Wang Jun peeked into the room twice before slightly lifting her skirt hem, stepping over the threshold and entering. She handed over several pages of paper, saying: “This is what you asked for.”

Han Qian took them and saw that Wang Jun had calculated a rough estimate for the operational expenses of Guangde Fortress’s school, meticulously listing it across several pages. The regular script written with ink-dipped brush was neat and elegant.

He hadn’t gotten proper rest these past few days. His head felt heavy and dizzy at this moment. Taking the pages, he only glanced at them twice without examining them closely before setting them aside, saying: “When Feng Liao comes over, I’ll give them to him to review.”

After Feng Liao arrived, besides sharing responsibility with Ji Xiyao for administering Guangde county affairs, he also roughly shared duties as the Chishan Army’s registrar and recording officer. Even with the assistance of people like Feng Liao and Ji Xiyao, with so many women and children being transferred and evacuated, myriad matters were overwhelmingly complex, and Han Qian’s energy was being pressed to its absolute limit.

“I already showed it to Feng Liao. This time, he immediately wanted to cut eighty percent of the material expenses with one stroke of his brush. But according to your requirements, these are the most basic conditions—they cannot be reduced further.” Wang Jun said, lightly biting her sandalwood lips.

Han Qian wanted to establish schools. Under such crude and dire material conditions, it was impossible to provide all soldiers and their children with any high level of education. In the early phase, besides setting up short-term literacy classes, there was also the need to organize simple military, administrative, and production training for basic-level officers and officials.

At Maoshan and Donglu Mountain, when it came to military affairs and various miscellaneous duties, Han Qian would delegate what he could to Lin Haizheng, Gao Shao, Feng Xuan and others to handle. He himself freed up more time to compile simple teaching materials, then replicate them using the crude wax stencil oil printing technique.

Zhao Ting’er, Xi Ren, Du Qiniang and Du Jiuniang were not by his side. The Du family brothers had come over this time too, but one had been pulled away by Feng Liao as a deputy, and the other pulled away by Ji Xiyao as a deputy. Han Qian could only put to use Wang Jun, this idle person who had absolutely no awareness of being a prisoner, to help him with the technical work of carving wax stencils, mixing ink, and oil printing—tasks that were still considered extremely delicate in this era.

Wax stencil printing technology was much more convenient than the woodblock printing that had flourished since the middle and late periods of the previous dynasty. But the technology was still in its embryonic stage in all aspects, urgently needing further refinement. Han Qian’s handwriting wasn’t neat enough, so the booklets printed with oil ink were prone to blurring. When Wang Jun initially used an iron-tipped pen to carve characters on iron-molded wax paper, they resembled printed type from the dream world, making the printed booklets somewhat clearer.

Unable to learn Xuzhou’s latest cotton spinning techniques, Wang Jun had settled for second best. Over the past month, she had actually begun to style herself as a female teacher for the school, even leading her serving maids in attempting to mix better ink.

Initially at Maoshan, small-scale literacy classes had been established with single classrooms. No matter how enormous the expense, it was still limited.

Moving to old Guangde county this time, Han Qian wanted to expand the scale of the school and broaden the scope of instruction. Before going to Nantang Fortress, he had Wang Jun draft a new school budget. He hadn’t expected that when Wang Jun completed the new school budget, she would hit a wall with Feng Liao.

Seeing Wang Jun’s beautiful eyes, deep as tranquil springs, stubbornly staring at him, Han Qian picked up her draft estimate again to examine it carefully.

Even for short-term literacy classes and basic military officer and production training covering such an enormous population, the scale couldn’t be small.

Moreover, the investment wasn’t a question of how many goods and wealth. No matter how much gold and silver Han Qian had on hand, if it couldn’t be converted into scarce materials under the blockade by Xuanzhou and Huzhou forces, it would all be useless.

Establishing schools meant having to divert additional portions of the most scarce materials at hand to invest in them.

Feng Liao had been brought over by Han Qian to handle overall logistics. Whenever there were seizures, no matter how far away, he had to dispatch people to rush to the scene immediately to take inventory. He practically wanted to turn out every soldier’s pockets on site to prevent private hoarding. And whoever came asking for material allocations, he would haggle more than anyone.

Han Qian reviewed the estimate Wang Jun had listed. These were indeed all necessary investments. He instructed the guards to invite Feng Liao over.

Half an incense stick’s time later, Feng Liao came running over. But just as he entered the courtyard and saw Wang Jun present, he slipped away without greeting anyone. After a while, he came back carrying a pile of documents, tossed them in front of Han Qian’s table, and first complained:

“You’ve been away at Nantang Fortress these past few days. These are all expenses that people are clamoring must be allocated within the next couple of days. These people don’t show any consideration for our difficulties. If I really closed my eyes and approved them all, the day after tomorrow we wouldn’t need to do anything anymore.”

Han Qian smiled and pushed aside the pile of materials Feng Liao had brought over as “bargaining chips,” saying: “Tighten the belt in other areas—the school must be established as the first priority.”

“Everything must have priorities in terms of urgency and importance. The Chishan Army and so many women and children moved here less than ten days ago. We can’t even talk about being established yet—how can we take care of so many things?” Feng Liao had his own insistence, saying: “Endure another two months. When the Chishan Army can enter the Qiantang River area to requisition grain, perhaps things won’t be so scarce.”

“The Prince said ‘defeat lies in the hearts of the people, and so does success.’ You said you understood, but you still haven’t understood,” Han Qian said with a smile. “When this principle is spoken aloud, almost everyone will nod in agreement, but throughout history, those who could actually achieve this are not many.”

