Da Zaojun

Chapter 154 Difficulty in Making Money
"At the place called 'Hungry Ghost Tree' in Baliting, there is a secret realm. Inside is a small country with 480 temples. I destroyed the first temple, seized the secret realm token, shattered the golden Buddha statue, and obtained some fortune from it. I used it to subsidize the people in the city. Those strange phenomena just now were the result of consuming a large amount of fortune to complete the execution of the decree."

Song Wuji spoke casually, but Chen Xiu looked shocked: "Divine Buddha Golden Body, what grade?"

Song Wuji chuckled: "He's only a seventh-rank, I suppose. He claims to be an incarnation of Manjushri Bodhisattva, but I still managed to crush him."

"Manjushri Bodhisattva is the most exalted among the Bodhisattvas in Buddhism, the teacher of the Seven Buddhas, and together with Avalokiteshvara, Samantabhadra, and Ksitigarbha, they are known as the Four Great Bodhisattvas."

Lu Han was aware of this, and he said, "Could it be that these gods and Buddhas have also been revived along with demons and monsters?"

Upon hearing this, Song Wuji scoffed, "Not a real Bodhisattva, but a fake one, a hungry ghost climbing onto a lotus platform."

He then sighed, "I wonder what trouble these gods and Buddhas have suffered, that they have all lost their positions, allowing these demons and evil creatures to take their place and create all sorts of strange occurrences."

"The rats have become a plague."

"The wild boar claimed to be a messenger."

"Hungry ghosts transform into Bodhisattvas."

"The bookworm transformed into the City God."

Lu Han said quietly, "If we're talking about gods and Buddhas, who knows if they were originally demons? Leaving them aside, even the ancient human leaders were different from the pure humans of today. Shennong had ox horns, and Yu the Great could turn into a bear."

"The heavens are full of deities. Not to mention anything else, just the star gods and the twenty-eight constellations are all named after animals."

Song Wuji waved his hand: "Don't talk about ancient matters recklessly. Too much conspiracy theory will only make you lose your ambition."

“Magistrate Tian said that the ancient people could argue with each other about who was the leader of all beings, and we are just arguing about it again.”

Song Wuji explained the many changes, especially to Chen Xiu, who had been wondering if there were any other martial arts rituals besides the skull-offering ceremony. He was very happy to hear that Song Wuji could train soldiers.

"The ninth rank is a squad leader, and those two squads make up a hundred men. The imperial court appoints centurions, so wouldn't that be an eighth rank? And what about a chiliarch? Wouldn't that be a seventh rank?"

Song Wuji said helplessly, "The luck is insufficient, and besides, as a county-level lord, I don't think I can mobilize these. This must be related to authority. Otherwise, with a quota of 500 regular soldiers, there should be at least five centurions, not just ten squad leaders."

“Indeed,” Lü Han said. “Only prefectures can establish prefectural troops and state armies.”

“Generally, no military garrisons are set up in counties. If one is, it must be a strategic location that is contested by military strategists and a place where troops are stationed. Otherwise, counties generally only have militia and civilian militia.”

"To be precise, the number of militia in a county is usually less than two hundred. They usually farm and only gather for training once every month or two. They are either hereditary military households who serve in the military rather than regular soldiers. Regular soldiers are elite soldiers and receive a salary, so they are considered full-time."

Song Wuji said, "It takes the fortune of twenty people to support one regular soldier. I wonder how many people it used to take to support one soldier before?"

“Basically, it takes the taxes generated by one hundred able-bodied men to support one soldier. However, the population cannot consist entirely of men; there are also women, children, and the elderly. Therefore, when spread out, it takes the taxes of one hundred and fifty people to support one soldier.”

"Based on our city's population of 25,000, we can only support less than 200 regular soldiers." "Although agriculture nowadays has the Five Elements Agriculture and other systems, and the products come from secret realms, such as blood rice and demon flesh, which seem to be more nutritious, the consumption of regular soldiers is also greater. Their strength, the time spent training every day, the improvement of their strength, the herbal medicine for recuperation after training, and even their standard equipment all need to be paid for from taxes."

