Upon seeing her, the King of the Northern Di was extremely excited. "That's right! You must be Shan'er's daughter! Our princess!"
Madam Su gave an awkward laugh, glanced at Yun Yue, then at him, "You..."
The Fourth Prince's wife was very lively. "Sister! This is Father! He received the secret letter we sent back and couldn't wait for you to visit him, so he came straight to see you!"
Su chuckled.
Yun Yue took her hand, cupped his hands in a gesture of respect, and said, "It is an honor for our Duke's Mansion that the King of the Northern Barbarians has come in person. I wonder if the King of the Northern Barbarians intends to meet with His Majesty of our Dynasty?"
The King of the Northern Di waved his hand, "I came in secret, mainly to see my princess. And indeed, she looks exactly like the late Queen! If you wish, your father will take you back to the Northern Di! You don't know the rules of the Northern Di; even princesses have the same right and opportunity to inherit the throne as princes!"
Upon hearing this, the fourth prince's expression changed. The fourth prince's wife's smile also froze on her face.
Yun Yue's expression also changed.
Madam Su smiled and invited the three of them to take their seats before pulling Yun Yue down to sit with her. “Father—I’ll call you that for now. Although my mother’s identity has been confirmed by the Lin family, she was lost when she was young. As for my father, I have no other choice but you.”
Everyone: ...
Su continued, “Even if you are truly my father, even if I have the right and opportunity to inherit the throne of the Northern Barbarians, I do not want to. I am a citizen of the Great Zhou, my husband and family are all in the Great Zhou, how could I leave my homeland and my family to become a princess in a strange country?”
The expressions on the faces of the fourth prince and his wife immediately softened.
The Northern Di King's lips twitched. "Damn it, I'm only giving you a chance to compete for the throne because you're my bloodline."
Why are you so disgusted?
Yun Yue also said, "The Northern Di and the Great Zhou have been enemies for generations. It was only in the last half month that our border city reached a trade agreement, which brought us peace for half a month. The King of the Northern Di would not want Ya Rong, oh, that is, your princess, to see her relatives on both sides fighting to the death again as soon as she returns to the Northern Di, would he?"
The Northern Di King snorted, "Isn't the border town already safe? My princess's return to the country doesn't necessarily mean there will be renewed fighting."
Yun Yue laughed, “King of the Northern Barbarians, let’s not mince words. You and I both know that this bilateral trade is just a formality. Now that you’ve almost captured Dingzhou, the border city, and the people have mostly fled, this trade is merely a token gesture. Whether it will prosper is still uncertain. But… if you suffer a snowstorm this winter… the situation in that city will be very different!”
The King of the Northern Barbarians wore an arrogant expression. "No matter what, the lives of my people of the Northern Barbarians must be taken care of."
Yun Yue understood perfectly. He had known all along that the Northern Barbarians had only agreed to sign the agreement with them to avoid offending the Great Zhou. After all, they had ravaged the border region, and if things were really settled, the Great Zhou would naturally be in the right. Moreover, at that time, the combined forces of Dingzhou and Liaozhou had at least 500,000 troops. If it weren't for that army pressing down on them, the Northern Barbarians wouldn't have cared about any trade with the border region.
If the Northern Barbarians suffer another disaster and their people go hungry and cold, they will still plunder southwards. They will die whether they plunder or not, so they will plunder as much as they can and live as much as they can.
Therefore, the Northern Di King was not afraid of breaking the agreement at all. What kind of bullshit border trade was this? How much profit could the Northern Di gain? It only gave the people of the Northern Di near the border cities a little respite and allowed their cattle and horses to rest for a while. After all, they had survived by robbing each other for so many years, and there was no reason for them to watch their people suffer without helping themselves, all for the sake of a worthless piece of paper.
Su had previously learned from correspondence with Yun Yue that he was very worried about the disturbances in the border town, and had specifically discussed it with Xiao Youran. Originally, she didn't know where Xiao Youran's many wonderful ideas came from, but now she understood that the bracelet must have opened her mind.
Xiao Youran also deserves a lot of credit for the formulation of the trade plan, and she had also discussed the relationship between the Northern Di and the Great Zhou with Yun Yue in her letter, so she naturally knew that this agreement had no binding force on the Northern Di. She recalled the financial lessons Xiao Youran had given her before, and after thinking for a while from the perspective of the Northern Di princess, she suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of pride.
She said, "Father, if you truly acknowledge me as your daughter, I will give you an idea that can both maintain friendly and peaceful relations between our two countries and enable the Northern Di to be self-sufficient. Oh no, not only self-sufficient, but also able to pay taxes to the royal family, so that the people of the Northern Di can also live a good life!"
The Northern Di King's eyes suddenly lit up. "Speak!"
The Northern Di people lived in a harsh environment, and fighting on horseback was commonplace. However, as the king of the Northern Di, he naturally hoped that his people could live a peaceful and good life.
Su quickly reviewed the matter Xiao Youran had mentioned earlier, and a complete plan gradually emerged in her mind. "The Northern Di have abundant water and grass and are skilled in animal husbandry, so we can start from there. In addition to the furs we mentioned before, we can also produce large quantities of cow's milk, sheep's milk, and dairy products that are easy to preserve, as well as meat products such as beef and mutton. Furs are relatively expensive, and ordinary people may not buy them. However, if we have high-quality and inexpensive dairy and meat products, they are daily necessities for ordinary people and will definitely have a large market. Moreover, the Great Zhou cannot slaughter cattle without authorization, but if we have beef and mutton from the Northern Di, they will surely be very popular. With income for the people, although we don't collect tariffs on trade between our border cities, each merchant will naturally have to pay taxes to the national treasury. The more revenue, the more taxes the Northern Di royal family will collect, won't they?"
The King of the Northern Di showed a look of approval on his face.
The fourth prince, who was listening nearby, also had a gleam in his eyes and said, "What you say is absolutely right, sister! These days, we've been eating the food of the Great Zhou in the capital, and our mouths are getting so bland! If our Northern Di meat products could be sold in the Great Zhou, they would definitely be very popular!"
The Fourth Prince's wife nodded, slightly excited, and said, "Yes! I've been strolling around the streets these past few days and I've already noticed how expensive pork is in the Great Zhou. Ordinary red meat actually sells for twenty-five coins a pound! Our beef and mutton are only five coins a pound and nobody wants to buy them! If beef and mutton were transported to the Great Zhou to sell, they would be twenty coins a pound, which would be twice the price!"
The fourth prince was already calculating beside him, "The Northern Barbarians can raise at least three thousand cattle a year. Even if they sell half of them, each cow weighs eight hundred catties..."
Damn, there are too many, I can't keep counting them.
Madam Su smiled, “Twenty coins a catty, eight hundred catties is twelve thousand coins. Even if you remove the head and tail of a cow, it sells for ten thousand coins, which is about ten taels of silver. A thousand cows would be ten thousand taels of silver! And this is just the price of beef.”
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