Rebirth of the Republic of China: The Story of the Chaebol

In fact, there was one question that Sun Tong had thought wrong from the very beginning.

With the establishment of the Xihua Kingdom, Sun Tong suddenly discovered that returning to the Dragon Kingdom now seemed not as easy as he had initially thought.

As the leader of a country, if he were to go to another country to settle down permanently, it would not only be an irresponsible behavior, but would also cause problems for the domestic stability of Xihua.

Today, he is equivalent to the stabilizing force of the Xihua Kingdom. A small problem in his eyes may develop into a huge problem if it is placed at the level of the entire country.

It was for this reason that Sun Tong, who had originally planned to return to Longguo at the end of the 32nd year, suddenly could not go back.

Now, the descendants suddenly understood what it meant to be "forced to do something against one's will".

"Your Majesty, we have contacted the Southern Government. They didn't say much about your return to Dragon Country, but they still hope that you can use a state visit as an excuse to return to Dragon Country. After all, times are different now. As the head of a country, you are also receiving international attention. You can't be as casual as before."

Not to mention Sun Tong, even Qu Hongxi didn't expect that it would become so troublesome for them to go back to Long Country.

"No problem. Let's use the state visit as an excuse. Oh, and have someone pack up the things at the Sun's Manor as soon as possible. We don't know when we'll have the chance to return to Long Country again. It would be a waste to just leave the Sun's Manor there. Once everything is packed up, just give it directly to the Wen family."

Although the value of the Sun family manor is very high, there are very few people in the country who can afford it. Since no one is planning to buy it, it is better to give the manor to his in-laws. The Wen family's status has also risen over the years thanks to the relationship with Sun Tong.

Now the Wen family's house in Shanghai is no longer suitable for them, so it would be a good idea for them to move to the Sun family manor. Anyway, Sun Tong will definitely take their family to settle overseas in a few years, so the Sun family manor can be their temporary place of residence in China.

With the establishment of Xihua, the status of the elderly people around Sun Tong also rose.

Qu Hongxi, the chief secretary who had followed Sun Tong for more than ten years, has now transformed himself into the royal steward of the Xihua Kingdom.

As for the other old ministers who had followed him a long time ago, such as Carl, who has now become the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Colonies of the Kingdom of Western China, Fang Zhihua was appointed Minister of Industry by Sun Tong, Jiao Hongguang was appointed Minister of Finance, Xue Xiang was appointed Minister of Military Affairs, Hu Cheng was appointed Minister of Culture, and the president of Huachen Company, Maful Hogan, was also appointed Minister of Energy by Sun Tong.

All in all, Sun Tong was quite humane when treating these loyal old ministers.

You should know that after the establishment of the Xihua Kingdom, he not only entrusted these people with important tasks, but Sun Tong was also generous in giving them titles.

As one of the people with the greatest contributions under him, Karl was directly named Duke of Reunion by Sun Tong, and Hu Cheng was named Duke of Karin by him. Even Fang Zhiyuan, whom Sun Tong did not like very much in the early years, was named Duke of Macara by Sun Tong this time after his diligent work over the years.

After the establishment of the Kingdom of Xihua, Sun Tong only conferred the title of duke on these three people.

Under the duke, he also conferred six marquises, nine earls, nineteen viscounts and twenty-six barons.

These people have preliminarily established the aristocratic system of the Kingdom of Xihua. According to the regulations of the Kingdom of Xihua, only those with titles above earl can own fiefs. And among these fiefs, except for Reunion, which was obtained by Carl, which was relatively large in scale, the fiefs obtained by others were all small islands. These islands could only be used to build a holiday estate at most. As for wanting to use these islands to make money, that was purely wishful thinking.

However, although the title of Xihua has no benefits in terms of the bottom line, it is very powerful in other aspects. The holder of the title not only has a generous annual pension, but the country will also reward them with enough land for them to develop. Although these lands are rewarded, the ownership of the land is still controlled by the royal family. But the good thing for these nobles is that they only need to pay 10% tax on the wealth they obtain from these lands.

At the same time, after they obtain the title, their descendants will be eligible to study in the Royal Academy. As the school with the strongest educational resources in the whole of Xihua, all the students who can enter this school have simple backgrounds.

Sun Tong set up such a school not to strengthen class stratification, although the existence of this school itself would strengthen these things, but his original purpose was actually to reward those heroes.

Of course, the benefits of becoming a noble of the Kingdom of Xihua are definitely more than those mentioned above. There are also countless other hidden benefits. These things are actually the compensation that Sun Tong gives to his old ministers.

After all, the title he was awarded was equivalent to having no fiefdom, which would undoubtedly greatly reduce the value of these titles in the Kingdom of Xihua. If this happened in the future, it would naturally not be a big deal, after all, this situation would have become the norm at that time, but in this era, it is definitely unique.