Zhù Qingjun quietly reached out and tapped Lu Danqing. Lu Danqing’s hand instantly came up in a half-defensive posture, then she focused, relaxed, and said, “You startled me.”
“Everyone is heading back inside — you’re the only one standing there daydreaming.”
Lu Danqing looked — sure enough, Zhù Ying was supporting Zhang Xiangu’s arm and the whole party was heading toward the office. She quickly fell in step. After two paces she tugged at Zhù Qingjun’s sleeve and said, “We can’t have any other version of events.”
“Goes without saying,” Zhù Qingjun replied.
Back inside the office, everyone was joyful again. “Sorry to have worried everyone,” Zhù Ying said.
“Indeed!” Zhang Xiangu said. “But you’re back now — that’s what matters. And it’s the autumn harvest right now, so everyone is running themselves ragged!”
“The harvest is the most important thing — has it all been arranged?” Zhù Ying said, her gaze sweeping across Zhao Su, Zhù Lian, Xiang An, Xiang Yu, and the others.
“Arrangements have been made and are being carried out,” Zhao Su said. “The draft animals, the threshing grounds, the personnel, the roads — all allocated…”
He gave a brief summary, and Zhù Ying said, “Everyone has worked hard. I’ll spare the lengthy words and this evening I’ll host everyone for dinner — consider it a fright-relieving celebration.” Everyone laughed and agreed.
Xiang An said, “The Lord has only just returned — please go and change your clothes. We’ll wait quietly for the evening banquet.”
Zhang Xiangu agreed: “Right, right — come, I made you new clothes.” With one look she could see that what Zhù Ying was wearing was not what she’d left in — it didn’t even fit properly — and she took her daughter away to change under this pretext.
In the bedroom, Zhang Xiangu was unapologetically blunt. Pulling clothes from the wardrobe, she said, “Are you fleeing a famine?”
Zhù Ying had lost her clothing and things along the way; what she was wearing now was something that Xiang Le, Zhù Qingjun, and the others had pulled together at Gan County. She habitually wore men’s clothing, so no one dared give her old men’s clothes, and she was rather tall, making it hard to find fitting women’s clothing on short notice. In the end they had rummaged through Xiang Le’s newly made clothes and found a set that would do.
“It wasn’t quite that,” Zhù Ying said, changing clothes.
Zhang Xiangu thought about it more and felt something was wrong. “Tell me — did you run into trouble? You’ve been like this since you were small — whenever you run into something hard, you never tell me!”
“Ah — that white deer was something I made up,” Zhù Ying said.
Zhang Xiangu raised her hand and slapped her three times on the back. “I knew it — I just knew something must have happened! Ai, you took so many things when you went out, and didn’t even bring back a single blade of grass — that isn’t right at all!”
Back when they were fleeing and she’d been disguised as a peddler, they’d still made money. It made no sense to take all those people out and come back having lost everything.
Zhù Ying was suddenly at a loss for words — should she say she fell into a river, or say they’d been robbed and had to dump everything…
Zhang Xiangu said flatly, “All right — if you don’t want to say, don’t. Say no more!”
“Well… the mountains there are poorer than here, and I felt a bit sorry for them — so I gave some things away, haha. Making friends!”
Zhang Xiangu gave a cold laugh: “And gave away your clothes too? You were robbed, weren’t you?”
Zhù Ying had to say, “No, it wasn’t robbery. I saw it was getting late and thought of home business, so I rushed back and left the heavy things behind. These material goods don’t matter — the proper affairs were more important. And it was getting cold coming back — I made do with a set of clothes from Xiang Erlang’s.”
Zhang Xiangu was half-believing. Zhù Ying had already changed, and Huajie came to comb her hair, saying, “Qingjun brought some maps — said they were urgent. She had Hu Niangzi stand guard over them in the study.”
“Good,” Zhù Ying said.
……
Zhang Xiangu was barely managed and pacified. The people of Wuzhou, high and low, had heard the story and were also barely managed and pacified. As long as Zhù Ying had returned safely, no one was going to press her relentlessly with questions. Whatever she said, people would leave it at that.
With Zhù Ying seated up front, the whole room was harmonious and at ease. Everyone was suffused with a kind of relaxation and excitement — two emotions that were rarely seen coexisting at the same time. Zhù Ying saw it all but didn’t point it out; she simply thanked everyone for their hard work and said the harvest needed everyone to “work together as one.”
Zhao Su and Zhù Lian were the first to respond, and everyone followed. Only Gu Weng forced a smile — not wanting to dampen the mood, he went through the motions, visibly preoccupied. Zhù Ying knew what he was thinking but had no intention of dealing with it now. Letting them stew a little longer could do no harm.
