Han Qian used his chopsticks to pick up a small piece of crispy pickled cucumber and chewed it with smacking sounds. Seeing Yao Xishui sitting across from him with absolutely no appetite, he set down his porridge bowl and asked:
“What’s wrong? When Miss Yao mixed hallucinogenic poison into my wine, you weren’t this reluctant. Could it be that Miss Yao feels that because I used my own money to support over ten indentured girls at Wanhong House, I deserve death, while those four fellows who disobeyed orders, were negligent in combat, and sat by watching their squad leader so easily counter-killed by enemy agents shouldn’t die?”
“The crime shouldn’t extend to wives, daughters, and descendants!” Yao Xishui said.
“The crime shouldn’t extend to wives, daughters, and descendants?” Han Qian snorted coldly and said, “These four died for their crimes. If I don’t punish their wives, daughters, and descendants, do you think their circumstances in the garrison would be better than slavery? If you sympathize with them, you’re perfectly welcome to buy them all back.”
Yao Xishui was blocked by Han Qian’s words and had no response. She also suspected whether Han Qian’s last sentence was hinting at something. Watching him coldly as he lowered his head and slurped down half a bowl of porridge, she truly couldn’t understand how Han Daoxun, who had the reputation of a distinguished minister, could have such a monstrous son. Could it be that those few years he was fostered in Xuanzhou truly twisted him into being so cold-blooded and heartless?
Han Qian saw Yao Xishui’s disdain and only sneered inwardly. If the historical trajectory didn’t change, no wonder after Emperor Tianyou’s death, the Third Prince’s side was so easily completely uprooted by the Anning Palace side. Apart from Li Zhigao, Wanhong House and the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion truly didn’t have many figures who could hold their own!
Honestly speaking, Han Qian didn’t consider Marquis Xinchang Li Pu to be an exceptional talent either. Otherwise, having received Wanhong House’s covert support early on, his achievements shouldn’t have been inferior to those of his elder brother, the Prince of Eastern Zhejiang Li Yu.
Even among the military figures of Li Yu’s faction, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu’s status was slightly inferior to Li Yu’s foremost general Zhang Xiang. And looking at the current situation, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu and the Black Veiled Woman hadn’t successfully pulled Li Yu, who was currently in seclusion in Hongzhou, or Zhang Xiang, who currently served as Governor of Tanzhou, onto their pirate ship.
Lin Haizheng and Fan Dahei brought over the written summary record of yesterday’s gains and losses. Han Qian had them also go rest.
As long as the Personnel Ministry’s memorial hadn’t passed the Chancellery’s review, their side couldn’t relax.
Han Qian reviewed the written record of experiences and lessons learned—it didn’t differ much from what he’d anticipated.
Last night, across such a large area, to prevent Bureau of Military Geography agents from infiltrating, the Left Bureau Military Office had fewer than eighty scouts divided into sixteen groups searching within Baohua Mountain.
The household guard apprentices enrolled in the troops were still young. Even though over the past half year they’d received strict training, as squad leaders they still couldn’t suppress those valiant veteran soldiers carefully selected from tens of thousands of refugees.
Of the three killed by ambush last night, Zhao Wuji killed one, Fan Dahei killed one, and the mortally wounded Guo Hongpan killed one. The two wounded were also the work of household guards and household guard apprentices.
As for those “valiant” veteran soldiers who had originally been held in high hopes—their individual martial prowess was definitely not weak, and they had experience and ability to maneuver in complex situations. But these people were somewhat more obedient when led by Han family household guards of similar valor. When led by fourteen or fifteen-year-old household guard apprentices of slight build, the vast majority were just going through the motions.
The losses they suffered last night of one dead and two wounded were actually all caused by these valiant veteran soldiers’ negligence or disobedience.
Where did Han Qian have time now to discipline them step by step?
Yesterday Zhao Mingting’s forces had only suffered minor setbacks. Tonight would be the most critical time. If he didn’t use thunderous methods to intimidate these newly recruited scouts into obeying orders, when he sent them out tonight to guard the garrison’s periphery, casualties would be difficult to control.
The Third Prince would escort his new bride into the palace to have an audience with the Emperor before noon. Li Zhigao couldn’t get away until afternoon, when he brought a group of men rushing to the Qiuhu Mountain villa to meet with Han Qian.
Chai Jian remained at Longhua Port confronting the elite scouts from the Bureau of Military Geography gathered there, but with over forty skilled men at his side, that situation was destined to be a stalemate.
