Chapter 362: Young Wanderer

【In the preceding chapters I added two chapters of 4000 words; can't see, exit to refresh.】

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The Great King set up a stall and made a huge profit; the next day, when he attended court, he was in a very good mood, and even with many matters he was very pleased.

The ministers below all noticed that the Great King was in a good mood today, and everyone spoke more casually.

When discussing matters, the Great King only occasionally uttered a sound, while he sat above, busy writing.

The Chancellor was really curious; he had already heard of the Great King's battlefield achievements yesterday, and now he's busy with something, feeling delighted.

He always felt it wasn't that simple.

To the Great King, you can't beat around the bush; the Chancellor simply found an opening and asked directly.

The Great King replied: "I'm writing a letter to scold Bai Li Jin!"

The noisy Receiving Light Hall suddenly fell silent, and the ministers again sensed something fishy.

……Oh, you don't know yet. Bai Li Jin besieged Hanshou, suffered defeat, and is now going mad in the Southern Commandery. They indiscriminately conscript men for military service, so I must write a letter to scold him!

The atmosphere in the hall finally made the Great King look up; he glanced around and said, "Huh? You don't agree to scold Bai Li Jin?"

"I dare not!" Everyone in the great hall spoke in unison to dispel the rumor.

Xie Yuan almost pulled out his beard, saying, "Your Highness, we cannot waste this opportunity; criticizing Chang'an and controlling public opinion can proceed simultaneously. May I… let the Grand Tutor write on my behalf?"

The Great King shook his head: "No need, I will write it myself."

Xie Yuan: ……You're just too good at this.

Hasn't he read those great works of the Great King?

The Great King saw that Xie Yuan and the Grand Tutor had strange expressions, and eagerly asked, "After I finish writing, can the Grand Tutor sign it, or would you, Sir, like…?" The Great King was delighted—could it be that the great master Xie Yuan wants to sign?

Xie Yuan and Xu Zhi shook their heads together; the Chancellor fell completely silent, calmly studying the hall's floor tiles.

Xu Zhi quickly declared: "Your servant will obey Your Highness!"

Xie Yuan hesitated: "Your Highness, after you finish writing, may I borrow it for a look?"

Alright, don't leave for a while.

Everyone then discussed the impact of Chang'an's defeat on the Northern Border for a while; after the court dispersed, Xie Yuan stayed behind to admire the Great King's work.

Xie Yuan looked on, wearing a pained expression.

The Great King said he would scold Bai Li Jin, and the whole piece really does just scold him.

He not only scolds himself, he also scolds on behalf of his father; this confidence and the attitude of not treating himself as an outsider are admirable to Xie Yuan.

The Great King confidently asked: "How is it? Is my writing profound? I got a bit carried away when excited." He gestured to indicate a small amount.

It's profound enough. The Great King's piece is to be sent to the Establishing Statutes Palace; this way of writing is fine. For an article aimed at the populace criticizing the Chang'an court, may I write it on your behalf?

Sure!

The Great King also didn't want to write another piece; it seems Xie Yuan also disagrees with posting this whole work that greets Bai Li Jin.

The next day, Xie Yuan submitted an article criticizing the Chang'an court; the Great King glanced at it once and ordered it to be posted immediately.

Not only the Northern Border, but also the major cities of southern Great Jin must have it posted.

At the same time, send his great work to the Establishing Statutes Palace.

After court, he also lamented to Wei Shen: "The benefits of coaxing Xie Yuan to come to work are evident—just look back and you'll see: the writing hits the vital point, the wording is rigorous, smooth and fluent. Who wouldn't want to scold Bai Li Jin after reading it? Having culture makes all the difference!"

Wei Shen didn't understand: "Wasn't he originally the most famous cultural figure of Great Jin? …You've studied with him for not a short time—what have you learned?"

The Great King: ……

Xie Yuan's teaching period is not short; he's not just busy doing nothing!

"Bring up the pot that won't open, hum!"

That night, the Great King again took Xie Yuan's work to show to Bai Ge; Bai Yang, after hearing Xie Yuan's resume, slapped his thigh hard and said, "Make sure it's preserved, don't let it be lost—your later generations will have another piece to memorize in full."

The Great King: ……Sounds like it's not a good thing.

Bai Yang grabbed him, enthusiastically offering to be the Great King's strategist: "Your Majesty, look—whenever you have something, you post notices all over the world. Have you thought about starting a newspaper? You have paper and printing technology—everything is ready!"

The Great King: "A newspaper? Needs paper and woodblocks—sounds expensive."

Bai Yang: "Sell one for five wen, a thousand copies a day…"

The Great King: 5×1000×365=

The naive money-lover slammed the table: "Do it!"

Bai Ze gave him a sympathetic glance, silently waiting to watch the show.

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"What is a newspaper? It is a printed publication mainly carrying news and current affairs commentary, regularly issued to the public."

