The world is like a prison, my body is holy

Xu Wu, his head throbbing with worry, carried the document and walked away, turning back every few steps.

The changes in the construction of the Mountain God Temple and the City God Temple were based on advanced experience that Wang Wen had learned from Jiangxi.

When he was in Jiangxi, he visited many prefectures, counties and towns.

From what he observed, in the prefectures, counties, and towns within the influence of Longhu Mountain, almost everyone practiced Taoism and revered Longhu Mountain.

There were many people there who did not know the names of the county magistrate or the prefect.

However, very few people are unaware of the name of the contemporary Celestial Master of Longhu Mountain.

Within the Ma family's sphere of influence, the situation was quite different.

In a county town with a population of 20,000 to 30,000, more than half of the people have had some contact with witchcraft, while the other half hold it in high esteem and revere it.

In those places, when people suffer from illness or other ailments, their first thought is to seek out a Gu master for treatment. Only when all other options are exhausted will they turn to a doctor as a last resort...

Wang Wen knew, of course, that this was the result of the persistent and subtle influence of the Celestial Master's Mansion and the Ma family over dozens of generations, something that could not be copied.

But there's a saying that goes, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the second best time is now.

In his current vision, he would barely pass the test of developing and utilizing his territory once he had Huangshan Temple and City God Temple spread throughout all the prefectures, counties, and towns of Huainan Road.

……

That night.

Wang Wen used the Huangshan God's divided spirit to open an altar and perform rituals, empowering the Huangshan God and summoning the soul of Emperor Hongtai, Chai Kai.

He used three methods of summoning the soul, searching far and wide across the mountains and rivers, but to no avail.

They had no choice but to give up.

All that remains are a bellyful of questions.

……

Time flies, and another half month has passed.

As the year draws to a close, the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion has begun its year-end review for the first time.

Wang Wen issued a document requiring all institutions and departments under the General's Office to summarize and compile the work done in the past year.

Those in charge of recruiting soldiers need to summarize how many qualified Demon-Suppressing Guards have been sent to the South City Camp over the past year.

The person in charge of collecting information had to summarize how much useful information about demons and monsters had been submitted to the government over the past year.

Those responsible for slaying demons and exorcising evil spirits were even more meticulous in classifying how many demons and evil spirits they had slain and exorcised over the past year, including how many were generals and how many were vengeful ghosts...

The focus of the year-end review work is on fiscal revenue and expenditure and the registration of mountain spirits and monsters promoted by the two major water palaces.

Wang Wen has been busy with the reform of the General's Mansion and the implementation of the "Jixia Academy" project these days, and has not had time to deal with these two tasks. Now that the New Year is approaching, and bloodshed is considered unlucky during the New Year, he naturally has to hurry up and settle the accounts.

Of course, only he himself knows whether he actually harbored any intention of "settling scores later".

For three consecutive days, Wang Wendu sat in the main hall of the General's Mansion, personally supervising the audit team organized by Huang Xingde to review the General's Mansion's income and expenditure over the past year.

As the ledgers that had filled an entire wall gradually condensed into three stacks of varying sizes, the overall income and expenditure of the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion this year was condensed into a thin sheet of white paper and presented to Wang Wen.

The moment Wang Wen took the blank paper and glanced at the numbers on it, he was so shocked he almost jumped out of his chair: "The General's Mansion spent 1.8 million and 800,000 taels of silver this year?"

He hadn't really managed the expenses of the General's Mansion, and since the money in the General's Mansion came and went quickly, he never really had a concept of the overall income and expenditure situation of the General's Mansion.

You wouldn't believe it until you calculated it; the results were shocking.

One million eight hundred thousand taels of silver?
How many men does his Demon-Slaying General's Mansion have?
Even if the imperial court supported an army of 100,000 men, the annual salary plus food and supplies for the men and horses would only amount to this much, right?
Where did this 1.8 million taels of silver come from?

He was so shocked that he read on, line by line, in tiny print.

The lowest-ranking soldiers, the Demon Suppressing Guards, received 15 taels of silver per month. The General's Mansion was always at full strength, which was 2,500 men. After eleven months of pay, that amounted to more than 410,000 taels of silver.

Each officer at all levels receives a monthly military pay of 8,000 taels, which, after eleven months, amounts to 88,000 taels.

Two thousand five hundred suits of iron armor, each costing twenty-five taels, totaling sixty thousand taels.

There are 700 warhorses, each costing 50 taels of silver. Each horse consumes about 4 taels of fodder per month, totaling 60,000 taels over eleven months.

