Every matter has its advantages and drawbacks. Repairing the post road is not really about “the post road” itself, but about what purpose it serves. Generally speaking, for a powerful and prosperous great nation, it can naturally use such roads to exert influence over smaller states, and when necessary, swallowing them whole is not out of the question. Of course, smaller states are compact in size, and even nibbling at a few scraps the great nation lets fall is enough to fill their bellies. What might ultimately be nurtured from such arrangements, however, is hard to say.
It all depends on how things are managed. Under normal circumstances, it poses no real loss to the great nation.
Yet the moment one thought of how An’nan was now in Zhù Ying’s hands, an instinctive wariness rose in the heart.
Jiang Zheng studied the official dispatch sent from the Council of State, his heart wavering with indecision. He understood the benefits clearly enough, and he understood the risks even more clearly. The safest course of action with regard to An’nan was simply to ignore it — much as his first act upon taking up his post had been to seal off the mountains around Wuzhou. As it turned out, Zhù Ying had her ways regardless; the sealing went on and on, until it had produced an entire An’nan. It seemed, then, that the sealing was of no use after all. Perhaps engagement was the better course.
But what would she do once engaged?
Jiang Zheng lost his appetite for breakfast. He sat in quiet thought through the entire morning, and at last sank back with a long, dispirited sigh: An’nan would not reveal its true depths — so how could one judge what she might do next? And even if she were willing to lay everything bare, with the same conditions on the table, one still could not predict what she would do.
It was an endless loop, going nowhere.
In the end, Jiang Zheng made a decision. He wrote back to the Council of State with an official reply, arguing that rather than looking at what impact this would have on An’nan, they ought to look at what impact it would have on themselves. Mutual exchange of goods and information — being able to influence An’nan — was a fine thing. His chief concern, however, was that repairing the post road would require both labor and material resources. He therefore requested that the court select clean-handed and capable officials to oversee the work. If a corrupt and brutal one were sent instead, the money and grain were the lesser worry — the reckless exploitation of the people’s labor might well spark fresh troubles.
“This is all I am able to do,” Jiang Zheng murmured to himself.
That day, he found he had lost all desire to continue sparring with Zhù Ying. Pleading that there was still business to attend to in the prefecture, he made his excuses and set off for home early.
Zhù Ying, too, had no reason to linger outside the mountains. She said her farewells to the gentry of Jiyuan, who offered gifts, and she had prepared return gifts of her own. The two parties exchanged pleasantries and parted ways, each returning home.
On her way back to An’nan, Zhù Ying made a point of stopping an extra day in Asu County to have a conversation with Su Mingluan about the matter of Su Zhe. The internal affairs of the Asu household were something Zhù Ying had always managed sparingly — Su Mingluan was a woman of firm opinions and needed little supervision. But Zhang Xiangu had spoken of Zhù Lian, and so Zhù Ying could not help but turn a thought toward Su Zhe as well, having grown up in her own household. Just how had Su Mingluan arranged things for her? Su Zhe’s marriage also touched on the balance of power in Wuzhou, and so it could not be left entirely unasked.
Su Mingluan had clearly already given it thought: “I only ask that you keep a good eye on her — don’t let her lose her head and rush into marriage at the first soft voice in her ear! Once a song gets into your ear, the man no longer matters to me. I set my eyes on her father, thinking we would spend our lives together, and he had to go and die young. Men — you cannot entrust yourself to them. One must rely on oneself. Given how our household stands, how could we send her off to be married? If things are fine as they are, who in their right mind would come and marry into our family?”
Were a man of exceptional quality to genuinely offer himself as a live-in husband, Su Mingluan would be the first to suspect his motives — that he harbored designs on the Asu family’s wealth and holdings. And her daughter was no fool; she had no need for a capable man to come and take charge of the household.
So Su Mingluan had a solution of her own: “As long as there is a man she approves of, she may see him freely — I have no requirement that she must marry. If she does marry, the man must move into our household. Children she may have as many of as she likes; there is no need for discretion on that score. Our family can raise however many there are. I only ask that you look after her more, Auntie — childbirth is a dangerous business.”
Zhù Ying said, “Agreed,” and reflected inwardly that Su Zhe’s affairs were truly not something she needed to manage herself. As for the others — some were still young, or still had parents living — none of them required her intervention either. Zhù Ying needed only to wait until Zhù Qingjun’s bandit-suppression campaign reached a conclusion, then have Huajie sit down with Zhù Qingjun for a talk, and she felt she would have done her duty as an “elder.”
With a lightened heart, she traveled west from Wuzhou, inspecting two mineral deposits and one salt well along the way, and arrived back at the An’nan headquarters in Xizhou during the twelfth month.
