The imperial edict conferring Han Qian as Participant in Determining Governmental Matters and commending his merit in recovering northern Huaixi came somewhat later, not dispatched from Jinling until the fifteenth of the month.

Han Daochang received the assignment to transmit the edict, traveling by boat to Donghu as the edict-proclaiming minister.

Han Qian worried the situation could change at any moment. Since persuading the Right Divine Martial Army to surrender before the new year, he had remained stationed in Huangchuan. Simultaneously, Tangyi forces on the western flank had not decreased, maintaining military deterrence against Xiangbei forces.

When Han Daochang received the edict transmission assignment, he wanted to see Han Qian. Together with Huo Li, who had earlier led over a hundred guard cavalry back to Donghu for rest, they rushed to Huangchuan to meet Han Qian.

Upon reaching Huangchuan, they discovered that Zhou Dan—demoted to Guang Province Governor—had arrived a day earlier. At this time, Han Qian, Zhou Dan and others were all in Luoshan after the Left Dragon Sparrow Army withdrew.

Han Daochang, escorted by Huo Li and others, rushed to Luoshan to see Han Qian.

Guang Province was essentially thoroughly devastated. Previously, over twenty thousand Luoshan households had all been relocated by Han Qian to Le’an, Huangchuan and other places for resettlement. After Li Zhigao led the Left Dragon Sparrow Army from the northern foothills of Tongbai Mountain to retreat to Nanyang (Deng Province), his forces from Lingshan and Yiyang also withdrew south to defend the Jiuli (Huangxian) Pass line. When Tangyi forces took over Yiyang, Qisi, Luoshan, and Tongbai—the four counties Xiangbei forces transferred—registered households totaled less than ten thousand people.

Besides two thousand troops that had accompanied Han Qian and Zhou Dan westward, Luoshan City—seven to eight hundred paces square—had well-preserved rows of houses but not a single civilian. It was thoroughly an empty city.

Previously when Feng Liao rushed to Jinling to brief officials, he only mentioned doing everything possible to persuade Wen Bo’s forces to surrender, without mentioning subsequent assistance to the Marquis of Changxiang’s usurpation—of course, all this was now inconsequential. But after seeing Han Qian, while Han Daochang accompanied everyone wandering through the empty streets and alleys, he could not help complaining that exchanging Jing Province for Guang Province with Xiangbei was an extremely losing deal.

“After Li Changfeng submitted his confidential memorial, Cishou Palace still secretly released news of our scheming behind the scenes. For a time, much criticism in court surged like wind and gathering clouds. But after Cao Yong and Wang Ang entered the capital bearing the state letter, critical voices rapidly dissipated like smoke. This shows the vast majority in court can still distinguish interests from right and wrong. Of course, some people perhaps also thought that after Great Chu occupied Liang Province, we would have the foundation to scheme for Shu.” With no one else around—besides Gao Shao, Feng Liao, Kong Xirong and others, Zhou Dan could now be considered Tangyi’s direct lineage—Han Daochang spoke without reservations, saying quite regretfully: “If Liang Province could have fallen into our hands, when the time came, we could send troops from Xu Province and Liang Province in a north-south pincer attack—scheming for Shu would be far more convenient…”

“Greed leads to loss, and no one is an easy mark—Guo Rong and Zhou Dan making that decision at Canglang City was correct,” Han Qian said with a smile. “Currently the Left Militant Cavalry Army and Left Divine Martial Army have also entered Liang Province. On one hand this greatly shares the military pressure Wen Bo and his forces bear. But we must also carefully calculate how much we save in grain provisions and other military expenditures…”

Even under Han Qian’s personal command of western flank forces providing deterrence, preventing Li Zhigao and Chai Jian from attacking Canglang, Jingyun and other cities from behind, if Tangyi had to transport military supplies to Liang Province via water routes from Xu Province or Donghu with naval escorts, military expenditures and transport costs would be extremely high—at minimum requiring seventy to eighty thousand strings of cash in grain monthly, totaling nearly a million strings of cash annually in military expenditures.

