Chinese New Year

Chapter 1466 Letter

"It's been sixteen years since the founding of the nation, and there are still people who can't see the light," Shao Xun said, tossing the memorial onto the table beside him.

A gentle breeze of early summer rustled through the paper, making it rustle, and the writing on it was clearly visible.

"On the 24th of May, in Xiayi County, Liang Commandery, I dispatched Military Clerk Shao Zi with over twenty followers to verify the land deeds of the powerful Wang family. The Wang family gathered over four hundred members of their clan and tenants, armed with shovels, hoes, bows, and arrows to resist. Before Shao Zi could finish proclaiming the imperial edict, a hail of stones and arrows suddenly rained down. The minor official He Jun was struck in the chest and died, the county clerk Wang Chun suffered a broken right arm, and five of his followers were severely wounded. Wang Dai, the son of the Wang family, brandished a halberd and shouted: 'How can you allow such lowly people to usurp the land where our ancestors offered sacrifices!' Upon hearing the report, I rushed to their aid overnight and arrested fifty-seven members of their gang, but the ringleader, Wang Dai, had already fled into the Mangdang Mountains and marshes..."

"On May 25th, in Songzi County, Anfeng Prefecture, I ordered the Legal Officer Shao Lin to examine the county's land registers. He discovered that the acreage recorded by the wealthy Li Yan was significantly different from the actual land area. Under questioning, Li Yan wept and said, 'The County Magistrate Liu Chang demanded 300,000 coins in exchange for a reduction of 300 mu of land.' The Legal Officer immediately arrested Liu Chang and searched his residence, finding 300 taels of silver and three pairs of white jade discs, all wrapped in hemp cloth and hidden in the toilet wall. They also discovered seven forged wooden seals and 21 volumes of illegally altered land registers, concealing over 5,000 mu of land. Even as this scoundrel confessed, he still claimed, 'Everyone in the county accepted bribes; why am I the only one being punished?'..."

"On May 28th, in Xiyang County, Yiyang Prefecture, at the third watch of the night, a dozen masked men scaled the wall and entered, shooting oil-soaked arrows into the archives of the Ministry of Revenue. The treacherous military advisor, Shan Qian, killed three of them, but the imperial register was burned in three carts. Upon examining the bodies, it was discovered that the assassins were barbarians from Xiyang. Their chieftain, Xu Hun, dissatisfied with his people being included in the prefectural register, recruited fugitives as his henchmen, leading to this rebellion. Your Majesty, I summoned the gatekeeper Xie An and asked him about the Xiyang Wushui barbarians, who had migrated eastward from Nanjun during the Jianwu era of the Later Han Dynasty. Their influence extended throughout Jiangxia, Yiyang, Anfeng, and Jingling. At the end of the Han Dynasty, they caused chaos in Lujiang, and during the late Jin Dynasty, Zhang Chang led them in a rebellion in Xinye. I request that the strong and elite troops of the Left Divine Martial Guard be mobilized to suppress Xu Hun and deter those who refuse to comply..."

"On May 29th, I dispatched my subordinate officials to the countryside of Lu County, where I repeatedly witnessed sorcerers of the Celestial Masters sect gathering people by ringing bells, claiming: 'The measuring poles are soul-drawing staffs, and the numbers recorded are death-bringing spells!' The ignorant people of the various counties believed their sorcery, gathered to destroy seventeen measuring poles, and beat up clerks. Although I captured the ringleader, the chief priest Zhu Fu, the field measurement has already stalled..."

The female official, Ying, knelt behind the desk, hurriedly tidying up the memorials.

Shi glanced at her and said, "His Majesty's investigation led back to the beginning of the Tai Shi era. Many families lost their livelihoods, so this reaction is quite normal."

It's quite hot today; the scorching golden sunlight is so intense it burns the skin.

Both she and Ying were wearing cool, light banana-fiber shirts.

Ying knelt there, her shirt extremely loose, with soft, drooping shoulders and wide, cloud-like sleeves.

The garment cascaded down like flowing water, with only a plain ribbon loosely tied at the waist. A gentle breeze caused the hem to flutter slightly, revealing a firm yet delicate charm beneath.

After the breeze stopped and the hem of her clothes was closed, she became even more alluring, for the garment was extremely light and translucent. Half-concealed, half-revealed, the clothes were as thin as smoke, like a cloud of mist, enveloping her graceful figure.

After finishing reviewing the memorials, Ying sat down quietly with a composed expression.

