CH 152

On the sixteenth day of the purge, most of the wealthy in Huai Town had been thoroughly cleaned out.

Lin Wen had never imagined that in the poorest county of the empire, there could be over 200 wealthy families with assets exceeding one million.

Huai Town had a total population of 430,000, and the purge involved about 10,000 people, a proportion that was not low at all.

Among them, those who were completely corrupt were directly exterminated along with their families. Those who were not completely corrupt were arrested and handed over to Fang Yaobo for investigation.

Those who were half-corrupt also had their homes raided and were punished.

Those with a corruption ratio of more than one-tenth were all handed over to Fang Yaobo for punishment, fines, and confiscation of illegal gains.

Those with a corruption ratio of less than one-tenth, Lin Wen let go.

But this was only a very small part.

In less than half a month, almost all the powerful and influential people in Huai Town were wiped out.

The county government's income reached 2.9 billion, and there were even more unsold real estate and confiscated goods.

To put it into perspective, the total income of Changshan County last year was only 20 million. In just half a month, they had collected more than a hundred years' worth of taxes for Changshan County.

If Lin Wen had followed his original plan, which was to extort every fish and drain every drop of oil, the number would have been much higher, but that would have taken too long.

Lin Wen now believed that efficiency was the priority.

Because.

Lin Wen's plan was not over, on the contrary, it had just begun.

Changshan County was a poor, backward, remote, and vast mountainous area with many hidden places.

It was a smuggler's paradise, with every characteristic perfectly fitting the needs of smuggling. It was the best smuggling haven in the entire empire, second only to the Silver Triangle.

Smuggling activities in Changshan County were rampant. The former sheriff had tried to control it, but soon stopped without any reason.

He never mentioned it again.

Now, after many years, another more powerful purge had begun.

But in Huai Town, there were only some small and medium-sized forces. The more powerful and vicious gangs would not set up their bases in the bustling Huai Town.

Instead, they hid in the vast mountains to the west.

There, the mountains were steep, the traffic was blocked, and there were countless places to hide.

Many drug traffickers, human traffickers, wanted fugitives, criminal gangs, and anti-empire organizations were hidden there.

The most extreme thing was that there was a 1,800-kilometer-long river, the Tian River, which led to the Da Long River, the main river of the empire, connecting more than a third of the major cities in the empire.

Once they reached the Da Long River, they could go almost anywhere.

This was a paradise for lawbreakers, and countless filth of the empire was hidden there.

Lin Wen's ultimate goal was them.

However, without relevant information and any basis, it would be very costly to use magic to ask about their hiding places, and Lin Wen could not afford it.

Therefore, Lin Wen's goal was to force them out for negotiations by strictly controlling Huai Town and cutting off any smuggling channels.

As long as Lin Wen met the people, he would have basic information, and the magic would have an anchor point, and the consumption would quickly decrease. The more he knew about them, the more the consumption would decrease.

Until Lin Wen could bear it.

Then, the "Questioning the Heaven" would completely expose their secrets.

Once their secrets were exposed, Lin Wen would wipe out their bases like he did with the Lei Gang, while gaining a large amount of good karma and confiscated money.

Perfect.

This was the fundamental reason why Lin Wen never worried about financial issues and dared to take in hundreds of thousands of workers.

The purge operation had now entered a covert phase. There were still many invisible wealthy people hiding under the surface of Huai Town, and Qin Luoshuang was doing her best to track them down.

The control was relaxed, and Huai Town had returned to normal on the surface.

But the underground checks were still extremely strict, and all exit checkpoints, stations, docks, and platforms maintained a high level of alert.

Lin Wen knew that as long as he choked off the exit channels, it would be equivalent to choking off their lifelines, and they would have to come.

At the same time, Qin Luoshuang was doing her best to block the news.

But because the action was too big, it was almost impossible to keep it a secret.

In order to avoid being attacked politically, Qin Luoshuang thought of many ways to cover it up. Although most of them were guilty, many of the rich people's actions did not warrant such severe punishment under the empire's laws.

So Qin Luoshuang made up a story of rebellion for all of them and made a lot of fake evidence.

All of this fake evidence pointed to the Qin Clan in the Southwest Military Region.

With Qin Luoshuang's deep understanding of the Qin Clan, a lot of internal information that outsiders would find hard to know was mixed into the fake evidence.

With this information, even the fake evidence looked real.

In case these cases were used by Yu Zhongxian to make trouble for Lin Wen at the ministerial meeting in the empire's headquarters in the future, this evidence could play a decisive role.

As soon as it was brought up, the case would become a big deal and would immediately be handed over to the Supreme Elder Council.

And the elders would definitely not ask her father, Qin Gang, about it.

In the empire, the affairs of each military region were absolutely high-pressure lines that would not be touched casually.

If a small chaos occurred in one of the seven military regions, a big chaos would occur in the empire.The Southwest Military Region was always the most unstable factor.

Last time, she took advantage of her intimate knowledge of the family's internal defense mechanism and stole a portion of highly enriched uranium powder from Qin Gang's secret centrifuge laboratory.

