Emperor Tiansheng was stumped.
This girl was already a County Princess. If he promoted her again, she would be a Commandery Princess.
But she was, after all, from a merchant background. This...
"Forget it, keep that Imperial Sword of Authority for her first!"
"Tell her, as long as she can get money for me, even if she pokes a hole in the sky in Jiangnan, I will pretend not to see it!"
Holding the memorial, the Minister of Revenue burst into tears of excitement.
"Your Majesty is wise! Your Majesty is wise!"
"With this cornucopia, the military pay in the Northern Frontier is somewhat settled!"
"This Xu family girl is truly a pillar of the state!"
...
Meanwhile.
In the capital, deep in a courtyard.
There was no resplendence of the imperial palace, nor the extravagance of a noble family's mansion here.
There was only a quiet bamboo forest and an elegant thatched cottage.
An old man in a gray cloth robe was standing in the courtyard, carefully trimming a pot of begonia with a pair of silver scissors.
The old man had white hair and beard, kind eyebrows and benevolent eyes, looking very amiable.
If you didn't look at the man in black kneeling behind him.
"You mean, the price of cloth in Jiangning has dropped to one hundred wen?"
The old man's voice was very soft and slow, with a frightening calmness.
The man in black knelt on the ground, not even daring to raise his head.
"Yes."
"Not only that, the Xu family has also taken in a large number of refugees, and the cotton mill works day and night with an astonishing output."
"The Wang and Zhao families... I'm afraid they won't be able to hold on."
"Also, the batch of spiked military rations sent to the Northern Frontier is already on the way."
"I heard... County Princess Xu added quicklime to it."
Click.
The scissors in the old man's hand closed gently.
A brightly blooming begonia flower fell to the ground, landing in the dirt.
The old man didn't look at the flower, but picked up a silk handkerchief and slowly wiped the sap off the scissors.
"Quicklime... Hehe."
"Interesting."
"This girl looks crazy, but actually acts carefully at every step."
"She is looking for a way out for herself."
The old man raised his head and looked towards Jiangnan, a flash of shrewdness suddenly appearing in his cloudy eyes.
His eyes were very ruthless.
"What a pity."
"Flowers that grow too fast always attract the wind."
......
The night in the Northern Frontier, the wind scraped the face like a knife, hurting terribly.
Crunch.
A crisp sound seemed particularly harsh in the dead snow pit.
Xu Zhan chewed the thing in his mouth with difficulty, his cheeks bulging high, his face distorted.
It was half a grass root, mixed with frozen dirt and ice dregs.
"Bah."
He spat out the gravel in his mouth, swallowing only that tiny bit of fiber with slightly bitter juice.
It tasted so damn awful.
Xu Zhan shrank his neck and tightened the tattered iron armor on his body, trying to retain the last bit of body temperature.
He didn't know if Jiangning was this cold now.
What was that heartless dead girl doing now?
Probably sitting around a small red clay stove, eating hot baked sweet potatoes, and incidentally counting money until her hands cramped.
Xu Zhan was full of hatred in his heart.
From childhood to adulthood, this dead girl never gave him peace of mind. Robbing his chicken drumsticks, stealing his private money, and in this freezing weather, she didn't even write him a letter.
I, Second Young Master Xu, am about to starve to death in this hellhole!
Xu Zhan sniffed his frozen red nose, his eyes feeling a little sour.
If I can go back alive, I must pry open Xu Qinghuan's private treasury. Exchange all her silver for meat buns, and eat ten of them in one breath right in front of her! They must be the kind with big, oily meat fillings!
Just as Xu Zhan was drooling at the night sky, the snow pile behind him moved.
A lieutenant with a face full of frostbite crawled over, his movements as stiff as a corpse.
"Boss."
Xu Zhan didn't turn his head, still staring at the moon that looked like a big meat pie.
"What, the barbarians sneaked up?"
The lieutenant shook his head and gasped for breath with difficulty.
"No. The barbarians are also resting. With such heavy snow, they don't want to move either."
"Then what's wrong?"
Xu Zhan took out the other half of the grass root from his arms, hesitated for a moment, still couldn't bear to eat it, and put it back.
The lieutenant was silent for a while and gave a miserable laugh.
"Boss, there's no firewood left. Even the horse manure has been burned out, and it's still not enough to burn."
Xu Zhan's hand trembled.
No firewood meant no hot water. In this freezing place, drinking cold water was courting death, and eating snow was even worse. If they weren't hacked to death by the barbarians, everyone would be frozen to death alive.
"Is there any food left?"
Xu Zhan asked a question he himself knew the answer to.
The lieutenant buried his head in the snow, his shoulders shrugging.
"No more. We ran out of food three days ago. The remaining two injured horses were also killed yesterday. Now even the soup boiled with horse bones is so clear that you can see people's reflections."
Xu Zhan fell silent.
He reached out and patted the lieutenant's shoulder, only to find that the shoulder was so thin that only the skeleton remained.
"This battle is so frustrating. The imperial court's forage officer said the road was difficult to travel and delayed it for half a month. Half a month? In this hellhole, half a day can starve people to death!"
Xu Zhan took a deep breath, the cold air pouring into his lungs like swallowing a knife.
In the corner, a raw recruit who looked only sixteen or seventeen years old was sobbing in a low voice.
He was holding an empty, deflated water skin in his hand, his lips chapped.
Xu Zhan walked over.
