Just as the ministers of the Ministry of Works had considered, developing those regions of Jingnan and Jiaozhou would yield little benefit, economic or otherwise.
Lu Kang, that utterly inhuman fellow, might even send troops to wreak havoc from time to time and delay the construction.
But if they really could develop the area and create a world of difference between life under Wei and life under the Wu Kingdom...
Then things would become interesting.
Wang Ji had already petitioned the imperial court to exempt the locals from taxes and use farmland to reassure the people. In short, whatever favorable policies they had were to be thrown into this region.
The whole point was to display their benevolence to the people of the Wu Kingdom.
When those forcibly relocated people began fleeing back to their former homes in large numbers, the Wu Kingdom's time would be up.
Cao Mao considered it for a moment, then accepted Du Yu's proposal.
Some construction projects undertaken by the imperial court might never yield a corresponding return and would consume vast quantities of manpower and resources. But that did not matter. The imperial court was not a profit-making enterprise in the first place, nor was Cao Mao a merchant.
Some things had to be done even when they knew they would lose money.
Cao Mao discussed the various matters concerning construction there with Du Yu. Since Cao Mao's accession, the imperial court had been relatively restrained in its building projects.
It was nothing like Emperor Ming's reign.
Emperor Ming had liked undertaking construction projects. During the reigns of the powerful ministers who followed, they had shown little concern for the people's strength either, building on a massive scale. Only under Cao Mao had things finally become somewhat more restrained. Up to now, apart from