Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 149 Even in Difficult Times, We Must See the Light
Five million coins is really not much to buy a city.

That's equivalent to a little over two hundred taels of gold. If you exchange those two hundred taels of gold for a merchant who needs gold, it's possible to get six million coins.

Yun Ce watched Liu Che leave Jingkou Pass with five or six personal guards and seven or eight carriages. Also seeing him off were Liu Che's deputy general, advisor, chief clerk, and two officers. Everyone felt a little sad, but not guilty.

Upon returning to Jingkou Pass, Yun Ce officially took his seat in the main position, and then the chief clerk, Sun Li, brought up a large basket of bamboo slips.

After reading it, Yun Ce sighed and asked, "How long has it been since you received your salaries?"

Sun Li looked at Yun Ce with expectant eyes and cupped his hands, saying, "I haven't received a salary since Yuanlu fifteen years ago."

Yun Ce calculated that it was now the twenty-third year of Genroku...

"You mean you haven't received your salary for eight years?"

Lieutenant Tan Kai's mouth moved slightly, and he whispered, "Nine years, nine years... I haven't taken it."

Counselor Li Chengzhang sighed and said, "The five million coins that the general took is just his salary that he hasn't received in nine years. It's not excessive, is it?"

Yun Ce's gaze swept across everyone's faces, and he slowly said, "Why aren't you leaving?"

Deputy General Tan Kai's deeply lined face trembled slightly as he cupped his hands and asked, "Doctor Yun, where do you think we should go, and where can we go?"

Yun Ce then turned his gaze to the face of the registrar, Sun Li, and pointed to the basket on the ground, saying, "Has no one's salary been paid yet?"

Sun Li said, "We have been in arrears for nine years, the soldiers for six years, and the artisans for three years. Doctor, General Liu really has no money to pay everyone, which is why he chose to leave."

Upon hearing Sun Li's words, Yun Ce quickly asked Feng An to take out the carrier bird, wrote a letter, put it in a metal tube, and sent it away with the carrier bird.

After sitting down again, he continued, "Do you agree to this kind of private exchange?"

Tang Kai smiled wryly and said, "At least, the doctor is an official, an official of the Han Dynasty. As long as we hand over Jingkou Pass to the officials of the Han Dynasty, we have nothing to complain about. It's better than letting it fall into disrepair."

Yun Ce's gaze swept across everyone's faces once more as he said, "If, and I mean if, I were to make up for all the salaries the court has owed you over the years, and from now on, salaries would not be paid annually but monthly, and miscellaneous items such as grain, cloth, salt, and charcoal would no longer be paid, but all would be paid in the form of green coins, could we then resolve this wellhead pass?"

Upon hearing this, Registrar Sun Li knelt down with a thud, kowtowed heavily to Yun Ce, and stretched out his arms, saying, "If what you say is true, Doctor, I, Sun Li, am willing to serve you faithfully and would never dare to have any disloyalty."

Yun Ce glanced at Sun Li and said, "Get up. You are all officials, so don't lose face. Calculate how much you owe over the years. Make sure you know every penny. It's not necessarily the court's fault that money hasn't been paid out over the years. It's also possible that it was embezzled along the way."

Remember this: after you take the money, I'll allow you one day of celebration. Three days later, I want to see a clean and tidy Jingkou Pass.

Sun Li stood up and smiled at Yun Ce, saying, "With money, caravans will naturally come, and shops will appear in Jingkou Pass. Things will gradually get better."

Yun Ce stood up and said to his deputy general Tan Kai, "I now have the important task of garrisoning and farming on my shoulders. I will ask Chief Clerk Feng of the Garrisoning and Farming Office to stay at Jingkou Pass to take charge of the overall situation."

Meanwhile, Registrar Sun and Counselor Li, the two chief writers, will accompany me out of the pass to lead people to the reclamation area to expedite the construction of houses. We must get this done before the snow falls.

"Deputy General Tan is familiar with military affairs at Jingkou Pass. With ample pay and provisions, I want to see the army as it should be. If that fails, Deputy General Tan, I will not tolerate any incompetent fools."

Tan Kai opened his mouth, which had few teeth left, and bowed to Yun Ce, saying, "This humble general is incompetent and I am afraid I cannot fulfill the duties of a deputy general. I would like to ask the doctor to select a more capable person, and I will assist him from the side."

Seeing that Tan Kai was very sensible, Yun Ce then placed the responsibility of guarding Jingkou Pass on Zhang Min. If Tan Kai dared to accept this appointment, his fate would be very bad.

Zhang Min returned after receiving an urgent message from Yun Ce.

Actually, Yun Ce's letter arrived a little late. Zhang Min hated this guy for selling out the border and was ready to tear this disgusting corrupt official to pieces. After cutting off Liu Che's arm, she received Yun Ce's letter.

After reading the content, Zhang Min was filled with mixed feelings. At times, she felt sorry for Liu Che, and at other times she felt that he was despicable.

After hesitating for a long time, Zhang Min finally apologized to Liu Che, who was terrified.

The words "You killed the wrong person" made Liu Che cry like a newborn baby.

