After stabilizing Tang Family Fort, the next natural step was Ciqiu county city.
The county magistrate of Ciqiu was still there.
This county magistrate had some backbone and ability. Seeing the large troops approaching, he ordered the people to close the city gates and defend. On the city wall, you could see he had some experience in advancing and retreating.
Ye Suijin nodded, and sent someone to shout.
After communicating back and forth from the city tower, Ye Sanlang went up in a hoisted basket with two guards as envoys, and went into the city to communicate face-to-face with the county magistrate.
Ye Sanlang's honest face was natural, and his temperament was also clean. His eyes were bright, and at first glance he did not seem like a sinister schemer, so his words were quite convincing.
The Ciqiu county magistrate had already heard about the change of ownership of Tang Family Fort, and after asking in detail, he only found out that Miss Tang had committed suicide. He choked up, "Her father and I were also old acquaintances. I really had no power to save her."
Indeed, he was able to organize some militias to defend the county city, because everyone's homes were in the county city. If the county city was ravaged, no family would escape.
Therefore, the common people were willing to help.
But if he asked them to stick their necks out for an unlucky rich family outside the city walls, and go against a group of bandits, possibly getting injured or killed, naturally no one would be willing.
Why should they?
When he heard that Miss Tang had hidden her youngest half brother in a well for years and actually kept him alive, and that the child was now adopted by the Ye family master of Dengzhou as a righteous son, he wiped his eyes and stood up, bowing deeply to Ye Sanlang, "The righteous nobility of the Ye family. This minor official admires it."
A child that no one knew about in the depths of a well, even if the Ye family had taken the fort, if they had wanted him dead, it would have been as easy as crushing an ant.
But the Ye family let him live.
As for the assets of Tang Family Fort... Forget one family, even if a dynasty collapsed and warlords fought over its remains, it would still be fighting over the deer.
If even nations were so, what more some family assets?
To have descendants survive was already a great kindness.
The gates of Ciqiu county opened from the inside.
The county magistrate wore his faded official robes to welcome the Ye family troops into the city.
He did not expect the Ye family emissary to be a woman, and was quite surprised.
This woman had the looks of glowing spring flowers, the aura of a cold winter sun. The county magistrate had thought she would be a ferocious female warlord, but after welcoming her to the hall to sit down, the first thing Ye Suijin asked about was the livelihood of the people of Ciqiu county these past few years, the public order, taxes, and county reserves.
The county magistrate was lost in a daze, as if answering superiors again.
It had been years since he had this feeling,
because his superior who concurrently held Tang and Deng prefectures had died in the mutiny that was bombed by Xuanhua troops. Since then, he was like an unsupervised child, barely holding on.
He almost cried.
He pulled himself together and earnestly reported everything, and had the county magistrate fetch all kinds of registers for this woman.
Not only was she not bored, but she could understand everything.
Even newly appointed young officials might not understand these things without guidance from their mentors and staff.
Yet she understood it all.
After roughly looking through everything, Ye Suijin closed the last ledger, looked at Ciqiu county's magistrate, and said one sentence: "Magistrate Yuan... you've worked hard."
Magistrate Yuan's eyes reddened. He stood up and saluted, "Just insignificant effort, surely not failing the teachings of the sages."
"Our two prefectures of Deng and Tang have been neighbors since the Northern Wei dynasty. Since you have received the new dynasty's appointment, please nurture the people on behalf of the Son of Heaven." He bowed down, "Please, milady, take Ciqiu as well."
Ye Suijin said, "Very well."
When Teacher Yang and Fifth Uncle Ye arrived at Tang Family Fort, Ciqiu had already surrendered. But Ye Suijin still set up her mobile command post at Tang Family Fort.
She was used to battlefields and campaigns, and compared to the county city, she preferred this kind of fort.
"Fourth Brother knows he's gotten a lot of land, and is very happy," Teacher Yang said, stroking his beard.