After the Great King finished his upper work, he thought again, his interest was ordinary— the people of Great Jin don't know how to read!

It would have to be very appealing to sell a thousand copies a day……

"Most importantly, as a ruler, having a well-run newspaper in your hands is greatly beneficial to you."

"The most important thing about a newspaper is its ability to guide public opinion!"

"Although it's a feudal dynasty, what you say is the law, but the people's hearts still matter; don't forget you're still in a chaotic era, and there are already four or five rebel kings? You must rally, let the world know that following you, the Northern Border King, brings a future!"

"Wrong, there's another one—Peng City has produced a rebel army."

"He, Bai Ge, feels ever more sympathetic: 'Don't be careless; history tells us that such rebel armies are a major internal threat. Either a disorganized mob will quickly collapse, or once they gain momentum, they could become the ultimate victor.'"

In our history, many founding tyrants started out this way, and not a few dynasties fell to peasant uprisings.

Of course, with you having such a cheat in Great Jin, they would hardly succeed.

The Great King already knows what a 'cheat' means: "I am definitely the poorest cheat in the world, basically no money to spend. The Phoenix Market has everything, just lacking ingots; buying weapons and food casually is what truly counts as having a cheat."

A new stall selling chicks has opened on the east side of the market; I heard those chickens grow taller than me when grown—how long can one of their chickens last?! The Great King was envious; with extra money he would also buy some to raise.

Bai Yang: "……Could it possibly be an ostrich, not a chicken? Don't just study marine life; also look at land."

Great King: ……

"Getting back to the newspaper, we also have ostriches here; I'll send you a few later. Once this newspaper is up and running, it'll be incredibly convenient to drive public opinion—just one thing: this newspaper must be of one mind with you, so you have to run it yourself."

The Great King took out his little notebook and began to listen attentively.

"For example, this time Xie Yuan criticized the court for its ineffectiveness in suppressing rebellions and the mass arrest of civilians for conscription; you could put that on the front page headline!"

The Great King's soul wondered: "……Does anyone actually spend money to look at notices or proclamations of punitive expeditions?"

"Who is Xie Yuan? You're a top-tier cultural bigwig in Great Jin, a leading figure in academia; you've already got this person in your pocket—you'd better make good use of him, his followers will definitely buy it! If you don't engage in scholarship, you wouldn't understand, but he's definitely an idol in academic circles! Their fans will buy it; ordinary people normally have no chance to see Xie Yuan's great works!"

"You can completely use Xie Yuan to raise the newspaper's profile—first let him take the lead, then publish a few of his articles on it; that way, scholars all over the world will surely want to see a master's great work, and then they'll buy the newspaper."

"Think about it—how many people in their lifetime could never afford to get into Qingyang Academy; if they could spend just three or five wen to see a top master's work, would you buy it?"

The Great King silently shook his head: "Not buying." Xie Yuan would revise his article for him; that would be enough to read—why spend extra money to buy and read it?

Bai Yang: "Huh?"

Great King: "……Forgot, putting myself in the shoes of a student, right? Then buy it!"

Bai Yang: ……

"Furthermore, regarding newspaper current affairs commentary, you can also simultaneously publish several commentaries on the same matter; there will always be one that hits the readers' sweet spot. You can accept public submissions, and if they're well written, you publish them."

The Great King thought about how many characters an article needs; one printing per article—"Then we can't do woodblock printing like the Thousand Character Classic; we need movable type printing. Publishing one newspaper a day—can we keep up?" This sounds like a huge project, huh; looks like we'd need quite a few people.

"Can we publish one every day of the week, with extra editions for major events?"

The Great King's money-making plan suddenly shrank; the base dropped from 365 straight down to 54…

Moreover, "it sounds like the audience would be tiny; publishing this sort of thing outside the Northern Border wouldn't sell well, the court would interfere, and even if Baili Jin were stupid he'd know to block it."

"So, you must get this newspaper running well, let even the south secretly buy it. A newspaper can have many sections; some things you can flexibly and subtly express your views, understand?"

"Making money with a newspaper is easy too—not only does it have politics, but also economics and culture sections, even advertisements. You know what advertisements are? Xie Yuan personally selected pencils; if you hang them on the street, only the people of Youzhou would see them, but if you put them in the newspaper, they can spread all over the country with this thin sheet of paper."

"You can even serialize storybooks on it; serialization means a story released in installments over a year—if they want to know what happens next, they have to keep buying."

"In short, you must utilize this newspaper to the utmost, letting every commoner find something of interest on those few pages; only then can your newspaper grow big and strong."

The Great King's eyes sparkled; he had already caught on to the trick.

"This newspaper must be held in hand, but—the person in charge of this newspaper, ordinary people probably couldn't handle it."

Bai Yang knew the Great King already understood the newspaper's importance; the Great King is brave in accepting new things and also a born ruler with a keen sense of smell.

"No rush; let me get you two books on journalism to look over."

