The officials in the hall were stunned at first, but moments later, several of them let out cold snorts.
Two censorial officials immediately stepped out of line.
“Absurd!”
“Overseas lands are all barbaric, uncivilized places, and the islanders live like savages!”
“The Great Qian is the glorious Middle Kingdom. What business do we have in such barren wastelands?”
Xu Qinghuan ignored them completely and addressed the old emperor directly.
“Your Majesty, these officials know only what is written in dead books and have no idea how vast the world truly is.”
“But I know that overseas there are two things the Great Qian desperately needs to save itself.”
“Oh?” The old emperor’s interest was thoroughly piqued. “What two things?”
“The first is silver.”
Xu Qinghuan began to explain slowly.
“The islands of the Eastern and Southern Seas contain vast quantities of open-pit silver mines.”
“Their reserves are greater than the combined revenues of our national treasury over a hundred years.”
“On some island nations, silver lies exposed in the mountains and wilderness like ordinary stones. The barbarians do not know how to mine or smelt it, and so they regard it as worthless.”
“If the Great Qian can build seagoing vessels and transport that silver back, then forget merely supplying the bitter cold of the northern frontier—even if we covered the entire Nine Frontier Garrisons in silver bricks, it would still be easily within our means!”
The officials were instantly left dizzy by the words “the combined revenues of a hundred years.”
The Great Qian’s lack of silver was a fatal weakness known to every civil and military official in the court.
But as for how to solve it—who could offer a truly effective solution?
Now, after hearing of such unimaginable wealth, many officials began breathing heavily.
The old emperor sat upon the Dragon Throne, his expression solemn.
After a brief moment of temptation, he immediately seized upon the heart of the matter.
“Xu Qinghuan, I am gratified that you possess such insight,” the old emperor said heavily. “But you must understand that the northern frontier is bitterly cold. Once winter arrives, not a blade of grass grows.”
“Even if you possessed ten thousand taels of silver, what would happen in a year of severe disaster, when the canals south of the Yangtze froze over and food could not be transported north?”
The old emperor fixed his eyes upon her. “Silver cannot be eaten.”
“Ultimately, such funds lack a firm foundation. Soldiers with empty stomachs will rebel even if they have silver.”
Xu Qinghuan had been waiting for him to say exactly that.
A smile touched the corners of her lips as she replied calmly, “That is precisely why I said there is a second divine treasure overseas.”
Her eyes gleamed brightly.
“Overseas, there are not only mountains of silver, but also divine crops.”
“If we obtain them, then throughout the Great Qian—north and south alike—there will never again be famine or starving corpses!”
The moment those words were spoken, the Hall of Heavenly Mandate resounded with a chorus of sharp gasps.
The officials began whispering among themselves.
Even Xu Jie, an old minister who had weathered countless storms, found Xu Qinghuan’s claim far too incredible. He stared at her in astonishment.
“Divine crops?”
“What kind of thing is that? Such a thing cannot exist in this world. Has this woman been infected by some evil spirit at the border?”
The old emperor’s eyes were filled with suspicion. He pressed her in a deep voice, “Xu Qinghuan, one must not speak recklessly of gods and ghosts in the imperial court. Where in this world could there be such divine crops?”
Xu Qinghuan answered with force and certainty:
“I am making no wild claim! There are two such divine crops. One is the sweet potato, and the other is the potato.”
Xu Qinghuan continued:
“These two crops do not demand fertile soil. They can withstand both drought and cold.”
“Whether planted in the rich, watery lands south of the Yangtze, the barren sandy soil of the northern frontier, or even cracks between mountain rocks, they will take root and grow.”
“More importantly, the rice and wheat cultivated in the Great Qian yield at most two or three shi per mu even in a good harvest.”
Xu Qinghuan paused briefly, then revealed a number so astonishing that it was enough to shatter the minds of every civil and military official present.
“But sweet potatoes and potatoes can yield as much as several dozen shi per mu!”
When the words “several dozen shi” echoed through the hall—
Crash!
The golden wine cup before the old emperor was knocked over.
He prided himself on never allowing joy or anger to show upon his face. The last time he had lost control so completely was when he learned that his nephew had died.
That had been when he finally ascended the throne as he had wished!
But now, upon hearing of such divine crops, he rose abruptly to his feet.
The old emperor’s voice trembled. He was so shaken that he even forgot his usual imperial self-reference.
“You… What did you say? How much per mu?”
Everyone in the hall held their breath.
The greatest weakness of an agrarian civilization was food.
Several dozen shi per mu? It was a figure they would not even dare dream of!
Xu Qinghuan looked directly at the stunned Son of Heaven and swore a solemn oath:
“Every word I have spoken is true!”
“If Your Majesty dispatches envoys to build ships and sail overseas, yet they fail to bring back these divine crops, I am willing to offer the heads of every member of the Xu family as atonement before Your Majesty!”
Xu Zhan’s eyes widened. He wanted to stop her, but it was already too late.
Xiao Jingyan stood there dumbfounded.
The entire hall sank into absolute silence.
The civil officials of the court stared at Xu Qinghuan as she pledged the lives of her entire family in support of this astonishing guarantee.
No one dared speak.
No one dared voice an objection.