Fifth Uncle Ye spat, "Nowadays Fourth Brother calculates all day. He's become miserly, completely lacking magnanimity."
Everyone laughed loudly.
Obtaining the surrender of a county meant obtaining taxes and population, which was public. But obtaining spoils of war was profits distributed among them, which was private.
It meant everyone's purse had grown fatter.
Ye Suijin looked at the carriages Teacher Yang had brought, and asked, "Why have you brought so many carriages? What's inside?"
Teacher Yang was about to tell her about it, "Master Jiang from Ruiyun Company's Nanyang branch has obtained what you wanted."
"Southern goods?" Ye Suijin's eyes lit up and she became happy, "Teacher understands me well."
After sitting down inside the residence, Teacher Yang took out a letter, "A reply letter from the owner of Ruiyun Company to you."
Ye Suijin took it and skimmed through it. The corners of her lips hooked up, "Businessmen, always gutsy."
This was clearly Ruiyun Company testing the waters. If successful, the two sides could truly cooperate long term.
Third Son did not understand, "Why bring southern goods here?"
They were leading troops outside, sometimes even fighting wars.
Teacher Yang stroked his beard and smiled.
Ye Suijin folded up the letter and smiled, "Naturally to send north."
But things had to be done one by one. They had to plan Tang Family Fort in front of them first.
Fortunately Tang Family Fort was not big, and the Ye family's background in military affairs meant Teacher Yang had also been at Ye Family Fort for many years. He had always been the most trusted man by Ye Suijin's father, and was extremely familiar with fort administration.
Everyone discussed together, modified, and finally settled on the final plan, arranged manpower and resources. Ye Suijin then handed matters of the fort to Fifth Uncle Ye, Fourth Son Ye, and Fifth Son Ye, and said to Seventh Son Ye, Ninth Son Ye, and Tenth Son Ye, "Follow them closely and learn, don't treat it as trivial. If you don't learn it well, then you'll always be little followers for others in the future, and never get to independently lead troops on your own."
As Ye Suijin said "you", her eyes stared at Tenth Son.
Tenth Son had originally been impatient with these things. He only wanted to lead troops out to have fun killing people. Pinned by Ye Suijin's stare, he shrank his neck, "Got it."
The brothers all laughed loudly.
They also gave Tang Family Fort a new name. Because Tang Family Fort was located in Ciqiu, the northernmost part of Tang prefecture, from then on it would be called Tang Northern Fort.
Tenth Son said, "Just changing one character."
Everyone laughed again.
Although it was just one character changed, Tang Family Fort had changed hands and owners.
After laughing, Ye Suijin said, "Teacher, Third Son, come north with me."
Her fingertips slid across the map, tapping a certain spot, "Let's go, I'm going to meet the General Who Guards the Pass."
It was getting cooler. The General Who Guards the Pass had sent people to the capital to urge the winter military provisions.
Although the west was more important now, he couldn't neglect his side for the sake of the west. The ministry of revenue were all XXXX with three legs, who only took but never gave. He had to keep kicking them to spit some out.
That day, he suddenly got a report in the mobile command post that the Ye family of Dengzhou had sent people again.
The Ye family did things very pragmatically, and had vision. The General had quite a good impression of them. And judging by the capital's reaction, the Emperor obviously felt the same.
He asked, "Who came?"
The guardsman said, "It's the strategist surnamed Yang we've seen before, brought a young master surnamed Ye. Also brought a woman, very beautiful."
Guardsmen and their big mouths, just had to add in "very beautiful". The General's thoughts went astray.
Because whenever the Ye family came by, they never forgot to bring gifts for him. Could it be they had brought a woman as a gift this time?
Although the guardsman had said "very beautiful", when the woman came to the hall and lowered her hood, the General still stared blankly.
What a gift! A great gift! He was willing to accept it!
