Taiheiki

Chapter 99 The details
"My name is Yuan Tian, and I work as a blacksmith in the village!"

"Blacksmith? No wonder!" Wei Cong's doubts disappeared: "Come here, give him two thousand coins! As long as you do a good job, you will be given so much more when you come back!"

"Thank you for your generous gift!" Yuan Tian took the purse, which attracted envious glances from those around him. He handed the purse to the old man and said, "Mr. Zhu, please take this money back for me and give it to my wife!"

"Master Yuan, don't worry, I will definitely bring it to you!"

After lunch, Wei Cong and his crew weighed anchor and set sail. Under Yuan Tian's guidance, the small fleet sailed southeast along the winding lake. Yuan Tian carefully observed the fleet and soon discovered that both the Yuhuang, Wei Cong's ship, and the six smaller oars were completely different from any other vessels he had seen. Their speed and maneuverability far surpassed anything he had seen before. Yuan Tian had repeatedly witnessed these narrow, long vessels effortlessly catching up with their intended targets in unfavorable winds, even if their opponents spotted them from a distance and began to flee.

"Excuse me, what is the name of this kind of ship?" While eating, Yuan Tian seized the opportunity and asked the sailor beside him.

"That kind? It's called a centipede boat!"

"Centipede Boat?" Yuan Tian was stunned when he heard the words. He immediately found the name very descriptive. The long, narrow hull and the rows of long oars on both sides did look somewhat like a centipede from a distance. "I've never seen a boat like this before!"

"No wonder, both of these ships were built under the command of the captain himself!"

"Captain?" Yuan Tian was taken aback when he heard the words, then realized the captain was referring to Wei Cong. He was secretly surprised, but didn't dare to ask further. In Eastern Han imperial politics, a captain usually referred to either the Sili Xiaowei or the Wujun Xiaowei. The former was a senior official overseeing the capital and surrounding areas, unlikely to leave Luoyang for this location. The Wujun Xiaowei, on the other hand, were the commanders of the five battalions of the Northern Army (Tunqi, Yueqi, Infantry, Changshui, and Shesheng). These five were high-ranking officials above the rank of 2,000 dan, carrying heavy responsibilities and, in theory, unlikely to leave Luoyang for this location. However, by the mid-to-late Eastern Han Dynasty, actual command of the five battalions had gradually shifted to the 600 dan position of the Northern Army Lieutenants. The Five Northern Army Captains became a prestigious position reserved for the emperor's trusted dignitaries. If so, it made perfect sense that this mysterious nobleman was one of the Five Northern Army Captains. As for the reason behind his appearance in such a glamorous white robe, it was a mystery to outsiders.

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"My dear!" Guo Kui walked into Wei Cong's cabin mysteriously.

"Hmm!" Wei Cong looked up from the map on the table: "What's going on?"

"Yuan Tian, that's the guide!" Guo Kui whispered, "I recognize him!"

"Do you know Yuan Tian?" Wei Cong looked at Guo Kui in surprise. "Have you been here before?"

"No!" Guo Kui shook his head. "This Yuan Tian is not from Yuzhang. If I remember correctly, he is from Chen!"

"Chen State?" Wei Cong frowned. "Are you talking about the Chen State in Yanzhou?"

"Yes, that Chen Guo!" Guo Kui nodded. "This man is a local tycoon in Chen State, very famous!"

"So, he is from the Yuan family of Chen State?" Wei Cong's face turned gloomy.

"I don't know about that!" Guo Kui shook his head. "But since he's from Chen, his last name is Yuan, and he's a local tycoon, it's probably true!"

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the State of Chen was located in present-day Huaiyang County, Henan Province. The current royal lineage descended from Liu Xian, the second son of Emperor Ming of Han. This is not surprising in itself, but it makes sense when considered in relation to Yuan Tian's surname. The Yuan clan, descended from Emperor Shun, is a branch of the Gui clan. Its ancestor was Yuan Taotu, a high official of the State of Chen during the Spring and Autumn Period. Later, the clan took root in the State of Chen. Therefore, the State of Chen is considered the ancestral home of all Yuan clans. For example, the Yuan clan of Runan, which nearly divided the empire in two at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, is a branch of the Yuan clan of the State of Chen. In fact, Runan and the State of Chen were not far apart. This individual, surnamed Yuan and from the State of Chen, was likely a member of the Chen Yuan clan. Given the close relationship between clansmen during the Eastern Han Dynasty, it is likely that Yuan Tian knew members of the Runan Yuan clan, and perhaps even had close ties.

