Chapter 1316: Whose Food Are We Eating? (Part 2) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]
Soldiers will fight for whomever they eat.
How simple and how realistic this short sentence is.
Miao Ne instinctively wanted to say a few words of comfort, but the words caught in her throat and she swallowed them back. Her lord wasn't the former ruler of Qi; he didn't need the flattery of others for spiritual satisfaction. She felt a sense of helplessness: "Am I destined to be controlled by others?"
Even though Cui Xiong was merely a figurehead, Miao Ne couldn't help but feel resentful towards him. Aristocratic families are adept at calculating gains and losses, and even Cui Xiong is no exception—it's truly disgusting!
Shen Tang chuckled and said, "Not really."
She built her business from scratch, and Kangguo from nothing to something, facing far more pressing problems than what's currently plaguing her. She didn't choose to compromise back then, so why would she swallow her pride now? Can a place she can't truly control still be considered her territory? Anyone wanting to be a local tyrant on her land, parasitizing her, drawing nourishment from her to enrich themselves… have they even asked her opinion?
She's not made of clay.
Miao Ne's spirits lifted: "Does Your Majesty have a way to break this deadlock?"
Shen Tang said, "This situation has never truly trapped me, so how can there be talk of breaking the deadlock? The Kang Kingdom's treasury is indeed... somewhat strained. The number of royal officials has increased, and their salaries cannot be delayed. The soldiers who have made contributions in this battle cannot be mistreated either. Therefore, my plan is to use the national treasury budget for this purpose, with the cost of grain used for reconstruction in the civilian sector being deducted. Kang Kingdom is short of money, not grain."
To put it simply, Shen Tang's current assets are all high-quality, non-liquidizable fixed assets that cannot be converted into readily available cash. In terms of assets, she's certainly not poor, but in terms of cash flow, she's truly lacking. Ample food supplies can appease the people.
We can start with work relief, with the royal court allocating a small portion of the funds and the remaining compensation paid in grain. This might buy us some time.
Even if the economy fails to recover in the short term, as long as there is no major famine or disaster, the boiling public resentment that the aristocratic families expect will not erupt for the time being. Shen Tang: "At worst, we can restart the IOUs from the He Yin era, which can also be used to alleviate cash pressure."
Now, with Kangguo's backing, IOUs are matched with stored grain in the granaries. As long as the common people believe that IOUs can be redeemed for grain, they can temporarily replace silver in circulation. However, this method is not the first choice. Back then, the River Governor only had a small territory, so managing IOUs was simple, and the cost of forgery was high. Even after Shen Tang was transferred to Longwu County, no large-scale forgery scandal broke out. Now it's different. Her operations are too large, and no one can guarantee that there aren't skilled forgers in every nook and cranny.
What if it gets cracked and a large number of fake IOUs come to cash out?
Will you honor the payment?
The Kangguo granary is doomed; everything is about to fall into chaos.
They won't honor the payment?
The royal court's reputation among the people was ruined in an instant.
Once the people lose trust in the royal court, how long can the Kang Kingdom last? How will the currency circulate? How will the policies be implemented? In severe cases, it could even render Shen Tang's years of hard work futile. Therefore, she must be extremely cautious, balancing civil and military affairs, balancing the royal court and local authorities, constantly suppressing any emerging powerful local families, and meticulously managing every penny of her daily life.
Being a king is no job for a human being.
Even cattle and horses aren't exploited like this.
His heart was filled with bitterness, and tears streamed down his face, but he still had to maintain a confident smile: "The difficult period of growing pains is only temporary. I can get through it by gritting my teeth. Fate always has a price tag in the dark. If I bow down to the powerful families now for a moment of ease, they will become a cancer again when they recover from the war. At that time, there will be too many entanglements of interests, and it will not be easy to deal with them again."
The tax rate paid by the Southwest region should be on par with that of Kangguo.
The proportion of those remaining in the region is also at the minimum level.
Miao Ne admired Shen Tang's decisiveness but was also worried for her: "What if the powerful families in the southwest, led by the Cui family, interfere?"
We can't kill them all.
The powerful families of the Northwest were shattered by frequent wars. Even a local strongman like the Miao family could be considered mid-level, their control over the region not very deep. But the situation was different in the Southwest. Take the Cui family as an example: officials in various places had members of the Cui family, their affiliated families, their in-laws, their protégés and former subordinates… there were hundreds of people with known names. Killing so many people wasn't difficult; the difficulty was finding replacements immediately without chaos. And this was just the Cui family; how many other large and small families were there combined?
Shen Tang sneered: "There was a great man named Huang Chao who created a brand new way of killing people: killing according to the family genealogy! I am not that crazy... but if pushed to the limit, I can live as long as heaven and earth."
"To live as long as heaven and earth? To be immortal?"
"It's a mutual destruction."
