I Prayed for a Murim Reincarnation, But I Was Born as the Youngest Imperial Prince - Chapter 60

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 60
Whether Jun’s mind was dizzy or not, Seonwu continued his train of thought.
It wasn’t a Provincial Surveillance Commissioner who usually got along well with the Namgung Family Head, so if a research team was called directly from the central government, wouldn’t it be a more rigorous investigation?
“However, there’s no clause in the state law that says a draft must be cut below a certain amount.”
Seonwu smacked his lips.
But he wasn’t too worried.
They’re the ones who even took the Horn of Qingjuebiao, and they’re the ones who cut the draft to one year.
Those bastards who pressure other martial banks to cash that draft so they can only take 20% from them, wouldn’t they have anything else to shake out?
Something will come out.
Then it’ll be easy to add Gwaessimjoe after that.
Jun fanned his fan.
‘Wow, the Golden Dragon Guard Admiral, the Demon-Subduing Great Inner Power, is an existence that comes when called.’
He’s my friend, but he’s truly amazing.
He says he needs to do some investigation, so he’s telling the Golden Dragon Guard Admiral to come?
Of course, it requires the Emperor’s approval, but he’ll get it.
And when the Golden Dragon Guard Admiral comes….
Even the great Namgung Clan of the world, its Family Head and one of the Ten Great Masters of Wulin, the Azure Sky Sword尊, Namgung Un-seong, can’t do anything about it.
‘I don’t know who would win a one-on-one Life-or-Death Duel, but….’
One thing is for certain.
If the Namgung Family Head acts up relying on his martial arts in front of the Golden Dragon Guard Admiral.
The Ten Great Masters of Wulin could become nine masters.
And the Five Great Clans could become four clans.
The final ultimate move of the Imperial Court’s exclusive martial arts.
Because if the Extermination of Nine Generations for Treason Subjugation is activated, the great Namgung Clan of the world will also turn into a ruin that used to be a clan.
‘Even if the main target of this is Namgung….’
Once it starts poking around, there’s no law saying it won’t spread to other clans.
And the clan closest to Namgung is their own Zhuge Clan.
The other three are still a bit far away.
Very naturally, if they say let’s investigate the next one while we’re at it after investigating Namgung, it’s them.
Is the Zhuge Clan completely clean?
‘…….’
I’m not in a position to know everything about the family, but well, what would it be like?
‘Still, compared to other clans, our family tradition… is a bit better, right?’
I’m confident in that.
But in the eyes of a righteous chivalrous xia, wouldn’t it be fifty steps and a hundred steps?
‘That’s an unexpectedly big difference, though.’
While Jun was rolling his brain hard, Seonwu smiled brightly.
“Thanks for confirming. If it’s true, I can call him without burden. But is Namgung’s tyranny only this kind of trick? Do you know anything more?”
Jun realized that this very moment was the moment of a [Plea Bargain].
“First of all, I’ll tell you everything I know, so….”
“So?”
“Could you refrain from having the Golden Dragon Guard Admiral come all the way to our house? I’m afraid it’ll put a strain on my elderly father’s heart.”
“Huh? Why is your house coming up? What I’m trying to investigate is Namgung.”
“Uh, right?”
Jun smiled.
Of course, since Seonwu is only focused on Namgung right now, he wasn’t stupid enough not to know there’s no law saying his thoughts won’t extend to Zhuge or other clans later.
“Other tyranny… Come to think of it, the Namgung Clan Iron Workshop….”
“The Iron Workshop?”
“I heard they secretly stole a certain craftsman’s family secret method and didn’t give any compensation.”
“Really?”
“Unlike the draft, this isn’t certain. I also heard it through the grapevine.”
“Hmm, indeed. That sounds like real theft, doesn’t it?”
“But if they insist that they found out through independent research, it’ll be extremely difficult to get evidence for this case, you know?”
That’s certainly true.
Because there’s no law saying they can’t catch up with the same vision later by truly researching it.
If it’s the scale of the Namgung Clan Iron Workshop, it’s not an impossible thing even more so.
While telling on them, Jun internally did a self-check.
‘Still, our family didn’t steal anyone’s technology and wipe their mouth.’
We didn’t, right?
When we actually dig into it, something I don’t know won’t just pop out, right?
“Anything else?”