Han Qian had transferred a large number of basic-level military officers and officials from Xuzhou and made full use of the forces from the remnants of Taowu garrison troops. But the vast majority were soldiers, children, and female dependents from the lowest-level slaves who had joined them. If he absolutely had to use cruel, bloody warfare to force them to grow, how much attrition could the Chishan Army endure?

Short-term literacy classes and various training classes could not only accelerate the growth of enthusiastic basic-level military officers, officials and children, continuously cultivating more qualified basic-level military officers and officials, but also promptly eliminate unstable factors, helping to stabilize morale. The internal organizational framework and cohesion would thus be continuously strengthened.

Soldiers from the lowest-level slaves had poor troop quality—not only because their bodies were frail.

The school’s expenses could not be saved, much less postponed.

Han Qian patiently explained the reasoning to Feng Liao point by point.

“There are still some material expenses that can be reduced,” Feng Liao insisted. He sat across from Han Qian at the long table, taking an ink-dipped brush and going through the school budget item by item again, haggling to reduce expenses by thirty percent.

Han Qian then took out the land distribution proposal he had revised overnight to discuss with Feng Liao. At midday, Feng Yi returned in a fury with Zhang Ping, saying: “Langxi city gates were tightly shut. Gu Zhilong had people shoot a volley of random arrows. If Magistrate Zhang and I hadn’t run fast, we might have been stuck full like hedgehogs and carried back to see you—if we don’t give them a bloody lesson, they won’t know the immensity of heaven and earth.”

Zhang Ping said: “The arrows shot from Langxi city weren’t very accurate. They were just making a gesture for the Anning Palace or Chuzhou Army to see…”

Zhang Ping believed Gu Zhilong’s attitude was still moderate, that there was still room for compromise. Han Qian should still utilize the Han and Feng families’ connections and influence in Xuanzhou to do more work.

Han Qian pondered for a moment but didn’t dwell on this topic. He asked Yuan Guowei: “Where has the Qiuhu Army advanced to now?”

“Marquis Xinchang is leading the Qiuhu Army. They’ve already reached Niuao Mountain north of Guangde Fortress and plan to rest and reorganize more fully at Niuao Mountain for two days before striking directly at Jinzhong Ridge! At this time, Wei Zhen has selected over a thousand able-bodied men from among the Lishui county people and plans to go join Marquis Xinchang tomorrow,” Yuan Guowei said.

Niuao Mountain was located at the southern foot of Jieling Mountain, about thirty-some li from the ruined Guangde City, which hugged the northern foot of Fuyu Mountain.

“The various families of Lishui still have potential that can be tapped,” Han Qian said with a smile.

“Over twenty thousand county people—all clan members of various families or personal slaves they’d fattened up nicely. Able-bodied men between fifteen and forty-five years old number nearly eight thousand. Previously only two thousand elite troops were selected for the Qiuhu Army. Of course there’s still potential to tap—it’s just that you hadn’t provoked their hatred so much before!” Feng Yi joked.

Under normal circumstances, conscripting two or three out of every ten men could already be considered quite militaristic. But with Lishui county people all reduced to displaced refugees with no farmland or household enterprises to manage, enlisting all able-bodied youth who could hold shields and spears was the normal state for refugee armies.

……

……

Gao Shao led the Chishan Army’s Second Division of nine thousand troops, slowly advancing toward Jiudu Mountain and Xianshan Lake at the eastern edge of old Guangde county territory.

Jiudu Mountain was only sixty to seventy meters high, stretching about three li from north to south. Together with Xianshan Lake to the south, the lake and mountain stood together—this was the boundary between Xuanzhou and Huzhou, and also the gateway from Guangde for advancing east into Huzhou.

Several days earlier, Huzhou Prefect Huang Hua had ordered State Administrator Huang Tianxing to lead five thousand troops to garrison at the southeastern foot of Jiudu Mountain, establishing a large camp using several village fortresses and strongholds distributed along the eastern shore of Xianshan Lake.

The terrain where Xianshan Lake was located was slightly higher. The formation of this terrain was related to the unique folded terrain between Fuyu Mountain and Jieling Mountain. Only during seasons when rainfall was extremely abundant would the lake water overflow and pour out through the narrow, steep lake outlet with rugged rocks on the southeast side of Jiudu Mountain, flowing into Taihu Lake.

Neither side could deploy warships to enter the narrow, eight or nine li long Xianshan Lake to coordinate combat.

Huzhou Administrator Huang Tianxing deployed all five thousand troops at the southern foot of Jiudu Mountain and the eastern shore of Xianshan Lake, mainly thinking that if the Chishan Army really tried to bypass and attack by force, their flanks and rear would inevitably be exposed to the attack range of Huzhou forces from other directions.

Gao Shao led his forces advancing to the southwestern shore of Xianshan Lake, then stopped. He occupied a completely deserted fishing village, set up camp, and began felling the surrounding trees.

At this time, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu was leading the Qiuhu Army along the southern foot of Jieling Mountain, rapidly inserting from the rear into Jinzhong Ridge to the north. From the gap in Jinzhong Ridge mountains, he entered the Sitiandun valley. With lightning speed, he quickly divided his forces to garrison two passes in the southeast where Xuanjiao Ridge bordered Changxing county, blocking the route for Huzhou forces to reinforce Sitiandun.

Afterward, the Qiuhu Army’s main force calmly and unhurriedly all crossed over Jinzhong Ridge, completing the encirclement of Xu Family Fortress located inside Sitiandun…