Not long after, Ning Yi met Lu Hongti in a side room. Her face appeared somewhat long now, her complexion sallow — she looked every bit a village woman in her thirties. But Ning Yi recognized her at first glance regardless; she had disguised herself, but her eyes still carried that calming spark of vitality — the same woman who had once taught him the foundations of internal energy, all while insisting, again and again, that it was only a second-rate technique.
After the introductions, Su Tan’er didn’t beat around the bush and asked directly whether the two of them were old acquaintances. Ning Yi cupped his hands in salute and said with a smile, “Master.” This gave Su Tan’er quite a start — after a moment’s shock, she began gathering her skirts to kneel, but Lu Hongti blinked and caught her by the arm. “Don’t be silly, I could never take you on as a disciple.”
Though Lu Hongti was roughly the same age as Ning Yi and Xigua and the others, her temperament was gentle, and she appeared far steadier. Disguised now to look about thirty, no one would suspect anything. The three of them chatted for a while, and Su Tan’er came to understand that although this female knight-errant wouldn’t admit to being Ning Yi’s formal master, his skills had indeed come from her teaching — which was reason enough to treat her as an elder. Since the two of them clearly had matters to discuss privately, she thought it best not to linger, and after serving tea, she took her leave, giving them the chance to talk alone.
Once his wife had left, Ning Yi finally asked, “Are you here this time to form an alliance with Fang La, or something else? Also… Tan’er said you were being hunted?”
Lu Hongti looked at him for a moment. “I came here specifically to find you.”
“Hm?”
Ning Yi was caught off guard — this reason was indeed beyond what he’d expected. After all, coming a thousand miles from Lüliang just to reach one person hardly seemed worth such a trip. Then Lu Hongti explained her reasoning.
“Well… this past year, just as you said, the stronghold has been doing quite well. We’ve done things the way you laid out — we made contact with merchants on both sides, letting them pass through the Lüliang Mountains; everything except war supplies is allowed through. There’s fighting expected this year, but goods have actually become even scarcer and more sought-after. We take a cut based on market price, with payment in salt, iron, and grain, and have the merchants we know bring it along in advance. We’ve also reached out to the neighboring strongholds — they let us pass, and in exchange we lend manpower and effort, sharing some of the proceeds with them. Heh, it took quite some doing to convince them at first…”
The plan Ning Yi had originally laid out for her was, in essence, purely a matter of commercial operation — simple enough, in principle. Lu Hongti’s stronghold now offered a full package of passage services through the Lüliang Mountains: her people would provide the manpower, escort the whole way, guarantee safety, and also coordinate with the various factions along the route, giving them a set share in return. Previously, conditions in the Lüliang Mountains had been chaotic — treacherous terrain, difficult roads, merchants risking their lives to cross. Along the way they might be robbed; if they met a stronghold with some sense of decency, paying a “protection fee” might get them through; but if they ran into a stronghold desperate with hunger, it wasn’t uncommon for them to simply kill the merchants and take everything.
The trouble was that under such conditions, none of the strongholds ever really got what they wanted either — no merchant would take that road just to trade a bit of grain. If you robbed a cart of cloth and tried to exchange it for grain, you’d inevitably get fleeced badly in the trade, and in the end the returns were quite limited. And with everyone’s hearts scattered, those forced up into the hills, feeling they had no future left, tended toward apathy and idleness, adopting a “live for today” attitude — leaving everyone, in the end, living in poverty.
Modern commercial operations don’t directly optimize production, but they do first coordinate distribution toward a more virtuous cycle. In the past, any grain merchant bold enough to cross the mountains demanded a hefty cut. Now, Lu Hongti simply charged market rate, letting familiar merchants who wanted passage bring along enough salt, iron, and grain to cover the toll, with a full-service safety escort that made merchants all the more willing to work with her. Meanwhile, the other strongholds, contributing neither manpower nor effort, naturally couldn’t claim the larger share — but even their smaller share turned out better than what they’d earned before. Most of them, in the end, felt this side dealt fairly with them.
In any chaotic system, once order and rules take shape, profit inevitably follows. Of course, such success didn’t go unnoticed by envious eyes — but a single year, in this line of business, was still only a beginning, and not many had yet caught on. And even those who wanted to imitate it couldn’t easily manage it right away — as mentioned, the men who’d taken to the hills weren’t exactly diligent, hardworking types; their past efforts had lacked direction, and they’d simply drifted along. Maintaining a smuggling route, coordinating so many different factions, and keeping constant watch over the mountains was no easy task. For those actually involved, it amounted to something like working a nine-to-five job — even overtime — and for men used to living free and unburdened in the hills, who would want to clock in every day?
What truly made it work still depended on all the ideological groundwork Lu Hongti had done within the stronghold — recalling past hardships to appreciate present blessings, storytelling sessions, even “rescuing” a troupe of opera performers to put on a fixed performance in the stronghold every seven days. What Ning Yi had originally suggested was really just applying concepts like business operations, corporate culture, and performance metrics — but when Lu Hongti first tried to put it into practice, it had been genuinely difficult. Yet once everything came together, the results clearly exceeded even her own expectations.