The Great King felt the military advisor made sense, and immediately took out a stone inkstone as encouragement. His older brother Bai has been delivering gifts to the big patron's doorstep, letting him come tomorrow to pick up the materials and newspaper samples.

The Great King quickly saw the finished newspaper: xx Daily, xx Evening, xx Weekly.

"Say it, do it—the next day a new office was established, the Northern Border Newspaper Agency."

"That's the person in charge; he hasn't been found yet."

"According to the Great King's idea, to be able to hold the position of editor-in-chief, to grasp the newspaper's direction and context, one must certainly be a big shot. Don't even think of Xie Yuan—he doesn't have the ability to clone himself."

"The Grand Tutor, too, has side jobs to attend to; adding more would be impolite."

"This person in charge still needs time to be selected; the Great King first chose a site, transferred the workers from the printing workshop to handle movable-type printing, and had the paper-making workshop start producing newspaper sample paper."

"According to the big pie drawn by his older brother Bai, selling the newspaper in the south would become a bestseller—tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, is no dream."

"Then their newspaper agency could support many printing and papermaking workers—all employment in the Northern Border!"

"For the time being, having no person is fine; the Great King personally presided over the inaugural issue, studied various newspapers, then combined with practice, he set Xie Yuan's article condemning the court for forcibly conscripting civilians as the main content."

"The remaining content, he went to the Grand Tutor's place, made the rounds, found some part-time work for the junior clerks below, and had them write timed essay assignments."

"You, write that the Xiongnu envoy is about to come to the Northern Border to deliver reparations; you, write that the Wusun, Kucha and other Western Regions tribute teams are about to arrive at the Northern Border at month's end. Don't make it too exaggerated; simple, clear narration is fine—don't pile on useless flowery language, I'm afraid the common folk won't understand. Did you get that?"

"The two minor officials accepted the orders earnestly; this rank rarely gets to see the Great King, so their hands trembled a little."

"The Grand Tutor, who was constantly paying attention to the Great King, listened dazedly: 'Wait a moment! Your Highness, when did the Western Regions agree to pay tribute?' Tribute? It hasn't been heard of for several hundred years."

The Great King waved his hand; this matter he had long planned.

"It doesn't matter whether the Western Regions agree or not."

"Because if they don't agree to give it to me this time, I, the Prince, can go take it myself."

"If their attitude is bad, I, the Prince, will even attack Wusun on credit for grain—do you believe that?" The Great King got a bit of inspiration from the Wen brothers; holding this kind of killer weapon, the owl cavalry, he'd still be poor—this just doesn't make sense.

"He doesn't have neighbors, that's fine too."

"He's reluctant to strike his own people, but against the Western Regions, Xiongnu, and Xianbei he feels no shame."

"No money? There are ways to fight with or without money; once the snow cavalry is trained, he could bring the owl cavalry and snow cavalry to launch a lightning strike on the Western Regions—would that work?"

"The Western Regions have fifty states; Wusun is not the end—further west lies the powerful Kushan Empire, let alone more distant continents; every parcel of land could breed a strong enemy. The Great King is not like his father, naive, living all his life in the dream of the Celestial Kingdom, thinking that under heaven Great Jin is supreme."

"Anyway, following Bai Ze's advice, if he honestly fattens himself up, he'll also end up as someone else's dish."

"Weak enemies are also a good method, right?"

"The Northern Border has few people, poor and struggling to support him; that doesn't matter—the Great King plans to have external enemies also pay to support him."

"How would the Grand Tutor know how far the Great King's foresight reaches? This fellow, earnestly, said to the Grand Tutor: 'Raising me in the Northern Border is a bit strained—for example, I want six identical white dragon horses to pull a carriage. According to last year's fiscal surplus, if I, plus the officials and the army, all ate nothing and drank nothing, saving up for six would take over thirty years. By then I'd be old, possibly not liking white dragon horses anymore—do you understand, Grand Tutor?'"

Grand Tutor: "……That horse would fly, and it's so expensive!?"

"I, your subject, am ashamed."

"Want to buy osmanthus together with wine, in the end not alike, the youth's wandering." The king now wants it; it's best to obtain it immediately.

The king sighed grandly, giving the Grand Tutor quite a startle.

What a fine poem!

Before he could ask in detail, he heard the King say: "So I plan to support the fifty states of the Western Regions together with the Xiongnu and the Xianbei."

The Grand Tutor simply didn't know what expression to make, feeling both relieved and unable to decide whether to laugh or cry.

"Your Highness, your foresight is profound and your vision far-reaching." That's all the praise; the child is too ambitious.

The King had his hands behind his back, pretending to be deep and addicted to profundity, sighing endlessly: "History is really important; studying history is wise — there's so much to see. Once I achieve some accomplishments, I will definitely assign people to properly compile history." Mainly there's nothing to write now; his father also didn't do much.

Grand Tutor: ……