After delivering the stolen uranium powder to the elders, the Supreme Elder Council was probably brewing a plan to deal with the Southwest Military Region.

Before this, they wouldn't bother the supreme commander of the Southwest Military Region over trivial matters.

You should know.

Nuclear weapons are the empire's biggest secret. The imperial department has high hopes for them, hoping to create a secret weapon of great power to secure victory in one fell swoop.

However.

The biggest problem at the moment is that the refining process of uranium, the key fuel for nuclear weapons, is not going smoothly.

The empire has not found a particularly efficient method, and scientists are also divided on the construction of nuclear bombs, with many scientists holding opposing views.

They believe that humans will never be able to release the energy within the atomic nucleus in their lifetime.

However, Qin Luoshuang knew that most of these people were supported by Yu Zhongxian's gang. Their goal was to get the empire to invest more funds into biochemical research.

Therefore, there is still an undercurrent within the empire, which is the confrontation between the physical weapons faction and the biochemical modification faction.

How to use the waves of these rapids to cover up Lin Wen's "crimes" is what Qin Luoshuang has been thinking about recently.

Unlike Lin Wen, who is full of confidence, and Qin Luoshuang, who has a clear train of thought.

Those political opportunists who had come to join them were all in a state of doubting their lives.

In their view, Lin Wen's actions were completely insane. What kind of logic is it that anyone who is rich is guilty?

This is not how extortion works. You should unite with the local gentry and the rich to scrape money off the common people. If the common people rebel, the gentry will help you suppress them. If something happens in the future, you will be clean.

Doing this not only results in blood on your hands, but also offends countless people!

Which rich person doesn't have some connections? What if a few of them have strong connections? Wouldn't that be adding a powerful enemy for no reason?

The imperial officialdom will absolutely not allow such a sheriff to exist.

Lin Wen's approach is completely cutting off his own future, and he will soon be impeached and removed from office.

However, it is absolutely impossible for them to leave. This means that their huge investment has all sunk to the bottom of the sea.

This is unacceptable.

What if,

What if there is a glimmer of hope?

What if Sheriff Lin can turn danger into safety?

If they give up now, it would be tantamount to directly admitting failure, and their all-in gamble has lost.

Gamblers will never admit they have lost.

Therefore, during this period, they abandoned their prejudices and exchanged ideas every day on how to turn Changshan County from danger to safety.

Xiao Xiao is still furiously writing his masterpiece.

Huang Mingxiao is working enthusiastically. The reconstruction of the homeland is going smoothly, with everything in abundance and everyone working together. The progress is beyond imagination. However, everyone misses Sheriff Lin. Without Sheriff Lin leading the way, everyone feels that something is missing.

Following Lin Wen's instructions, Bai Xiuyu has taken in more than fifty girls who are in difficult living conditions. These girls now have a stable income and have joined a warm family. Like flowers blooming by the roadside, although they are not eye-catching, they add a touch of brilliance to the world.

With her companions, the smile on Bai's face has increased. They work together, play together, and bring laughter to everyone at the temporary command post.

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The temporary command post in Changle Town has welcomed many newcomers. They are young and eloquent, with shiny silver anchors on their chests. The girls clean for them, cook for them, and wash their clothes every day. Feelings of affection and ambiguity are rising unconsciously. The youthful atmosphere brings a touch of brightness to this gloomy town.

The only official in Changle Town, Little Li, has nothing to do every day. He can only sit idly by or help at the temporary command post. He often sighs and recalls the days when he and Sheriff Lin were fighting together.

Shangxi Town is thriving. The 100,000 hectares of wasteland have all been reclaimed. The irrigation facilities planned by Chen Xingtai have turned every field into irrigated land. The Farmers' Association is running well under his leadership, undertaking all the construction work of public facilities in the town.

The fields have been planted with autumn crops such as wheat, rapeseed, radish, Chinese cabbage, spinach, and coriander. This emerging land carries the heavy hopes of more than 50,000 farmers and is their expectation for life.

Chen Xingtai has set up several logging camps and hunting spots at the foot of the Taixu Mountain Range. Nearly 10,000 people are engaged in this work, bringing a steady stream of timber and game to Shangxi Town.

The cadres of the People's Party are full of morale and are enthusiastically engaged in their passionate construction work. Changle Town has completely changed, becoming a clean, tidy, prosperous, vibrant town with a special cultural atmosphere.

Only Yun Qingshui is frowning and studying the manifesto that Lin Wen gave her every day. The complex terms and massive information in it seem to hide a terrifying monster. But every time Yun Qingshui looks up, it disappears without a trace.

This feeling makes her very uncomfortable. She remembers Lin Wen's promise and decides to go find him for tutoring when things are a little less busy. Of course, she can only go find him at night.In the laborer settlement of Qingze Township, the entire landscape had undergone a transformation. The ground had been completely leveled, with rows of container-style temporary houses neatly laid out. At first glance, one might mistake it for a port.

Each temporary house could accommodate 30 people, and there were eleven thousand of them in the entire township. Looking out, the orderly rectangular formations stretched all the way to the horizon, disappearing into the sky.