Second-hand time travel: Liu Bei, the big-eared bandit

Chapter 92 The Top Ranked Member Visits
In fact, Liu Bei hadn't really figured out how to arrange things for Bian Ji and her brother. Zuo Yuan letting them handle money and supplies did help Liu Bei solve a small problem.

only……

Perhaps it was because Zuo Yuan was good at recognizing and utilizing talent, and the Bian siblings were quite conscientious and responsible in their work, but the result was...

A little over a month later, big trouble came.

Cao Cao sold two batches of horses, and then personally went to Su Shuang's horse farm to purchase more.

In fact, no one expected Cao Cao to come in person, not even Liu Bei.

After all, Cao Cao was serving as an advisor at this time. Although his job was relatively leisurely, he was still a court official with a salary of 600 shi (a unit of grain), and he had to attend the regular court meetings held every five days.

Officials with a salary of 600 shi or above attended regular court sessions, while dukes, marquises, and officials in charge of accounting for prefectures and kingdoms attended grand court sessions on the first and fifteenth of each month.

You cannot be absent from court assemblies, and you need a doctor's diagnosis to ask for sick leave—similar to a modern leave slip, but much stricter, because faking illness would result in being dismissed from office and demoted to a commoner, while a doctor who falsifies his illness would be exiled along with his entire family.

Cao Cao didn't intend to ask for leave. The Cao family was making money and had people willing to serve them, so they should take advantage of the court sessions to maintain relationships with officials both inside and outside the palace.

The original arrangement of working one day and resting four days would not have supported Cao Cao's trip to Youzhou for tourism.

However, the emperor was absent from work during this period.

In previous years, although Emperor Liu Hong was fond of pleasure, he rarely interrupted court assemblies.

But recently, the emperor has stopped holding court assemblies and has stopped attending the ceremonies on the first and fifteenth of each month.

It is said that after the appointment of the stable master of Luji, the palace acquired many fine horses. Recently, the emperor has become obsessed with wearing nomadic-style clothing and riding horses, spending his days racing in the hunting grounds and neglecting to hold court...

This is understandable. The emperor was also a young man. Liu Hong and Cao Cao were about the same age. It's perfectly normal for someone in their late twenties to like speed and passion.

Cao Cao was also someone who loved speed and excitement. With the emperor not holding court these days, Cao Cao had nothing to do, so he traveled a long way to personally search for some fine horses...

While we're at it, let's see where that treacherous big-eared thief took Bian Ji!
Cao Cao hadn't seen Bian Ji anywhere. Zuo Yuan was reliable; he didn't let the beautiful woman out there attract unwanted attention. Bian Ji was currently at Liu Bei's manor, helping Zuo Yuan manage the accounts, counting money, bolts of cloth, and recording armor and weapons every day. She had no time to go out at all.

But Bian Bing was in the middle of settling accounts with Su Shuang at the time—there was too much money, and Bian Bing was taking the exchange of money and cloth with Su Shuang too seriously, counting, moving and transporting money day and night, and he was almost exhausted.

There was no other way; there were too few people, and it wasn't appropriate for too many people to know about this matter, so it could only be done by Liu Bei's retainers and troops.

Liu Bei's current wealth is far from matching the number of people he has. He is expanding his manpower, but the speed of manpower expansion is far behind the progress of making money.

Xiheting is great in every way, except it's hard to find people...

Liu Bei sold horses in wholesale, and the transaction volume was very large.

The same goes for Su Shuang. Su Shuang never imagined that Liu Bei made money in the hundreds of millions, and didn't do any retail at all.

As a result, Su Shuang had no way to transport the money home—back then, the Taihang bandits used more than 10,000 people and thousands of carts to transport the money and silk from Liu Weiwu Fortress. Transporting goods was really troublesome these days.

Of course, most of the money that the Taihang bandits took away back then has now fallen into Liu Bei's hands—Liu Bei sold the land in Xiheting for a super cheap price, selling a mu of top-quality land for only one hundred coins, which is like getting it for free.

To be honest, Liu Bei didn't really care about the price of the land. He would sell the land to some poor bandit leaders in Taihang for a few dozen coins per mu, since there was plenty of land in the area anyway.

But for the Taihang bandits, they had to pay money to buy the land and see the land deeds in person before it would be considered their own land—not because they were honest, but because they all knew that this place was a "good place," and everything had to be in accordance with procedures and logic in order not to be targeted.

With so much money at home, and not all of it ready to be used immediately, Liu Bei and Zuo Yuan were constantly worried about how to spend it.