……
The headquarters already carried a faint whiff of the New Year. Du Dajie was directing a number of servants to haul bolts of cloth, cutting and stitching the new garments to be worn for the coming year. From the mistress of the household down to the guests, the attendants, and the guards, the headcount ran to well over a hundred, and the new clothes required quite a stretch of sewing to be ready in time for the New Year.
They also had to sort through the silk flowers to be worn for the holiday, and take stock of various ornaments ordered from craftsmen. Zhang Xiangu saw that Zhù Ying had returned and felt the weight lift from her heart — she was always afraid something would befall Zhù Ying on the road, that she would get into another fight with someone.
Now that she had returned safe and sound, Zhang Xiangu could settle her mind and prepare for the New Year in peace. She asked Zhù Ying, “Do you still have any gold coins set aside?”
Zhù Ying said, “What do you need money for, A’Niang?”
“Don’t we have to give A’Ji, A’Pu, and the others New Year’s pocket money? And Qingjun and the others — those who haven’t started families yet are all considered children, and they must be included too.”
In the past, Zhù Ying would often come home with a good supply of gold coins, and the family would use them to give to the children of relatives and friends for the New Year. That good fortune was no longer available, so Zhang Xiangu asked whether Zhù Ying had any reserves.
Zhù Ying thought for a moment and said, “That’s easy enough — we’ll just cast them ourselves.”
Copper coins were currency, which was complicated, but casting a few small gold pieces for the New Year involved far fewer considerations — and she had plenty of gold. All of An’nan’s income was divided into two portions: one for official administrative expenses, and the other for the “headquarters,” which was to say Zhù Ying’s own household’s private funds.
She would draw a portion from that and have craftsmen do the casting.
Zhang Xiangu, satisfied with her answer, asked again: “Can you manage a bit of something else as well?”
Zhù Ying said, “Something else like what?”
Zhang Xiangu said, “Life has been a bit tight, I know. But over at the school — there are quite a few children with no parents, and they need to celebrate the New Year too. Besides the new clothes, could we add a handful of bronze coins as well?”
Zhù Ying said, “Of course. And there’s no need to have Wu Ren draw up accounts for this — it’ll come out of my own rooms.”
“Wonderful!”
Zhù Ying leaned against the doorframe, watching Zhang Xiangu light up with delight again, bustling to and fro on unsteady feet, and asked, “A’Niang, once the New Year is past, when the weather is neither too cold nor too hot — shall we go out for a wander? Just the two of us?”
Zhang Xiangu turned around: “A stroll where? Any street will do — the temple fairs during the first month are even more lively.”
“I mean, a walk through An’nan — to take a look around. Cooped up at home all the time, don’t you find it stifling?”
“Either way is fine! As long as the family is together.” Zhang Xiangu said. She had been to so many places over the course of her life that stopping or going no longer meant very much to her. Being able to see the land her daughter ruled over — that would be something splendid indeed.
Zhù Ying smiled and said, “Then it’s settled!”
“What about Huajie?”
Zhù Ying said, “She’ll come along too, of course — we’ll visit the schools in the various prefectures, counties, and villages, and take a look at how the physicians are doing.”
Zhù Ying had been planning this since the previous year. An’nan had only recently been brought under her control, and the work of reassuring the people could not be neglected. On the surface, she had distributed land to most of the ordinary population and freed them from their enslaved status, so popular sentiment was still stable. But Zhù Chonghua’s act of defiance had reminded her that An’nan was no paradise — it still demanded her careful attention and cultivation.
Bringing her mother along meant the two of them would not have to be apart, and Zhang Xiangu could get some fresh air and take in the scenery.
The two of them chatted on and off. Zhang Xiangu asked what interesting sights An’nan had to offer, where they had spotted the white deer last time, and whether visiting would cause trouble for Zhù Qingjun, who was out suppressing bandits.
Zhù Ying said, “We’ll avoid the troubled areas for now and keep to the surroundings. Once she sends word that somewhere is safe, we can go and have a look. I’ll be with you — no need to worry about people not understanding what you say.”
Zhang Xiangu smiled warmly: “This reminds me a little of when you first arrived in Fulu County — those were good days. I could still get around properly back then. Now I’m just a burden.”
“A burden? How so?” Zhù Ying said. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Zhang Xiangu grabbed a handful of melon seeds and pressed them into Zhù Ying’s palm: “There’s still something you don’t know?” With that, she tottered off cheerfully to call for Du Dajie to come move the gold and find a craftsman.
