Legend of the Great Sage Chapter 131 - The Places of Darkness

Zhou Wenbin explained, and only then did Li Qingshan understand that he did not have it easy as a district magistrate. In order to maintain a sufficient ‘approval rating’ so that the citizens of Jiaping city would be grateful to him, the person who watched over them all, he had to reduce taxes and costs, begin construction projects both on land and over water, and establish public facilities. Moreover, he had to ensure high salaries to maintain honesty among his subordinates, maintaining a group of aides to help him handle governance. As a result, he often struggled to make ends meet.

Zhou Wenbin spread his hands and smiled bitterly. “It’s pitiful for a government official like me. Not only am I working without a salary, but I even have to find ways to raise money.”

Li Qingshan found this rather funny. In this day and age, although the disparity in wealth was enormous, this was not necessarily a bad thing to the common people.

In the Great Xia empire, regardless of rank or status, not a single official was paid a salary, but they did not have to hand up any taxes or money either. Even when they found gold or silver mines, the local government would control it.

This was impossible in any empire or kingdom that Li Qingshan knew about, but this was the reality. The items that interested cultivators were different from ordinary people in the first place. If Zhou Wenbin wanted to, he could squeeze millions of silver taels out from Jiaping yearly, but there was no point to that at all.

However, there was one type of mine that the empire would own, namely spiritual stone mines. The salary that government officials like Zhou Wenbin and Zhuo Zhibo collected were spiritual stones.

As a result, Li Qingshan took out the several hundred thousand taels of silver he found from the procuress and handed it to Zhou Wenbin.

Zhou Wenbin said, “Aren’t you going to ask just how many Qi Gathering pills you’ll get?”

Li Qingshan said, “I’ve never been a stingy person, but of course, I do hope that others can be more generous with me as wel

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