When Li Zhigao stepped into the Qiuhu Mountain villa again after four months, he found that compared to four months ago, the interior of the estate had changed considerably.
In fact, after the New Year the Qiuhu Mountain villa had been continuously renovated and expanded.
For this purpose, Han Qian had also opened up a new plot of land on the east side of the workshop compound and built a brick kiln.
Although Jinling City was said to be the wealthiest in the Jiangnan region, the main buildings in the city were constructed of rammed earth, and even more than half the city walls were also made of rammed earth without brick facing.
Buildings constructed using timber beams and columns with green bricks and mortar were naturally much sturdier than rammed earth walls with thatched roofs, and could better withstand the torrential summer and autumn rains of the Jiangnan region. However, the cost of firing bricks in this era was still too high.
Previously at the Qiuhu Mountain villa, the east courtyard was the main courtyard. Among the ten-plus rooms across three sections, only six rooms used green bricks, small tiles, and wooden beams, with square green brick flooring inside—already quite excellent quarters by contemporary standards.
Within the Imperial City’s palace grounds, apart from several main halls being somewhat more luxurious with extensive use of stone materials, other courtyard buildings were no better than this.
The Jiangnan region frequently experienced torrential rains. When Han Qian expanded the estate, he insisted on using green bricks, but even having built a brick kiln and recruited craftsmen to fell timber in the back mountains for charcoal burning, the cost was still too high.
Firing a thousand jin of lime required only five hundred-some jin of charcoal, but firing a thousand ordinary green bricks required burning over four thousand jin of charcoal. Fortunately, timber in the back mountains was fairly sufficient, and hiring laborers from the garrison prefecture was cheap. After the New Year, the estate had newly built and renovated over thirty green brick and tile rooms, which were barely sufficient for current use.
When Li Zhigao met with Han Qian and saw the situation was under control, he relaxed somewhat. Even when Yao Xishui mentioned that Han Qian had arbitrarily executed four newly recruited scouts, Li Zhigao didn’t care at all.
By regulations, Han Qian could only directly execute soldiers who fled from battle on the battlefield without requesting instructions. Afterward, he should have bound and sent them to Registrar Li Chong, who also managed legal affairs, for disposition.
Apart from Han Qian having requested exclusive authority when he agreed to establish the Secret Bureau’s Left Bureau, more importantly, the situation they faced was as precarious as a pile of eggs—the slightest carelessness would result in total loss. Compared to examining these minor details, they more urgently needed someone capable of controlling the situation to hold down one front.
Shen Yang wasn’t on their side and they couldn’t expect him to participate in their overt and covert struggles with Anning Palace and Chuzhou. Apart from his father, himself, and Chai Jian, Li Zhigao believed that Li Chong, Yao Xishui, and others were still far from capable of independently managing a front.
Han Qian had already become an indispensable link for them, playing a role others found difficult to match. Li Zhigao didn’t think he should demand more from him. When manpower was scarce and morale unstable, using thunderous methods to first suppress unruly valiant soldiers was decisive and resolute action.
Considering that Zhao Mingting might deploy even more elite scouts to infiltrate tonight, and the personnel Li Zhigao brought weren’t very familiar with Baohua Mountain’s terrain, Han Qian and Li Zhigao discussed and finally decided that the men Li Zhigao brought would join the garrison troops in being responsible for internal garrison security, while the peripheral counter-infiltration and hunting would still be entrusted to Lin Haizheng, Fan Dahei, and Zhao Wuji leading the Left Bureau Military Office’s scouts.
In any case, Zhao Mingting couldn’t openly lead a large force to storm in. The negligence of those newly recruited scouts last night might even create some misleading impressions for Zhao Mingting. The situation was still extremely favorable for them.
With Han Qian able to control the situation, Li Zhigao was happy to relax and put more thought into the construction of the garrison prefecture and the Dragon Sparrow Army.
Han Qian naturally raised again the matter of building a fortress below the estate centered on the military prefecture office. Additionally, six mountain ridge gaps around the estate needed defensive outpost compounds built—only then could a complete defensive system be formed. When necessary, they could gather seven or eight thousand troops and withdraw three or four tens of thousands of garrison troops’ family members inside to defend.
When Han Qian had met Li Zhigao and Chai Jian the day before yesterday, he had proposed this plan. After Li Zhigao returned and discussed it with his father, they also felt Han Qian’s proposal was excellent. They determined it was necessary to build such a stronghold so that if the situation suddenly deteriorated, the Third Prince would have a foothold outside the city where troops could gather.