……
While Zhù Ying spent her days in easy contentment, making preparations for the New Year and plotting out her inspection tour for after the holiday, the capital was wrestling over the affairs of An’nan.
Though An’nan was mountainous and its people poor, it did serve as a genuine check on the Western Tribes, and simply leaving it alone was a waste. Recent signs increasingly suggested that the Western Tribes were growing restless again. If possible, the court naturally hoped to strengthen its influence and control over An’nan. From Wuzhou onward, An’nan was able to deliver a modest amount of grain and cloth to the court — not much, but it was there — which proved the place could sustain itself. The court was not losing out.
Therefore, after considerable deliberation, the Emperor and the Council of State concluded that this post road was worth building. To that end, they also sought out a range of opinions. The Minister of Finance, Yao Chenying, was emphatically in support, and expressed his willingness to coordinate with the Ministry of Works to plan the route, mobilize corvée labor, and carve out a share of money and grain for the project.
Yao Chenying was naturally aware that once a construction project was underway, corruption would inevitably breed within it, and so he wished to be involved from the very beginning, cutting it off at the source. He had done the calculations: although the route had not been fully determined, it would generally follow a course that cut out the bends and straightened the road. From the capital to Wuzhou — a location more familiar to them, and thus used as the reference point — the route could be shortened by more than half.
That made it well worth pursuing.
Yao Chenying said, “This also adds another route for transporting some of the south’s goods. And, ah — recently, the post road has occasionally been disrupted, but within An’nan’s territory, things should be comparatively safe.” He spoke tactfully, but the Emperor and his ministers understood his meaning perfectly — there had sometimes been bandits causing trouble, and occasional rumors of goods going missing along the way.
It was taken for granted that An’nan’s territory was secure. None of them knew that Zhù Ying was conducting her own bandit-suppression campaign.
After that came the questions of who should oversee the project, how the route should be determined, how to open communications with Zhù Ying, how the budget should be calculated, and so on. Zheng Xi recommended Chen Fang — he had been the first to propose the idea, and since Zhù Ying had agreed to speak with him, that meant she was willing to talk to him: “Better than sending someone who hasn’t a clue and getting turned away at the door. It’s not as if there’s no precedent.”
As he said this with characteristic sarcasm, Xian Jing pushed back by asking what rank should be conferred on Chen Fang for the assignment. Chen Fang had already risen to prefectural governor; what title should he carry for a road-building mission? The rank of Vice Minister of Works was not even as high as his.
Amid the dispute, the Ministry of Works inserted itself as well, pressing to send one of its own people.
Then Jiang Zheng’s official dispatch arrived — it punctured right through the unspoken understanding that “construction projects are plum appointments,” and the scene grew even more chaotic.
The Emperor had many matters to attend to each day, and seeing that no resolution was forthcoming for the moment, he first directed the Ministry of Works to produce a route plan and budget, then raised a hand and picked up another memorial.
This was intended as a move to change the subject, but when he opened the memorial, it presented yet another matter to vex him — Yu Qingtuan had come to lodge a complaint.
Shao Shuxin kept a private ledger, which he naturally could not hand over to Yu Qingtuan. In this private ledger, the salt of Wuzhou was a key instrument he used to balance supply and distribution. Since the ledger never reached Yu Qingtuan’s hands, Yu Qingtuan was left working from the official books — which had been made to appear impeccable — and could not make the accounts balance. He therefore had reasonable grounds to suspect that Shao Shuxin had committed fraud.
The entire salt administration of the south was also refusing to cooperate with him.
The Emperor’s brow creased into a deep furrow: “What is the meaning of this? Has Shao Shu returned yet?”
Zheng Xi said, “He should be on his way. But has the handover not been properly completed?”
The Emperor had him read the memorial. Zheng Xi read it and said, “Shao Shuxin’s accounts are all in order; if there are questions, let them be investigated. In all these years, I have never seen any fault in his work. As for Yu Qingtuan — it’s hardly surprising that a newcomer would be slow off the mark.”
The Emperor then turned to Xian Jing and asked about Yu Qingtuan’s situation. Xian Jing had chosen Yu Qingtuan not because of his competence; the reason was straightforward to the point of being almost laughable — Yu Qingtuan was among the more senior figures in Xian Jing’s following. By the reckoning of seniority, he ranked toward the top within the Xian faction.
This “seniority” was not reckoned by formal rank — by that measure, Xian Yujing was actually Yu Qingtuan’s senior. Rather, it referred to the fact that Yu Qingtuan had come under Xian Jing’s wing early, had entered officialdom early, was associated with the purist faction, and had charged forward whenever things came to a head.
His turn had come.
