Chapter 898: The Man Who Feeds the Horses

Summer had actually already passed.

Golden autumn had arrived long ago.

But eastern Jin was not a place where the four seasons were especially distinct.

Spring and autumn were short.

Winter and summer were long.

It could stay warm and warm and warm, then suddenly become cold.

A person could be shivering from the frost one moment, then suddenly find the weather heating up again.

Sun Youdao, who had once served as Chancellor of Great Cheng, had a famous conversation with Situ Lei that later spread among the people.

Situ Lei asked:

“Why is the literary tradition of Jin inferior to that of Qian?”

Sun Youdao answered:

“Because Qian has four distinct seasons and Jin does not. If one cannot experience the clear division of the seasons, it is like never fully tasting sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy. Most of all, Jin lacks the teeming vitality of spring and the desolation of autumn. Missing those two flavors, how is one supposed to write poetry?”

And so, when sunset approached and the Prince walked into the Sword Saint’s little courtyard next door, Liu Dahu served him a bowl of iced sour-plum drink from the household.

The ice naturally came from Prince Pingxi Residence’s ice cellar.

Xiao Yibo arranged a corresponding allotment to be delivered to the Sword Saint’s household every day.

In short... the Sword Saint’s family lived simply.

But “hard-up” had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Their life was more like the sort of idyllic rural existence people of later generations liked to imagine.

A duck waddled over to the Prince.

It stretched out its neck and arched its body as though eager to show off.

The Prince pointed at it and asked the Sword Saint:

“Ever had spicy duck neck?”

“...” The duck.

There was a baby bed in the courtyard.

The Sword Saint’s youngest son stood holding the railing, his large eyes fixed on Zheng Fan.

“You’re going out again?” the Sword Saint asked.

“Yes.”

But Zheng Fan quickly added:

“You don’t need to trouble yourself by coming along this time. It’s nothing major.”

The man had only just accompanied him home from campaign.

They had barely spent any time back with their families.

Asking him to come running out again felt inappropriate.

The Sword Saint looked at Zheng Fan.

Then he looked at his youngest son.

“Or... maybe I should come with you after all?”

“Sure.”

The Sword Saint was used to it by now.

Zheng Fan stretched lazily.

“This trip won’t take long. I’m going to Snow Sea Pass. After Snow Sea Pass, I’ll make another trip to Zhennan Pass. The hearts of the men below have grown a little wild. I need to go there personally and weed them.”

“Oh. That.” The Sword Saint nodded. “Since coming back, I’ve heard quite a few complaints from below because you didn’t take the eastern Jin troops on this campaign.”

“That was inevitable.” Zheng Fan took a drink of sour-plum drink. “When we first built this system, it was designed specifically to deal with frequent warfare.”

The system beneath Prince Pingxi Residence had already begun taking shape back in Shengle City.

At Snow Sea Pass, it had fully matured.

Its spiritual core came from the Qin military-merit system of another time and space, while its production-and-military structure borrowed from the Eight Banners system.

Above all that sat Prince Pingxi’s own reputation for “winning every battle.”

Under such a system, it was inevitable that the soldiers and civilians of eastern Jin would rejoice at the sound of war.

Zheng Fan set down the bowl.

He sighed.

“But for the next five years or so, the broad strategy will be recuperation and rebuilding. So I need to personally go put the brakes on this mood while it’s still forming.”

“Recuperation is good.”

The Sword Saint’s first response was rather perfunctory.

Then he looked at his youngest son again.

“At the very least, quite a few children will get to have a peaceful childhood.”

In eastern Jin, the Standard Households naturally lived extremely well.

The ordinary commoners outside the Standard Household system were, in some respects, equivalent to the tenant farmers of old Yan back when the hereditary great clans stood everywhere.

The difference was that in eastern Jin, there was only one hereditary great clan:

Prince Pingxi Residence.

The taxes imposed by the Residence were not particularly low.

But there were no middlemen skimming off the difference.

Life could not be called rich.

Yet “stable” was entirely fair.

And because Prince Pingxi Residence was continuously opening new farmland and carrying out larger-scale land grants, the lives of ordinary people at the bottom would inevitably improve further in the years ahead.

