The night was thick.
Xu Qinghuan sat cross-legged on the arhat bed with her eyes closed, her consciousness sinking deep into her mind. The system panel suspended in the void was glowing blue.
"Sys, are you there?" She spoke in her consciousness, her tone carrying a rare fawning and smiling tone since she left Jiangnan. "Let's discuss something."
"What does the host need? The current available silver balance is less than 300,000 taels."
"Don't mention the balance, mentioning the balance hurts our feelings."
She continued to bargain in her mind: "Sys, we can be considered old friends who have been through life and death. We just pitted the Imperial College and then the old emperor. Now we are about to roll in the Northern Frontier."
"You know what the situation is in the Northern Frontier. That is a bottomless pit."
The system did not respond.
Xu Qinghuan changed her posture, her tone softening with a hint of fooling: "Open a credit authority, Sister Sys? Grandma Sys? God Sys? The classics and history collections hidden in your panel are just gathering dust."
"You have to invest in me. If I die outside the death row at the border of the Northern Frontier, won't your great achievements of thousands of years also be ruined?"
The blue light flashed faintly, seeming to be calculating logic.
Xu Qinghuan struck while the iron was hot and drew a big pie: "You advance some things to me for an emergency first. The minerals, furs, and warhorses in the Northern Frontier are all real gold and silver."
"I promise to convert the profit scraped from the Left Luli King into silver and fill it into your account, including the principal and interest, so that you can take the first place in the main system this year? There should be a saying like the main system, right? I see other novels say so."
After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the blue light on the system panel brightened and the handwriting changed.
"The special credit channel has been opened, and the interest is settled monthly. Please note the repayment period, host."
Xu Qinghuan looked at the line of words and smiled silently. With this exact word, she could be considered to have touched the key to breaking the dead end in the Northern Frontier.
...
The next morning, the cyan light penetrated the window lattice of the study.
There were three thread-bound books on the desk. The covers were dark blue without any ink marks, and not even a title was written.
Xu Qinghuan pushed the three books along the desktop to Xu Zijin's hand.
"Memorize them." Her voice was very light.
Xu Zijin's gaze fell and stayed on the blue-covered books. He didn't ask much, but stretched out his fingers and opened the first page of the top one.
The friction sound of the pages turning was particularly clear in the study.
As soon as his eyes touched the first few lines of words at the beginning, Xu Zijin's fingers pinching the edge of the page suddenly stiffened.
His lips moved slightly, but the second half of the sentence was stuck in his throat.
Xu Qinghuan sat opposite, holding a covered tea bowl in her hand, skimming the floating foam casually. She didn't intend to explain the origin of this school of Neo-Confucianism at all.
For this kind of dimensionality reduction strike trump card, the information gap is the biggest killer.
"Digest it thoroughly and integrate it into your flesh and blood," Xu Qinghuan covered the tea bowl, making a crisp sound. "When you take the imperial examination, there will definitely be a place for you in the top three of the gold list."
Xu Zijin didn't ask where this knowledge was stolen from.
He closed the pages, pressed his fingers on the cover, and wiped it smoothly. The three blue-covered books had been put into his sleeve pocket.
His movements were smooth and without any hesitation.
Then he stepped back half a step, sorted his clothes and hat, and made a deep bow to Xu Qinghuan, and then knelt down and prostrated himself.
"Princess, please take care of yourself when you go to the Northern Frontier," Xu Zijin's voice was already trembling. "During Zijin's stay in the capital, I will definitely keep a close eye on the movements of the Imperial College and the clear stream."
"I will carefully check who those scholars meet, what articles they write, and which teahouse they go to every day. When the princess kills people in the front, the fire in the rear will not burn."
Xu Qinghuan nodded.
...
In the Xie family's separate courtyard two streets away, it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
In front of the desk, Xie Yunwan looked at the red-covered collection of lyrics spread out in front of her. This collection of lyrics was sent by the servants of the Chengyi Earl's Mansion half an hour ago.
