Longzang

Chapter 602 Let's get down to business

Xu Lanshan put down the ledger and closed her eyes to ponder for a moment. With her powerful spiritual sense, she could generate hundreds of thoughts in a single breath, her thinking speed hundreds of times faster than that of ordinary people. In just a short while, she came up with more than a dozen possible ways to break the deadlock. But the most crucial and unavoidable place was the granary.

"Come with me to the largest granary."

The attendant was clearly flustered and hurriedly said, "That granary is jointly managed by the two elders. Please allow me to go and inform them first..."

Xu Lanshan didn't give her attendant a chance to inform her. A sword aura swept him up and flew straight towards the granary.

Upon reaching the airspace above the granary, Xu Lanshan saw several granaries, each several meters wide and three meters high, capable of storing hundreds of thousands of kilograms of grain. The granary's books indicated a total of over five million kilograms of grain.

Xu Lanshan used her sword energy to directly lift the top of a granary weighing tens of thousands of kilograms, and looked inside. The granary was ingeniously designed, with two layers, an inner and an outer layer, separated by a foot of space. The grain was piled up in this space, and the inside was completely empty.

If the granary is not opened, a cultivator can scan it with their divine sense from the outside and find it full of grain.

However, at this moment, the granary contained at most tens of thousands of kilograms of grain, far less than the one million kilograms recorded in the ledger.

Xu Lanshan inspected the other granaries, and the situation was the same in all of them. At this moment, several elders received the news and rushed over, their faces extremely grim, some even exasperated.

At that moment, the oldest elder, whose path to enlightenment seemed hopeless, said with a dark face, "Fairy Lanshan, what do you mean by this? Do you intend to take our lives?"

This elder was actually four generations older than Xu Lanshan, and was nearly five hundred years old with little time left to live. He was usually quite kind and approachable, but today, his words "Fairy Lanshan" carried a sense of utter desperation.

Another elder sneered, "Killing us won't be that easy. It requires the approval of the entire family's elders council. The sword in your hand alone is probably not enough!"

Xu Lanshan asked expressionlessly, "Are the other granaries in the same situation?"

The elders' faces grew increasingly grim as they said, "Fine, we'll tell you the truth now. All the granaries are like this! This granary has a relatively large amount of grain because many people come to see it, but other places have even less."

Xu Lanshan pondered, "Why do I know absolutely nothing about this?"

The elders said, "You act arrogantly and domineeringly, and you don't listen to us at all. Who would tell you the truth? To be honest, right now, everyone in Hanyang Pass is keeping it from you! Xu Lanshan, don't you understand? You're a tyrant now, and you can't command anyone except yourself!"

Xu Lanshan was not angry and continued to ask, "What do the soldiers eat on a daily basis?"

An elder said, "The soldiers have a separate granary, which isn't exactly the amount on the books, but it's enough to feed them. The private army can't really go hungry, they just don't eat as well. Of all the troops, only the one you're training has its supplies provided according to the plan."

Xu Lanshan asked again, "If the soldiers can't even get enough to eat, what about the soup kitchens and camps set up for the refugees?"

"It's just rice porridge that's slightly thicker than water." Since the elders had already dropped the pretense, they no longer bothered to hide anything.

"Don't they cause trouble?"

An elder sneered, "We've already killed over a thousand. Who would dare cause trouble? Anyone who does will die even faster. Besides, they're all so hungry they can barely stand. What trouble could they possibly cause? One of our Body Forging Guardians can handle over a hundred of them."

Xu Lanshan was silent for a moment before saying, "Come with me."

She then returned to the main hall of the garrison headquarters, sat in the seat of honor, and remained silent in deep thought.

The elders were somewhat uneasy at this moment, recalling the woman's infamous reputation from back then.

Years ago, Xu Lanshan applied for a body-refining elixir, but the elder in charge of the storeroom, lusting after her beauty, forced her to sleep with him. She rebelled, killed the elder, and then left home to travel. Several years later, after a breakthrough in her cultivation, she returned home. Upon seeing her successful breakthrough, her elders intervened and suppressed the matter.

Back then, Xu Lanshan dared to kill an elder when she first entered the Dharma Aspect realm. Does she not dare to do it now? Xu Lanshan pondered for a long time until the elders felt uneasy before saying, "You are so fearless, surely my family members are involved?"

"That's right! Your two youngest brothers have taken a lot of benefits from us, and your father, he comes to us himself demanding his monthly stipend of several thousand taels of silver. Hmph, if you want to kill us, kill them first!"