Furthermore, they could not expect Xiangbei forces to enter Liang Province now to jointly resist Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian’s counterattack.

To truly control Liang Province long-term, the newly formed Right Divine Martial Army would bear enormous military pressure. These extra military expenditures would also be a long-term heavy burden for Tangyi—even if all the annual tribute Shu promised were used for Liang Province, it would still be far from sufficient.

If Zhu Yu ultimately chose to withdraw from Guanzhong and the Mongols seized it, how many resources would Tangyi need to invest in Liang Province to contain Mongol military forces emerging south from the Qinling Mountains?

Now with Liang Province assigned to Xiangbei, not only would Xiangbei forces jointly bear the military pressure of Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian’s counterattack, but when Wen Bo later led the Right Divine Martial Army out and Zhu Yu simultaneously handed Guanzhong over to the Mongols, Xiangbei forces would bear the military pressure of Mongols emerging south from the Qinling.

All military expenditures currently generated in Liang Province would need to be jointly borne by Xiangbei Regional Defense Command and the court. Han Qian would only need to allocate a batch of meat provisions and excellent armor monthly to additionally strengthen the Right Divine Martial Army—that would suffice.

Thus, on the Liang Province battlefield, Tangyi would only need to spend over ten thousand strings of cash extra monthly.

The saved military resources should continue to be invested in Huaixi’s development.

More importantly, once Marquis of Changxiang Wang Yong truly stabilized Shu’s situation, wouldn’t he and many Shu subjects and people fear that Tangyi might one day use Xu Province and Liang Province in a north-south pincer to scheme for Shu territory?

No war between nations was righteous—interests came first.

Han Qian could understand even counting on his toes that once Wang Yong truly secured the national sovereign position, he would inevitably turn against them first, doing everything possible to reclaim Liang Province from their hands.

By then, with Wen Bo leading the Right Divine Martial Army isolated in Liang Province, enemies to north and south, with ill-intentioned Xiangbei forces on the eastern flank—what capability would they have to hold Liang Province?

On the southern front, Wang Yong could not only potentially sever commercial trade with Xu Province, but might even secretly support major clan forces in Si and Ye provinces and Qianzhong to oppose Xu Province.

After hearing Han Qian explain this, Han Daochang asked hesitantly: “From beginning to end you never intended to seize Liang Province—then why list Liang Province in the secret agreement from the start? Was it bait for Li Zhigao and Chai Jian? However, you’ve long known Lu Qingxia colluded with Guanjiang Tower and northern refugee scholar-official clans, even fearing Lu Qingxia secretly allied with the Mongols. Now giving them Liang Province—if the Mongols truly seize Guanzhong, aren’t you worried they’ll cooperate and thoroughly collude together?”

“If possible, who would willingly be a foreign race’s running dog? Regardless of what Lu Qingxia thinks, I believe not only Li Zhigao, Li Changfeng, Li Xiu and others would be unwilling, even Chai Jian, Zhou Shu, Deng Tai, Xu Jing and their ilk would be unwilling, right?” Han Qian said. “Of course, after they obtain Liang Province and stabilize their foundation, given the opportunity they will certainly actively scheme for Shu. Geographically speaking, they have this advantage—this also destines them not to easily abandon Liang Province.”

In the initial plan, though he had not anticipated Li Changfeng would happen to be present, he had long considered that Li Zhigao, Chai Jian and others had ambitions to strive for Liang Province, while Xiangbei also had geographical advantages. But even so, Han Qian never intended to take possession of Liang Province himself.

Han Daochang thought this made sense. Liang Province was Xiangbei’s bridge connecting to Shu territory. If Li Zhigao and others truly intended to scheme for Shu, they would inevitably strengthen their development of Liang Province, absolutely not handing Liang Province over due to secret collusion with the Mongols.

Han Qian continued: “Of course, giving Liang Province to Li Zhigao has another consideration—whether guarding against Li Zhigao’s ambitions in the future or wanting to reclaim Liang Province from Li Zhigao’s hands, this will all promote a closer, more harmonious relationship between Wang Yong and us… For now, I can only see this far. Times are difficult—we can only take one step at a time.”