He didn't expect the woman to not act coy at all. Meeting his gaze directly, her brows and eyes radiated a heroic spirit. She saluted and said, "Greetings to the General Who Guards the Pass. I am Ye Suijin of Dengzhou."
The General was taken aback.
This name was familiar. Wasn't that... the brand new prefect of Dengzhou this year?
Before becoming Empress, no, it should be said before being forced out of the palace by the civil official clique, she had always been high-profile.
She was long used to such burning gazes from men, and did not take offense.
In her words she was even polite.
Although Dengzhou was small, her position as governor also carried the titles of Commander-in-chief and Imperial Agent, making her a military governor of the same rank as the general who guarded the pass. Strictly speaking, the general who guarded the pass still had to address her as "this humble officer" or "your subordinate".
But in reality, she was indeed a very insignificant military governor. On paper she only controlled the Dengzhou area.
To maintain an army one needed territory, as territory provided taxes to support the soldiers. So with a small territory, it was clear the army would not be large.
The general guarding the pass, however, was a military commander under the Jin Emperor, so although his rank was lower than Ye Suijin's, behind him stood the Great Jin, so in terms of military power he was not someone Ye Suijin could compete with at present.
Therefore she used the term "this humble one" from the Jianghu, avoiding bureaucratic ranks, while also indicating that this visit was not on official "Dengzhou Military Governor" business.
Strictly speaking, a military governor could not randomly travel outside their jurisdiction without an imperial edict. Although right now everyone was making a mess, traveling and attacking each other everywhere without anyone able to control it.
In short, with one sentence Ye Suijin clarified her identity and attitude. The general guarding the pass suppressed his disappointment and cupped his fist in return: "So it is Householder Ye, I have long admired you by reputation."
By not mentioning official positions, only private relations, it made it easier for them to speak plainly.
After sitting down and exchanging pleasantries, Ye Suijin stated her purpose: "I've escorted a batch of southern goods for the general to take a look."
The general guarding the pass was overjoyed: "Householder Ye really knows how to conduct business!"
As a businessman, Jiang Yinyao had very discerning eyes. When Mr. Yang presented the manifest, the general guarding the pass was even more delighted, as they were all exquisite southern products desired by the northern nobles.
The essence of commerce was converting distance into profit.
The farther the distance, the greater the profit.
The general guarding the pass had his own channels to transport goods northward.
Now that the sixteen prefectures of Yan and Yun had been ceded to the northern barbarians, with this barrier in between, exchanges were not as convenient as before. But because of this, transporting southern goods over would bring astonishingly high profits.
The general guarding the pass had long wanted to earn this money, he just lacked channels in the south.
Last time when he made contact with the Ye family, since they were not close, it was merely casting a wide net. He didn't expect the Ye family to truly understand his intentions.
After personally inspecting the goods, they really were exquisite southern objects. He could well imagine, once transported north, they could make a fortune.
The general guarding the pass was so happy his eyes disappeared. When they returned to the hall, he called for wine and his attitude was much friendlier: "Householder Ye, how shall we split the profits? You say."
But Ye Suijin just smiled without answering.
The general guarding the pass was perceptive, and immediately understood. With a wave of his hand he said: "Whatever Householder Ye wants, just say it, anything but iron is fine. Don't be shy, I'm a cousin of His Majesty."
Ye Suijin was not familiar with the early Jin kingdom figures, she was more familiar with several of the princes who had collaborated with Zhao Jingwen later on. She didn't know whether this general guarding the pass died early or what happened to him afterwards.
But that he was a cousin of the Jin Emperor was something Mr. Yang had heard from the subordinate general escorting them on Ye Siliang's first trip accompanying Ye Fourth Uncle to the capital.
Of course she wanted iron, but iron was too strictly regulated, even the Jin Emperor's eldest daughter the Grand Princess didn't dare smuggle iron to other factions.
Ye Suijin understood this very clearly, so iron was not her target.
"The general is wise, I'll be direct." Ye Suijin said.
"I want horses."