Miao Ne: "..."
This is the first time I've ever heard of this word being used in such a reversed way.
"...Their worthless lives are hardly worth the Lord exchanging for."
Shen Tang simply patted Miao Ne's shoulder heavily.
"Ximin, let's file a work injury report."
Miao Ne has been under immense mental pressure by the side of the former ruler of Qi. The once upright and taciturn Miao Ne can't shake her deeply ingrained verbal tic. Shen Tang told her to report a work injury, but Miao Ne looked down at herself in confusion—she wasn't injured.
Cui Xiong was summoned by Shen Tang again a month later.
The location is in the capital of Qi Kingdom.
The capital surrendered yesterday, and the new ruler of Qi was the son of the previous king. A little girl, barely able to walk, wearing an ill-fitting plain robe, led her court in surrender. The girl's biological father was none other than You Shi, the previous king's favorite. She didn't even know what had happened; she only remembered her father's utter despair, as if the sky had fallen. She was filled with anxiety and confusion.
Seeing the child king, who was barely waist-high, Shen Tang was momentarily surprised and speechless at the former officials of Qi State. How could a mere infant save a collapsing empire? He was merely a scapegoat.
Qin Li also told Shen Tang a secret about it, leaving Shen Tang speechless: "Originally, they wanted this baby king to perform the ritual of being bound face-to-face and holding a jade disc in his mouth, with his body exposed, leading all the officials in mourning clothes and a coffin... After all, he's just a baby, he doesn't even have a sense of shame yet, so even if he suffers such a great humiliation, no one will care..."
The surrender of a defeated nation is a reward for the victorious nation.
The loser deserves whatever humiliation he or she suffers.
In the past, such surrender gifts were presented by rulers in their prime, but who knew that the Qi Kingdom would produce a mere infant on the eve of its destruction?
Isn't this just plain crazy?
"I heard that the child's biological father almost hanged himself."
The baby girl was unaware of the profound humiliation she had suffered, but her father knew. However, neither he nor his daughter could resist, and in his grief and despair, he chose to commit suicide. Servants noticed the commotion and rescued him. The child, terrified by the commotion, nearly suffered a mental breakdown…
The Cui family officials who remained in the city delivered the message.
The story eventually reached Chu Yao's ears.
Time was of the essence, and Chu Yao didn't have time to report to Shen Tang. He directly sent men to beat up the people who were planning to do this, hastily grabbed a plain robe for the infant king to wear, and didn't bother binding the child or giving him jade in his mouth. Other things like the coffin were left untouched. Chu Yao's men even coaxed the dazed child: "Just walk out of the city gate later, and I'll give you candied hawthorns when it's all over."
I just used candied hawthorns to stop the child from crying.
I don't know what these officials were thinking. Winters in the southwest are much warmer than in the northwest, but it's still winter. In the dead of winter, they expect a naked child to lead hundreds of officials in surrendering? Why don't they take off their own clothes? Hundreds of people gathered naked to "walk their birds" (a euphemism for sexual activity)?
That was a scene of the underworld that history books would write about in great detail!
In a certain month of a certain year, the State of Qi surrendered, and the officials welcomed the royal army with birds in hand. History dared to record this, but later generations dared not read it. A group of adults, even old men with one foot in the grave, bullied a widow and her daughter like this? If no one had informed these old men of their plans beforehand, their own ruler would have been the one heavily criticized in history.
Later generations will not remember who arranged the surrender, but they will certainly remember who the recipient was, and will speculate that this was a perverse act of the Kang Kingdom bullying the weak. Shen Tang almost became the historical version of the injustice done to E'e.
"Wu Hui went too far."
Shen Tang hadn't slept for a single hour on her way here.
Now that she had control of the Southwest, she needed to have a general understanding of the situation there. Even with Wenxin's assistance, which gave her a copy-and-paste learning ability, Shen Tang was extremely busy and barely had time to sleep. She had to organize her thoughts as quickly as possible. Knowing yourself and your enemy is the key to victory, and it would also prevent her from being deceived by the local forces in the Southwest who relied on information asymmetry.
Therefore, she was initially unaware of the surrender controversy.
Seeing the tiny baby who barely reached her waist, her weariness as a corporate slave seemed to fade, and she forced a smile.
After completing the formalities and moving into the family's home, I learned about this whole thing: "If it were me, I would have stripped everyone else naked!"
Chu Yao: "It's not that I don't want to, it's just that it's not elegant."
If it were just the few of them present, doing this would have worked; probably half of those old geezers would have committed suicide when they got back. But their lord was also there; they couldn't let him see such filth. Reluctantly, they spared the group of old geezers.
Shen Tang thought about that scene.
Pain closed his eyes: "It is indeed indecent."
It was to the point where they almost wanted to gouge their own eyes out.
Shen Tang secretly noted down this debt.
