Chapter 1209: Family Matters, World Affairs

The best physicians in the Jianghuai region are now setting up clinics in Xuzhou. Regardless of their income from consultations and medicine sales, what they earn each year is several times what they made before, so they are naturally willing to stay here long-term. Moreover, Cloud Mountain Firm has also let them buy into the medicinal trade business. For a land hub like Xuzhou, the transit trade in medicinal materials is enormous, and the profits within are easy to imagine. Because of this lure, more and more physicians are coming to the Xuzhou and Pizhou area — and this is exactly the effect Zhao Jin and his people wanted.

"Just busy yourself with your own affairs, why come here and waste time on me?" Seeing Zhao Jin arrive, Zhao Zhentang was very impatient. He Cuihua, who was attending at his side, wanted to complain but held her tongue.

Zhao Jin sat down with a smile, but his mood was not as cheerful as he showed. His father's vitality was already very weak, and his body had wasted away severely. This illness was perhaps not as minor as the physicians had made it sound. Whether his father had instructed or threatened them, Zhao Jin did not want to ask, and was also a little afraid to ask.

"Have you finished all your matters over there? With the situation so tense right now, you should handle the important affairs first. I have your mother and the servants here to look after me, no need for you to worry." Zhao Zhentang, supported into a sitting position on the bed, spoke.

"There's always more to be busy with, but it's also easy to set aside some time. Father, don't fret over so many things, just focus on recovering from your illness." Zhao Jin answered with a smile.

Zhao Zhentang stared at Zhao Jin, looking at him very carefully. As he looked, he said in a weak voice: "I can't control you. When you were ten, I took you to the execution ground to observe the punishment, and it scared you nearly to death. After you woke up, I could no longer control you. Who could have imagined you would walk the path you walk now? I couldn't even dream of it."

"Father, do you want some water?" Zhao Jin blew on the warm water in the tea bowl.

"I drank long ago, no need for you to worry about that. Keep me company and chat for a while." At this moment, Zhao Zhentang no longer spoke of being busy with anything.

Zhao Jin smiled and nodded. Zhao Zhentang was silent for a moment, then spoke: "You didn't find this victory hard. It was said to be a great clash of armies, but in truth there was little hardship. Since this time was so easy, what could another great army coming next time even do?"

At this, a look mixing pride and contempt surged onto Zhao Zhentang's face: "An old brother from the garrison told me to warn you to be careful, saying that the Great Ming has such a huge population, it could scrape together several million or ten million troops, and you absolutely must not underestimate the enemy. What does a peasant who's never left his home know? Several million or ten million troops? Scraping together a hundred thousand would be a monumental undertaking. This time the court suddenly produced over fifty thousand government troops — it truly gave me a start, I thought to myself, they really are quick."

Zhao Zhentang spoke with great delight. He had his own insight, and his brother had served in the military away from home for many years, so he naturally understood the military affairs of the Great Ming. He knew exactly what kind of concept it was to assemble an army of tens or hundreds of thousands. When the court dispatched sixty thousand troops to besiege them, Zhao Zhentang had indeed been worried. But after the Zhao Battalion's devastatingly swift and overwhelming victory, Zhao Zhentang had set his heart firmly at ease, and no longer even cared if the court sent even more troops to attack in the future.

"What do you call your outfit now — a battalion? Your leading commanders each command several thousand or even ten thousand men. In the Great Ming, they could all hold the rank of Regional Commander, yet here they're still called 'chief' or whatever. The soldiers and men below are called household retainers and such, which always makes things seem illegitimate and irregular. Those with real ability won't dare come and pledge allegiance. With this great victory, you ought to change the names and titles." Zhao Zhentang again admonished.

Zhao Jin pondered for a moment, then spoke: "We still can't proclaim titles that are too grand. If we can avoid tearing our faces off completely, I'd still like to keep things ambiguous for now. I'm thinking now whether to use 'General.' The Zhao Battalion would be changed to the Zhao Family Army. Other things won't change too much."

These words were not an answer thought up on the spot, but rather a conclusion long since reached in discussions. The Zhao Battalion's current posture was that they did not fear a great war but did not want one. Although all sides were responding — even the gentry and powerful families who had originally kept their distance from the Zhao Battalion were offering counsel, saying they should press their advantage to the end — Zhao Jin still felt they had not fully digested the territory under their control.

"If it were fully serving our purposes, there wouldn't be so many with disloyal hearts, nor so many internal collaborators. But this also has to do with how we kept too low a profile in the early stages. Some people either couldn't see clearly, or didn't understand the stakes and consequences. But going forward, we can act with a freer hand and bring everything within our controlled region firmly into our grasp — manpower, material resources, and financial resources all serving our purposes. Once we truly reach that stage, then we can talk about the next step."

"Developing steadily like this, there will be a time for eruption. But these are just words. How we act still depends on the court's and Wei Zhongxian's next moves. If it really comes to tearing our faces off and fighting, then we'll just have to rise to the occasion whether we're ready or not."

Zhao Jin and his companions all said this in their discussions and correspondence. But now there was no need to maintain that vagueness and ambiguity any longer. Some matters could be done openly — for instance, the name and structure of the Zhao Battalion. To outsiders, it had originally looked like a local militia or village braves outfit. Now it needed to be more formalized. The specifics still required deliberation, but Zhao Jin had already rejected several titles such as Heavenly King, King of Xu, and Grand General of All Under Heaven.

Hearing Zhao Jin's answer, Zhao Zhentang slowly nodded and said with emotion: "Back then, it was truly fortunate that I agreed to your second uncle's request and let him teach you martial arts. It nurtured that steady, unhurried, and unflappable temperament of yours. If your second uncle could see the man you've become today, who knows how happy he would be."