The ink marks on the opened paper were even a bit new. There were no impassioned great arguments on statecraft on it, all of which were graceful lyric styles that shed blood and were lingering and touching.
"Seeking and searching, cold and clear, miserable and sorrowful..." Xie Yunwan muttered.
She is a talented woman in Daqian and asks herself that her attainments in lyrics are not inferior to any man. Yesterday in Shichahai, Xu Qinghuan smashed Kong Zongyun's arrogance with the Song of Ascending Youzhou Tower and the Inscription of a Humble Cot.
Now every poem in this collection of lyrics is in her best field, crushing her into dregs.
Xie Yunwan sat withered for a long time and finally picked up the brush dipped in ink. Her wrist hovered in midair, trembling slightly, and finally landed on the Xue Tao paper.
There was no unwillingness of a long speech, nor was there any pedantic biting of words. Only five words were left on the paper.
"Thank you, Princess, for your guidance."
Before the ink dried, she folded the paper note and ordered her personal maid to send it back to the Chengyi Earl's Mansion immediately.
...
The backyard of the Chengyi Earl's Mansion.
The wind blew the leaves on the trees rustling. On the spacious slate field, thirty carts with horses harnessed were arranged tightly.
The horses pulling the carts were all Liaodong horses with healthy teeth. They snorted white mist restlessly, and their hooves pawed the slate, making a dull sound.
Xu Qinghuan stepped down the steps, stepping on the fallen leaves all over the ground.
"Miss, everything has been counted," Li Sheng came up to meet her, holding a stack of delivery lists in his hand. "The front fifteen carts are all filled with our Xu family's meat brick military rations."
Xu Qinghuan walked up to the first cart and patted the wooden barrel. These meat bricks were all dehydrated in the workshop in Jiangning, cut into squares, and pressed tightly into the barrel. The interlayer of each barrel was specially equipped with a sufficient amount of quicklime bags.
When cold water is poured, the quicklime boils and heats up. In the snowy Northern Frontier, this is life-saving dry food.
The confidence that the army hasn't moved but the grain and grass have gone first lies in these fifteen carts.
"What about the rear?" Xu Qinghuan asked.
Li Sheng led her to the sixteenth carriage, reached out and grabbed the heavy rainproof tarpaulin covering it, and lifted it forcefully.
The carriage was piled up with large wooden boxes tied tightly with hemp ropes. Li Sheng pulled out the short knife at his waist and pried open the wooden cover of the outermost box.
Xu Qinghuan leaned close and reached out to push aside the inner layer of dry straw used for shock absorption.
The morning light penetrated the clouds and fell into the box. Neatly arranged in it were a full two hundred pieces of completely transparent and impurity-free glassware.
Cups, small bowls, and even carved long-necked bottles refracted dazzling brilliance under the light.
This was the finished product secretly fired by the old craftsmen in Taoyuan and Jiangning using the formula given by Xu Qinghuan after ruining countless kilns.
Daqian's traditional colored glaze was extremely turbid. This kind of pure and transparent artifact was definitely a foreign heavenly demon in this era.
Not to mention the attraction of this kind of fairy product to the northern nations.
"This batch of goods is not on the military supply account," Xu Qinghuan covered the straw again and patted the dust off her hands. "When we get to the Northern Frontier, pull it directly into the mutual market."
Li Sheng was stunned for a moment: "Miss, how can any merchant in the mutual market digest such treasures?"
"Don't sell it to merchants," Xu Qinghuan's voice was very cold. "Sell it to the Left Luli King and the nobles of those grassland tribes. Just tell our shopkeeper that this thing is called Tears of the Heavenly God."
"Remember, don't exchange for gold and silver. Daqian's silver cannot buy iron cavalry on the grassland."
"Use these glass vessels to trade for their purebred warhorses, sturdy cattle and sheep, and the finest winter furs. Drain the grasslands dry for me."