When you have a lot of money, spending it becomes harder than earning it.

Transportation and statistics were even more difficult, and Su Shuang was a man of his word and integrity. Whenever a customer came to purchase goods, he would insist that Liu Bei send someone to reconcile the accounts...

As a result, Bian Bing, because he was literate, could do arithmetic, and was diligent and obedient, was assigned to Su Shuang to reconcile accounts. Zhang Fei was also sent there—but when it came to things like calculating money and reconciling accounts, not to mention Liu Bei and Zuo Yuan, none of the brothers dared to trust Zhang Fei… Zhang Fei’s main task was to be in charge of armed escort.

In fact, no one at Su Shuang's horse farm knew Cao Cao, and Su Shuang didn't know him either. He only knew a few stewards from the Cao family—those stewards were the ones who handled the previous money and horse transactions.

Cao Cao didn't announce his identity; he came along with the money-carrying convoy and kept a low profile.

But Cao Cao knew Bian Bing, and Bian Bing also knew Cao Cao.

In fact, Bian Bing had no ill will towards Cao Cao. Cao Cao often went to the Luoyang Music Hall, and every time he went, he would have Bian Ji sing and dance, and he would give her a lot of rewards each time, making him a top supporter...

But no matter how powerful the top-ranking brother is, it can't compare to someone who has reformed from a lowly status...

In retrospect, this was also because Cao Cao was worried about his family and acted too slowly.

Cao Cao's principal wife, Lady Ding, came from a powerful family in Qiao County, Pei State. The Cao, Xiahou, and Ding families were the three most powerful families in Qiao County, and the three families had intermarried for generations. Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, also had a principal wife who was a daughter of the Ding family.

Cao Cao was the eldest son of a concubine, not the legitimate son. His courtesy name was Mengde, which was in accordance with the etiquette of the time. The courtesy name of the eldest legitimate son was "Bo", while that of the eldest son of a concubine was "Meng".

However, since the Cao family had no legitimate son, Cao Cao did not end up like Yuan Shao, who experienced a power struggle among his brothers—Yuan Shao was indeed somewhat envious of Cao Cao.

It seems that the daughters of the Ding family have difficulty conceiving, perhaps because they develop late but marry too early. In these marriages between wealthy families, the daughters are often married before they have fully grown up, which leads to difficulties in conceiving.

But in those days, the legal wife was considered the mother. Cao Cao was raised by Lady Ding, who was indeed his biological mother.

Cao Cao's principal wife was a cousin of his mother, meaning his mother was his wife's aunt, and he married his uncle's daughter.

The eldest daughters of wealthy families are always spoiled and naturally a bit difficult to please. Add to that the fact that the mother is the wife's aunt, and she becomes even more difficult to please...

Therefore, Cao Cao was never able to bring Bian Ji home—Bian Ji was too expensive, too beautiful, and too of humble origin.

If it were just a small amount of money spent to take a concubine, neither Madam Ding nor Old Madam Ding would have any objections.

Moreover, Lady Ding had never borne any children, and Cao Cao had already taken several concubines for him. One of these concubines, Lady Liu, had given birth to Cao Cao's eldest son, Cao Ang, who was being raised by Lady Ding.

But if Cao Cao were to spend millions of coins from the music hall to redeem a stunning beauty, his family would have a lot of objections...

Even if Cao Song loved him dearly, he wouldn't let him squander money like this; a few million coins could buy an official position...

After all, Cao Cao used to use his family's money.

Now that Cao Cao had made a fortune, he was initially quite pleased with himself. He thought he could quickly establish a separate household and keep concubines as he pleased, without needing his family to interfere…

After selling the first batch of horses, he originally planned to immediately redeem Bian Ji from her servitude.

But after only a few days of this busy work, when he turned around, he had the money, but Bian Ji was gone...

This really frustrated Cao Cao...

But what can I say?

Is it because the Big-Eared Thief acted too quickly?

But it's because I was too slow. I've been the top seller for years and never made a move. Who can I blame?

He hadn't even taken Bian Ji as a concubine yet, so this couldn't be called a grudge over having his wife stolen.

The *Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Annals of Emperor Ling* quotes the *Han Dynasty Official System*:
In the early part of the fourth year of the Guanghe era (181 AD), the position of Luji Stable Manager was established to receive horses from the prefectures and kingdoms. Powerful and wealthy individuals illegally monopolized the trade, with a single horse costing as much as two million. At that time, the emperor favored wearing nomadic clothing and practicing horsemanship and archery, and consequently ceased attending court.

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(End of this chapter)