Shortly afterward, the guards came in to report.
"My lord, the eldest son of the Cui family is waiting to be summoned outside the palace."
"Bring the person in."
Perhaps it was because the army's food was good, but Cui Xiong not only didn't continue to lose weight, but actually gained some weight and looked quite well. He even seemed to have the air of a son of a prominent family more than when they first met. He was still unaware of the shady dealings behind the surrender, and his mood was still sunny and bright.
"I have met Mr. Shen."
Shen Tang rarely gave him a kind look, which made Cui Xiong feel flattered. He had been ignored by Shen Tang for more than a month. He was able to keep his composure for the first half of the month, but he became somewhat discouraged in the second half. The southwest was already in the final stages of preparation, and Kang Kingdom had not yet shown any signs of financial collapse. Apart from being short of manpower, there were very few civil unrest or riots in the occupied areas, and it seemed that the national treasury was able to keep flowing money out.
Cui Xiong then realized that those people had miscalculated.
For the next two weeks, he slacked off a bit, eating and drinking well every day, going to bed early and getting up early, and not having to work regular hours. How could he not look well?
Shen Tang pointed to the seat below, indicating that he should sit down.
Cui Xiong grew increasingly surprised and uneasy, his movements becoming increasingly restrained.
"How have you been these past month or so, Hou Bai? Cui Zhishan is already in the city. Once you return, you and your son will be reunited."
"Very good, thank you for your concern, Mr. Shen."
"I'm glad you're doing well. You've been away from home for so long, your elders must be worried." Shen Tang smiled gently, like a kind and approachable elder, showing concern for Cui Xiong's quality of life during this time, and even letting him bring back some local specialties.
A "specialty" for Choi Ji-sun.
Cui Xiong didn't even have a chance to mention the mission the entire time.
Back at the Cui family's private residence in the capital, the entire family was unusually present. Not only were his father, Cui Zhi, his mother, Cui Hui, his younger brother, Cui Mi, and his elder sister, Cui Long, but also his sister's unofficial "brother-in-law." His legitimate brother-in-law, Yuan Wulang, was nowhere to be seen.
The room was filled with a sense of impending storm.
The elder sister nestled in her mother's arms, sobbing uncontrollably as she expressed her longing. Her mother was moved to tears as well. Cui Mi wished she could minimize her presence, while her father glared angrily at the people bowing and scraping before his daughter in her room.
Hearing Cui Xiong's commotion, everyone turned to look.
Cui Xiong was so frightened that he wanted to take a step back.
Before he could even take a step, his father sternly stopped him.
"You get in here too!"
"oh!"
Cui Xiong dared not disobey in the slightest.
Cui Zhi put his daughter's matter aside for the time being and asked Cui Xiong about the progress. Cui Xiong had barely spoken to Shen Tang in the past month, so what progress could there be? He could only take out the "specialty" that Shen Tang had given him, which Cui Zhi opened, glanced at, and then closed.
"Father, what's inside?"
The father's expression was quite unpleasant.
Cui Zhi tossed the items aside as if they were something dirty, but his words sent chills down the spines of everyone present: "Just a few genuine ledgers of the Cui family. These things should have been kept in the most secret and secure place. Shen Jun has quite the methods!"
Cui Xiong glanced at his mother's reaction out of the corner of his eye.
The latter is still very close to her older sister.
Cui Xiong stammered, "Could it be fake?"
The real ledger might still be standing there, untouched?
Cui Zhi was too lazy to bother: "Regardless of whether the contents are true or false, the appearance of the real accounts can be forged. Isn't it easy to get the original? There's no need to verify its authenticity."
Cui Xiong's mission is not without progress.
These ledgers are Shen Tang's answer.
"...I believe that not only the Cui family, but other families should have received similar 'special products'." These so-called special products are actually leverage against the family. These leverages could concern their very survival, their reputation and honor, or even be charges that could uproot the entire clan.
He didn't want to get involved in the first place.
While other families were filled with unease, the Cui family had already secured their safety and saw no need to get involved in any more scandals. However, the one above them was unwilling to accept this outcome. Cui Zhi even wanted to throw things at him. Could the Cui family of the past be compared to the Cui family of the present, or the Qi state of the past to the Kang state of the present?
They won't be satisfied until they drag people down to hell with that stubborn and arrogant approach!
"How did Shen Jun find these things?"
Cui Zhi didn't want to know about this nonsense.
He just wants to know when his daughter went astray!
"Are you trying to drive your father to his death?!" I've been both a father and a mother to my daughter for so many years, when did she change so drastically? Even if a girl changes a lot as she grows up, it shouldn't be like this! What's she doing bringing those girls with no official status to today's family dinner?
Cui Zhi was so angry that tears were about to fall.
Is he my son-in-law? I'll bring him to see him.
|ω`)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