“Anything else, um… Is it that it’s not easy for a sangdan that doesn’t look at the Namgung Clan’s face to operate normally in Anhui Province? But this could also be seen as a protection fee… When you get to about the Five Great Clans, they don’t rip off pennies from small business owners like the Unorthodox Factions do, but….”
They receive an appropriate tribute bribe from a large sangdan of a certain size.
Whether that tribute bribe is a reasonable protection fee in this world where martial force is rampant.
Or whether it’s tyranny extorted by putting forward a sword.
That line was a fairly ambiguous and gray area.
However, it wasn’t a complete lie that the Orthodox Factions were generous to the people who had nothing compared to the Unorthodox Factions.
On average, that is.
“Hmm, I think there’ll be more….”
Just what you said is not enough to shake them out….
“Do they pay taxes properly?”
The moment Seonwu brought up the word ‘tax’, a big and beautiful red [Button] floated in Jun’s head.
Press.
The Fifth Prince pressed it.
“Haha, well?”
‘Our family wouldn’t have paid it all properly either.’
Jun hasn’t seen the account books related to that yet because he’s not qualified.
However, guessing from the way things were going, it didn’t seem like they would have paid it all.
‘If tax evasion is applied, all the Five Great Clans will be caught.’
Will only the Five Great Clans be caught?
All the clan-level groups below them will be caught too.
Even in modern times when the National Tax Service monitors all kinds of transactions and money flowing back and forth, tax administrative power has limits, let alone the tax administrative power of this era, which was obvious.
In reality, the country’s most important income was the ‘Elixir Monopoly’.
But taxes….
‘I don’t know either.’
Jun gave up thinking any further.
This was now a matter for Seonwu to decide how far he would go.
Only after Seonwu drew that line would he be able to rub in somehow.
“Anyway, if we call them and open it up, everything will come out, right?”
“Everything will come out.”
“Knowing ten things by seeing one, it was already extraordinary when they took the Horn of Qingjuebiao in that way.”
Seonwu nodded, agreeing with his own words.
Jun wondered how much the Namgung Clan would pay for the price of that horn.
‘Two thousand taels. No, they earned fifteen hundred taels….’
Instead, how much will they spit out?
“Come to think of it, subjugating demonic monsters is a laborious task, but there must be a way it makes money like this, and I doubt if Namgung shared such combat exploits fairly with weak sects? Don’t tell me there’s more among what Namgung claimed to have subjugated that was actually taking away the exploit of what someone else subjugated?”
“…Mm, if there’s one, there could be ten.”
Jun was deeply worried if our family didn’t do that.
‘But honestly, I think our family won’t get caught in that case….’
Because it was annoying that someone intervened in the subjugation in that way.
But he has never seen a conversation going back and forth saying that they received exploits and spoils of war.
There is something called family tradition, isn’t there?
Unless his father and a few elders were doing some secret experiment behind his back without his knowledge.
Because in this situation, they don’t teach to naturally take away the exploit.
Conversely, Namgung taught that in times like this, the great Namgung should naturally receive it.
‘Nammyeon to govern the country, hence Namgung.’
If you trace back their ancestors, they were the Zhao family who ruled the Song.
Now they only hide the past under the name of the Imperial Sword Form, and they didn’t openly use the surname Zhao as it is, but changed it to Namgung, though.
Namgung was also the name of a palace that actually existed in the Song Dynasty.
Or maybe it’s to keep the name Southern Song.
Anyway, before the previous Yuan Dynasty, the blood of those who were imperial royalty in the pre-previous dynasty flowed, and the most recent golden age among the current martial clans was theirs, so their nose bridge was high.
On the other hand, their Zhuge Clan sets up Zhuge Wuhou, who has never been an emperor from the beginning, as their origin.
Therefore, even from their martial arts, even if they discuss the principles of the Eight Trigrams that illuminate the world, they will not look toward the emperor.
‘Being humble is the best.’
As a result, it doesn’t bring disaster like this, does it?
Still, let’s rub in advance.
“Seonwu-ya.”
“Yeah?”
“I have something to confess honestly.”
“What is it?”
“If you shake us out thoroughly for tax evasion, our family will also have corners that will get caught.”
“The Zhuge Clan?”
Jun nodded.
Rather than hearing how you could do that later, it’s better to confess in advance when this becomes a topic.
“What. You guys too?”