The original city garrison commander has fled, and the city still needs someone to guard it. No matter how you look at it, Zhang Min, a woman full of justice, is the most suitable candidate.

In the morning, Yun Ce threw off the blanket and got up. Seeing that E Ji was about to crawl out of her sleeping bag, Yun Ce helped her zip it up, touched her forehead, and found that it wasn't so hot anymore. He then comforted her and told her to go back to sleep. Leaving the tent, the ground was covered in a blanket of white frost. Fortunately, it was all frost and the ground wasn't frozen. The main task for the day was still plowing the fields.

The chestnut horse had long refused to plow the land and had wandered off somewhere, so Yun Ce had no choice but to place the double-headed plow on the back of a stupid ox. With a flick of the whip, the stupid ox began to continue cultivating the wasteland along the edge of the land that had been plowed the day before.

The mountains and fields were full of people clearing land and planting crops, but their attitude was very problematic. When Yun Ce stopped the oxen and started looking around, they were busy as bees. But as soon as Yun Ce continued plowing, their movements immediately slowed down.

Yun Ce wasn't in a hurry. Everyone had a task to complete, and when they couldn't finish by nightfall, they would realize how foolish their laziness had been.

Here, slaves are unsupervised and can run around freely. Even when men and women sneak into the woods during breaks from work, Yun Ce doesn't care.

He even encouraged them to do so, since what he wanted were the newborn children, and this group of people should be the last batch of slaves under Yun Ce's command.

Yun Ce calculated that the temperature in the geothermal area is generally about six degrees higher than the temperature outside the geothermal area. Although it is only a six-degree temperature difference, for slaves who do not have enough warm clothing, it is a line between life and death.

Today, Yun Ce plowed ninety mu of land with just himself and his ox. He originally wanted to plow a hundred mu, but when he thought of E Ji's pale face when he left this morning, he put away the plow before the sun set and led the exhausted ox back to the geothermal area.

Eji's illness was not yet cured; she always had a runny nose and needed to wipe it frequently. After wiping it too often, her nose became red and painful, so she simply stopped wiping it. She would sniff the snot as it flowed down, and only when she had absolutely nothing left to sniff would she use a handkerchief to wipe it all at once.

Yun Ce touched E Ji's forehead with the back of his hand to check her temperature. Her high fever had completely subsided last night, and now she was left with only severe aftereffects of a cold.

The craftsmen and soldiers who came from Jingkou Pass are building a huge courtyard in the very center of the geothermal area. This will be the main living area for Yun Ce and others, as well as the living area for all the children. The slaves will live on the edge of the geothermal area.

Although the central area is less than 500 meters away from the outside world, this short distance separates the children from their parents.

Yun Ce believed that when spring came next year and the flowers bloomed, the shadows of those slave parents would fade in the children's hearts, and given more time, their shadows would completely disappear.

In the settlement of over ten thousand people, apart from the children who are now growing up carefree, everyone else, including Yun Ce himself, is working themselves to the bone.

Yun Ce believed in the exaggerated saying "sow one grain of millet in spring, reap ten thousand grains in autumn" because it was a very common phenomenon here. The farmland in this area was actually a plain formed by the deposition of soil brought from the plateau by Qinghe in the past. Over the years, organic matter has been continuously deposited, making the soil here very fertile.

And all 300,000 mu look like this.

If the land could be cultivated to the foot of that distant Black Mountain, Yun Ce felt there should be five million mu of such land. Five million mu of high-yield farmland would be more than enough to support a city with a population of one million.

"Cough cough cough..." Eji coughed violently for a while. Seeing Yun Ce looking over with concern, Eji said in a hoarse voice, "Bring Zhang Min here. I want to spank her."

Yun Ce sighed and said, "She's busy preparing the troops at Jingkou Pass, so let her off this time."

"I won't let go. Didn't you take pictures with great enthusiasm last time, my lord?"

Yun Ce picked up E Ji and carried her into the tent. He poured half a pot of water into her mouth, then stuffed her into her sleeping bag and continued sleeping. There's no good way to cure a cold; drinking more water and getting more sleep are the best methods.

Zhang Min returned when it got dark, bringing Eji a whole bunch of vulgar, ugly, and worthless women's items.

Eji was overjoyed. She looked at each piece and tried them on one by one. In the end, she found that none of them looked good on her. She was not angry and gave them all to Anji and the others.

Anji and the others were born into wealthy families, so they naturally looked down on it even more. In the end, Yun Ce used it to reward the most outstanding child in the group.

“A caravan has arrived at Jingkou Pass. This time they brought only cheap goods. They’ve discovered that Jingkou Pass is wealthy and are planning to bring out some valuable goods next time they come.”

"You bought all their goods?"

"I bought everything, whether it was useful or not."

Yun Ce laughed and said, "Merchants are profit-driven. As long as there is profit, they will definitely make Jingkou Pass prosper."

"But in the end, it's our money that's being spent."

"Money doesn't care whose it is. For a local official like me, money here is local."

　I've finished revising it. I don't see anything wrong with it. Anyway, it's finished. If it still can't be published, I'll start cursing.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)