Songhai City, the City Lord's Mansion, oh no, it should be called the Lord's Mansion now.

On this day, Shaoyang, the new lord of the Northern Wilderness, summoned the city lord of the sixteen cities of the Northern Wilderness.

Among them, Xihe City was slaughtered by werewolves, the people in the city were almost slaughtered, and the city lord was killed in battle.

Therefore, there are actually only fifteen city lords left in the sixteen cities of the Northern Wilderness, among which the city lord of Songhai City is still Shaoyang.

However, the city lords who arrived found that among the fifteen seats prepared under the hall, there were two people who were not city lords, one was the cousin of Greg, the city lord of Tiemu City, and the other was also known by most of them, Xu Tianyuan, the head of the Xu family in Songhai City.

Seeing this arrangement, they immediately understood the meaning of the Third Highness, it is estimated that the new city lord of Songhai City is Xu Tianyuan, and the eyes that looked at Xu Tianyuan were instantly different, no matter what they thought in their hearts, they were full of goodwill and a little stammering.

The Xu family was originally a big force in the Northern Wilderness, but after taking refuge in Shaoyang in the past few years, its strength has increased by leaps and bounds, not to mention anything else, the ability to make money alone is stronger than the family forces of the other eleven cities combined.

Now Xu Tianyuan wants to become the city lord of Songhai City, and even his status on the surface is completely equal to them, so they can't afford not to treat it carefully.

In fact, when making a choice for the new city lord of Songhai City, Shaoyang also hesitated for a long time, although Xu Tianyuan was a good choice, but he was more inclined to appoint a summoned military general earlier.

After all, Songhai City is a sure thing as the provincial capital of the Northern Wilderness, and the position of the city lord is extremely important, not that he doubts the loyalty of the Xu family, but the absolute loyalty of the summoned generals is more reassuring.

Of course, the candidate is not Xu Shu and other top or first-class generals, they will not be able to stay in the Northern Wilderness Territory in the future, but choose one from the Shi family's father and son, this person and Li Dian will Yongzhen Frontier in Shaoyang's plan to guard against the orc tribe.

Now that Li Dian is already an eighth-level warrior, the people of the Shi family have also stepped into the seventh-level at least, and when Shaoyang leaves the Northern Wilderness Territory, he may not be able to go further, with their strength and the systematic army, it will definitely be enough to deal with the orcs.

In the end, at Xu Shu's suggestion, Shaoyang gave up this plan, the main reason was that there was a shortage of manpower, and the Shi family could be in charge of one party's government affairs, in fact, there were only two of them, both of whom became Xu Shu's right-hand man, and it was a bit of a waste to stay in the Northern Wilderness Territory as a city lord, and even to be in charge of the entire Northern Wilderness Territory's government affairs.

It is better to let the local nobles or nobles transferred from other places serve as the city lords, as before, so that the first choice will fall to the Xu family, who took refuge and gave a lot of help.

Today's Songhai City is incredible, the scale is already a big city in the Northern Chu Kingdom, and more importantly, the development potential is definitely one of the best, even if it will decline with Shaoyang leaving in the future, but it can definitely maintain the scale of the big city, no worse than any city except the White Emperor City, Xu Tianyuan is also quite surprised to be able to obtain the position of the city lord.

Among the fifteen city lords, Songhai City, Donghe City, Yangguan City, and Wilderness City were obviously Shaoyang's people, and the other city lords didn't know anything, so although they showed kindness and stammering, they didn't dare to really talk to the four of them, and faintly isolated them.

When the remaining city lords were talking, many people secretly looked at each other and secretly attacked and defended each other, among which Greg's cousin was the most active, and he teased all the city lords except for Xu Tianyuan one by one.

Those city lords didn't talk for long, and Shaoyang appeared on the stage, and with him appeared Xu Shu, the Minister of State of the Northern Wilderness, Guo Jia, the Minister of Military Affairs, Zhao Yun, several army commanders, and officials from the six departments.

"As the lord of the Northern Wilderness, he naturally wants to build the Northern Wilderness more prosperously, and he summons all the city lords to come today, one is to get to know you, and the other is to have a few decrees to announce, hoping that the cities can cooperate with each other. Shaoyang looked at the city lords, and although his words were plain, he had an unquestionable momentum.

Because of Shaoyang's age, those city lords were more or less contemptuous, but this time it shocked many of them, and several guys who were a little cautious and not firm enough immediately dispelled their thoughts.

Next, it was impossible for Shaoyang to read out the decree, and an official from the Ministry of Rites stood up, and those city lords knew that the few decrees Shaoyang said were by no means just a few.