That night, after the banquet ended, Zhù Ying did not rest. She had people solemnly summon Zhang Xiangu, Huajie, Xiao Jiang, Zhao Su, Zhù Lian, Zhù Qingjun, Lu Danqing, and a few others to the study. The people arrived one by one; Zhang Xiangu was the first to arrive. It had been some time since she and her daughter had talked in the study, and she arrived with a look of great surprise on her face.
Huajie, Xiao Jiang, and Zhù Qingjun followed shortly after; Zhù Lian, Lu Danqing, and Zhao Su were slightly slower. When Zhao Su walked into the study and saw who was gathered there, he found himself at a loss too.
If this were a meeting to discuss affairs, Zhang Xiangu shouldn’t be here. The old woman was a fine person and not dim at all — everyone above and below liked her. But it couldn’t be denied that, good person though she was, she simply didn’t have the capacity to participate in Wuzhou’s serious business.
If it were meant to give an account of the trip and hear reports on Wuzhou’s affairs during that time, then Xiang An, Wu Ren, and others should also have been present.
If this were to give instructions to those who were most trusted, Zhao Su thought that someone like Zhou Wei, who was clearly wholeheartedly committed, should also have been summoned. But she hadn’t been.
He made no show of his thoughts, bowed first, then sat down and quietly waited for Zhù Ying’s instructions.
Zhù Ying gestured to Zhù Qingjun, who unfolded a survey map covered in crease marks, and said, “This past several months I took a trip outside. I went a very long way and made quite a circuit, and it wasn’t entirely without gains — I drew a map. Come have a look.”
Everyone gathered around. Zhao Su was the first to recognize it: “This… is a survey map? West of Wuzhou — could this be…?”
That was rather a superfluous thing to say. Even Zhang Xiangu could see that “Xika” and “Jima” and such characters were written on it — of course it was a survey map.
Zhù Ying picked up the ebony paperweight from the table, a long piece, and traced it along the survey map. “Going forward, never mind the court — let’s manage these first. Everyone here today has a tight mouth — once you leave this room, not half a word must be breathed!”
“Yes!” Zhao Su’s excitement rose. Beside him, Zhù Lian’s breathing quickened slightly, and he nodded silently.
Zhù Ying then laid out her plan. During her earlier encounter with an assassination attempt at Gan County, she had already planted the seeds for this. And against the Jima tribe, the justification was even more ample — they had displayed clear hostility. It was very obvious at the time: “The Jima chieftain’s hostility is unmistakable — if it were goodwill, he would have sent a polite envoy to my lodgings, not sent armed warriors with blades.”
First Xika, then Jima. “Three years to build up troops and provisions, three years of campaigns” — absorbing Xika and Jima, then making contact with the western foreigners, demarcating borders, spending five to ten years in recuperation, then “acting as opportunity permits.” The work of the next twenty years was precisely this.
“Three years of accumulation — isn’t that too short a time?” Zhao Su asked. “Furthermore, you already let the assassin go, and the assassin has not come again, so this…”
“I’ve looked over both Xika and Jima,” Zhù Ying said, “and we also have the salt works revenue — that’s sufficient. If we drag it out further, the western foreigners will have recovered their strength and won’t stand by idly. Even in the large Jima settlement, there were no shortage of western foreign merchants, and some of the Jima chieftains do pay tribute to the western ruler. With the people and land I have, it’s impossible to build up enough troops to defeat Jima and stand against the western foreigners at the same time.
“The western borderlands war is already several years past. I said then that the western ruler would be back to his strength within ten years at most. We absolutely must fit within that window — strike while he has no spare energy to look this way and get this done!
“Wuzhou — if one doesn’t wish to disappoint the people, one must preserve the five-county chieftain system. Apart from giving everyone a few more official titles to lend status, the Prefectural Office is essentially hollow, without any real authority. It’s called Wuzhou, but in reality it’s a cage. So the five counties’ forces must not be mobilized lightly; if they are, appropriate compensation must be given. Give them compensation, and the five counties grow stronger, and the Prefectural Office remains a decoration.”
Zhù Ying was clear-eyed: her own hands currently controlled barely two counties. The other five, once they participated, wouldn’t follow orders completely and might very likely act on their own, drag their feet — as Lu Guo and Xi Jin had done before, when they also wanted their cut afterward. And their clan populations were also large; once they expanded further it would be branches spreading and descendants multiplying. This was unfavorable to her.
Yet those around Zhù Ying were deeply entangled with the five counties, and Zhù County was half-surrounded by them, so strong conflict with the five counties was not advisable. Therefore she would simply not help them expand further, but would still preserve the interests they currently had.
The five county chieftains might feel uncertain, but Lu Danqing was already nodding vigorously.
