Cao Gan came primarily to represent the Marquis of Changxiang in negotiating the specific cooperation between Yuzhou and Yueyang.
No one could possibly allow Shu Kingdom salt ships to travel freely through Chu territory without restraint.
Generally speaking, the best unloading points for well salt leaving Sichuan were either Jingzhou, which bordered Xiazhou, or Songzi on the southern bank of Xiazhou—formerly belonging to Jingzhou but now under Langzhou’s administration.
In the past when the court still existed, if Sichuan salt was to enter Chu, the authority rested with the Salt and Iron Bureau in Jinling. For local authorities to interfere in this matter would be high treason. Even if the trading location was chosen to be in Jingzhou or Langzhou’s Songzi, it was always the Salt and Iron Bureau that dispatched officials to establish Salt and Iron Offices or Salt and Iron Trading Posts specifically for this purpose.
Now that the Hunan Provincial Administration had denounced the Anning Palace and Crown Prince Yang Yuanwo as traitors who murdered their husband and father, Shen Yang and the others naturally hoped that after Sichuan salt left Sichuan, it would all be received by salt officials they dispatched to Songzi City, then sold throughout Hunan, Jingxiang, Jiangxi and other regions.
However, even if the Marquis of Changxiang Wang Yong and Cao Gan were willing to do this, they could not justify it to the Shu ruler Wang Jian.
Between military powers and states, never mind the affection between father-in-law and son-in-law—even father and son killing each other was a common occurrence.
To the Shu ruler Wang Jian, even if he currently lacked the strength to send troops to attack and seize Jingxiang, he still had to first ensure his eastern flank was secure. This didn’t simply mean fully supporting his son-in-law Yang Yuanpu and fully cooperating with the Hunan Provincial Administration.
If one day Yang Yuanpu gained control of Great Chu’s authority and had ambitions to take all under heaven, how could he refrain from taking Shu territory just because of his father-in-law relationship with the Shu ruler?
If Jingzhou and Xiangzhou could form a mutual check and balance with the Hunan Provincial Administration—best of all if Chu could remain forever fragmented—thus completely unable to pose a threat to Shu, that would best serve Shu’s interests.
When the vassal reduction campaign was initially planned, Shu initially increased troops in Xiazhou to restrain Zhang Xiang of Jingzhou from leading his forces across the river to attack Langzhou—this was precisely such a strategy. Unfortunately, during the vassal reduction war, Han Qian, Zheng Hui and the others attacked fiercely and swiftly from Xuzhou all the way down the Yuan River. By the time Li Zhigao led his forces through Dongting Lake into the Yuan River, the Ma family had already been beaten without any ability to fight back, and only then did Shu completely abandon the Ma family.
The Shu ruler Wang Jian now was more worried about suffering the same calamity of patricide that befell the rulers of Chu and Liang. But if he could successfully eliminate internal threats within Shu, how could he not harbor the ambition and aspiration to unify all under heaven?
Therefore, before Cao Gan represented the Marquis of Changxiang to visit Xuzhou and Yueyang to meet Han Qian and Yang Yuanpu, the Shu ruler Wang Jian had already discussed and determined the strategy for Sichuan salt leaving Sichuan with his subordinate generals and ministers in the Shu capital. First, Yuzhou would be responsible for salt and iron trade with Jingzhou and the Hunan Provincial Administration. Second, Liangzhou would be responsible for salt and iron trade with Xiangzhou.
Learning that Yuzhou would not hand over all the well salt transported out of Sichuan via the Yangtze waterway to the Hunan Administration, but was simultaneously sending people to contact the Jingzhou side, Yang Yuanpu summoned Shen Yang, Wang Lin, Feng Liao and others to ask for their counsel.
Since the Hunan Administration had not established a specialized Revenue Support Bureau or Salt and Iron Transport Bureau, matters such as fiscal statistics and allocation, and salt and iron monopoly sales, were all merged into the Administration’s Ministry of Revenue.
Shen Yang, as the Administration’s Left Assistant Minister concurrently heading the Administration Ministry of Revenue Assistant Minister position, could be said to be the legitimate prime minister of this small court that was the Hunan Administration. Wang Lin and others, as Administration Ministry of Revenue Directors, specifically managed various affairs such as land, money and grain, tributes and taxes, monopoly sales, revenue support, and granaries.