……
The civil and military officials of the court barely dared to breathe.
The old emperor’s fingers hovered in midair.
In his mind, he frantically searched through three hundred years of imperial archives, trying to find evidence that Xu Qinghuan was making it all up.
Emperors were suspicious by nature, especially when confronted with something that overturned everything they knew.
“You have guaranteed it with the lives of your entire family,” the old emperor warned. “Xu Qinghuan, do you know how many cuts are involved in the punishment for deceiving the emperor?”
The emperor’s gaze bore straight down upon her.
He was waiting—waiting for the slightest sign of panic from this woman.
The moment she showed even the tiniest hint of fear, he would immediately order the Xu family thrown into the imperial prison.
Xu Qinghuan stood like a pine tree in the snow, meeting the emperor’s gaze as she slowly replied:
“I dare to swear such an oath because my words are not baseless. As recorded in Volume Seven of the former dynasty’s Records of Strange Happenings Across the Four Seas…”
“To the south of the Southern Barbarians lies a vast ocean stretching ten thousand li. After crossing it in a great vessel, one comes upon an island.”
“The islanders know nothing of millet or wheat. They live on roots that grow beneath the earth, yellow and white in color and sweet in taste.”
“One mu yields enough to feed a hundred people. These words are recorded clearly for all to see!”
She paused for half a breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw several civil officials preparing to step forward and challenge her, so she preemptively closed off every avenue of rebuttal.
“Although the former dynasty has perished, merchants from the southern coast still trade with the foreign lands to this day.”
“When I was stationed at the northern frontier, I once treated an old soldier from Quanzhou who had become stranded beyond the passes.”
“In his youth, he had followed sea merchants to the Southern Seas and personally witnessed the barbarians using silver blocks as bricks to build walls.”
“That old soldier said the barbarians knew nothing of smelting and had no understanding of currency. Silver was as common in their lands as mud and sand!”
Her argument was coherent and well supported. She had skillfully woven together surviving maritime records from the former dynasty with the firsthand accounts of merchants from the southern coast.
Once wrapped in that historical veneer, her story became perfectly logical. Even the most fastidious scholars of the Hanlin Academy could not find the slightest flaw in it for the moment.
As for the book itself?
That, of course, was something Xu Qinghuan had simply invented.
Xu Jie stood at the very front of the civil officials, his graying beard trembling faintly.
He was calculating.
If Xu Qinghuan was lying, the Xu family would be executed to the last member today, and the balance of power in the court would be reshuffled.
The Jiangnan faction would win a sweeping victory, and there would be no further obstacle to the emperor’s proposal to move the capital.
But what if it were true?
Xu Jie’s heartbeat suddenly quickened.
If there truly were divine crops yielding several dozen shi per mu, and overseas islands covered in silver, then it would be the greatest upheaval the Great Qian had witnessed in three hundred years—an upheaval capable of overturning the fate of the entire dynasty!
The Great Qian’s fatal weaknesses were its lack of money and its lack of food. Once both problems were solved, border threats and internal rebellions alike would be overcome with ease!
Xu Qinghuan keenly caught the hurried breathing of the officials throughout the hall.
She knew the moment had arrived.
“Your Majesty!” Xu Qinghuan suddenly unveiled her grandest vision. “If we truly acquire this mountain of silver to fill the imperial treasury, and truly obtain this divine grain to cover the Central Plains, then that old farmer’s estate will be worth not merely ten times or a hundred times what it is now!”
The great hall fell silent, leaving only her voice.
“When that day comes, even if Great Qian’s iron cavalry spends ten thousand gold pieces a day, we will not feel the slightest strain! No matter how fierce the snow and wind in the northern frontier, there will always be an endless supply of grain and provisions to sustain our troops! Why should we fear the Khitan invaders knocking at our gates?”
“Our armies of Great Qian will be able to march straight into enemy territory and strike at the heart of the enemy! The barbarians’ royal court will be nothing more than pastureland where they raise cattle and sheep for Great Qian!”
Among the military officials, Xu Zhan felt his blood rush to his head at these words.
But Xu Zhan was not the only one!
The generals, who were usually suppressed by the civil officials until they could barely hold their heads up, were all flushed with excitement, breathing heavily.
Without sufficient provisions and military pay, they could only cling to their cities and defend them to the death. But if they had ample supplies and funding, who among them would not dream of earning the honor of sealing wolves at Mount Langju and engraving their victories upon Mount Yan?
Xu Qinghuan did not stop. Her gaze slowly swept across the civil officials, who stood frozen in shock, before finally returning to the old emperor.
“With such confidence enough to hold the world beneath our feet, what place under heaven could not become Great Qian’s territory?” Xu Qinghuan declared, each word ringing like a pearl. “When that day comes, why would we still worry about a leaky ancestral home? Why would we still think of retreating to some lofty estate for the sake of preserving a corner of peace?”
“Why would we still think of our old home?”
Xu Qinghuan shattered the seemingly insoluble deadlock they had faced before.
“The four seas and eight directions, the territories of every nation under heaven—all of them can become Your Majesty’s inner garden! All of them can become Great Qian’s homeland!”
“To unify the world will no longer be a distant dream!”
