Chapter 601

Chen Wuji, in order to set an example for these surrendered troops, also dealt harshly with himself.

He just stood straight under the Great Banner and started chatting with Chen Bushi: "Indeed, as expected of San Shu, having only been here half a day, you've already found the problem in Guangtongzhou—speak, I'm listening."

Chen Bushi glanced sideways, somewhat surprised, and asked, "You really plan to stand like that?"

"Once you draw the bow, there's no turning back arrow—so many eyes are watching!" Chen Wuji said, "I am the commander of the Three Armies; since I'm to train with them, I must persevere to the end, cannot quit halfway! Go ahead, it's no problem."

"You little brat, your move is pretty ruthless." Chen Bushi praised, taking out a document and saying, "We just tallied the armory; the funds, grain, and equipment are quite sufficient, possibly enough to sustain you through this battle, but where does the government office get so much land?"

"Several hundred thousand qing—isn't that a bit exaggerated? What did you do when you entered the city?"

Chen Wuji said, "San Shu, haven't you finished reading the documents yet?"

"No, there's so much documentation—how could we finish it in a few quick glances?" Chen Bushi shouted, "We've done some sorting, starting with the armory's funds and grain. This account must be calculated clearly beforehand; if it isn't, the venture will collapse from the start."

Chen Wuji nodded, "Since you haven't finished, let me tell you: these fields come from the selfless donations of Guangtongzhou's prominent clans. These people are truly good souls; upon learning that our Hezhou is poor and I have many troops under me, they generously donated a large amount."

"You're doing this again?" Chen Bushi said, his tone surprised, cutting off Chen Wuji's words, "Chen Wuji, your status is different now; there are some things I don't want to say, and it's not appropriate to say them."

"But, indiscriminately targeting local clans, this is extremely harmful. Targeting one or two cities might be tolerable, but if you make this a practice, it will surely cause great trouble."

"All the eminent clans and prominent families will absolutely not allow you to do this; the enemies we will then face will be far more severe than fighting the entire Dayu Court."

Chen Wuji nodded, "I do have a rough idea of this, but your reminder, San Shu, is not superfluous. The prominent clans of Guangtongzhou are colluding with Shi Dao, making things too foul; we must deal with it."

"Shi Dao devised countless pretexts to levy myriad miscellaneous taxes, forcing the populace to sell their property, fields, even their children, while these clans are the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes."

"Why is Guangtongzhou in such chaos, with bandits everywhere? This is the fundamental and biggest reason. Should these fields be returned to their original owners, or how should they be handled? San Shu probably needs to calculate carefully; ideally, through the fields we can bring back to the lowlands those owners who have fled to the mountains and become bandits."

Chen Bushi rubbed his eyebrows, "Ah, so that's how it is."

"If that's the case, then their deaths are truly not excessive at all; it seems my reminder was unnecessary. Second matter: there is an expenditure of sixty thousand taels of silver on the documents, but no destination is marked—what's going on?"

Great Banner – great banner

Chen Bushi frowned, "San Guan Jun sent troops to assist; you and Yang Yu have already discussed what needed to be discussed, so why are we still issuing them military pay? Does the agreement include this clause?"

Personal Guard Lìng – Personal Guard Battalion

Check if any other: "Personal Guard" appears? Not alone. "Lìng" alone? Not.

"Office" (government office) not included as it is generic.

"Army's adjutant" (army adjutant) not a proper name.

"Unit" (troop) not a proper name.

"Surrendered troops" not proper.

Now we need to output glossary in the format: 【{"raw_term":"EnglishName","original_term":"ChineseChars"},...】

We must list each entity exactly once.

Order? Not specified; we can list in order of appearance or alphabetical. We'll list in order of first appearance in lines for clarity.