These are fixed expenses. In addition, there are food and fodder consumption, seasonal clothing, compensation for the wounded and the injured, as well as the construction of the camp and the loss of weapons and weapons, etc., which seem like small and miscellaneous expenses, but when added up, they are still a huge amount of expenses that amount to an astronomical figure.

Wang Wen reviewed the summaries item by item, his furrowed brows relaxing slightly. A complex thought arose in his mind: 'I'm fucking good at making money!'

The provisions for the Demon-Slaying General's mansion are divided into two parts.

One part of it was the grain and salary allocated by the imperial court, which accounted for about one-fifth of the total expenditure, or more than 350,000 taels.

The rest was all raised by Huang Xingde and his son Wang Wen on their own.

To be honest, the imperial court did not treat the General of the Demon Slayer's mansion harshly in terms of food and pay.

The reason it only accounted for one-fifth of the total expenditure was because the General of Demon Slayer's mansion had seriously exceeded its budget in terms of food, provisions, and military equipment.

The Demon Suppression General's Mansion was subordinate to the Demon Suppression Division, which was directly under the Emperor's jurisdiction. In other words, the Demon Suppression General's Mansion was on par with the Imperial Guard in the military hierarchy.

The Imperial Guards were already the highest-paid troops in the Great Zhou's military order.

The standard monthly pay for the lowest-ranking soldiers in the Imperial Guard was two to five taels of silver, depending on their branch of service and physical condition.

Note that this refers to standard military pay.

In fact, the soldiers of the Imperial Guards were lucky to receive half of their pay each month, and often they couldn't even get the full amount. There were always three to five months a year when they didn't receive their pay.

After all, the Ministry of Revenue has a Minister and a Vice Minister, the Ministry of War also has a Minister and a Vice Minister, and the army also has a Commander-in-Chief and a Deputy Commander... Don't the officials need to eat?
The military pay standard of the Demon Suppression General's Mansion was set by Wang Wen himself. The lowest-ranking Demon Suppression Guards received a full 15 taels of military pay every month, which was more than seven times that of the lowest-ranking Imperial Guards!
Surely the imperial court can't make up for the extra portion?
Of course, Wang Wen himself had to pay for it out of his own pocket...

The equipment and warhorses of the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion also far exceeded those of the Imperial Guard.

More than half of the soldiers in the Imperial Guard never managed to get a piece of armor even after a lifetime in the army.

At the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion, iron armor is issued to anyone who enlists.

The extra armor and warhorses also had to be paid for by Wang Wen himself.

Military pay, as the standard for military personnel's benefits, directly determines the standards for rewards, pensions, and other benefits...

Even the food standards of the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion are the best in the Great Zhou Dynasty! Who else gets paid as a soldier and has meat in their bowl every meal?
Even the richest landlords wouldn't dare to live like that!
This is why, despite repeatedly raising the recruitment standards of the Demon-Slaying General's Mansion, it always manages to maintain a full complement of soldiers, and there are even frequent instances where a single casualty gap leads to a bizarre situation where twenty or thirty reserve young men vie for the manpower.

Just because the Demon-Slaying General's mansion is rich, he's really rolling in money!
It can only be said that Wang Wen was too honest. Although he often pondered how to motivate his subordinates, deep down he still held the simple idea that one should be paid according to the amount of effort put in. He felt that the demon-suppressing guards under him were all risking their lives to deal with demons and monsters, so they should be paid high wages...

Of course, this is also why, when others avoid the Demon Cave and Ghost Domain like the plague and hesitate to enter, Wang Wen gives the order and the Demon Suppression Guards of the Demon Suppression General's Mansion rush in with a roar!

These demon-suppressing guards, too, harbored thoughts of how much money they would receive and how much effort they would put in.

In their minds, the pay from their own general's mansion was enough to buy their lives...

Wang Wen casually grabbed a piece of white paper as a draft, and after calculating all the data on the paper over and over again, he finally put down the paper that weighed more than a thousand pounds.

This year we started from scratch, manufacturing equipment and building barracks; next year we should have far fewer expenses…

He tried to comfort himself, but then he thought of the Huangshan Temple and the City God Temple construction plans that had just been launched, and his head suddenly throbbed with pain again.

"What about your income this year?"

He looked away, avoiding the stark black numbers on the white paper as if trying to escape from them.

An old accountant in the hall stood up and handed Wang Wen a blank sheet of paper.

The numbers on this blank sheet of paper made Wang Wen feel much more comfortable...

But he didn't feel comfortable for long before he put on a long face again.

The reason was simply because the white paper clearly stated, "The Qinghe Gang has received a total of 450,760 taels of silver."

'This must have emptied Old Huang's savings for his funeral, right?'

His heart felt heavy, and he finally sighed, "Being a father is really hard..."

Huang Xingde never mentioned these things to him.