Han Daochang thought being able to see this far—few people in the world could manage that, right?

“Li Zhigao yielding Guang Province’s four counties so decisively probably means he’s eager to personally lead forces into Liang Province, right?” Zhou Dan interjected at this point.

“When you secretly set obstacles for them at Canglang, making Li Changfeng and Li Xiu lead troops into Liang Province early, and with Li Changfeng now concurrently serving as Liang Province Governor, if he cannot enter Liang Province immediately leading troops, once Liang Province’s situation stabilizes, he’ll have no pretext to enter,” Han Qian said with a smile. “Wanhong Tower and Prince of Zhedong’sMansion do have some differences after all…”

Zhou Dan nodded. When they negotiated with Li Changfeng, Yao Xishui and Fei Wenbo at Canglang City, they could sense Yao Xishui knew beforehand about Taiyuan Prefecture’s fall, while Li Changfeng did not know this. This showed that though Li Changfeng nominally held the highest official position among Cishou Palace members in the outer court, Lu Qingxia, Yao Xishui and others still maintained some vigilance toward him.

“It’s also good that Li Zhigao can lead troops into Liang Province. After resisting Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian’s first wave of counterattack, Wen Bo and Tan Yuliang can lead their forces out of Liang Province,” Feng Liao said with emotion.

“By the way, what’s the current situation in Guanzhong?” Han Daochang remembered something and asked.

News from Guanzhong reaching Jinling faced too many obstacles, but Han Daochang believed Tangyi’s side, even crossing mountains and rivers, would certainly dispatch some scouts to traverse the Qinling or Funiu Mountains to infiltrate Guanzhong, timely confirming changes in Guanzhong’s situation and transmitting the information back.

“Perhaps because the Right Divine Martial Army surrendered and advanced westward, Zhu Yu guessed what we intended. In mid-December’s first and middle ten-day periods, he secretly assembled elite forces to the northern front. After Shi Jizu received the Mongols’ enfeoffment as Prince of Yong, eager to seize Yong Province as his Guanzhong king, fearing Yong Province would be captured by Shu forces first, his forces rested briefly then moved south along the Fen River valley. Impatient to enter the Hejin region, he stepped into Zhu Yu’s trap and suffered a devastating strike from Liang forces’ Guanzhong main army. Forty thousand troops were routed. Shi Jizu fell from his horse and died in the chaotic battle…” Han Qian said.

“Ah, Zhu Yu is that formidable?” Han Daochang asked in shock. “But on the northern front besides Shi Jizu, what were the Mongols and other Wei Province forces doing? Did they all just watch Shi Jizu’s forces get annihilated?”

“The Mongols still intended to surround and annihilate Liang forces’ northern front main army. At that time sixty thousand troops divided into two routes coordinated with Shi Jizu’s operations. Seeing Liang’s main force leave the city, they wanted to cut off retreat routes from the flanks to achieve encirclement. They didn’t expect Liang’s elite forces under Zhu Yu’s personal command to fight extremely swiftly and fiercely. Before these two route forces could encircle from the flanks, Shi Jizu’s forces were already routed along the entire line by Zhu Yu personally leading Liang’s elite troops. Afterward Zhu Yu led forces to break through the encirclement and withdraw back to northern Yong Province—the entire campaign from launch to conclusion finished in just three days…” Han Qian said.

“Three days?” Han Daochang clicked his tongue, at a loss for words. In the depths of winter, snow covered the Guanzhong plains everywhere. Three days might not suffice for cavalry to travel two hundred li, let alone expecting Jin Crown Prince Shi Jizu—who surrendered to the Mongols to destroy Jin—to receive the Prince of Yong title for only a few days without even capturing his enfeoffed Yong Province territory before dying in defeat. This was truly lamentable.

Han Daochang asked again: “So does this mean Liang forces have a good chance of holding Guanzhong?”

