Chapter 610: - The Great Construction Drive

Fengxin City had already become one enormous military camp.

At the same time, it had become one enormous construction site.

Efficiency had always been one of the Demon Kings’ guiding attitudes toward life.

Something that, in other people’s eyes, might require careful deliberation, repeated weighing, and endless thought might here be settled after everyone met up, joked around for a while, and tossed out a few ideas.

At the most serious, they might hold a private meeting in some pavilion.

Everyone would voice an opinion, then the Blind Man, who was good at making decisions and planning, would summarize the discussion, suggest a direction, and hand the matter to the Master, who sat there with no one quite certain whether he was listening seriously or wandering off into some distant daydream.

Then

Fan Li would add one final, short, resounding “concluding statement.”

Done.

All sorted.

Winter ought to have been the season of laziness.

Animals were like that.

People were too.

Unfortunately, Marquis Zheng was no longer merely someone whose backside happened to sit on the ruler’s side of the table.

He was now the ruler.

And so, in sharp contrast to the snow that drifted down from time to time, the construction site blazed with activity.

Fengxin City had to be expanded and rebuilt without delay.

After all, you never knew when an enemy might appear, and when he did appear, he was not going to politely ask whether you had finished your walls yet and agree to wait if you had not.

But by rights, Snow Sea Pass stood to the north, Zhennan Pass to the south.

With both mighty passes in hand, neither a threat from the snowfield nor one from Chu territory should be able to penetrate.

Which meant the urgency behind expanding Fengxin City could only be to guard against rioting refugees from the Jin lands.

...

“The girl sits high in her bridal chair!”

“Heave-ho, heave-ho, hey hey hey!”

“Big brother follows right behind!”

“Heave-ho, heave-ho, hey hey hey!”

“Little sister, how cruel your heart!”

“Heave-ho!”

“Last night’s work was all for nothing!”

“Heave-ho, heave-ho, heave-ho-heave-ho-heave-ho!”

On a raised platform about half a man high, Zheng Fan sat basking in the sun.

Truthfully, he genuinely liked this kind of earthy atmosphere.

It gave him a pleasant sense of being steeped in “culture.”

These past few years, he had spent nearly all his time galloping from war to war amid steel and horses.

There had hardly been any long stretch when he could systematically enjoy life.

As for the Demon Kings, not a single one was beside him.

The great construction drive had begun, and manpower was needed everywhere.

Xue San had gone to oversee construction of the Foundry Directorate.

The campaign against Chu had left behind enormous quantities of armor and weaponry. All of that was precious material. At the same time, a new round of re-equipping the Snow Sea Army was about to begin.

Once spring arrived, demand for farming tools would also be immense.

The workload was heavy.

The deadline was brutal.

A’Ming was responsible for setting up the workshops.

In addition to the old products such as perfume and soap, they intended to develop a number of new ones.

Sometimes, you really had to admire how clever certain people were.

Perhaps in every age, merchants were among those with the sharpest noses.

Zheng Fan had only just been made Marquis, and merchant caravans were already arriving.

Not only government merchants directly operated by Little Sixth’s Ministry of Revenue, but private merchants as well.

Some came from Jin.

Some from Yan.

Others came from Beifeng Commandery or even from the desert itself.

And among them were unmistakably people with golden hair and blue eyes.

They had crossed the desert from the West, then crossed the State of Yan, then crossed most of the Jin lands just to reach him.

Even Marquis Zheng was shocked by the spirit of men willing to risk everything for profit.

After asking around, he learned that these caravans had actually begun preparing based on news from the Chu campaign.

The moment word spread that Ying Capital had fallen and burned, merchants great and small, so long as they possessed enough capital, immediately sprang into action.

Great Yan’s external victories over the past several years had already taught them one thing.

The easiest fortune in the world to make was... a fortune from national calamity.

Whenever the Yan army conquered some region, the amount of wealth it looted back was enormous.

That wealth had to be digested.

Resold.

Converted into the various supplies people actually needed.

And in the process of converting it, the huge differences in price created terrifying profit.

Besides, whether back in Shengle City or later at Snow Sea Pass, goods produced by workshops under Marquis Zheng’s rule had never lacked buyers.

So long as you could obtain the goods, you could calculate all the transport costs yourself and already know the minimum profit.