Using things fired from a few handfuls of sand to swindle war resources—this was Xu Qinghuan's true calculation.
As she spoke, Xu Youde and Xu Wuyou hurried over from the moon gate in the front courtyard.
Xu Youde's plump face had long lost its usual slickness, and the dark circles under his eyes were extremely heavy.
Xu Qinghuan turned around and looked straight at her father. "Father, time is tight for the accounts at the Ministry of Revenue's Grand Granary. You must balance the deficit and sweep the tail clean."
She held up three fingers. "A full three hundred thousand taels of silver. Break it into three batches over three days, and remit it into the bank account previously designated by the Third Prince, Xiao Jingyan."
"Keep your hands clean. You absolutely cannot let Xu Jie's faction find out that this money flowed out from the Grand Granary."
Xu Youde nodded heavily and swallowed hard. "I know. I will personally keep an eye on this money. Even if I have to dig mud from the cracks, I won't let anyone catch a handle against us."
Xu Qinghuan turned her head, her gaze landing on Xu Wuyou.
"Brother, from the moment I step out the door, you will take full charge of the dispatching of the Earl's mansion's guards," Xu Qinghuan instructed rapidly, every word resounding powerfully. "If the Ministry of War's Bureau of Military Appointments sends someone to deliver a message, no matter what military intelligence or transfer orders they want to discuss, block them all at the door."
"Just say you have suddenly contracted a severe illness and your life is in danger, or that your little sister is already in the army and this is to avoid suspicion."
As long as they didn't accept the Ministry of War's slips, the bureaucratic procedures of Xu's faction wouldn't go through, and her political enemies in the rear wouldn't be able to control her far away in the Northern Frontier.
Xu Wuyou clenched his fists. "Don't worry, little sister. I'll go arrange for people to splash dirty water and scatter lime outside the main gate to fake illness. Whoever dares to force their way in, I'll beat them out with sticks."
After these instructions were given, Xu Youde took a deep breath and fished out a brass beast-head tally from his sleeve. The edges of the tally had already been rubbed shiny.
He didn't hand it to his son; instead, he turned around and walked up to Xu Zijin, who was standing under the eaves of the corridor.
"Young Master Xu," Xu Youde's voice was solemn as he shoved the tally directly into Xu Zijin's hands. "This is the tally for the dispatch of the Chengyi Earl's mansion's storehouse and inner courtyard. My eldest son has a rash temper. The verification of the accounts for the expenditure of rear supplies and the approval slips for the inflow and outflow of silver will all depend on you, Young Master Xu."
Handing the economic lifeline of the Xu family's great rear directly to an outsider required tremendous boldness and absolute trust.
Xu Zijin did not decline. He held up the brass tally with both hands, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force.
With everything arranged properly, Xu Qinghuan didn't say another word of nonsense.
She turned around and picked up the imperially bestowed gold-mounted Son of Heaven's sword with both hands. The heavy pure gold scabbard hung from the leather belt at her waist, clashing with a cold metallic sound.
She stepped over the high threshold of the main hall.
Li Sheng was already standing below the steps, leading the fine horse. Thirty mansion guards had finished forming up in the courtyard, uniformly dressed in grayish-black short coats, wearing the standard straight swords of the Great Qian Dynasty at their waists, their grips on the hilts extremely tight.
There were no farewell pleasantries, nor any weeping partings.
"Set off."
Two guards immediately stepped forward and pulled out the heavy door latch, slowly opening the main gates of the Chengyi Earl's mansion to both sides. The door hinges rubbed together, emitting a low, muffled sound.
Outside the gates, the thin morning mist of the capital had not yet dispersed, and a fine layer of white frost covered the bluestone road.
The moment the gates opened completely, the groom's action of pulling the reins came to an abrupt halt.
Outside the door stood a figure. The young girl slightly raised her head and looked straight at Xu Qinghuan.
The newcomer was none other than the artisan girl who treated mechanics as her life, Jenny Huang.