Not to mention the appointment of Xu Shu, Guo Jia and others, the six divisions of the yamen were set up in each city, and a large number of chief officials were dispatched.

Fortunately, after weighing it for a while, they can accept it, because they can't completely control the power departments of the entire city, but divide it with the nobles in the city, so they won't necessarily lose much power.

But the next decree or military order scared them.

"Incorporate the city guards into the garrison corps, and the garrison corps will take over the defense of each city. ”

This is to deprive them of their military power, so that every city lord who has not yet taken refuge in Shaoyang feels frightened and loses control of the city guards, as long as Shaoyang is dissatisfied with them in the future, as long as Shaoyang is dissatisfied, an order, the garrison army can immediately dispatch to take them, almost putting their lives in Shaoyang's hands.

This military order instantly turned into a big stone blocking their chests, pressing them out of breath, and even the subsequent decrees on reclaiming farmland, building roads, and unifying taxes were despised.

After making eye contact, someone quickly jumped out.

"Your Highness, it's a good thing to build roads, but I'm afraid our cities are financially empty and can't afford this money. "No one can see the benefits of the road, and it's asking for money.

"It's a good idea to unify taxes, but it's not okay to exempt agricultural taxes, and without agricultural taxes, there won't be a lot of money left in taxes. ”

The latest people are looking for inconsequential faults, and their main purpose is to test Shaoyang to see if he will be angry because they have different opinions.

The results obviously made them happy, and Shaoyang did not show a trace of dissatisfaction with these opinions, but asked the officials of the relevant departments in charge to come forward to explain.

The money lords who built the roads were out of the house, and the cities only had to be responsible for the signage of a group of laborers.

The agricultural tax will not be abolished immediately, but will be gradually reduced, during which the lord's palace will support the cities to establish various industries, generate more commercial revenues, increase taxes, and eventually eliminate them altogether when there are enough commercial taxes.

Most of the city lords suddenly had a smile on their faces, they hadn't noticed how much benefit these decrees would bring to the cities just now, but now that they realized it, their eyes lit up green, and they couldn't wait to start implementing it immediately.

But the big stone was not forgotten, and they looked at each other, counting on someone else's appearance, and at last Greg's cousin had to stand up.

"Your Highness, I'm afraid this decree to incorporate the city guards is inappropriate, most of those city guards are the children of the nobles of the cities, and they have been spoiled one by one, and they may not obey the discipline if they join the garrison legion, it is better to keep the original city guards, which is enough to ensure the defense of each city. ”

Shaoyang's face did not show dissatisfaction, two or three were persuaded by Greg's cousin, and the city lords who were more closely related to him also supported him when they saw it, and although the other city lords did not speak, they obviously had the same opinion on their looks.

As for Xu Tianyuan and the others, they have already been signaled, no matter what happens today, don't make any moves, just watch quietly from the sidelines, anyway, those government affairs in the four cities have already started to be implemented, and they actually have nothing to do with them.

Tiemucheng or Greg's idea is very simple, he has offended Shaoyang before, and now Shaoyang has become the lord of the Northern Wilderness, worried that Shaoyang will trouble him, and he doesn't think Shaoyang dares to use the army, and he is not worried, but he is afraid that Shaoyang will clean him up through formal means such as government decrees.

What happened in White Emperor City was deliberately blocked, how did they, the little nobles of the frontier, know, that Greg only knew that Shaoyang had become the lord of the Northern Wilderness, and he didn't know that he was almost the status of the next king, and he was afraid of Shaoyang but didn't really realize the consequences of offending Shaoyang.

In line with the idea that the law does not hold the people accountable, Greg plans to form an offensive and defensive alliance with other city lords to influence the decisions of the Northern Wilderness Territory, so as to seek a situation that is beneficial to himself.

Even Greg still had some ambitions, wanting to seek the interests of certain industries in Songhai City through the alliance of various cities, such as profiteering tea, glass, etc., and it was precisely for this reason that two or three city lords cooperated very closely with Greg under the desire for profit.

Shaoyang looked at the most active people and smiled, without saying anything, at this time, Li Dian, who was the commander of the garrison corps, spoke.

"Since they don't obey discipline, it's useless to keep them, so they will all be dismissed, and our garrison corps will recruit another person. ”

The meaning of these words is obvious, the city guards are still absorbed, and those so-called family children will all get out if they don't want to do it.