Anything above that depended on your own ability.

But there was no such thing as failing to sell.

In Shengle City, the industry had still been small.

At Snow Sea Pass, it had once grown very large.

Back then, the campaign against Chu had not yet been won. There had been no massive flow of resources from Yan and Jin pushed forward under court policy. Nor had Snow Sea Pass possessed enough troops to squeeze the snowfield tribes at will.

Yet even then, it had been this industry, and the merchants running back and forth, that had allowed the people of Snow Sea Pass to enjoy a comfortable New Year.

By the following year, their standard of living had risen even faster.

To win popular support, they had imposed low taxes.

Also to win popular support, they had raised welfare spending.

Academies and clinics all cost money to operate.

The board was only so large.

If they did not find ways to bring resources in from outside, the whole thing simply could not function.

Throughout the previous year, Marquis Zheng had first gone to Chu to steal a Princess.

Then the grand campaign against Chu had erupted immediately afterward.

The workshops had been forced to halt production, with every available resource redirected toward military needs.

So the goods suddenly vanished.

Who knew how many merchants had beaten their breasts over it, privately cursing that “Count Zheng” truly had no proper sense of business.

A perfectly good trade was sitting there.

Why did he keep running off to fight wars?

So the moment they saw the scales of the war begin tipping, the merchants moved.

Their caravans arrived packed with supplies.

Some brought grain.

Some brought other goods.

Whatever they could gather, they gathered.

Special staff under the Marquis Residence handled collection and intake.

Once the goods were accepted, the merchant did not receive gold or silver.

He received a goods order.

When the workshops resumed production, he could use it to collect merchandise.

The lives of the people in Yan and Jin were indeed difficult now.

This winter, and next year as well, would be extraordinarily hard.

The court itself could hardly squeeze much more out of the population.

Taxes had already been raised years into the future.

But merchants still possessed channels through which they could obtain things.

That was perfectly normal.

If even merchants could no longer obtain supplies, then it truly would be... the end times.

Besides, some of these merchants came from Qian.

Yes.

The Qian had shouted “Northern Expedition” for more than half a year and ultimately failed to do anything.

But Qian merchants displayed greater initiative than either their court or their army.

They did not travel through South Gate Pass.

Instead, they passed through several small states, transferred through the State of Liang, crossed Qi Mountain, were received by the Fan Clan, then followed Fan Clan waterways until they reached Marquis Zheng.

That allowed them, first, to avoid official obstruction.

Second, to evade taxes as thoroughly as possible.

Marquis Zheng did not believe Little Sixth was unaware.

The Fan Clan belonged to Little Sixth, not to him.

Yet the Ministry of Revenue under Little Sixth had said nothing.

It simply pretended not to see.

That was entirely reasonable.

First, the more the Marquis of Pingxi Residence could feed itself, the less it would need to ask from the court, which reduced the burden on the treasury.

Second, at a moment like this, insisting on strict enforcement simply to display incorruptible impartiality was not something Old Sixth Ji was stupid enough to do.

Truthfully, eastern Jin had once been very prosperous.

Its present devastation came entirely from war, compounded by the short-sighted exploitation of the Savages and Chu, who had killed the chicken for the eggs.

At its core, eastern Jin connected the snowfield to the north and Chu to the south, while also linking the different resources of all the Three Jin lands.

If commerce failed to flourish there, that would be the truly unbelievable outcome.

According to Fourth Lady’s accounting, Yan merchants were the poorest.

There was no helping it.

Little Sixth sat above them.

To support his father’s wars, he had squeezed them through every method he could devise.

Two years earlier, if Yan had held an election for president of the merchants’ association, Little Sixth would practically have been the inevitable winner.

But the dragon slayer had become the dragon.

Once he put on the skin of officialdom, he found it even easier to scrape marrow from the bones of his former colleagues.

As Little Sixth liked to say:

I used to do business myself, so I know perfectly well. Greedy nobles and powerful ministers will rebel. Hungry commoners will rebel. But I have never once seen merchants rebel.

There were fewer merchants in Jin, but they were clearly wealthier than the merchants of Yan.

That too made sense.

Jin had endured years of war and had contributed men, grain, and labor to the campaign against Chu.

But there was still a layer between Jin and the Yan court.

Yan governance over the Jin lands remained somewhat superficial.