Xu Lanshan sighed softly and said, "Switch."

"What?" Several elders could hardly believe their ears.

"Lift the border restrictions and allow all caravans to pass. But there's a condition: the caravans leaving the border must send all the refugees stranded inside out," Xu Lanshan said.

The elders were both surprised and delighted. As for the trivial matter of leading the refugees out of the pass, it was nothing compared to the reopening of the source of wealth!
Xu Lanshan's consciousness had already left the main hall and flown off to who knows where. Her voice was also somewhat ethereal: "Let me remind you of one more thing. Wei Yuan paid five taels of silver in taxes to the Prince of Jin for each refugee. If you can also get your hands on refugees, you can try selling them to him."

The elders were overjoyed. The oldest elder smiled so broadly that his wrinkles stretched out, and said, "I knew my grandniece Lanshan was not only talented but also sensible! I'll definitely share my earnings with you. I'll leave you 100,000 taels of silver as a small gift!"

The other elders also realized this and said that everyone was now in the same boat, and Xu Lanshan would not be shortchanged on her share. In the blink of an eye, the atmosphere in the hall became lively, a scene of close blood relatives and harmonious joy.

When Wei Yuan received the news from the front, he was also somewhat incredulous.

Xu Lanshan has such a strong personality, and she was just scolded by me and Prince Jin, yet she actually opened the gate and released the people? Isn't she afraid that people will say she's a bully who preys on the weak? That's not a good reputation.

Wei Yuan felt that if it were him, he would definitely first privately arrange for him to withdraw all the members of the Extinction Gang, dismantle the position, and then find a few scapegoats to tie up and send over, saying that these people were temporary bandits who had not yet been officially recognized and did not know the rules, and that they were the ones who fired the cannon and injured the garrison of Hanyang Pass.

If the other party refuses to even pay temporary workers, then just find a few death row inmates to substitute. After saving face, release the refugees back into the country, and you can probably get another sum of money from Wei Yuan.

This is a truly meticulous operation. Xu Lanshan didn't communicate at all and just released the person directly by turning on the switch. Her method was really crude.

However, after thinking it over, Wei Yuan sent a letter to Xu Lanshan, explaining that he had cleared the bandits from the trade route, the trade route to the Leize tribe was now open, and the Extinction Gang had been severely damaged by him and should be hiding deep in the Western Regions, and would not reappear for a while.

When the letter arrived at Hanyang Pass, the Extinction Gang on the hill was already dismantling the fortifications and reloading the cannons.

The elders of the Xu family inside the pass were initially unaware of what had happened, but upon hearing that the trade route to the Wu tribe had been reopened, they were overjoyed. This was truly a double celebration!

As a result, in less than half a day, letters were sent to the Elders' Council like snowflakes, all praising Xu Lanshan, saying that she was beautiful, kind-hearted, and respectful to the elderly and loving to the young.

Xu Lanshan found it incredibly ironic. She only knew the current state of the grain reserves and that there wasn't enough to feed the refugees, not even enough for the private army. Faced with the choice between her own reputation and the lives of the refugees, she still made her choice.

However, she had to regain the face she had lost by taking it out on Wei Yuan, so she devoted herself to training the new army, drilling them day and night. She made tens of thousands of private soldiers suffer terribly, but their cultivation level rose sharply.

Wei Yuan also began to get busy. With the opening of Hanyang Pass, at least tens of thousands of refugees poured out. Moreover, at least six elders of the Xu family and more than thirty powerful figures in the Xu family secretly wrote to Wei Yuan or sent their confidants directly, claiming that they had a large number of refugees under their control.

The Prince of Jin charged each refugee five taels of silver, while they only charged two taels.

Wei Yuan replied immediately, "I'll take as much as you have, cash on delivery, payment upon arrival."

At this point, Wei Yuan estimated that the number of refugees might exceed 200,000. This needed to be carefully planned, as the first day upon arrival in Qingming was the time when humanistic fortune was most likely to arise.

Why don't we hold a welcome party and he can give a proper speech?
The mere thought of saying a few words caused Wei Yuan's thoughts to automatically begin to wander: How big should the venue be? How should the people be organized? What exactly should he say? First, second, third... one, two, three, four... finally... let me add a couple more points... let me emphasize a few more points... and lastly...

After much deliberation, Wei Yuan rejected this incredibly tempting idea and decided to do something more practical.

(End of this chapter)