Let's determine first appearance:

Line1: Chen Wuji

Line2: San Shu, Great Banner, Guangtongzhou, Chen Bushi (though Chen Bushi appears later but first mention line2)

Line3: Chen Bushi (already)

Line4: Three Armies

Line5: Government Office

Line6: none

Line7: San Shu (already), Chen Wuji (already)

Line8: Chen Bushi (already)

Line9: Guangtongzhou (already), Hezhou, Chen Wuji (already)

Line10: Chen Bushi (already), Chen Wuji (already), Wuji (given name) but we treat as Chen Wuji; we already have.

Line11: none

Line12: Dayu Court (includes Da Yu and Court). First appearance of Da Yu and Court? Actually Da Yu appears as part of Dayu Court; Court appears as part of Dayu Court. We'll list Da Yu and Court separately when they first appear. So line12: Dayu Court, Da Yu, Court.

Line13: San Shu (already), Guangtongzhou (already), Shi Dao

Line14: Shi Dao (already)

Line15: Guangtongzhou (already), San Shu (already)

Line16: Chen Bushi (already)

Line17: Silver

Line18: Tang Yu, Chen Wuji (already)

Line19: San Guan Jun, Yang Yu, Chen Bushi (already)

Line20: Guangtongzhou (already), Government Office (already), Xie Fengxian, Chen Wuji (already)

Line21: Chen Bushi (already)

Line22: Silver (already)

Line23: none

Line24: Yang Yu (already)

Line25: Yang Yu (already), Chen Wuji (already)

Line26: Yang Yu (already), Court (already)

Line27: Yang Yu (already), Chen Bushi (already)

Line28: none

Line29: Chen Bushi (already)

Line30: none

Line31: Chen Wuji (already)

Line32: none

Line33: Chen Bushi (already)

Line34: none

Line35: Personal Guard Lìng, Chen Wuji (already), Government Office (already)

Line36: Prefect, Guangtongzhou (already), Chen Wuji (already), Chen Bushi (already)

Line37: Guangtongzhou (already)

Line38: Qin Zhanhong

Line39: Chen Wuji (already), Qin Zhanhong (already) (she), unit not included

Line40: Chen Bushi (already)

Line41: Chen Bushi (already), Chen Wuji (already)

Line42: none

Line43: Chen Bushi (already)

Line44: Chen Bushi (already)

Line45: Chen Bushi (already)

Line46: none

Line47: Chen Wuji (already)

Line48: none

Line49: none

Line50: none

Line 51: Personal Guard (Personal Guard? Actually Personal Guard appears as part of Personal Guard Battalion but we already have Personal Guard Lìng; also Personal Guard appears alone? line 51: Personal Guard's escort – "under the escort of the Personal Guard". So Personal Guard appears alone here! Indeed line 51: "He returned to the office under the escort of the Personal Guard". So Personal Guard appears alone. So we need to include Personal Guard as a separate entity. Good catch.

Thus we need to add Personal Guard. Also we have Personal Guard Lìng (Personal Guard Battalion) as a unit; we already have that. So we need both.

Also we have office (government office) appears in line 51: "returned to the office". This is a place but generic; not a proper name; we may exclude.

Also we have "Qin Zhanhong" already.

Now we need to add Personal Guard.

Also we have "Personal Guard Lìng" we already have.

Now we need to check if any other entities appear: "Great Yu" appears only as part of Dayu Court; we already have Da Yu.

"Court" appears in line 26 as "half the court". So we have Court.

Now we need to list Personal Guard.

Now we need to ensure we have all.