"Tell me how you know this person!"

"Yes!" Guo Kui responded, pausing briefly. "That happened more than two years ago, not long after the old master married Zhou. One day, a guest arrived from Jiangbei, and Yuan Tian was among his entourage. The guest entrusted Yuan Tian to the old master, who then took him under his wing. Yes, the guest even left the old master a hundred gold coins for this fellow's meals!"

"Do you remember this guest's name?"

"Then I can't remember!" Guo Kui said with a wry smile, "It can't be helped. Back then, the old master was very famous in the martial arts world, and countless people came to him from all directions. If that guest hadn't left a hundred gold coins, I wouldn't have had such a deep impression of him. Yes, yes, I remember now—"

"Remember what?"

"I remember why he fled to Yuzhang!" Guo Kui laughed. "I remember that he killed the relatives of the eunuchs in the palace, so he fled south!"

"Killed the family members of the eunuchs in the palace?" Wei Cong felt a sharp pain in both temples. He had run to such a remote place like Yuhan County just to hide away and mine and farm, but he didn't expect to be involved in the shitty infighting between the gentry and the eunuchs. Is there no place in such a big empire where people can live in peace and seek development?
"Isn't Yuan Tian in Chaisang? Why is he here again?"

"When he left, I happened to be accompanying the old master on a mediation mission. I only heard about it after I came back. I don't know the specific reason, but I heard it seemed to be because of murder!"

"Murder? He killed someone again in Chaisang?" Wei Cong asked.

"It seems so!" Guo Kui smiled bitterly, "I heard that two bodies of strangers were found in his house early in the morning, and he disappeared since then. As for whether he killed them, no one knows!" "Well, what a troublemaker!" Wei Cong spat. Now that Yuan Tian took the initiative to be his guide, it must not be for the reward money. He must have ulterior motives. How to deal with him is really a headache.

"My dear, do you want to kill this guy--" Guo Kui lowered his voice and made a "kill" gesture.

"Forget it!" Wei Cong sighed. "No one knows who's behind this guy. Pick a few smart ones to secretly watch him. If you see anything unusual, report it to me immediately!"

"Yes!" Guo Kui responded and carefully exited the cabin, leaving Wei Cong alone in the room to continue suffering from a headache.

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The river breeze, mixed with drizzle, hit Wei Cong's face. He pulled the hood of his cloak tightly and looked at the muddy river surface. The sailors on the deck came and went, cursing the damn weather. Their clothes and hair were wrinkled by the rain, like a group of unlucky crows.

It had been raining for the third consecutive day, and the river had risen considerably, flooding much of the land along the shore. This was actually a good thing for Wei Cong: while his ships weren't particularly deep-draft, they were still large, especially the Yuhuang, which was considered a relatively large vessel even in the Jingzhou navy at the time. While maps indicated that the Rao River was quite navigable, regularly handling vessels of 50-100 tons, the problem was that with the small population of Yuzhang County during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the local government likely lacked the manpower to dredge the river. He didn't want to find himself sailing through the river impassable. With the spring rains, the water level of the Rao River naturally rose dramatically, and Wei Cong no longer had to worry about his ship running aground. Compared to that, the minor inconvenience of getting caught in the rain was nothing.

A long, drawn-out horn blast came from the front, faintly visible through the swirling rain. "It must be a pathfinder!" Diwu Deng said. "I wonder what's happened!"

"We've probably hit another river branch. I hope we don't make a mistake this time!" Wei Cong said with a wry smile. He finally realized how chaotic the river was before the hydraulic engineering work was done; it was like a complex web. Yuan Tian was only a passable guide, and Wei Cong thought several times of throwing him into the river and finding someone else, but decided against it.

As the oars rose and fell, the Yuhuang's speed increased. Wei Cong turned and retreated into the hold, watching the rain pouring down from the eaves, muttering to himself, "I hope everything goes well!"

About twenty minutes later, the Yuhuang caught up with the scout boat. Wei Cong's guess proved wrong. They hadn't encountered another unidentified river branch. Instead, the scout boat had stumbled upon a robbery: a cargo ship laden with mountain goods had been intercepted by a dozen river pirates. Just as the ship's owner was about to surrender, the scout boat, an unexpected guest, descended from the sky and captured everyone on board.