He glanced at the recruit, took out the treasured half grass root from his arms, and threw it over.
"Eat."
The recruit frantically caught the grass root, as if catching some rare treasure.
But he didn't eat it, but raised his head, his clear eyes full of despair.
"Centurion. I don't want to die. I want to go home. I miss the flatbread my mother made, I want to drink the rice wine my father brewed..."
Xu Zhan's heart seemed to be stabbed fiercely.
He squatted down and vigorously rubbed the recruit's head, rubbing that messy hair into a chicken coop.
"Worthless thing."
Xu Zhan cursed, but his voice choked a little.
"Who doesn't want to go home? I also want to go home! I dream of going back to Jiangning!"
Xu Zhan sat down on the snow, his eyes becoming a little blurred.
"You don't know, my father, although his heart is a bit black, his craftsmanship is top-notch. The braised pork he makes... Tsk tsk."
Xu Zhan swallowed a mouthful of saliva, although his mouth was so dry that there was no saliva at all.
"That meat is fat but not greasy, melting in the mouth. One bite, the mouth is full of oil. If it is paired with a bowl of white rice, poured with a spoonful of meat broth... I wouldn't trade it even for a god!"
The recruit listened intently, even forgetting to cry, his Adam's apple rolling up and down.
"Centurion, is it really that delicious?"
"Absolutely!"
Xu Zhan had a proud face, as if he had made that braised pork.
"Wait for the next life. If we have a next life, reincarnate into a good family. Then, brother will take you to Jiangning, to my house. I'll let my father make a big basin full of braised pork for you! We'll eat till we're stuffed to death, eat till we throw up! No one is allowed to stop us!"
The recruit nodded vigorously, revealing a smile uglier than crying on his face.
"Okay. Centurion, it's a deal. In the next life, I want to eat a big basin!"
Xu Zhan laughed loudly, but the laughter was full of desolation.
Before the laughter could even fade, the ground suddenly began to tremble.
Thump, thump, thump.
The muffled sound of hooves, like a dense drumbeat, came from deep within the blizzard.
And it was getting closer, getting more urgent.
Xu Zhan's expression changed.
Damn it! Are the barbarians making a move early? All troops on alert! Form up!
Hundreds of remnant soldiers instantly formed a circle back-to-back, their faces, blue from the cold, filled with sheer resolve.
They were here!
The hoofbeats had already reached the outside of the camp.
Wait, no.
Xu Zhan frowned.
Listening to the sound, it did not seem like a barbarian charge.
Who is it?
Could it be that the imperial court's reinforcements have arrived?
Impossible, the imperial troops are at least three hundred miles away!
Just as Xu Zhan was caught in doubt and alarm...
Boom!
A loud crash echoed.
The already tottering barricades of the camp were violently smashed away by a man and his horse.
A massive, blood-soaked figure, riding a warhorse foaming at the mouth, broke through the blizzard like a vicious demon crawling out of hell.
The man brandished an absurdly large horse-chopping saber. Two or three arrows were stuck in his body, still dripping blood.
But he was not shouting battle cries or demanding blood.
Instead, straining his raspy, broken voice, he let out a furious roar loud enough to wake the dead.
Xu Zhan! Who the hell is Xu Zhan! Get your ass out here!
Xu Zhan froze.
This voice... why did it sound a bit familiar?
And these words, why did they not sound like someone here to kill, but rather someone here to collect a debt?
I am Xu Zhan!
Xu Zhan roared back instinctively.
Then you are my daddy!
The burly man, looking like a blood-soaked gourd, violently yanked the reins.
The warhorse neighed, its front hooves rearing high before crashing down heavily, kicking up a cloud of snowy mist.
The burly man dismounted, stumbling and nearly face-planting into the snow.
But he completely ignored his injuries, rushing up to Xu Zhan like a madman.
He grabbed Xu Zhan by the collar, his bloodshot eyes glaring like brass bells, panting heavily.
You are Xu Zhan? The second brother of Jiangning's Xu Qinghuan?
Xu Zhan was shaken until he felt dizzy, not knowing whether he should swing the blade in his hand or not.
I am... who are you?
Me?
The burly man wiped the blood from his face, revealing a thick beard and a smile uglier than a crying face.
I am your ancestor! No, wait, I am Wang Tiedan of the Dragon Gate Escort Agency!
Wang Tiedan?
Xu Zhan's brain short-circuited a bit.
Dragon Gate Escort Agency? Is that not an escort agency in Jiangning? How did they end up here on the godforsaken northern battlefield?
Before Xu Zhan could ask, Wang Tiedan pulled a crumpled, bloodstained manifest from his chest and slapped it against Xu Zhan's chest.
Sign it! Hurry up and sign the damn paper!
Xu Zhan was dumbfounded.
Sign... sign what?
For the goods!
Wang Tiedan pointed behind him, where a dozen or so carriages could faintly be seen, stumbling into the camp under the escort of a group of heavily wounded guards.
Your sister! That she-devil, County Princess Xu! She gave me fifty thousand taels of silver and ordered me to deliver this batch of goods into your hands no matter what!
Wang Tiedan roared, spitting out a mouthful of bloody phlegm.
Do you know what I had to go through on this journey? Snow blocking the mountains! Bandits blocking the roads! And just outside, we ran into a few hundred barbarian cavalry! Half of the three hundred brothers I brought out are dead! Half of them!