In this age, if you could simply avoid war and maintain an efficient yamen, you were already headed straight toward a flourishing age.

But how difficult were those two conditions to achieve?

At that moment, the Sword Maid pushed open the door and entered.

Seeing Zheng Fan there, she blinked, gave him an extremely perfunctory curtsy, then immediately ran over to play with the child.

But Zheng Fan noticed something.

A sword now hung at the Sword Maid’s waist.

The little girl who had once dragged her master’s corpse along the banks of the Bian River had grown up.

Girls developed earlier to begin with.

With her current frame, wearing an adult sword no longer looked out of place.

“You’re carrying a sword now?” Zheng Fan asked.

“She can start practicing properly,” the Sword Saint said.

Then he gave Zheng Fan a meaningful glance.

The Sword Maid turned and looked at the Prince.

She adjusted the sword at her waist with one hand and asked:

“Your Highness, scared yet?”

The Sword Maid had once said she would avenge her master.

Zheng Fan gave a disdainful laugh.

The Sword Maid puffed out her cheeks in anger and snorted.

“Your Highness, my swordsmanship is going to improve very quickly!”

Zheng Fan believed that.

Back when she was still a little girl, she had accidentally entered the grades simply because she could not suppress herself.

Now she had spent years lying low while the Sword Saint personally trained her.

Her accumulation was deep.

Everything was ready.

“Good. This Prince will wait for you to come kill me.”

“You said it yourself, Your Highness.”

“Yes, I said it. When I first met you, how many jin did you weigh? How many do you weigh now? Before you kill this Prince, settle the account first.”

The Sword Maid frowned.

Then she immediately said:

“I’ll pay you in silver for all the food and drink I’ve had!”

“This Prince doesn’t want silver. I’m not short of silver. This Prince only wants your flesh.”

“Ridiculous! If I hadn’t eaten your food, would I not have eaten somewhere else? Would I not have grown?”

“Hahahahaha! But if you hadn’t eaten this Prince’s food back then, you wouldn’t have survived long enough to go anywhere else and eat!”

“...” The Sword Maid.

The Sword Saint could only try smoothing things over.

“You could humor her a little.”

“What is there to humor? She’s a young girl. What should be put down should be put down. Always dwelling on the past isn’t good.”

The Sword Maid glared at Zheng Fan.

She had merely intended to joke around.

Who would have guessed this Prince would seriously calculate the debt with her, then turn around and accuse her of being unable to let go?

In truth...

Zheng Fan was not worried about the Sword Maid at all.

The girl had basically grown up before his eyes.

She could enter the rear residence whenever she pleased.

Tian Tian had once spent all day running around behind her.

She could even hold Big Girl.

If they could not be certain of her temperament... she would never have been allowed into the rear household in the first place.

As for vengeance for her master... that had been war.

“This time, you want to come with me too?”

“I do!”

The Sword Maid did not feel embarrassed saying it.

But she still felt somewhat guilty.

She was an honest child.

Stubborn.

But honest.

So she added:

“Before I kill you, you’re not allowed to be killed by anyone else.”

That warmed the heart.

Good.

They had not raised her all these years for nothing.

Ever since his daughter had been born... some part of the Prince had softened considerably.

He immediately slapped his thigh.

“Just for those words, if A’Li ever dares treat you badly in the future, this Master will be the first to refuse to spare him!”

“Pah!”

The Sword Maid’s pretty face instantly flushed red.

Seeing that... the Sword Saint sighed.

The Prince pointed at the Sword Maid.

“Hahahahahaha!”

...

“Hahahahahaha!”

Inside the Garrison Commander Residence of Fan City, Gou Moli pointed at the Xie Clan envoy standing before him and roared with laughter.

He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

“Make me a Pillar of State? Bring me into the ranks of Great Chu’s high nobility? Hahahahahaha!”

Gou Moli stood.

Hands planted on his hips, he paced back and forth.