“Because everyone thinks it’s foolish to obediently pay it all. There are so many things entangled in this that if you dig into it, there won’t be a family that doesn’t come out.”
“Is this the limit of the administrative power of this era?”
“Right. There’s no [Credit Card], and there’s no [Computerized System].”
If Seonwu says he’s going to the end, indeed, if all families are searched, traces of tax evasion will come out.
“Paddy fields and dry fields are clearly visible to the eye, but even those have Eungyeol, so how about commerce and industry?”
It’s hard for the government to know exactly how much was sold and how much was bought.
They have no choice but to trust the transaction amount and profit as reported by each family.
Of course, local officials are not complete fools either.
Even looking with eyes, business is doing very well, but if you say such nonsense that there’s no earnings at all, they naturally won’t be fooled.
However, what if you sold a thousand bolts of silk but said you only sold eight hundred bolts?
Honestly, would the Prefect sit in the store and count the number of silks sold all year round?
A deception of this level is truly difficult to know from the outside.
Even modern people, if XX Group releases a sales disclosure saying they sold a certain amount of ramen, they just think so.
How do they verify whether they actually sold that much, or sold more or less than that?
Of course, in modern times, the National Tax Service has much more to look into.
There are many means to cross-examine.
But in this era, they have neither the capacity nor the means to do so.
Going a bit further, what about five hundred bolts?
Even if it’s cut in half, it’s hard for the Prefect himself to know.
The people working underneath know how flourishing that silk store is, so even so, it seems like there should be more than that?
They would harbor such doubts, but that’s as far as it goes.
Before actually looking through the real account books, it’s difficult.
“And you also feed them an appropriate tribute bribe.”
Instead of paying the tax for five hundred bolts, which is less than the tax to be paid when selling a thousand bolts, they pay a certain amount to local officials telling them not to look deep into it.
Shall we call it an unofficial tax that doesn’t go to the state treasury but is paid to the government?
Jun obediently explained the principle of how it works to Seonwu.
Looking at it as the ‘whole clan’, it’s a betrayal where the Zhuge Clan confesses on their own.
But looking at it as friendship with a friend, not explaining it here is a betrayal.
And which of the two is heavier….
Isn’t friendship carried over from a past life first?
First of all, that friendship was stronger.
Honestly, Jun could confidently say before the heavens and ancestors that even if Seonwu had been born into a family of ordinary people with nothing, he would have continued the same friendship as before.
But in front of Seonwu, who was born as a prince and enfeoffed with a Princely Title….
‘Hmm….’
It’s not that I doubt friendship, but the weather in the sky is fickle.
“Hmm, in the end, it means the taxation of the Great Long Empire is loose.”
“It’s not particularly like that only now, the previous Yuan Dynasty was loose, the Song Dynasty was loose, and Dang, Han, Jin, Ju, Eun. All were loose.”
“Ugh, is this the limit of the era?”
“Thoroughly shaking out a specific clan would be possible, but perfectly collecting the overall tax is truly impossible.”
“Mmm.”
“And in the first place, it’s a tax system created with a certain amount of consideration.”
Jun wasn’t blindly defending tax evasion, but he tried hard to defend the clan, saying that reality cannot be ignored.
Looking by the standards of modern Korea, tax evasion is a real problem, but if the tax system of this era wasn’t done moderately, even the people couldn’t endure it.
“If you try to do all taxation precisely at once, the wulin, the people, and even the officials will scream that they can’t live. That’s… not because I’m a member of a clan, but it won’t be good for the country either.”
Seonwu also understood what he meant.
If they band together and start a rebellion, that’s not good.
“Do you have a strategy to suggest?”
“Let’s thoroughly make them think this is aimed only at the Namgung Clan.”
Naturally, our Zhuge Clan steps out.
Jun decided to throw Namgung as a sacrifice for the safety of his family.
In the first place, at the point when they took away by force the Horn of Qingjuebiao that the Prince himself subjugated, isn’t all the disaster they suffer natural retribution?
The loyalty of the same Five Great Clans?
Honestly, aren’t they the ones who used to roll their heads a bit at the main house, but roll it back saying their martial arts are not much?
Thinking about it again, there was nothing like grand loyalty.
Jian Long isn’t close to him either.
Look how he hasn’t shown his face until now, even though it’s been a while since he came saying he was doing maintenance work.
It means you, Jiryong Prince, who is low in grade, should come to greet first, right?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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