So some merchant fortunes still existed.

And the fortunes of the powerful families behind them still existed too.

Yingdu was full of aristocrats who had escaped liquidation because the Situ Clan surrendered, was it not?

No Chu merchant caravan had dared come yet.

For now, Jing Renli and Fourth Lady had only roughly discussed future business.

Come spring, once people saw warhorses being traded into Chu territory, the merchants of Jin would certainly be unable to sit still.

As for the tribal chiefs of the snowfield, they spent the most freely.

Because they were not truly coming to trade fairly.

It was closer to paying protection money.

After the Chu were dealt with, every tribal chief on the snowfield understood that the Yan, no, this Marquis of Pingxi, would face no outside force capable of obstructing his dominance of eastern Jin in the near future.

Qian merchants, meanwhile, were disgustingly rich.

They once again refreshed Marquis Zheng’s understanding of just how wealthy the State of Qian truly was.

After all, during the campaign against Qian four years earlier, he had only reached Shangjing.

He had never seen Qian’s true Jiangnan heartland.

When there was money to make, merchants and the powerful families behind them did not care about national righteousness.

Even so, it would still take at least a full year before eastern Jin’s development properly returned to the right track.

From this winter until the harvest next autumn, soldiers could eat solid food.

Commoners would have mashed potatoes every day.

It was time to eat.

The smell of mashed potatoes drifted over.

Potatoes were wonderfully easy to cook.

Peel them and you could boil them half to death, then eat them whole.

Boil them completely to death and eat them as mush.

Make them suffer a fate worse than death and roast them.

As for potato chips and the like, forget it.

If you had that much oil to waste, why would you still be eating potatoes as your staple grain?

Marquis Zheng woke from his nap.

Today he wore a white brocade robe with a ring of white fox fur around his neck, black-soled boots edged in white with blue floral patterns, and a jade pendant at his waist.

Personal guards clustered around him.

Someone even held an umbrella over his head.

The laborers and soldiers who had just stopped work and were preparing to eat immediately gathered excitedly around to see the “close-to-the-people” Marquis Zheng.

Truthfully, nothing about Marquis Zheng’s clothing looked especially close to the people.

But people in this age were accustomed to social hierarchy.

More importantly, Marquis Zheng could not be bothered putting on that sort of cheap populist performance.

He simply walked around.

Looked around.

Asked several elderly people questions.

Then asked several who looked very young.

Since there had been no rehearsal beforehand, quite a few real problems surfaced.

Food, clothing, and shelter were the three foundations.

Food was not the biggest issue right now.

Mashed potatoes were not something people could eat without limit, but at minimum, they would not starve to death.

Laborers who joined the construction work could even receive some solid food in addition to their meals as a reward.

The real problems were housing and clothing.

Fortunately, Fengxin City had long since been emptied out after the destruction caused by the brothers Situ Yi and Situ Jiong.

For two years it had effectively served as one enormous military camp.

The problem was that the city expansion had not yet been completed.

The people living inside had to be military personnel and administrative staff.

Beyond them, there were also registered military households gradually being moved over from Snow Sea Pass.

And yes, the Sword Saint too.

This time, when the Sword Saint requested a house, he specifically asked for something ordinary.

Marquis Zheng generously told him to choose first.

You choose.

Then I choose.

The Sword Saint drew a deep breath and turned away.

He understood perfectly well.

Once his wife, child, and the rest of the household moved over from Snow Sea Pass, then no matter which new house he chose, the moment he walked outside, the Marquis of Pingxi would still be his neighbor.

But the number of refugees they had accepted this time was simply too large.

So many were currently living outside the city in pit shelters.

They were essentially digging holes like rats and covering the entrances with whatever they could find.

The insulation was terrible.

And many had arrived during warm weather.

Now that winter had come, they lacked proper cold-weather clothing.

That created another problem.

Young and strong people could endure it somewhat.

But many of the elderly, weak, women, and children had caught chills.

At the same time, there was too little medicine and too few doctors.

“Everyone, don’t panic. The Marquis Residence will find a way. Give this Marquis a few more days. I need time to transfer supplies and make purchases. You were willing to follow this Marquis and settle here. Since you did not abandon me, then I have a responsibility to see all of you properly settled and help you live better lives.”