Her face still had a faint blush, and her ink-black hair was loosely tied up with a jade hairpin, with the rest of her hair hanging down behind her neck. The jade hairpin was askew, about to fall, giving her a hurried and careless appearance.

"Collect it together with the previous one," Shao Xun said, pointing to another spot.

"Yes," Ying replied, her voice so hoarse that it surprised her and made her feel even more ashamed.

She first straightened the hem of her dress, then stood up holding the memorial.

Shi glanced at the carpet behind the table and noticed something dripping from the tip of the Persian bird's fiery red beak.

That vixen, she must have looked absolutely gorgeous just now.

Your Majesty is really something, insisting on sitting behind her. Are those two halves of her flesh really that attractive?
"Your Majesty." Shi gently sat down in Shao Xun's lap.

"Get up, it's so hot outside," Shao Xun said, pinching Shi Shi's hand.

Shi stood up somewhat hurt, then glanced at Ying, who had returned, and thought to herself that she was just a female official while she was a beauty. She felt much more at ease.

The south wind rises again, in gusts.

A breeze blows, and the cool shirt billows gently, its sleeves fluttering.

When the wind stopped, a cool breeze emanated from every thread of the garment, as if it were soaked in the green of banana leaves, filtering out the hustle and bustle of the world.

At this moment, Shao Xun was appreciating it purely from an aesthetic point of view; there was no desire in his eyes, only admiration.

The young woman, dressed in a banana leaf shirt, seemed to be draped in a flowing mist, or a cool haze, moving with the wind as if she were breathing.

In that breath, there was both the clear, melodious sound of a stringed instrument being played under the bamboo grove, and the slight intoxication of a wine cup being drunk by a winding stream.

As she walks, sits, and lies down, she reveals her alluring figure, as if calling out the most primal desires between men and women.

Wonderful.

Shao Xun withdrew his gaze and said, "Draft the decree."

Ying knelt down again, her back to Shao Xun.

"Emperor Guangwu of Han abandoned the land survey halfway through, which is truly a pity. How can I repeat the same mistake? In the first land survey in the past, the rebellion in Hebei was quelled. What harm is this small matter to me?" Shao Xun said, "All the prefectures and guards in Yuzhou shall be at the command of the Land Survey and Agricultural Promotion Commissioner's office. Do not easily deal with corrupt officials; bring them to Huangsha Prison for interrogation. Also, order the Imperial Medical Bureau to send people to inspect the villages, treat the wounded, provide famine relief, and expose the sorcery. Damaged records shall be remade immediately and audited by the Censor of Huangsha..."

After Ying finished writing, he handed the imperial edict to Shao Xun.

Shao Xun took the document and read: "In the past, when Emperor Guangwu surveyed the land, the world was in turmoil; now, even clerks with their pens need armor for protection. If we do not issue imperial edicts to purge corruption and raise an army to destroy powerful clans, I fear that chaos will arise before the land survey is even completed. The punishment is as follows..."

"Well written." Shao Xun patted Ying's face and said, "Send it to the Secretariat."

Lady Ying hesitated for a moment, looked down at the light robe she was wearing, and said shyly, "Your Majesty..."

"Go wash up first, then change your clothes," Shao Xun said with a smile.

Ying felt as if she had been granted a pardon and quickly left. "Break some tea and bring it over when it's cold," Shao Xun instructed Shi, then put one hand behind his head, leaned back on the couch, and picked up another memorial to read.

Shi left with a sense of resentment.

Shao Xun slowly flipped through the memorial sent by his third son, Nianliu, and looked at it carefully.

The Kingdom of Gaochang collected various kinds of silver and foreign coins from the market, melted them down, and cast them into tortoise-shaped coins. By the end of April, more than 67,000 coins had been minted.

In Luoyang, this would amount to over 60,000 strings of cash. However, in Gaochang, no sane person would believe that a single tortoise-shaped coin could be exchanged for a thousand coins. According to Nian Liu, he initially set an exchange rate of 500 coins per tortoise-shaped coin, but it seems that there was another exchange rate circulating among the people.

Upon seeing this, Shao Xun chuckled softly. The official exchange rate and the black market exchange rate are different now, aren't they?
The black market exchange rate was determined purely by weight and the silver-copper ratio, while the official exchange rate, although referencing the silver-copper ratio, also had a legal element, resulting in an interest rate differential.

After thinking for a moment, Shao Xun decided to write a letter by hand later, telling Nian Liu not to worry. If anyone was making large-scale profits, he should first find out the situation, then arrest the person, fine them if necessary, send them to jail if necessary, and even confiscate their property or execute them if necessary. He wanted to make people tremble with fear.

