Taiheiki

Chapter 61 The Style of the Elders

Wei Cong watched the new soldiers training in the shooting range for a whole day and returned to his residence after dark. His concubines brought him food, and he had just taken a few bites when he heard that Huang Ping wanted to see him.

"Didn't this guy go to Yuzhang? How come he's back so soon?" Wei Cong spat out the food in his mouth and cursed, "What a troublesome guy!"

"If he wants to see you, he probably has something to ask! Just meet him!" Ah Jing smiled and poured a glass of wine for Wei Cong. "If it's nothing serious, just scold him and vent your anger. If it's something important, don't delay!"

Wei Cong snorted coldly and gestured for Huang Ping to come in. A moment later, Huang Ping came in, his face full of joy: "My dear, great joy, great joy!"

Seeing this guy's appearance, Wei Cong was even more furious. He threw the wine glass in his hand at him and said, "You are still talking about happy events. Let me ask you, what did you say outside that made my place look like a den of robbers?"

Huang Ping subconsciously lowered his head, and the wine glass flew over his head. He was so scared that he quickly knelt on the ground and said, "I was just following your instructions outside!"

"Then why is it that when I put up a notice recruiting soldiers, all the applicants are desperate young men, and there are so few good people?" Wei Cong said angrily, "Isn't it because you said outside that we are just like Zhang Bolu, all bandits?"

"Unfair!" Huang Ping cried out in protest. "Didn't you, my lord, tell me to spread your reputation everywhere so I could mediate local conflicts like Zhang Bolu? I've done just that, spreading the word about your victory over Zhang Bolu wherever I go, demonstrating your fairness, generosity, and the demeanor of an elder. Do you think this is my fault?"

"You are fair, tolerant, generous and magnanimous, and have the demeanor of an elder, so why are there a group of desperate and evil young men?" Wei Cong said angrily.

"Hehehe!" Ah Jing, who was standing next to him, couldn't help but laugh when he heard this. Wei Cong turned around and said, "Ah Jing, what are you laughing at? Is there something wrong?"

"It's not a mistake, it's just a misunderstanding!" Ah Jing said with a smile, "Let me put it this way! I guess people used to think that Zhang Bolu was fair, generous, and magnanimous, with the demeanor of an elder!"

"What?" Wei Cong was stunned. "How could a bandit who kills and robs people be fair, lenient, generous, and have the demeanor of an elder?"

"That's right! It's true that Zhang Bolu killed and robbed people, but he was indeed kind to his people and distributed the looted people and goods fairly. He acted generously and had the demeanor of an elder! After all, he robbed the merchants, not these evil teenagers. In the eyes of these evil teenagers, Zhang Bolu is a generous, kind, and fair elder!"

After hearing Ah Jing's explanation, Wei Cong lowered his head in frustration. Ultimately, this matter was truly his own fault. He had coveted the influence and benefits Zhang Bolu had gained from his decade-long career as a Jiang bandit, and had intended to replace him, but he hadn't anticipated the hordes of desperate and reckless young men that would follow. This matter truly was like two sides of a coin; it was impossible to have only one side without the other. Given this, his choice was clear. These desperate and reckless young men were certainly a nuisance, but at least they were a viable source of troops, and recruiting reckless young men was a common practice during the Han Dynasty. And the influence Zhang Bolu left behind was truly a treasure trove, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not only was it an endless source of wealth, but it was also one of the few ways to expand outside the system while the world remained intact and chaos hadn't yet occurred.

"Get up!" Wei Cong sighed and gestured for Huang Ping to stand up. "This matter is indeed not your fault. I was angry just now and wrongly blamed you. Please don't hold it to heart!"

Huang Ping was still in shock. He stood up and said with a wry smile, "My dear, what are you talking about? I wouldn't take such a small thing to heart!"

"Have a drink to calm your nerves!" Ah Jing poured a glass of wine and brought it to Huang Ping with a smile: "Your husband has this kind of temper, but he has no bad intentions!"

Huang Ping glanced at A Jing, then quickly lowered his head and dared not look at him again. He took the wine glass and said, "Thank you for the reward, sir!" Then he drank it all in one gulp.

"You just said it was a great joy. What was it?" Wei Cong asked.

"It's indeed a great joy!" Huang Ping came to his senses and quickly put down his wine glass. "This time, I wanted to go to Yuzhang to spread the reputation of my husband. When I stopped at Chaisang, I learned that the local tycoon Nie Zheng had passed away. So, I offered a funeral gift in my husband's name and paid my respects."

