The moment the lid was lifted, the glow of the setting sun shone into the box, reflecting a silvery-white light.

Su Wan's eyes were almost dazzled by the silvery-white light.

The silver ingots, like tiny silver boats, were neatly arranged in the box. Each ingot could provide an ordinary family with five years of worry-free life; five ingots could buy a fine warhorse; ten ingots were enough to build a garden; and twenty ingots could build a mansion.

Before her was a full box of silver ingots, and there were three more boxes next to it, totaling four hundred ingots.

She happily picked up a silver ingot in each hand and weighed it in her hands.

The air was chilly, and the heavy silver coins felt icy cold in her hands. But she didn't care; money was a wonderful thing. With money, she could buy delicious food, fun toys, and useful things.

Wei Jingzhuo stood beside her, looking at her satisfied expression, and smiled, "How was it?"

Su Wan was lost in her fantasy with her eyes closed when she heard Wei Jingzhuo's words. She opened her eyes, sighed, put the silver back into the box, and said, "What's there to be happy about if I can't spend it?"

The silver was pure silver and of sufficient weight. The only problem was that it wasn't hers; she couldn't spend it.

Wei Jingzhuo set up a roadblock in her fiefdom to levy taxes on passing caravans. This box of silver represents her income for this month.

“The military pay for the Northwest Camp has been in arrears for many years,” Wei Jingzhuo said with a hint of helplessness, “but now we can finally pay everyone the back pay.”

Su Wan felt that this way of making money was somewhat inappropriate and asked, "Ah Jin, isn't it a bit inappropriate for us to set up checkpoints on the road and impose heavy taxes on passing caravans?"

This checkpoint is cleverly designed, situated right on a major trade route. Every passing goose is taxed, every passing person leaves behind a fortune; even a dog passing by has to pay taxes. While most caravans pay the normal tax rate, the Lin family is taxed the heaviest: 30% of every 100% of their transactions are taxed.

Wei Jingzhuo said, "Ah Wan, you don't understand the past. It's always been like this. Our army protects the safety of caravans, and the caravans pay a certain amount of money as a reward. Back then, everyone signed and agreed to this."

"And then what?"

"Later, led by the Lin family, they got close to the Duke's Mansion in the capital. They stopped paying their debts, and the other merchant caravans followed suit," Wei Jingzhuo said coldly. "The soldiers of the Northwest Army had neither military rations nor pay, and relied entirely on my maternal grandfather to raise money and supplies to support them. They also had to protect these merchants' homes from the invasions of the Western Rong. The current measures are just to make these merchants pay back the money they owed earlier."

Su Wan then understood the whole story.

She recalled that when her father was the governor of Youzhou, he levied a poll tax based on the number of concubines owned by wealthy people. In reality, it was a disguised way of collecting money.

The soldiers needed money to fight. Although my father's methods were somewhat eccentric, all the money collected was used to defend Youzhou, ensuring peace for the people of that region.

From this perspective, those merchants really had no reason not to pay. After all, no matter how rich they were, they couldn't protect Youzhou.

Wei Jingzhuo seemed to see through her thoughts and continued, "The wealthy gentry in Youzhou, led by the Lin family, avoid paying taxes whenever they have the chance. It was fine when your father was in office. But after he passed away, the new prefect stopped implementing his policies. Relying on the support of the Duke's Mansion, the Lin family took the lead in refusing to pay taxes and even formed a private army to escort their caravans."

Su Wan asked curiously, "What is the relationship between the Lin family and that Bai Zhiyi?"

Wei Jingzhuo said, "Bai Zhiyi's mother's younger sister is the current matriarch of the Lin family. Let's not mention her."

Su Wan smiled and said, "I'm just curious. This silver is about to be distributed to the soldiers in the Northwest Camp, right?"

Wei Jingzhuo nodded, closed the lid of the box, and ordered Lin Qingfeng to lead several soldiers to carry the box out of the room.

“Twenty thousand taels of silver,” Su Wan said, taking out a calculator and pressing the buttons. “If each soldier is paid one tael of silver per month, that’s twelve taels a year… I think the Northwest Army has about thirty thousand soldiers now… Well, let’s say thirty thousand. Thirty thousand soldiers would need thirty-six hundred thousand taels a year… Wow, that’s terrifying.”

She slapped the paper down repeatedly and exclaimed, "This amount of silver isn't even enough for a month's salary for the soldiers of the Northwest Army!"

Wei Jingzhuo looked at the calculator in her hand and asked with interest, "What is this thing? It's so complicated to calculate?"

Su Wan blushed, only then realizing that she was in trouble.

She quickly put the calculator back in her apartment and chuckled, "Sometimes when you get stuck, your brain just can't process it. It seems that the silver we collect in a month isn't even enough to pay the Northwest Army's monthly salaries."

“That’s natural,” Wei Jingzhuo said. “I’m imposing heavy taxes to quickly make up for the military pay. Back then, the Northwest Army had 50,000 men, but because they couldn’t pay their salaries and their food supplies were cut off, more than 20,000 of them left the camp.”

Su Wan sighed inwardly, never imagining that maintaining an army in ancient times would require such a huge amount of money and provisions.

Speaking of wealthy people in ancient times, a family fortune of one million taels of silver seems like an exaggerated figure, but if used to support the army, it wouldn't even last three years just to pay the soldiers' salaries.

She couldn't help but admire General Zhao Xian.

Zhao Xian was old and frail, but he was a master of logistics management. He raised supplies and funds in the rear, and Wei Jingzhuo, as the Jade-Faced General, fought on the battlefield and managed to hold out until now, keeping the Northwest Camp intact.

“Our most important task now is to build up our strength,” Wei Jingzhuo said. “After your cousin went back, the emperor hasn’t made any move. I feel that’s not quite right.”

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