"This general, this is not appropriate, if you reform the children of those families, it will inevitably cause dissatisfaction among all families, and it will be difficult for the city lords to control it at that time, a city may be nothing, once the family forces of more than a dozen cities are dissatisfied, it will not end well. ”

Cousin Greg felt that Shaoyang and they would not fail to hear their own hints, if they really wanted to absorb the city guards, the family forces of more than a dozen cities would make trouble, even if Shaoyang was the lord and prince, there was no way to easily calm the dissatisfaction of each family.

This is a blatant implication that we are already united, please retract this decree.

"Who are you?" Shaoyang's voice suddenly sounded, and those city lords always felt a chill in their ears when they heard it.

Greg didn't expect the response he would get to be such a sentence, he sighed in his heart, suppressed the uneasiness in his heart, and responded to Shaoyang respectfully, "His Royal Highness Qiqi, here is the cousin of the city lord of Tiemu City, my brother is seriously ill and bedridden, and he can't come to see His Highness, let me represent him with full powers." ”

"So you are not the city lord of the Northern Wilderness Territory?presumptuous, when will Lone allow the city lords to send people to represent themselves, since you are not the city lord, you still dare to make a big deal of nonsense here, do you know the guilt?" Shaoyang's voice became colder and colder.

From the moment he planned to control the entire Northern Wilderness Territory, he knew that these city lords might not be obedient, in order to deter them, it was impossible to kill chickens and monkeys, and in order to find this chicken, Pulit secretly understood the thoughts and plans of these city lords.

The grievances between Tiemucheng and Songhai City are not big, but Shaoyang has not forgotten it, and now that they have taken the initiative to jump out, Shaoyang is very happy.

Greg asked for sick leave, even if he knew that he was pretending to be sick, there was no way, Shaoyang couldn't directly investigate his fault, he couldn't send someone to check if he was sick, he really sent someone, he just needed to say that his illness was just cured.

So although he had long known that Greg's cousin had been colluding with other city lords in private, Shaoyang did not start to clean him up first, and planned to stay until this time, and wait for him to leave some tricks before killing chickens and monkeys to deter those city lords with bad intentions.

Cousin Greg felt a chill coming, his whole body began to tremble, and he thought of many words of defense, but he couldn't open his mouth, and in the end he could only keep saying the words of the villain's guilt.

Some city lords complained in their hearts, it was impossible for Shaoyang, the identity of Greg's cousin, not to know, if he was really not allowed to represent Greg, why didn't he come in in the first place, why wait for this time to accuse, it was obviously deliberate.

However, although Shaoyang's accusation against Greg's cousin is a bit far-fetched, it is really reasonable to say, every one of those city lords dares to intercede for him, and even the two or three city lords who plan to work closely with him dare not send a fart.

"Guilty, since you are guilty, you will be blamed for all the crimes you have committed. Shaoyang sneered, invisibly with some kind of power, Cousin Greg suddenly became very honest, and he was too honest.

"I shouldn't have instigated the cities to oppose His Highness's decrees, but Greg forced me to do so, because he was afraid that His Highness would trouble him, so he pretended to be sick and asked me to come to Songhai City on his behalf. ”

"I shouldn't have had an affair with Greg's concubine, I shouldn't have murdered someone else's family for the sake of stealing their family business... When I was eight years old, I shouldn't have peeked at my sister next door taking a shower..."

Shaoyang didn't expect that he would use his spiritual sense to induce the other party to tell the truth, and so much content would be exposed, in addition to being speechless, he also completely dispelled his idea of not killing Greg's cousin, this thing is by no means a good person, and it is not too much to kill.

"Someone, take him down and put him on death row, and when Greg is caught and interrogated clearly, they will be executed together. Shaoyang directly sentenced Greg's cousin to death.

When those city lords reacted that Shaoyang wanted to clean up with Greg, they couldn't help but have the sad idea of the rabbit dying and the fox, but no one dared to plead, for fear that Shaoyang would take him down.

Shaoyang suddenly turned his gaze back to the other city lords, "What else do you think about those decrees just now?"

Where do they dare to have an opinion, they don't want to be taken down like Cousin Greg, these people can become the city lord but they are not ordinary people, although they can't see the specific situation, but they can guess that Cousin Greg's behavior just now is definitely abnormal.

The city lords who are most likely to oppose Shaoyang have ghosts in their hearts, for fear that they will accidentally spit out a lot of their own crimes, and if there is no thorn, those decrees will be completely arranged, as for whether the specific implementation will be smooth, the officials of the relevant departments will be responsible, so there is no need for Shaoyang to worry, he just needs to wait for the final result.