“Difficult,” Han Qian shook his head, saying: “This great Liang victory may slightly boost morale, but such fierce forward assault operations followed by breakthrough withdrawal—their own casualties won’t be few either. Moreover, Feng Province, Qi Province and other regions west of Yong Province have already fallen under Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian’s control. Northern Tong Province, Lin Province, Qing Province and other regions have been occupied by Wang Yuankui’s Chengde Army and Pingxia people. Currently Liang forces only control nineteen counties across Yong, Hua, and Shang provinces—territory belonging to the former dynasty’s Jingzhao Prefecture. Even though Liang forces now have the Qinling Mountains at their back to the south, and Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian to the west temporarily have no intention of advancing eastward, with geographical advantages completely lost to the north, Mongol cavalry can at any time raid deep into Yong Province from the plains on the Weishui River’s northern bank, even directly penetrate Hua Province’s heartland, severing connections between Guanzhong Liang forces and Tong Pass…”

Han Daochang knew that Yong, Hua, and Shang provinces constituted Guanzhong’s most prosperous region. Especially Yong and Hua provinces straddled both banks of the Wei River with fertile land. Even after the Guanzhong region was devastated, when Liang forces occupied Guanzhong in previous years and attracted refugees, they quickly gathered over a million households in these two provinces.

The most critical problem was that after losing geographical advantages, the Mongols to the north and Wei Province rebels to the east, even after Shi Jizu’s forces were routed, could still easily assemble over one hundred thousand troops to gradually press southward.

At this point, Guanzhong Liang forces had no strategic terrain to defend on the northern front. Even if the Mongols slowed their offensive, merely dispatching small cavalry units to raid southward, agricultural production in Yong and Hua provinces could not be sustained. Where would Guanzhong Liang forces’ fifty to sixty thousand troops obtain grain provisions?

Unless they could expel the Mongols from Guanzhong, recover Tong, Qing and Hejin regions, and to the west expel Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian from Qi and Feng provinces, only then could Guanzhong’s strategic geographical advantages be considered complete.

However, Zhu Yu defeating Shi Jizu was already a risky gambit. Even if the Mongols’ main force contracted back to digest and consolidate Jin territory, Wang Yuankui and Tian Weiye were both Jin’s veteran commanders. Seventy to eighty thousand troops plus Pingxia cavalry occupying Qing Province, Tong Province and Hejin region—these were not forces that Guanzhong Liang forces, lacking grain provisions, armor, and medicines, could easily defeat.

“Next, Liang Emperor Zhu Yu may negotiate peace with Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian, but it won’t be easy either,” Zhou Dan said.

Having rushed to Guang Province yesterday to assume office, he understood Guanzhong’s situation earlier than Han Daochang and thought more thoroughly. He did not believe this Guanzhong Liang forces’ great victory could fundamentally improve the dire situation they faced.

As time dragged on, when the Mongols felt their control over Jin territory was sufficient and their cavalry elite and Han forces assembled and mobilized again, not only would Guanzhong Liang forces face peril, but Han Yuanqi, Chen Kun and other forces desperately holding Bian capital would also find isolated support insufficient, unable to escape defeat and destruction.

Han Qian sighed and shook his head. Setting aside Guanzhong’s dire situation, he discussed matters of Zhou Dan taking charge of Guang Province.

Currently they needed to quickly relocate mountain stronghold faction people eastward from Jun Province. With the Canglang incident as precedent, Li Zhigao and his forces would not set obstacles for mountain stronghold faction forces migrating east. Even if they did not actively relocate people out, Li Zhigao would forcibly expel them. It was estimated over twenty thousand military and civilian personnel could migrate into Guang Province soon.

Li Zhigao also made clear he would not allow so many people to migrate east in organized units.

The currently negotiated plan was that mountain stronghold faction officials and their families would be transported by Chishan Association merchant ships to Donghu. Other common people willing to migrate to Guang Province would receive five strings of cash per household for travel expenses plus travel permits from the Command Bureau. After reaching Guang Province they would receive corresponding resettlement fees.