Once the ordinary visit ended, Zheng Fan assigned one of the sharper guards beside him to report these problems to the relevant yamen.

As for which exact yamen he should report them to, Marquis Zheng genuinely had no idea.

The system at Snow Sea Pass had been designed by the Blind Man and Fourth Lady.

Marquis Zheng himself did not even know which office handled which responsibility.

After all, for someone who truly stood above all the relevant yamen, it did not matter which one was technically responsible.

One sentence from him was enough.

After basking in the sun and inspecting the people’s situation, Marquis Zheng felt he had accomplished something today and returned to his temporary residence with a relative sense of fulfillment.

Not long after returning, he came back out again.

Then he went to another administrative compound where Fourth Lady was working.

“Greetings, Marquis.”

“Greetings, Marquis.”

Marquis Zheng waved, telling them to continue their work.

As he reached the entrance to the signing room, he saw Yuexin, the Blind Man’s wife, walking out carrying a large stack of documents.

“Greetings, Marquis.”

“Mm.”

Marquis Zheng entered the signing room.

Yuexin returned and closed the door behind him.

Fourth Lady’s left hand flew over an abacus.

From time to time, she picked up a brush and rapidly added annotations.

When Zheng Fan entered, Fourth Lady looked up.

Smiled.

Then lowered her head and continued working.

She truly was busy.

Zheng Fan took the kettle from the small stove beside them and poured her a cup of water.

The moment he set it down, Fourth Lady stopped immediately.

She accepted the cup and ceased working.

Zheng Fan moved behind her and began massaging her shoulders.

“Tired?”

“Not too bad. At Cuiliu Fort, it was a small operation. At Shengle City, the board got bigger. Then Snow Sea Pass. Now here. Master, I genuinely feel like I’ve been endlessly starting new management-simulation games.”

“The map gets bigger every time, and the difficulty gets higher too?”

“The map does get bigger. The difficulty is actually manageable, because the external environment keeps improving and the resources we can mobilize keep increasing.”

“Don’t wear yourself out.”

“These things cannot be delayed, Master.”

“The Blind Man will bring them over in a few days. Once he arrives, hand the work to him.”

“If the Blind Man comes, Tian Tian will come too.”

And the Prince was still inside Fengxin City.

“Don’t ask the Prince for now,” Zheng Fan said. “If he wants to go see the child, he can.”

Last time he had secretly visited his son, even Sha Tuo Queshi had been suppressed by him.

Although Prince of Jingnan was now seriously wounded and unable to fight, if he wanted to secretly meet someone inside Fengxin City, that was still easy enough.

And Zheng Fan would make arrangements.

“Have Xue San assign one of his men to wait there around the clock. Dai Li. I remember his mind works quickly.”

“Mm. That is indeed workable.”

“And you. I mean it. Take a break first. This war only just ended, and it lasted so damned long. I’m genuinely afraid we’ll barely finish stabilizing everything here before another war starts.”

“What war could there still be? Can they even keep fighting?”

“Who knows with those lunatics? Either way, I’m done being a model worker.”

“Master wants to...?”

“Exactly. You need to take pity on me too. I’ve been awake in this world for several years now and still haven’t truly eaten meat.”

“But Master, you’ve sampled plenty of meat dishes.”

“I’m not satisfied anymore. Living on cold appetizers instead of a proper main course isn’t right either, is it?”

“Liqing and Ruqing will be here in another two days, won’t they?”

“I told you, they come after you. Liqing is fine. When it’s just the two of us, she’s rather sweet and silly. But Ruqing...”

“What about Ruqing?”

Marquis Zheng did not answer.

“Master, is it like this?”

Fourth Lady raised her head.

She leaned close to Marquis Zheng’s ear.

Her teeth lightly nipped his earlobe several times.

Her breath brushed softly against his ear.

Then, in a coquettish murmur, she whispered:

“Daddy~~”

“Yes...”

If Liu Ruqing’s allure came naturally from her bones, then Fourth Lady wore sensuality as effortlessly as breathing.

Yet there was not the slightest trace of vulgarity about her.

Instead, you willingly sank into her control.

Zheng Fan reached out and pulled Fourth Lady into his arms.

“Hand the work down. Let’s have a child. This time, even if Heaven sends thunder to strike me, it can forget about interrupting me!”

[End of Chapter 610]