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"Are you a mountain goods merchant?" Wei Cong stared at the middle-aged man kneeling on the ground. He was short and had a pointed face. His face was full of fear of surviving a disaster and a little hope for the future.

"That's right!" the middle-aged man replied quickly. "You can go and see the cabin. It's filled with all kinds of mountain products. My shop is in Yuhan County. Just ask and you'll know!"

"Hmm!" Wei Cong nodded and winked, asking the guards beside him to check the cabin. "You're going out in such heavy rain, aren't you afraid of the boat capsizing?"

"I can't help it. This is a small business. My parents, wife, and children are all counting on me. How can I delay any longer?" The middle-aged man said with a wry smile. The deep wrinkles on his face were full of the bitterness of life. Wei Cong couldn't help but think of his life as a social animal before he traveled through time. His heart softened. "What's your name? Stand up and talk!"

"Thank you, sir!" The middle-aged man stood up and said, "My last name is Zhu An!"

At this time, the personal guard who had gone out to check the cabin returned. After Wei Cong confirmed that the cabin was filled with mountain products as Zhu An had said, he smiled and said, "Zhu An, how much can you earn on this trip?"

"I'm in the business of making a profit. On weekdays, I just take some cloth, utensils and groceries to the mountains and exchange them for some mountain products. It takes me about a month to go back and forth, and I only earn about 7,000 to 8,000 coins!" Zhu An answered carefully.

"Hmm!" Wei Cong nodded. At the time, the price of corn was around 220 coins per dan. For a family of five with a -mu (approximately mu) land, assuming a yield of three dan per dan, their annual grain income would be around coins, roughly equivalent to the small merchant's annual income. However, considering that the merchant was referring to post-tax income, or cash income, while the farmer's income was in-kind, and they also had to bear heavy taxes and labor service, the intensity of agricultural production far exceeded that of commercial activities. The small merchant's actual economic situation was actually much better than that of the self-employed farmers of the time. No wonder ancient feudal dynasties prioritized agriculture over commerce. Anyone with a bit of common sense would have sought ways to avoid becoming a farmer and become a merchant.

"It takes you about a month to go back and forth, so can't you make eight or nine trips a year?" Wei Cong asked.

"This..." Zhu An's vigilance, characteristic of a small businessman surviving in the cracks, immediately flared up, and he quickly said, "It's not that much, actually. I can't go out in the winter, I can't go out during wars, and I can't leave when there's something going on at home. In a year, I only make three or four trips at most, barely enough to make ends meet. I don't make much money!"

Wei Cong couldn't help but laugh when he heard Zhu An's crying poor. "Don't worry, I just want to ask you something, not ask you for money!"

Hearing Wei Cong's words, Zhu An felt relieved and said with a smile, "My life was given by you, my lord. How dare I be stingy with my money? If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them!"

"Well, let me ask you, when you go to the mountains to buy local products, have you ever seen a green gemstone the color of a peacock feather, also known as malachite?"

"This..." Zhu An thought for a long time and shook his head: "I don't know what peacock feathers are, and I have never seen the gems you mentioned!"

"Okay!" Wei Cong was somewhat disappointed, but Zhu An's answer was within his expectations. According to the information he had read in the geological team, the De'an Copper Mine was a massive open-pit copper mine. In other words, the ore body wasn't deep below the surface, but the earliest records of mining there dated back only to the Tang Dynasty. Since it was an open-pit copper mine, it meant that its discovery and mining were not difficult (historical records show that the area was rich in malachite, leading to the name Peacock Mountain). However, the fact that it was discovered and mined only in the Tang Dynasty meant that the mining area was sparsely populated and far from major local settlements and transportation lines. The level of development in the Eastern Han Dynasty was likely even lower than in the Tang Dynasty, and the mining site was even further away from transportation lines and residential areas.

Therefore, Wei Cong planned to first establish a stronghold near the Po River, close to the anticipated mining site. He would then either hire or dispatch personnel to locate the copper outcrop, and finally consider how to mine and smelt it. Although Zhu An hadn't discovered malachite, since he was able to source local mountain products, he naturally had a good understanding of the local mountainous conditions, which should be very useful for his future plans.

(End of this chapter)