Chapter 542: Posted in the Newspaper

Great King gave the pastry to his older cousin, who ate until stuffed and excitedly rolled on the ground turning the millstone; Great King thought he was doing it for his younger brother's grand dream and felt very pleased.

He is actually his older cousin!

Great King quickly finished washing up, lay down pretending to sleep, intending to monitor the invading enemy forces in the Northern Border this way. But as soon as he lay down, his eager older cousin shook him awake, "Great King! Let me be appointed commander-in-chief to campaign against Dian Kingdom and Ailao!" his face full of excitement.

Great King: …

You, a Colonel, can't you wake up? In order, you won't even get a turn among the top ten!

He still didn't forget to promise pie, saying, "Well, we'll see how you perform~"

Wei Shen's lackey came over to fan Great King, "It's so hot today, is this breeze okay? Our Great King is suffering!"

That's for sure!

Great King kept shifting from lying on his back to lying on his front, determined to enjoy this rare brotherly affection everywhere.

After he'd had his fill, Great King finally sent Wei Shen away and pulled up the full terrain map of Cool Prefecture to check.

Having located the cavalry at Northern Pass, seeing they were about to block the enemy, Great King felt a bit relieved. Tang Qian's forces were still far off, but there was no rush—Northern Pass just needed to hold them back and prevent them from going deeper.

After closing the map, the latest news Zhu Ti had just placed appeared in the first slot of the warehouse. Besides the situation in You Prefecture, it also said that a new batch of supplies for the army had already left Wing Prefecture.

Seeing this, Great King sighed again—without plundering the people's war, they truly couldn't get rich, and would only burden the homeland.

Who says war can't make you poor? War riches are easy to come by? Only in a prosperous age!

He muttered softly, "…there's nothing left to scrape, it's embarrassing that Luoyang surrendered so quickly… the Yang clan already scraped them, and scraping relatives again looks bad. The next batch will be… the gentry merchants of Chang'an." In the areas the cavalry passed, even the farmers couldn't feed themselves, so he could only think of targeting the gentry merchants.

Great King rolled over again—if he didn't deal with the great gentry, the commoners who plant and eat one year's worth would never have a day to turn their lives around, forever busy serving the great gentry who own most of the land.

If the people aren't wealthy, how could he possibly become rich?

Great King lay there, his thoughts drifting, imagining that after Great Jin unified the realm, those southern great gentry who had fled would never think of reclaiming their ancestral lands. They've run away—coming back, would it still be yours? With Baili Jing around, that's just a dream!

Just like the Northern Border, either allocate land to farmers for reclamation and farming, or turn it into his state-run mega-farm. The earlier trip to South of the River gave Great King a new understanding of the gentry's resources; the protection fee he collected wasn't too burdensome for them either.

Great King wistfully thought, if not for the huge sums spent on equipment, he would now be very wealthy.

"Their blood is thick, This King must make them spit some out again…"

Wei Shen was just about to fall asleep in a daze when he vaguely heard Great King murmuring in his sleep, "What is he saying?"

Great King pretended to sleep and began snoring. Wei Shen turned over, "Looks like fighting this battle really wore him out, yet he still puts up a front…"

Great King: …

After confirming he was truly asleep, Great King took out the latest issue of the newspaper sent by Zhu Ti. He saw that Xie Tu worked fast—already the news of Northern Border capturing Luoyang was posted on the front page, loudly proclaiming the righteous army, the people's will.

According to Zhu Ti's intelligence, it wrote that Northern Border took Luoyang city without losing a single soldier, and Northern Border had already taken over Luoyang's defenses. Such an open announcement lets nearby forces know the score—any further move on Luoyang would be a declaration of war on Northern Border.

"The next issue should announce the attack on Vast Agriculture!"

Great King saw his older cousin asleep, got up, slipped behind White Marsh into the manor, and as soon as he entered he called for Zhu Ti, "Have Xie Tu post the great victory at Five Passes Plain on the newspaper ASAP, to wake up Second Brother and Fourth Brother too. Our losses are minimal, basically zero, while we captured over two hundred thousand of the enemy."

Zhu Ti set out pen and paper, Great King eagerly described the grand scene of the day: "The cavalry's iron hooves thundered like rolling drums; as they ran, the earth shook and mountains swayed, making Baili Jun's soldiers unable to stand; when the Grand Exalted Sword was drawn, the mountains and rivers changed color, lightning flashed and thunder cracked…"

Great King was even more excited than a storyteller in a teahouse, providing voices and gestures with actions…

Zhu Ti put down pen and paper, "My Lord, your literary talent has clearly improved; Xie Yuan will surely be pleased."

Great King delighted: "…Really?"

Zhu Ti: "However, My Lord just needs to state the facts objectively; embellishment is better left to Xie Tu."

Great King was unhappy: "You just look down on This King's literary talent!"

Zhu Ti: "No, this kind of big news needs to be solemn; written as My Lord dictates, if Xie Yuan sees it later he'll have to beg me to recall him."

Great King: …

"Alright, then This King will tell you how This King broke a ten-thousand-strong spear formation with one sword, and Little Gold charged head-on to kill the enemy commander's war horse amid three hundred thousand troops."

Zhu Ti: "…Then let's just talk about how our war horses make the earth shake and mountains sway when they run…"

Great King: …

★

★

★

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

(We're about to attack Chang'an—let me brew a bit! Thanks to the patrons who keep us fed.)