However, the key issue was still the cost.
Seeing Li Zhigao furrow his brow in thought, Han Qian wasn’t anxious or impatient.
What he proposed were all urgent matters. Now it remained to be seen how much potential Wanhong House and the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion had to squeeze out.
This would also allow him to estimate exactly how much power Wanhong House and the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion had secretly cultivated beneath the surface over these years.
“The six defensive outpost compounds are positioned right at mountain ridge openings—the terrain is treacherous, worthy of being called strategic passes. They should begin construction as soon as possible. Moreover, these six locations are susceptible to rain erosion and need to be constructed with brick, stone, and glutinous rice paste mixed with lime mortar. As for the fortress below, if the expense is too great, we can first build rammed earth walls and wait to face them with city bricks later.” Han Qian offered a compromise suggestion.
“Approximately how much additional grain and funds need to be allocated monthly?” Li Zhigao asked.
The garrison prefecture had reclaimed seventy or eighty thousand mu of land. By the end of April there had been successive harvests, but because they could only plant wheat, beans, and other dryland crops, and even had to strictly prohibit catching crabs and snails for food, even on the sunny southern slopes of Baohua Mountain, the total annual production was only around one hundred thousand shi.
This was barely enough to keep the garrison troops and their families—over twenty-three or twenty-four thousand people—from starving to death. For marriages and funerals, childbirth and medical care, as well as the garrison prefecture wanting to repair buildings, villages, roads, and ditches, plus the ongoing multi-year disease source isolation, and the garrison prefecture’s internal public consumption, an additional ten million qian annually needed to be invested just to barely maintain operations.
Additionally, the training of seven thousand troops couldn’t stop. In this regard, apart from the twenty million qian in military funds the court allocated annually, they needed to provide at least an additional sixty thousand shi of grain per year.
The Chamberlain for the Imperial Regalia’s Arsenal Bureau would allocate arms and armor for the Dragon Sparrow Army, but apart from providing sufficient roughly forged swords and spears totaling over twelve thousand pieces, they only allocated five hundred sets of various armors, three hundred warhorses, five hundred mules and inferior horses, and twenty sets of horse armor.
For the Dragon Sparrow Army to become an elite force, Wanhong House and the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion needed to additionally procure large quantities of excellent equipment.
Apart from the seventy or eighty million qian that the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion and Wanhong House had invested in establishing the Dragon Sparrow Army and garrison prefecture over the previous half year, they needed to subsidize another seven or eight million qian monthly afterward for the Dragon Sparrow Army and garrison prefecture to barely operate normally.
Building kilns to fire bricks and constructing fortress walls within the garrison prefecture could utilize cheap labor from the garrison prefecture, but no matter how cheap, they still needed to provide three full meals—that would require at least allocating over a thousand additional shi of grain monthly or equivalent funds and materials.
Han Qian calculated mentally and said to Li Zhigao, “Entrust this matter to me. Allocate an additional thousand shi of grain monthly, and initial completion within one year. After another half year, the fortress’s exterior walls can be faced with city bricks.”
Li Zhigao had commanded troops in battle and, apart from besieging and capturing cities, had also constructed military equipment and fortifications. He knew the figures Han Qian reported were quite economical.
In fact, they had considered this matter early on. The garrison prefecture’s Supply, Works, and Military Affairs staff officers were all people sent by the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion, and they also had construction officials under them. They had estimated the cost of constructing brick-faced fortress walls would actually exceed Han Qian’s expenditure by thirty to forty percent or more.
Li Zhigao thought that if Han Qian presiding over this matter could save so much, they should have the Works Bureau cooperate with this side. Gritting his teeth, he said:
“No matter what, we must squeeze out the grain and funds to complete this matter quickly. Don’t delay on your end—begin preparations first…”
Although when calculated, the six or seven thousand gold cakes that the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion and Wanhong House had invested in the Dragon Sparrow Army and garrison prefecture during the initial half year wasn’t an absolutely terrifying figure, the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion and Wanhong House had over these years not only secretly maintained five or six hundred elite combat forces but also cultivated a group of deeply embedded secret agents who had infiltrated the court and civilian spheres—the consumption was not a small amount.
After Han Qian expanded the scale of household guard apprentices and deliberately cultivated them all toward the elite and even exceptional direction, he discovered this consumption was too terrifying.
Looking at Li Zhigao’s expression, which didn’t seem false, Han Qian thought that taking an additional thousand shi of grain monthly truly was the limit for the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion and Wanhong House.