Zhù Lian said, “Teacher’s strategy must be sound. We have no better plan — but there are indeed some tight points.”
“Looking at this whole vast stretch at once, of course it seems hard to know where to begin,” Zhù Ying said. “Break a thing into pieces and take it one step at a time — before you know it, it’s done. Use the county as the unit, push forward county by county! At each place — free the slaves, distribute the land, establish the official yamen, then conscript the local able-bodied men as civilian laborers; those with martial ability can also be enrolled into the ranks, with merits counted the same way, grain and taxes levied locally…”
Every chieftain had a sizeable grain store; apart from distributing some to the poor to get through the hardest initial period, it could entirely serve as provisions for the local troops. The losses in soldiers could also be replenished with a steady stream of replacements.
“From now on, there is one more thing all of you must do — learn Xika language and Jima language! Not only must you learn yourselves, but also bring your students along to learn! This must be kept secret — only with this, setting up the official offices later will go smoothly. If the language can’t be understood, how can you possibly get along?”
Xiao Jiang was only half-following, and at this point spoke up: “I’m afraid — with everything they’re already doing day to day — they won’t be able to learn all that in two or three years.”
“Put together a little booklet — just learn the most common phrases by rote first! A few hundred phrases will be enough, and the rest can be learned gradually.”
Lu Danqing said, “I know Xika language! I know some Jima too, though less.”
Xiao Jiang said, “I only know a little — you teach me, Lord. I’ll go compose song-verses for the vocabulary.”
Zhù Lian pointed to the survey map and asked, “And what are all these?”
“Roads, new cities, bridges, waterways…” Zhù Ying replied.
Zhù Lian was startled. “So these two peoples are that developed? That will be harder to deal with.”
“Not theirs,” Zhù Ying said. “These are what I’m planning to build.”
The territories of the two peoples were quite extensive. By Zhù Ying’s estimate, four to five new prefectures could be established. Together with Wuzhou, that would be about five or six prefectures total — which raised the matter of overall planning. A military governor’s headquarters needed to be built, prefectural offices needed to be established, and some could make use of existing old village sites while others would need to be built from scratch.
The places Zhù Lian had pointed to were the locations of a few city sites she had newly chosen: one major city and three smaller ones. All would require careful future development.
And roads — wherever roads reached, so too could her power. Coal and iron must be secured; with these, weapons could be cast. Water conservancy works had to be built; these would increase grain production.
“With ten years of recuperation, I’m still afraid it won’t be enough time!” Zhù Ying said.
“It will be enough,” Zhao Su said.
Zhù Ying waved her hand. “And what about the population? Do you still think ten years is sufficient? Ten years can only barely give us a foothold — enough that we won’t be easily swallowed up.”
She estimated that each prefecture’s population could only reach a fairly low threshold. Population growth mainly came from people being born, raised to survive, and growing up. From her experience, the way she was developing things — within under twenty years, the population would grow by roughly half.
For a couple to keep the population stable, they needed to raise two children to adulthood; raising three meant population growth could begin. Ordinary families couldn’t guarantee all their children would survive — to end up with three or four grown children, one needed to give birth to five or more to weather the losses to infant mortality. Twenty years wouldn’t double the population, but it could grow.
“Twenty years,” Zhao Su murmured.
Zhang Xiangu still didn’t understand why her daughter had summoned her to hear all this. She assumed it was because she herself had pressed too hard in the past, and her daughter had no choice but to tell her about these great matters — and she felt a small pang of guilt.
She suddenly heard Zhù Ying tap the survey map with the paperweight and say: “I am already forty-five years old, and I don’t know whether I will live to see twenty years from now. So today’s words — all of you remember them. I will do everything in my power to secure this territory. If I die, you — follow this plan. Do not rashly provoke the court. Remember: isolation cannot endure long — you must not cut off all contact with the world outside the mountains.”
Everyone was greatly alarmed. Zhang Xiangu stood up: “You child — what nonsense are you saying?”
Zhù Ying shook her head. “I am speaking the truth. Everyone looks to me — they count on me because I have no heirs, and that’s why people’s hearts can’t be fully steadied. I know all this, and I will address each matter one by one. I will certainly choose a person who can carry out my ambitions. This plan is only a rough framework — I will continue to refine it. For now, follow my arrangements. Go and prepare!”
“Yes!”
Everyone acknowledged and Zhao Su asked one more question: “And Gu Weng?”
“I’ll speak with him tomorrow,” Zhù Ying replied.
“Yes.”
After everyone had bowed and dispersed, only Zhang Xiangu and Huajie remained in the study. Zhang Xiangu’s nose tip was red, and she said, “I heard it sounded like good things — so why does my heart feel sour?”