Not even once!

If he hadn't suddenly come up with this year-end review, he would have had no idea that Huang Xingde had spent such a large sum of money to subsidize his Demon-Slaying General's Mansion.

He suppressed the heaviness in his heart and looked at the data one by one. When he saw the string of numbers "three million five hundred and forty thousand three thousand five hundred and forty-seven taels" at the end of the summary, he finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.

As long as there's a surplus!

The majority of the General's Mansion's income came from the tolls paid by various wealthy merchants and merchant groups, led by the Canal Gang, after he moved to the Huainan Transport Office. The remainder came from the "generous donations" of officials, merchants, and gentry from various places.

"Someone, summon Steward Jin."

He shouted as he calculated the surplus on the draft paper.

Before long, Jin Jiu strode in, clasped his hands in a bow, and said, "General!"

Without looking up, Wang Wen said, "Quickly go and count the silver in the government treasury and report the exact figure to me!"

Kim Gu agreed without hesitation, turned around and quickly left.

Wang Wen put down his pen at the opportune moment and looked at the head accountant below: "Where are the problematic expense records?"

Mr. Zhang Fan remained silent, but handed another stack of white paper to Wang Wen.

Wang Wen took the blank sheets of paper and examined them carefully. He saw that they were filled with excerpts of accounting entries, categorized by subject.

“At the Chengnan Camp, on the 19th day of the seventh month of the 25th year of Hongtai, five hundred catties of live pigs were purchased for two hundred and fourteen taels of silver. Signed by Liu Yong and Zhang San.”

"At the Chengnan Camp, on the 20th day of the seventh month of the 25th year of the Hongtai era, 600 chickens and ducks were purchased for 375 taels of silver—signed by Liu Yong and Wu Datou..."

Wang Wen laughed as he read.

"Guards, summon Commander Xu Wu to come see me!"

He suppressed his anger and growled, but his powerful voice still made the roof beams tremble and countless specks of dust fall.

Soon, Xu Wu jogged into the main hall. Seeing the rows of accountants on both sides of the hall and the mountains of account books piled up on both sides, his heart skipped a beat. He clasped his hands and bowed: "This humble general Xu Wu greets the general!"

Wang Wen remained silent, but simply grabbed a piece of white paper and threw it at Xu Wu.

The light Xuan paper felt like a slap to Xu Wu's face, making him stagger back two steps before regaining his balance.

With a pounding heart, he bent down to pick up the white paper at his feet and examined it closely...

Upon seeing this, he was instantly terrified and broke out in a cold sweat.

Wang Wen remained silent, staring blankly at each sheet of white paper, then tossing them down one by one.

Every piece of white paper that landed on Xu Wu's face made a loud slapping sound.

Xu Wu dared neither hide nor defend himself.

He stood there stiffly in the hall, enduring slap after slap, picking up one piece of white paper after another to examine closely. Before long, his face turned purple and his whole body trembled, whether from the beatings or from anger, it was hard to tell.
He knew why his older brother was so angry!
More than half of the names on the blank paper were old brothers from the former canal gang.

Out of consideration for their past friendship, the elder brother always gave priority to these old brothers whenever there was a lucrative position.

But these people didn't remember their past friendship; they treated their elder brother like a fool and deceived him...

Based on his understanding of his elder brother, if these people weren't so greedy, or even to the point of insulting his brother's brain, he could probably just scold them and let the matter pass.

These people are just so damn bullying!
Pork costs thirty copper coins a pound in the West Market. Where did they get the audacity to put up a tenfold mark on the bill?
It took Wang Wen more than an hour to read through just twenty or thirty pages of paper.

For more than an hour, the only sound in the hall was the slapping of papers onto Xu Wu's face; there was no other sound at all.

"You planted this person, go investigate it yourself!"

After throwing all the blank sheets of paper at Xu Wu's face, Wang Wen picked up the teacup beside him and said calmly, "Anyone who embezzles more than ten thousand taels of silver shall die; anyone who embezzles more than five thousand taels of silver shall have both arms broken and be thrown out of my general's mansion; anyone who embezzles more than five hundred taels of silver shall be dismissed from his post and kicked out of my general's mansion; the rest shall all be punished with thirty-three years' imprisonment and barred from promotion!"

Xu Wu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said fiercely, "This subordinate will take care of it immediately and will not let them get away with it."

After saying that, he crossed his arms, turned around, and strode out.

He happened to brush past Kim Gu as he entered.

When Jin Jiu entered, Wang Wen assumed he was there to report on the inventory of the treasury. However, Jin Jiu strode into the hall and whispered in Wang Wen's ear, "General, news just arrived from home that the Prince of Qin has rebelled!" (End of Chapter)