“Aiyo. Aiyo. You people of Chu really are getting worse with every passing year. You should know that the troops stationed in Fan City right now are a Savage army. And the Garrison Commander of Fan City is me. I’ve never hidden who I am. Ordinary people might not know, but your Chu Phoenix Nest inner guards couldn’t possibly have failed to dig up traces of my identity. Ai. I’m a Savage. And now even I can be invited by Chu to become a Pillar of State and a great noble. Back then I begged this lord and pleaded with that one, played the grandson before you Chu people, and only under pressure from the Yan did we finally manage to create an alliance between our Savages and Chu. Even then, you Chu people still looked down on us. I understood. But what about now? Now I occupy Fan City. I’m a dagger pressed directly against the heartland of Chu. So tell me. Uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

In truth, “uncomfortable” hardly covered it.

Gou Moli’s military ability stood far above Fan Zhengwen’s.

It even surpassed Qu Peiluo’s by more than a small margin.

Once all his methods were combined, the situation around Fan City had been developed to an entirely new level.

Internally, he imposed order.

Externally, he infiltrated relentlessly.

No enormous war had broken out.

Yet an entire swath of territory that nominally still belonged to Chu, radiating outward from Fan City, had fallen into decay.

And because the eastern Jin armies had not moved during the previous Three-State War, Chu had not dared attack Fan City at all.

A direct assault was out of the question.

So now they had come with appeasement.

Faced with Gou Moli’s ridicule, the Xie Clan envoy simply lifted his chin and said:

“My young master asked me to bring you a message.”

Gou Moli reached up and picked at one ear.

Before the man could continue, Gou interrupted:

“Let me guess. Is he going to say that I was once a hero who dominated an age, so how could I possibly be willing to spend the rest of my life beneath another man? That I’ve lowered myself into becoming someone else’s dog, thrown away the snowfields, and abandoned the hundred-year future of the Savage people? Is your Young Master Xie still shedding sympathetic tears for me? Save it. I, Gou Moli, have spent more of my life as a dog than not. And yes, I truly do dislike being a dog. But in this world... how many people actually get to live as human beings? Qian’s Shangjing was broken by my Master. The Qian-Chu alliance? Heh. Two great states joined hands, and he beat them so badly their grand offensive became a desperate defense. Five years. At most five. Five years from now... one of Qian or Chu will definitely be destroyed! I’d have to have snow packed into my damned skull to betray him at a time like this. You don’t understand my Master’s temper. The thing he hates most is betrayal. And he’s exactly the kind of man who refuses to discuss the ‘larger picture.’ Anyone who tries to talk larger-picture politics with him gets the table flipped in his face. If I betrayed him here... he would gather every eastern Jin soldier he could, drag in troops from Yan proper if necessary, and come charging over without caring about the cost. No matter what he had to pay, he would cut off this dog head of mine and take it home. Of course I could run. But without Fan City, without this army under my command... if I fled to Chu, I’d be worth less than a stray dog. So what the hell would I be doing it for? Because Chu has such good feng shui and such kindhearted people that even a dog can count on half a bowl of rancid slop?”

Gou Moli waved one hand.

“Men. Cut this fellow down. Keep the gifts. Salt the head properly and send it to Fengxin City.”

“Yes!”

“No! No! Please—”

The Xie Clan envoy shouted for mercy.

It changed nothing.

Gou Moli valued the life he possessed now far too much.

It had not come easily.

After his men returned and reported that the envoy had been executed, Gou Moli sat back in his chair and nodded.

Then he smiled.

“I climbed out of a cellar one step at a time to reach where I am today. Was that easy?”

“Of course not. Following the Prince, our days will only get better. Who knows? Perhaps one day you’ll even be made a Marquis.”

The speaker was one of Gou Moli’s personal guards.

He was a Savage too.

Quick-minded.

Capable in his work.

One of their own.

Naturally, he could speak a little more freely.

Gou Moli gave him an annoyed look.

“Ambitious, aren’t you.”

“Yes, yes. This subordinate’s vision is too shallow. Too shallow.”

“Being made a Marquis is nothing.”

Gou Moli grinned.

“Someday... I’m going to be the man who feeds the horses in the inn stable.”

[End of Chapter 898]