Xian Jing had no choice but to say that Yu Qingtuan was upright and incorruptible, and that he had a degree of experience in local governance.
The Emperor told Xian Jing, “Write him a letter and tell him to put his mind to the work.” He also told Zheng Xi to notify Shao Shuxin to come before the throne and explain himself the moment he returned to the capital. Both messages were to go through private correspondence, which preserved the face of both parties — for it had been the Emperor himself who had wanted to use the appointment as a counterbalancing measure. Zheng Xi had suggested at the time that Shao Shuxin had been posted away for quite a few years now and ought to be recalled, and Xian Jing had put forward Yu Qingtuan, and the Emperor had gone along with it. Now the boat was spinning in the middle of the river and refusing to move forward, and the Emperor’s mood was none too pleasant.
Both matters were thoroughly tiresome. The Emperor’s interest was entirely spent. He pushed once more for progress on the post road plan, then dismissed his ministers.
Zheng Xi was in good spirits. The post road affair was to his advantage, and Yu Qingtuan had fallen into a trap — Xian Jing had lost face. Now all he needed to do was wait for Yu Qingtuan to fail beyond recovery, then work something out with Chen Meng and get one of his own people appointed in his stead. He had not the slightest sympathy for Yu Qingtuan.
And indeed, Yu Qingtuan’s time in the south was far from pleasant. Traveling south at this time of year — growing warmer as you went, yet not hot enough to bring on a fever — was actually a rather agreeable time to make the journey. What came after, though, was thoroughly disagreeable.
Shao Shuxin’s accounts were entirely beyond reproach, and conducting affairs by the book Shao Shuxin had left behind meant nothing could get done. Without giving those below you something to gain, you could not get them to budge; once you distributed benefits, what you kept for yourself dwindled, and you could not satisfy those above.
Say you banned private trading outright: the salt fields could simply stop selling a single grain of salt and let the price shoot into the sky. Official salt going unsold meant he could not collect any revenue — and he could not very well go door to door robbing the common people!
By the same token, without men or troops of his own, he had no means of controlling the salt fields or arresting smugglers. The local officials were also giving him trouble, because salt was bound up with their own tax revenues as well.
He did have a few acquaintances in the south, and upon quietly making inquiries of local officials he had dealings with, he gathered that Shao Shuxin had often made use of methods akin to “price stabilization” and “redistribution of surplus.” He sought to follow that example, only to discover that even this approach required the cooperation of the Wuzhou salt fields.
Wuzhou now fell under An’nan’s jurisdiction. Even if Yu Qingtuan sent an official communication to the An’nan Military Governor, the response was silence — because the position held no authority over An’nan, and the court itself did not govern An’nan. Yu Qingtuan’s words thus carried even less weight.
After great difficulty, he borrowed a few dozen yamen runners to clear out the salt fields, only for the salt-producing household workers to receive word in advance and scatter — no one knew where they had gone to hide, and try as he might he could not dig them out.
Shao Shuxin had assumed that Zhù Ying’s refusal to share his private ledger was intended to let Yu Qingtuan come to grief, not knowing that Zhù Ying had only to withhold her assistance and Yu Qingtuan’s assignment would be dead in the water regardless. The salt fields, the merchants, the gentry, and the local yamen combined were more than enough to make Yu Qingtuan’s life a misery.
The gentry were also going to the yamen to weep and wail, claiming they had no idea why there was no salt to be had. Official salt had suddenly become ten times more expensive — beyond anyone’s means. From midwinter through spring, local officials one after another sent complaints to the court: not only had the price of salt risen, but even expensive salt was in short supply. If this continued, running out of salt was the least of it — after all, people would not die from going without salt — but the salt tax revenue was going to collapse entirely.
The Emperor believed matters could not possibly have reached such a pass, and placed all these complaining memorials under temporary hold. Turning instead to the post road matter, he proposed reassigning Chen Fang to the south, stationed facing An’nan across the river, with a Ministry of Works aide accompanying him, and Chen Fang to oversee the communications with An’nan regarding the new post road.
Chen Meng heard the Emperor’s plan and did not know whether to laugh or cry — the post road was being built to “connect north and south,” which meant building it implied that the two had previously been disconnected. Now the proposal was to have Chen Fang in the north and Zhù Ying in the south, shouting across the river at each other?
He hastened to suggest to the Emperor: “Should An’nan not be notified? Send someone with knowledge of engineering to go there, agree upon each side repairing one section within its own territory, and have the two sections meet at a designated midpoint.”
The Emperor said, “In that case, have Chen Fang make the journey after all.”
And so, at last, the matter had an outline.