The old man spoke a couple of sentences, then tears streamed down his face unbidden. He hurriedly wiped them away with his hand. This scene made Zhao Jin feel terrible inside, but he still kept a smiling face and helped his father wipe the tears. But Zhao Zhentang's emotions settled quickly, and he asked with concern again: "Marching to war requires provisions. This is the lean season when the old grain is gone and the new hasn't come in — do your people below have enough to eat?"

"Enough to eat. We have what we grew ourselves plus stores, and we're buying grain from various places. Father, you wouldn't believe it — we're still in the middle of a major fight with the court, and those grain merchants came to our door on their own, selling at low prices. At the time, your son here thought it was a trap." Zhao Jin answered with a smile.

This situation was something no one had anticipated. After the assassination plot at the Qingjiangpu martial arts arena failed and Zhao Jin led his forces south and north, once news of the first victory reached Qingjiangpu, the grain merchants who had not been purged and had their property confiscated came knocking. The terms they offered were simple: twenty percent below market price, but the full payment in silver had to be settled within a set deadline.

The Xuzhou troops were in the middle of a fierce fight with the imperial court's government army. By all rights, these grain merchants, who had for generations received the emperor's grace, should have practiced a scorched-earth policy against the Zhao Battalion — even if it meant setting their granaries ablaze, they should not have come to sell, let alone sell at low prices. What left Cloud Mountain Firm even more dumbfounded was that the officials of the Qingjiangpu branch of the Ministry of Revenue and the granary commissioners of the Canal Transport Office were the most proactive — and they too had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination plot.

They had thought there must be a trick, but the Zhao Battalion side simply could not figure out the angle. In the end, they had Geng Mancang, the trade supervisor for the Huaian North District, come over to handle it. He was the most versed in the grain trade. After attending two banquets, Geng Mancang learned the truth. The reason was simple: with war breaking out, canal transport was cut off. At this moment, the new grain from Jiangnan was arriving, and the old grain stockpiled at various points along the canal had no way to be disposed of. If it was just stored like that, the granaries and storage pits would be insufficient, and it would inevitably rot and go to waste, unable to be converted into cash. Better to sell it to the Zhao Battalion early and get money.

Moreover, everyone was thinking very far ahead. Xuzhou was fierce, and the court was powerful. In the long run, the court would win. Once Xuzhou collapsed, who else would pay so much cash for grain? By then, the grain trade could only return to its old form — slow sales, barter instead of cash. Better to sell while they could. Correspondingly, orders for Songjiang cloth surged while Xuzhou cloth saw its prices suppressed and sales stagnate. Everyone figured that with a great war underway, Xuzhou would not be able to produce that much cloth, and in the end, they would still have to buy Songjiang cloth.

With war breaking out at the turn of winter and spring, everyone in the Zhao Battalion feared it would delay the spring planting, and thereby disrupt the entire year's food supply. Without agriculture there is no stability; with grain there is no panic — this was the very foundation of the Zhao Battalion. Just when they were worrying about this, people came delivering grain. It was an unexpected delight. Not to mention the earnings from various businesses, the wealth, goods, and silver obtained from confiscating the estates of the Qingjiangpu and Yangzhou magnates were more than sufficient, and they simply spent it outright.

That first lunar month, while the household retainers and village braves of the Zhao Battalion were fighting, the tenant laborers were not idle either. In the territory controlled by the Third Brigade, they built grain storage pits and granaries, then mobilized the fleets of the Yu and Li families. Ship after ship of grain was transported from Qingjiangpu to Haizhou and stored in granaries near the port of Haizhou. The more the better — the more grain they had, the more stable the Zhao Battalion's position became.

Amid this bustling, feverish activity, the people in trade and land reclamation also sensed something was off. Could it be that these grain merchants who came knocking were simply eyeing the confiscated properties of those wealthy merchant houses? Were they directly trading grain for those assets? And then — the Zhao Battalion could use their seagoing fleet to transport grain. Why were these canal transport officials and grain merchants unwilling to do the same? If one were to say the Great Ming had a taboo against sea transport, then what about the military grain and supplies shipped from Tianjin Garrison to Dengzhou Prefecture, and from Dengzhou Prefecture to Liaodong? And the commercial trade of the Songjiang sand-ship fleets sailing to Tianjin Garrison — the so-called Northern Sea Route? These routes had already been in use for decades. They could cut off canal transport and likewise send the tribute grain north by sea.

But no one did this. Whether the court was safe or in peril, whether the capital was short of grain — none of it had anything to do with the gentlemen in Qingjiangpu. What loyalty? What national righteousness? At this juncture, none of it compared to the importance of making a fortune.

"Father, you wouldn't believe it — those officials in charge of the salt administration in Haizhou and Yangzhou have already come to us, saying they want to swallow up all of last year's surplus and this year's salt profits, and then split it thirty-seventy, with us taking seventy..." At this point, Zhao Jin was also growing somewhat elated, but he stopped himself immediately, because he realized his father, Zhao Zhentang, had fallen asleep leaning against the headboard.

Zhao Jin gently and quietly settled Zhao Zhentang into a comfortable position, then left the room. His mother, He Cuihua, followed him out and said in a low voice in the courtyard: "Your father often says in private that what you're busy with now are great matters. Don't worry about how we are. If you handle these great matters well, the ancestors will all look on with joy. You don't need to come home often — there are so many people here to serve us..."

"Mother, it hasn't come to that time yet. Don't say such unlucky things." Zhao Jin understood the hidden meaning in his mother's words and cut her off directly.

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