"How can this be a happy occasion!" Wei Cong angrily said, "Someone has passed away. This is clearly a funeral, yet you call it a happy occasion. How can this be justified? But you did a good job of handling the rest of the matter. You were very polite."

"My dear, you don't know!" Huang Ping laughed. "Nie Zheng was a famous nobleman in Chaisang. It's said that he was not only filial and righteous, but also a master archer in his youth. He would shoot tigers in the mountains and dragons in the lakes, eliminating harm for his neighbors. Not only the locals in Chaisang, but even the entire Pengli Lake respected him. They called him Nie Gong instead of his name. If there was a dispute, they would go to him for arbitration, and no one would refuse to accept it. He was attacked and killed by an enemy while away. He was only 33 years old. He had only two sons and a daughter. The eldest son and his deceased wife were fighting fiercely over the family property and had no time to avenge their father. I was thinking, my dear, if you could go there and avenge Nie Zheng, wouldn't your reputation spread throughout Yuzhang County?"

"I avenge Nie Zheng?" Wei Cong frowned. "At this critical moment?"

"It's not far actually. Just take a boat from Jiangling and go downstream. It will take three or four days at most to get there!" Huang Ping tried his best to persuade.

"So what if I'm there?" Wei Cong snorted coldly, "At most I can burn some incense and pay my respects to the deceased. I'm not a god, and I'm unfamiliar with the place. The locals of the Nie family can't find the murderer, but I can?"

"Is it all my fault for not explaining things clearly just now?" Huang Ping bowed and recounted Nie Sheng's actions after arriving at the Nie family, as well as his own speculation about Nie Zheng's murder. Wei Cong's expression grew increasingly strange as he listened, and after a long pause, he asked, "Did you come up with all this on your own?"

"Yes, it was all my own idea!" Huang Ping said.

"You're really unlucky!" Wei Cong snorted coldly. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Mr. Nie said that as long as I'm willing to avenge his father, he'll be willing to take me in as his adoptive father, right?"

Huang Ping was stunned when he heard this, then nodded: "Yes, he did say that at the time, but from what I see, he probably meant that if you can win the family business for him, he will worship you as his adoptive father!"

"Haha!" Wei Cong laughed: "You said all this!"

"Because in Nie Zheng's heart, avenging his father and inheriting the family business are actually the same thing!" Hahahahaha!
This time Wei Cong really couldn't help himself. He slapped the table and laughed, "Huang Ping, Huang Ping, you are really a wonderful person. Okay, I'll do as you say. I'll go to Chaisang!"

"As you command, I'll withdraw first!"

"Well, you go down and rest first!" Wei Cong gestured for Huang Ping to leave and said to the servant beside him, "Go and invite Zhao Yannian over and tell him I have something to ask him!"

"Here!"

"Wei Lang, are you really planning to go to Chaisang and meddle in other people's family affairs?" A Jing asked.

"Yeah!" Wei Cong nodded. "There's no other way. I do plan to take action against Yuzhang next. Chaisang is located right between the Yangtze River and Pengli Lake. It's a crucial location. If I can infiltrate there without fighting, that would be great!"

"Yuzhang?" Ah Jing frowned. "Where are you planning to go next? Isn't Jiangling good enough?"

"I do have this plan, but I may not go myself!" Wei Cong answered vaguely.

"Alright!" Ah Jing sighed. "I'm just a woman, I don't know anything! But I've heard that Yuzhang is very desolate. Many county towns are actually just mud walls, and the entire county has only three or four thousand households. People in Jiangling say that Jingnan is desolate, but Yuzhang is even more desolate than Jingnan. My dear, you already have roots in Jiangling, so why go to Yuzhang and suffer so much?"

Wei Cong smiled, glanced at the worried face of the woman beside him, and said nothing. He certainly knew what Yuzhang County (roughly modern-day Jiangxi Province) was like back then. Unlike the land of fish and rice, a land of poetry and prose, cultivated by centuries of painstaking cultivation during the Eastern Wu and Southern Dynasties, Yuzhang County at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was truly a barren wasteland.

In the fifth year of the Yonghe reign, Nanjun, where Wei Cong was located, had a total population of 520,000 households, while Yuzhang Commandery had a population of 420,000. While this may seem similar, Yuzhang Commandery during the Eastern Han Dynasty encompassed the entirety of Jiangxi Province, while Nanjun encompassed only Jingzhou, Jingmen, Qianjiang, Tianmen, Xiantao, and Xiaogan in Hubei Province, as well as Changde, Yiyang, and Yueyang in Hunan Province. The population density difference between the two regions was truly stark. Nanjun was already considered a border prefecture during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Yuzhang Commandery was even more so.