Feng Liao had accompanied Cao Gan to Yueyang to deliver messages and was temporarily retained in Yueyang by Yang Yuanpu, occasionally having opportunities to participate in planning confidential matters.
Before Cao Gan came to Yueyang, he had first gone to Xuzhou to see Han Qian. Now learning that regarding salt matters, Yuzhou had also sent people to Jingzhou to see Zhang Xiang, Yang Yuanpu specifically summoned Feng Liao to inquire about his views on this matter:
“Feng Liao, what do you think Zhang Xiang’s attitude will be?”
Feng Liao had accompanied Cao Gan to Yueyang, and Han Qian had said that the Hunan Administration should currently maintain peace with all parties, which meant recognizing that Zhang Xiang would not be easily won over to their side, much less possibly lead the elite Left Martial Guard forces to submit under the Hunan Administration’s banner and obey orders.
Feng Liao organized his thoughts briefly and said: “Even if Zhang Xiang has no intention of establishing a separatist regime, the salt profits of over a hundred thousand strings of cash annually would probably be difficult for him and his forces to relinquish…”
“Zhang Xiang should have already brought his family to Jingzhou, but the Left Martial Guard still has many officers whose family members and dependents remain stranded in Jinling. These people will all advise Zhang Xiang to occupy Jingzhou and observe the situation. At this time, with Shu offering such abundant salt profits on a silver platter, they have even less reason to refuse and not take it,” Shen Yang said with slightly furrowed brows.
During the Jinling incident, the family members and relatives of the Dragon Sparrow Army left in Jinling were divided into two groups—following either the Marquis of Xinchang Li Pu or the forces from Lanting Lane to escape Jinling and withdraw to Qiuhu Mountain.
Although when the Marquis of Xinchang Li Pu led his forces to retreat eastward from Qiuhu Mountain, over ten thousand women and children moved too slowly and were captured by the Anning Palace and all beheaded as rebel families, these were mainly the dependents of ordinary soldiers.
The dependents and family members of officers and commanders at all levels of the Dragon Sparrow Army received priority care and all safely withdrew to Runzhou. Afterward, the family members of core commanders followed the Imperial Concubine Wang Chan’er, Han Daoming, Zheng Chang and others to withdraw to Yueyang.
During the Jinling incident, the dependents left in Jinling by people like Zhang Xiang and Du Chongtao were already quite sensitive when the situation became most tense. Seeing things going wrong, they all read the wind and escaped Jinling in time. However, there were still quite a few commanders whose family members didn’t react in time before the city gates were closed.
Afterward, Jinling City remained under strict control of the Anning Palace and the Crown Prince’s faction’s forces. For these family members and dependents—who had no power to truss a chicken, including elderly, weak, ill, and young—escaping Jinling City again became extremely difficult.
Although the Anning Palace was somewhat deranged in brutally killing Han Daoxun and Zhong Yuli, afterward they did not directly imprison all these commanders’ family members and dependents. Yet this successfully intimidated many people into having scruples about the consequences, not daring to act rashly.
Therefore, whether people like Zhang Xiang and Du Chongtao wanted to establish separatist local rule or submit to either Prince Tan or Prince Xin, they needed to adjust commanders and officials who had family members stranded in Jinling. Before this, they would typically only choose to observe the situation, or even superficially accept edicts and orders issued from Jinling.
The Shu army’s intelligence might not be that accurate or timely, but the Shu ruler Wang Jian’s subordinates were not without capable ministers and officials. It wasn’t difficult to analyze Great Chu’s current fragmented situation. Using salt profit methods to entice Zhang Xiang to further maintain independence—they really had no good way to resolve this on their side.
Feng Liao added: “The Marquis of Changxiang Wang Yong currently intends to develop southern Ba and needs to unite forces with Sizhou to jointly attack the Wu Yi people—developing southern Ba not only can cut off the rebel Wu Yi people’s financial sources in southern Sichuan, but also allows the Shu ruler Wang Jian to support the Marquis of Changxiang Wang Yong before the Heir Apparent, the Marquis of Qingjiang. So from these two points, even if we cannot prevent Shu from transporting some Sichuan salt to Jingzhou, we can still strive for more conditions favorable to us. Additionally, Yuzhou urgently wants to purchase a batch of war equipment from Xuzhou, and still needs Your Highness’s gracious permission to allow passage.”
“That’s all easy to discuss,” Yang Yuanpu looked toward Shen Yang and said, “When negotiating salt matters with Cao Gan, perhaps we could also have Feng Liao participate?”
