodded gently and said, “In the future, I will need a long time to digest the territory in the southeast and carry out a new round of military expansion.”

“During this period, Brother Shouyi has worked hard.”

He offered Du Qian a cup of tea and said with a smile, “I will find a few subordinates for Brother Shouyi as soon as possible to help him.”

As the territory expanded, expanding the army was also an urgent matter. With only 40,000 troops, they could not cover such a large territory, and could not be the opponent of those Jiedushi.

However, the expansion of the army cannot be solved by blindly recruiting soldiers. Li Yun needs to determine the location of the military camp, the candidates for leading the troops, and determine the number of people in each army.

These are not things that can be accomplished overnight.

Du Qian smiled bitterly and said, “Master, I don’t want any subordinates. Just find a few capable people to work with me as a director.”

Li Yun shook his head and said with a smile: “This is a critical moment. We need someone to take charge of political affairs. Otherwise, everything will be dragged out and too slow.”

“Until we are completely settled, Brother Shouyi will always be the backbone of our Jiangdong government affairs.”

If a team wants to be efficient, it must have someone whose words have complete influence, or someone who has the final say.

Especially in the initial stage and development stage, this person who can be “dictatorial” is very important.

The dictator of the entire Jiangdong is naturally Li Yun, but when it comes to political affairs, Li Yun still trusts Du Qian very much, and he is willing to leave the political affairs to Li Yun.

If Li Yun really finds a colleague and lets them make big decisions together, there will naturally be no big problems if the two of them can get along well. If they don’t get along well, eventually their controversial issues will end up on Li Yun’s desk.

In the Jinling government office, the two men drank tea while deciding various important matters in Jiangdong.

On the other side, in the capital city, dark clouds covered the sky and heavy snow began to fall.

The entire capital city was covered in snow, turning it into a huge white city. On the streets and neighborhoods of the city, only a few people could be vaguely seen walking around, like little ants on snow-white rice paper.

At this time, a bright red sedan was carried from the back door into a wealthy family. The sedan went all the way into the inner courtyard and was soon carried into a bedroom in the backyard that was lit by a fire.

In the sedan chair was a young girl of about 28 years old. Her hands had been tied with red cloth. Two maids came out and carried her into the bedroom.

There were four stoves lit in the bedroom, making the whole room as warm as spring.

General Wei’s son, Major General Wei Yao, was sitting on the edge of the bed with a majestic posture. He was only wearing a robe, completely naked underneath, and had a bright smile on his face.

“Remove her armor.”

The two maids were very efficient. They quickly stripped the woman naked and sent her to the major general’s bed.

…

In the winter of the second year of Zhaoding, the girl of the Zhu family, who was originally going to be sent to the palace, was kidnapped halfway and sent directly to the residence of General Wei and to the room of Major General Wei Yao.

Three days later, Wei Yao took Zhu as his concubine.

For a moment, the capital was in an uproar.

　This chapter was written mainly because I spent a long time looking up precipitation zones and the population of Nanjing during the Tang Dynasty. So I was a little late and the number of words is a little less. Please forgive me, brothers.

　
(End of this chapter)