Additionally, Han Qian planned to reassign Huangchuan and Le’an counties back under Guang Province jurisdiction. But even so, Guang Province in the future would only have over seventy thousand households.

Considering the possibility of maintaining long-term military confrontation along the Huai River banks, this population would mainly be arranged in shallow hill and low ridge areas near Huaiyang Mountain and Tongbai Mountain in the upper reaches of the Huang and Gushui Rivers.

In these regions, to properly arrange agricultural production required constructing more dams to intercept water sources and using channels to divert water for irrigating more fields. Cultivation costs would be a notch higher than in plain regions near the Huai River.

Yet these matters had to be done.

In Huo Province, Shou Province, and Hao Province, Han Qian was also trying his best to guide households to settle southward, doing everything possible to increase population density along Chao Lake shores while dispersing households from central-northern Shou Province, Hao Province, and Huo Province near the Huai River.

All this prepared for Mongol cavalry driving straight in—either directly occupying or having Wei Province rebels thoroughly occupy Yellow River-Huai regions.

Fortunately, Huaixi was vast and sparsely populated. Land was extremely abundant, while land on both flanks of Chao Lake and within Chu Province territory was also more fertile.

Of course, Tangyi’s dependence on Huaixi field taxes was quite limited. They relied more on dumping primary industrial products like cotton cloth and iron implements into Great Chu’s heartland and surrounding forces. This also determined that Tangyi could not simply become a local separatist military governor force.

The fundamental reason Tangyi did not take possession of Xia and Liang provinces—both strategically critical after Shu’s cession—lay here.

What Tangyi currently achieved was preventing other forces from finding pretexts or having capability to blockade Chishan Association’s commerce.

By year’s end, the three core provinces of Chu, Chao, and Xu planted over one million mu of cotton fields total, harvesting over nine hundred thousand dan of seed cotton annually, with external sales expanding to six million bolts of cotton cloth and over one hundred thousand dan of cotton wadding. This single item alone directly contributed over a million strings of cash annually to the Command Bureau.

Besides Xu Province counties, nine counties within Donghu, Longtan, Huaiyang, Tingshan, Yongyang, Nanqiao and other territories possessing quality coal and iron ore resources also vigorously expanded the double-furnace iron smelting method. Last year, smelted iron materials successfully broke through the twelve million catty threshold.

However, iron materials Tangyi currently exported abroad, including armor and weapons, still focused on high-value-added refined iron products totaling less than two million catties, providing two hundred thousand strings of cash annually to the Command Bureau.

Iron materials Tangyi smelted and produced currently still mainly supplied internal consumption.

This was mainly because Huaixi provinces’ development and cultivation required enormous quantities of various iron tools. Last year agricultural tool production alone consumed over six million catties of iron materials, reaching a per capita level of six catties. But precisely because large quantities of excellent iron agricultural tools were distributed on a massive scale through various means did agricultural production in Huaixi provinces recover so rapidly.

Without such enormous quantities of iron tools released, efficiency in reclaiming wasteland, plowing fields, weeding, excavating channels and other engineering projects would be who knows how much slower.

Subsequently, Huaixi agricultural production’s demand for iron tools would maintain at a relatively stable level. But Han Qian intentionally promoted iron products’ application in bridge construction and other engineering projects. Internal demand for iron materials would continue rapidly increasing. Simultaneously, they would subsequently promote strengthening external dumping, using cost and quality advantages plus Chishan Association’s spread commercial network to compete for profits with local iron industries everywhere.

This meant Tangyi’s iron material smelting still needed to develop by great strides.

Engineering School engineers discovered a type of vitriol water deep in Quyang mountain ridges in the year before last. Using displacement methods they could produce copper. Han Qian speculated that the commonly called vitriol water should be a copper compound solution.

Based on this, Engineering School engineers summarized the vitriol water copper smelting method. In the latter half of the year before last, they formally established a smelting office in Quyang. Last year alone they consumed two million catties of iron materials to smelt eight hundred thousand catties of copper.