Shen Yang nodded. Feng Liao represented Xuzhou in coming here. If they didn’t let Feng Liao participate in the salt negotiations, Feng Liao would still have private talks with Cao Gan—the more eager the Marquis of Changxiang Wang Yong was to establish merit, the more urgently Yuzhou needed war equipment produced in Xuzhou, which was most advantageous for them. Even if Zheng Yu and the others knew of this matter, there was absolutely no reason to exclude Feng Liao.
Feng Liao cupped his hands toward Shen Yang and Wang Lin, saying: “This Feng Liao is young and shallow in knowledge, and must still ask Prime Minister Shen and Director Wang to look after me.”
Coming from Xuzhou, during the four days traveling by boat, Feng Liao spent day and night with Cao Gan, and had pretty much figured out Yuzhou’s bottom line. Shu planned to transport about 150,000 shi of Sichuan salt annually from Yuzhou through the Wushan Long Gorges into Chu territory. They could strive for ten to twelve myriads shi of Sichuan salt to be unloaded at Songzi and controlled by the Hunan Provincial Administration (before opening the Qianjiang passage, there would be no Sichuan salt flowing into Sizhou, and even if the Qianjiang passage was opened and Sichuan salt flowed into Sizhou, it would spread through Xuzhou to the former Qianzhong Commandery, not affecting salt profits in regions east and north of Xuzhou), while leaving thirty to fifty thousand shi to be transported into Jingzhou for Zhang Xiang to dispose of.
Beyond this, in the Liangzhou and Hanzhong direction, there would also be fifty thousand shi of Sichuan salt transported via the Han River into Xiangzhou and delivered to Du Chongtao.
In this way, with a salt tax of two hundred cash added per dou of salt, the Hunan Provincial Administration could net two hundred thousand strings of cash annually in fiscal revenue from salt matters.
Of course, Cao Gan revealing this bottom line to Feng Liao was also because they currently needed war equipment produced in Xuzhou, with scorpion catapults and bed crossbows that could be placed on warships for long-range attacks being most urgently needed.
Both banks of the Qian River had precipitous cliffs, and the Wu Yi people’s stockades were also mostly built on the cliffs overlooking the river.
Although the waterway in the middle and lower reaches of the Qian River was fairly wide and Yuzhou warships could navigate smoothly into the waterway of the middle and lower Qian River, finding even a foothold along the banks where forces could be deployed was difficult, much less attacking the dangerous stockades the Wu Yi people built on the river cliffs.
Scorpion catapults and bed crossbows that could be placed on warship decks, or even carried and moved by five or six people after going ashore, became excellent weapons for attacking these dangerous stockades.
Although Han Qian had presented the blueprints for whirlwind catapults and scorpion catapults as a wedding gift to Shu, when Shu craftsmen actually began manufacturing them, they discovered that while the massive and cumbersome whirlwind catapults were easier to replicate, the scorpion catapults had extremely high material requirements. The dozen or so scorpion crossbows they replicated all had range and projectile force that fell short of the ideal compared to those originally produced in Xuzhou.
Beyond this, Yuzhou also wanted to purchase eight double-decked rowing warships from Xuzhou.
When Han Qian fled Shu territory, two four-thousand-shi war sailing ships were too large as targets and couldn’t be withdrawn in time. Although they were scuttled in the Tuo River, one war sailing ship sank in a relatively shallow position and was salvaged by Shu forces and dragged to the shallows.
Clearly the war sailing ships produced in Xuzhou, besides having pointed bow and bottom hull shapes and overall multi-compartment watertight bulkhead structures, also extensively used refined iron components, with structural strength and ship speed far exceeding warships produced in Shu territory.
Although Shu forces could replicate new-style warships following the damaged ship, it required time.
And for the current Marquis of Changxiang, he urgently needed to establish merit and cultivate his own direct forces and power base—what he lacked was precisely time.
After negotiating many matters, Cao Gan didn’t even wait for the marriage ceremony between Princess Qingyang and Yang Yuanpu before hurrying back to Yuzhou. Only after Yuzhou’s first batch of Sichuan salt was transported into Songzi would the war equipment and warships produced in Xuzhou be handed over to Yuzhou’s forces to take back.
If Yuzhou wanted to use military force against the Wu Yi people before the end of the fifth month, time was still extremely tight.