Let's compile final list in order of first appearance:

1. Chen Wuji – Chen Wuji (line 1)

2. San Shu – Uncle Three (line 2)

3. Great Banner – great banner (line 2)

4. Guangtongzhou – Guangtong Prefecture (line 2)

5. Chen Bushi – Chen Bushi (line 2)

6. Three Armies – Three Armies (line 4)

7. Government Office – government office (line 5)

8. Hezhou – He Prefecture (line 9)

9. Da Yu – Great Yu (line 12) (as part of Dayu Court)

10. Court – imperial court (line 12) (as part of Dayu Court)

11. Dayu Court – Great Yu Court (line 12)

12. Shi Dao – Shi Dao (line 13)

13. Silver – silver (line 17)

14. Tang Yu – Tang Prison (line 18)

15. San Guan Jun – Three Officials Prefecture (line 19)

16. Yang Yu – Yang Yu (line 19)

17. Xie Fengxian – Xie Fengxian (line 20)

18. Personal Guard Lìng – Personal Guard Battalion (line 35)

19. Prefect – prefect (line 36)

20. Qin Zhanhong – Qin Zhanhong (line 38)

"What do you mean by this?" Chen Bushi really couldn't figure it out.

What's the point of taking so much silver and giving it to a unit that already had terms settled?

Isn't that just foolishly generous?

No matter how well you treat them, they're still Yang Yu's unit.

「Our relationship with Yang Yu is currently somewhat delicate; although nothing is likely to happen for now, we fear the unlikely—better safe than sorry—I need to make early arrangements. 」 Chen Wuji said in a low voice.

「Yang Yu, whether managing troops or governing localities, has his own set of methods; previously I didn't realize he had schemed to achieve half the court's glorious victories, I had underestimated him and kept treating him as an honest loyalist; from now on I need to be more careful. 」

Chen Bushi was somewhat surprised, "Yang Yu is that complicated?"

「This person is too scheming; I can't help but guard against him. 」

Chen Bushi nodded, sighed, "Looks like I really need to get out more and do some things. Staying in the village all the time, I don't know much news, which easily affects my judgment."

「If that's the case, I have no objections; keep standing, I'll go back to handle paperwork. By the way, remember to prepare good wine for us tonight—don't serve the bad stuff. 」

「Got it, how could we possibly skimp on your wine? 」 Chen Wuji laughed.

「Let's go! 」

Chen Bushi shook his hand and hurriedly left the drill field.

Though he claims to be lazy and unwilling to move, not wanting to do anything, in fact when he gets to work he is swift and decisive; he won't leave anything that can be resolved now to the next moment, nor anything that can be settled today to tomorrow.

Chen Wuji, accompanied by the Personal Guard Lìng, stood with the surrendered troops until evening; after that he added a couple of words, irrelevant chatter, to boost their morale, then left the drill ground for the Government Office.

The evening's welcome banquet was grand; Chen Bushi, serving as army adjutant and now also Prefect of Guangtongzhou, is a bona fide senior official under Chen Wuji, so the due ceremony naturally cannot be lacking.

All the military officers and the civil and military officials of Guangtongzhou were present.

Qin Zhanhong also rarely attended this banquet.

But Chen Wuji never openly told everyone that she is actually both a lady of the household and a military commander, responsible for a particularly special unit tasked with intelligence gathering and espionage.

This drink made Chen Bushi happy.

At the banquet, the most he said was praising Chen Wuji for preparing the wine for him, even entertaining the idea of letting everyone drink less so he could keep a few more jars for himself.

However, that idea was thwarted by the crowd's uproar.

Chen Bushi, who couldn't walk away when seeing good wine, if he hadn't harbored that little thought, everyone might have drunk a bit more restrained; but once he said that, everyone let loose.

Seeing that, Chen Bushi also rolled up his sleeves and dove in.

In order to drink a couple more sips, he gave it his all.

That all‑out effort to drink led to half the people being knocked under by the time the banquet ended, a spectacular sight.

Chen Wuji didn't drink that much; he was among the few who stayed sober.

Although he could tell the quality of the wine.

But he wasn't particularly fond of it; basically, he could drink or not, and if it was good he'd drink it, if it was bad he didn't mind.

Compared to wine, he still preferred the fresh aroma of tea.

After the banquet, under the escort of the Personal Guard, he returned to the government office; just as he lay down on the bed, the flushed‑cheeked Qin Zhanhong pressed herself onto him.