Of course, military force remained essential throughout all this — getting every stronghold along the route to stay united and not cause trouble couldn’t be achieved through incentives and coordination alone; there had certainly been fighting, and bloodshed, along the way. But regardless, it sounded as though this whole enterprise had, by Lu Hongti’s own hand, basically taken shape.
“…Tian Hu’s side has kept reaching out to us. In the third month, he called the stronghold chiefs together for a council, and seven of the chiefs who attended were killed — most of those strongholds have since submitted to Tian Hu. Fortunately, our route hasn’t been affected yet, and in fact some who refused to submit have come over to join me instead. These past few months, the stronghold has kept growing larger. Tian Hu probably has no plans to move against us for now — I’ve heard he sees us as mere merchants, and looks down on us a bit for it. But you did say before that if a stronghold grows too large too quickly without the… ideological work keeping pace, that can cause a lot of trouble too. Grandfather Liang agreed, and that’s why he sent me south to Jiangning to find you.”
At this point Lu Hongti looked at Ning Yi and laughed. “Originally the plan was to capture you and bring you back to Lüliang.”
So the organization had hit a bottleneck in its development and no longer had a clear path forward — Ning Yi understood now, and he laughed as well. “Forced up into the mountains, is it?”
“Not forcing you into the mountains — forcing you into Lüliang.” Since the phrase “forced up the mountain” carried no special meaning yet in this era, Lu Hongti corrected him quite seriously. “But when I got to Jiangning, I heard Fang La had proclaimed himself emperor down here, and you weren’t with the Su family anymore, so I went to find that intimate friend of yours, the one called Nie Yunzhu — you’d told me to pass along a message once, and I still remembered the address. Seeing her state at the time, I actually thought you might be dead. Later I made myself known and asked around, and learned you were trapped in Hangzhou with no word getting out, so I kept heading south.”
Ning Yi thought for a moment. “How is she doing?”
“Just worried about you, and so was that Jin’er girl — quite an interesting pair.” Lu Hongti smiled. “I told them I’d protect you completely — nearly knocked over a tree on the far bank doing it — and only then did they finally relax. When I reached Huzhou, I heard news of you again, and secretly found your wife, and kept watch on her for a while. Seeing she was preparing to head south, I staged being chased by pursuers along the road and asked her for help… traveling with her made it easier to find you, in a way — and, honestly, I also meant for you to owe me a favor.”
Ning Yi nodded. “I’m deeply grateful.”
Lu Hongti only smiled. “You’re in this deep here in Hangzhou — when will you be able to leave?”
“I couldn’t even say myself, but don’t go kidnapping me.” Ning Yi crossed his arms. “I’ll draw you up a proper five-year plan. I can’t get to the Lüliang Mountains for the time being — things here in Hangzhou aren’t finished yet, and I need to go to the capital. The Wu Dynasty’s situation right now is dire, and since I’m acquainted with the Right Chancellor, I’ll likely go help him out.”
“You… want to become an official?” Lu Hongti frowned.
“An advisor, more like — maybe help with some logistics work.”
“…With the Jin and Liao at war right now, how is the Wu Dynasty in dire straits? Is the court… really hoping to seize the chance to crush Liao and reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun?”
Though a mountain bandit, Lu Hongti actually kept fairly well informed about the Wu Dynasty’s affairs. Ning Yi only shook his head with a smile. “No chance of that. Jin destroying Liao is a foregone conclusion — Liao is already an aging wolf, and Jin is a young tiger. What we should really fear now is that once this tiger finishes off the wolf, it’ll look down and spot a sheep, and keep on killing. The Wu Dynasty has no real strength, yet keeps trying to play the empty-handed strategist pulling strings between wolves — I fear in the end, the whole nation could fall…”
“Mm.” Lu Hongti took in his words and nodded. “So… this five-year plan you mentioned is…?”
“When you have time, tell me all about the situation in Lüliang — everything about the area around you, in detail. Then the two of us can work out one plan, or several, for how to move forward. But broadly speaking, the direction is something I can already picture.” Ning Yi weighed his words, smiling, gesturing loosely with his hand. “Strengthen your own control over the surrounding area, use the Lüliang Mountains as a base to run smuggling operations, and develop your side into a smuggling hub — or, let’s say, a free port… er, meaning a place where smugglers can settle, where you build up an actual market, offering protection, offering order.”
“…Iron goods and warhorses from the north can be allowed to move south, luxury goods from the south can move north. Once our strength has grown a bit, we can raid Liao merchants’ goods, kill Liao traders, auction the goods off in the Lüliang Mountains, and even do business with Tian Hu — selling him goods from the Wu Dynasty and from Liao. At the same time, we can trade with the Wu Dynasty as well — if there are things like Liao heads, or military armor, we could sell those to the Wu Dynasty’s army. Didn’t you fight the Liao before? Those heads would otherwise go to waste — that alone should be quite profitable. In the best case, we could eventually build a neutral, no-man’s-land little city — but for now, that’s at least the general direction to consider…”