Since the previous dynasty, the iron smelting industry had long been desolate. Even so, Yangtze-Huai refined iron sold for only fifty to sixty cash per catty. Crude smelted pig iron prices were even lower, ranging from over ten to over twenty cash. But copper prices were solidly over one hundred cash per catty—it could even directly serve as hard currency for trading goods.

Great Chu’s copper coin standards were also one thousand coins worth one string of cash using six catties four taels of copper.

Two and a half catties of crude iron using the vitriol water copper smelting method could yield one catty of copper material—however calculated, this was an extremely profitable business.

This newly established Quyang smelting office contributed forty thousand strings of cash annually to the Command Bureau.

Quyang was a newly established county, incorporating tribal peoples along the upper Qu River as households. By year’s end it had only over twenty thousand households cultivating over one hundred sixty thousand mu of fields. Annual field taxes collected converted to cash and grain totaled only about forty thousand strings.

Of course, iron material consumption was also extremely large.

Han Qian would not keep the vitriol water copper smelting method secret. After all, Xu Province currently only discovered one vitriol water source. If more vitriol water or other similar copper compound solution resources could be discovered elsewhere, promoting this method would utilize more copper material production.

On one hand, if commercial trade scale in the Yangtze-Huai region wanted to expand further, producing more copper to cast copper coins, plus promoting gold, silver and other precious metals’ use in commodity transactions, could all expand private sector currency supply. On the other hand, promoting this method would directly expand iron material demand. Ultimately, Tangyi’s increasingly developing iron smelting industry would still benefit.

Though over ten million catties of iron materials and iron products supplied internally, with various monopoly taxes, market harbor taxes and transit taxes set relatively low, such enormous scale last year still contributed over one hundred thousand strings of cash to the Command Bureau in annual revenue.

Beyond cloth and iron, Wuchuan well salt annual production stabilized at one hundred twenty thousand shi, also providing nearly three hundred thousand strings of cash revenue to the Command Bureau.

Unfortunately, Wuchuan well salt production could hardly continue expanding—otherwise revenue could increase substantially more.

Huaixi provinces and counties currently had over one million people. Annual salt consumption exceeded one hundred thousand shi. Currently they could only purchase from the Salt and Iron Transport Commission, then add one string per shi in monopoly tax to resell to county salt merchants. Each year the Salt and Iron Transport Commission ate away over one hundred thousand strings of cash in salt profits.

As the court made Chen Jingzhou envoy to Shu, Han Qian wrote Chen Jingzhou a letter hoping that after reaching the Shu capital, he could represent Tangyi in negotiating an agreement with Wang Yong—namely, Tangyi would bear the annual tribute Shu promised, but Shu needed to cede Yantian Wharf in southernmost Yu Province that could produce well salt, incorporating it into Wuchuan County.

If this matter could be negotiated successfully, well salt Tangyi could produce annually might increase to around three hundred thousand shi. After deducting the tribute portion, Tangyi could gain over one to two hundred thousand strings of cash more in salt profits annually.

Another item Tangyi vigorously promoted was coal mine excavation. Currently Xu Province and Huaixi counties annually mined over five hundred thousand dan of coal, but this could only supply internal Xu Province and Huaixi county consumption. In Han Qian’s view this was still far from sufficient.

Wujian Mountain coal mines were under vigorous development. After autumn production was expected to commence, the first two years’ output alone could double Tangyi’s coal production, then supplying the capital region and other areas.

Though coal profits might still not match shipbuilding, large-scale coal and iron use was the foundation for rapidly increasing productivity.

Precisely because income from various taxes and market harbor taxes on cloth, iron, coal, salt and other primary industrial products reached such scale could Han Qian decide early last year to leave field tax revenue entirely to provincial and county local use.

This differed too greatly from Shouzhou forces’ rule over Huaixi with desperate local exploitation.

This simultaneously determined that while maintaining strong military strength and deterrence, Tangyi also needed to maintain fragile yet not casually severable connections with various forces.