“Our Taichang County’s current productivity is absolutely insufficient to support a full complement of 500 regular soldiers. Even if we planted all 5,000 mu of reclaimed land with blood rice, the initial fertility of such reclaimed land would certainly not be suitable for planting, and we would need to invest even more manpower and effort.”

Song Wuji said helplessly, "That's a full complement of five hundred men. It doesn't have to be a full complement. If we support them with all our might now, how many regular soldiers can we get?"

“If there is no pressure, there will be about eighty people.” Lu Han calculated for a moment: “After all, the food rations of ordinary people nowadays are only enough for eight or ten days. They also have to issue bounties every day to collect the flesh and blood of demons and gather the tender leaves of grass and small demons in order to make enough. After all, most people are now studying martial arts, which consumes a lot of energy.”

Chen Xiu said, "I have about two hundred people there."

“You’re leading your troops to hunt demons, you’re not really training them much.” Lu Han pointed out the problem: “The important thing about training is following orders and building cohesion, not how many enemies you kill. If you’re out hunting, you can’t train, and if you’re training, you can’t go out hunting.”

Chen Xiu said, "That's easy. We can take turns. Today, one hundred people go out hunting, and another one hundred people train. Tomorrow, one hundred people train, and another one hundred people hunt."

“No, in the past, when you hunted with two hundred men, you supported those two hundred men.”

“Now, if you hunt with a hundred people, you are also supporting two hundred people. The pressure will increase. Moreover, the more people there are, the larger the scale of the hunt will be, and the less likely you will be harmed by demons. But if there are fewer people, the scale of the hunt will be smaller, and you will be more likely to be harmed by powerful demons.”

"Most importantly, you are a person. When you go hunting, you cannot train soldiers. When you go to train soldiers, you cannot go hunting. Without you as an eighth-rank official and a leader, it is like a scattered army. It is easier to scatter and suffer losses. Whether it is injury or death, even one person is a huge loss."

Upon hearing this economic calculation, Song Wuji immediately felt a headache coming on: "Then let's temporarily take advantage of the monks' retreat! I can recruit martial monks from there, and I can also take advantage of the temples, but it's not a long-term solution."

Lu Han objected, saying, "This is essentially like drinking poison to quench thirst. Judging from Lord Song's experience in the secret realm, the secret realm of offering alms to monks is extremely divided into temples and disaster victims. Trying to take advantage of the temples will only make them bleed the people dry."

"The right approach should be to actively manage the secret realm, make the people rich, and thus generate tax revenue, instead of having an extra temple as an intermediary that takes an extra layer of profit!"

“We killed the emperor who had become a monk, so we should support a puppet emperor, or you, the city lord, can become the emperor directly, Chen Xiu can be the general, and I can be the prime minister. With two hundred full-strength regular soldiers, plus the ability to recruit martial monks from the secret realm, we can make a total of five hundred. That should be enough to make us run rampant in this secret realm.”

"I suggest we just confiscate the property of those temples. There's no need to gamble with them or worry about backlash."

"I suggest we raid their homes directly. Raiding their homes brings in a lot of money quickly and can also eradicate the Buddhist forces to some extent. I originally thought that the 480 temples in the Southern Dynasty were just a poem, but I didn't expect that there are actually 480 temples in this secret realm. It's simply outrageous."

“Good.” Song Wuji felt that what Lü Han said made sense. As expected of a scholar, he spoke with substance. He immediately said, “Originally, I left some decrees to restrain the monks, thinking that I could produce ten monk certificates every month. But I think that’s too mild. These monks will definitely comply in name only.”

"Perfect! This Tongtai Temple alone has yielded so many treasures. Let's plunder the other temples and see if we can get some more fragments of the Golden Statue of Fortune!"

Song Wuji was truly envious and wanted to find a way to make money to strengthen the military power of Taichang City, at least to get more people to become ninth-rank officials.

Chen Xiu rubbed his hands together, eager to get started: "Great! Confiscate their property! I've never confiscated property before! I hope this time we can become rich!"

(End of this chapter)