Unlike most other time travelers who, upon crossing over, immediately set their sights on finding coal mines and iron ore to form a coal-steel consortium, Wei Cong wasn't particularly keen on mining, iron smelting, and climbing the tech tree. The reason was simple: the ancients weren't fools; they understood that steel was a national treasure and the foundation of military power. While you might think you're secretly gathering together to mine and smelt steel to develop advanced productive forces, the ancients considered it a conspiracy and a rebellion, deserving the extermination of your entire family. You'd be afraid the county troops would descend on you before you could even achieve anything. While coal mining and steelmaking weren't impossible, at least you had to establish a stronghold and be able to defend yourself. Coal mines and iron ore were widely distributed, and with the south boasting well-developed water transportation and low logistics costs, you could do it anytime, anywhere if you wanted to.

Of course, not all mines are off limits. For example, copper mines can be mined, and should be mined extensively. The reason is simple: before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, China was a "copper-based" country. As long as there was an endless supply of copper mines, it meant having countless wealth, and one could easily overwhelm their opponents with money.

China, however, was a copper-poor nation, with its few remaining copper resources concentrated in two southern provinces: Yunnan and Jiangxi. While Yunnan was now beyond Wei Cong's reach, Jiangxi was a different matter, connected to Wei Cong's Jingzhou by the Yangtze River, offering convenient transportation. Furthermore, Yuzhang County at the time was still a desolate and undeveloped land, with a population of just over 400,000 households, and many counties boasting only a few thousand. Several later-famous copper mines, such as Dexing, Wushan, and Yongping, lay undiscovered.

As long as they could find one of these locations and manage the local warlords, they could mine and smelt copper. Smelting copper is much less cumbersome than smelting iron. Based on an annual output of 200 tons, this translates to around 100 million copper coins. The total military expenditure spent by the Eastern Han Dynasty to suppress the Qiang Rebellion during the ten-plus years of Emperor Shun's reign was just over 24 billion yuan. This brought the central government's finances to a state of collapse, leaving the two prefectures of Bing and Liang completely depleted. (Since the Qiang rebellion, which had lasted over a decade, the troops had been exhausted and there had been no respite. Military expenses, transportation, and transport had cost over 24 billion yuan, depleting the treasury. This spread to the inner prefectures, resulting in countless deaths among border civilians and the devastation of the two prefectures of Bing and Liang.)
With Wei Cong's work experience in the geological team and his knowledge of mining and smelting, he only needed to invest seven or eight hundred people to find a mining site. Not to mention an annual output of 200 tons, even a thousand tons would be a matter of time. Converted into copper coins, it would be 500 million coins, while the empire's annual fiscal revenue was only between 5 and 6 billion, and every penny was spent every year. Otherwise, Emperors Huan and Ling would not have to sell official positions and cut officials' salaries. At that time, Wei Cong could have said that he was richer than the emperor.

"My dear!" Zhao Yannian came into the room and bowed to Wei Cong.

"Sit down and talk!" Wei Cong pointed to the cushion on his right. "I'm going to Chaisang with two hundred men tomorrow. I'll leave everything here to you! Tell everyone that I've had chickenpox and am going to the farm to recuperate!"

"I've got it in mind!" Zhao Yannian didn't ask any more questions. "But could you please give me a deadline so I can be mentally prepared?"

"At most eleven or twelve days, at least seven or eight. If all goes well, five or six days should be enough!" Wei Cong replied, "If anyone wants to visit me, just tell them I have it on my face too. I hate seeing strangers! Understand?"

"I understand!" Zhao Yannian nodded. "Then I'll ask Liu Jiu to check the troops. Since he's cautious, how about letting him go with you?"

"Liu Jiu? That's fine!" Wei Cong nodded. "By the way, let Wang Ge go too. It would be good for him to gain some experience!"

"Here!"

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The next day, Wei Cong boarded a ship with two hundred soldiers and sailed down the river to Chaisang. After Wei Cong left, Zhao Yannian sent someone to the prefectural governor's office to ask for leave from Han Chun, citing a sudden outbreak of chickenpox. Upon learning of this, Han Chun sighed and rewarded Wei Cong with several pieces of silk, allowing him to recuperate at home.

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Huang Mansion.

"Chickenpox?" Ying Feng frowned. "It's really strange that chickenpox can occur in the middle of winter!"

"The climate in the south is hot and humid, and people get chickenpox in the winter!" Huang Wan said, "Besides, why would he feign illness now? He doesn't have anything to hide from!"

　Today is the last day of 2024. I wish you all good health and good luck in the new year. I also hope that "Taiheiki" can achieve good results, or at least be completed!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)