After turning the page, Shao Xun continued reading word by word.

Nianliu said he would go to Jinman Town in the territory of Cheshi Houguo in late May to inspect the summer palace.

Several months ago, Shao Xun ordered some of the laborers from Sichuan and Chongqing who were transporting grain to change their route to the north of the Tianshan Mountains, and also conscripted people from the Later Kingdom of Cheshi to build Jinman City behind the mountains.

The Summer Palace was an independent palace city, outside of which lay the inner and outer Jinman cities. In terms of layout, it was quite similar to Gaochang City, only larger in scale.

Jinman Town is located outside the western city wall of Jinman Three Cities. It is an independent garrison town, forming a strategic defensive position with Jinman Three Cities.

The 1,000 garrison soldiers of Jinman Town have been recruited and are now fully staffed. Including their families, the total number is over 1,400. They began land reclamation this spring.

He also learned that someone from the Pei family was going west—in fact, this matter had already been underway in private since October of last year.

The Pei family decided to settle in Gaochang, but a group of people from Hedong who followed them decided to settle in the towns of Jinman and Pulei, because the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains were not short of water and were conducive to farming.

Nian Liu's 5,000 soldiers were almost entirely distributed in the two prefectures of Gaochang and Yiwu. They started spring plowing last January, but the harvest was not good, mainly because there was not enough irrigation water.

Spring plowing began again this January, and the harvest is still not very good, but it is much better than last year, mainly because some wells and canals were dug.

He predicts that next year's autumn harvest will still not be enough to meet their own needs, but the shortfall will be smaller. The autumn harvest the year after next will likely be able to barely balance the supply, provided that the digging of wells and canals continues in the coming years.

The official letter also mentioned that the volunteer army stationed behind the mountain had once again clashed with the Xiongnu who had crossed the desert, beheading over a thousand and routing the enemy. They then launched a preemptive strike and defeated a Wusun tribe that had not come to Gaochang in the first month of the lunar calendar—the Wusun were a state during the Han Dynasty, but now they were almost scattered into large and small tribes and were no longer a threat.

A battle also took place in Yanqi.

Nianliu Ling Xue Tao and Murong Ke each led a thousand cavalry, joined forces with Yanqi soldiers and Fu soldiers, and defeated a group of fleeing Kuaihu soldiers, killing hundreds of enemies.

Upon seeing this, Shao Xun read it carefully again. To be precise, he had killed 729 Kuaihu soldiers and captured 1,000 horses.

Undoubtedly, this was a test by Kuaihu, which was met with a resounding rebuff.

Losing over two thousand soldiers in three years must be a painful blow for the relatively small Kuaihu tribe, right? Hopefully, they can wake up to reality and consider cooperating with Sogdian merchants. They do business, you provide protection, and shield them from the covetous eyes of various troublemakers along the way—that's called win-win cooperation. The choice is entirely theirs.

At the end of the letter, Nianliu asked some questions about currency, such as how to determine how much money to mint.

After thinking for a while, Shao Xun couldn't resist any longer and got up to start writing a letter.

He instructed Nianliu to send people to the market to investigate and record the prices of essential goods such as grain, cloth, wine, oxen, and ironware in Gaochang, and then make his own decision.

Speaking of cloth, Nian Liu sent a piece of cloth with his official letter, which he called "fine cloth".

At this time, "緤" refers to a cloth woven from kapok flowers, and is called "緤".

Also known as "Jibei" or "Baidie", it is mostly produced in the southern part of Ningzhou and is often brought to the north by merchants from Sichuan, where it is expensive.

There was also cloth made of genuine cotton, usually brought by foreign merchants. It was often mixed with cotton cloth and was commonly called "cloth".

Nianliu distinguished them and named them "Xixi" because their weaving is more delicate.

He planned to sell this item in the Central Plains because it seemed like he could make a lot of money.

Shao Xun thought about it and agreed with his idea in the letter, but did not immediately ask for the seeds of African cotton, because he had not yet decided.

There are too many manors in the South; don't let them actually turn into cotton plantations.

After writing the letter, he put it away, intending to have his secretary, Wang Xizhi, copy it for his records when he returned to the palace.

At this moment, Shi came over with a cup of tea.

"No rush." ​​Shao Xun waved his hand and began to draft an edict again, ordering that those who resisted the land survey be gathered together and exiled in batches to Gaochang, Liaodong, and the four prefectures of Lelang and Daifang.

(End of this chapter)