After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times-Chapter 571 - 565 Want to Make Money

Luoyang only has the Zhao Family Army led by Zhao Hanzhang, the Nanyang Country troops of Zhao Erlang, and the Xiliang Army under Beigong Chun.

Zhao Hanzhang saw Zhao Erlang having fun here, so she simply let Wang Nai, who was staying in Nanyang Country, temporarily take on the role of Dai County Governor, then let Zhao Erlang start selecting his elite soldiers.

"You first select a thousand people, you need to train these thousand soldiers every day, the rest will be stationed in Xin’an."

Zhao Erlang: "Where is Xin’an?"

"Xin’an is not far from Luoyang, it’s a small county town. I checked, there’s no County Magistrate there. I will send one there, and you, station your troops in Xin’an. You can support each other with Guy City and Luoyang." Zhao Hanzhang beckoned him to look at the map, "Qihu Army of Chen Wu is here, Beigong Chun is stationed in Luoyang. If the Xiongnu want to move south, they must pass through Guy City. If the Prince Nanyang from Chang’an or the Xianbei comes over, they must pass through Xin’an County. You are both Beigong Chun’s vanguard."

"And Luoyang is the gateway to the Central Plains. If the Xianbei and Xiongnu move south, bypassing Luoyang would prolong the battle line, their supplies would be poor, and they are very likely to have their retreat cut off by Luoyang, and be ambushed by us." Zhao Hanzhang increasingly felt that having Beigong Chun guard Luoyang was the best.

Her eyes sparkled, "Last year, Liu Yuan bypassed Luoyang to attack Yu State. If Beigong Chun was guarding Luoyang, Liu Yuan would either be surrounded to death in Yu State or forced to flee east to Yan State, through Jizhou, back."

Unfortunately, the one guarding the city was Prince East Sea, who just sat there waiting for Liu Yuan to confront Gou Xi, missing such a good opportunity to drive out the Xiongnu.

Zhao Hanzhang merely lamented for a moment and then returned to the main topic, "After you go to Xin’an, you need not only to train soldiers but also learn to garrison. Xie Shi will still follow you to advise if needed, you understand?"

Zhao Erlang nodded, "Sister, I know how to garrison, it’s just farming. I also followed them in farming at Xiping, I can plant wheat and harvest it."

Zhao Hanzhang looked at him approvingly, "This time, not only farming but road repair is needed."

Thinking about the condition of the official road through Guy City back to Luoyang, Zhao Hanzhang had a disgusted expression, "Riddled with potholes, dust everywhere, luckily we only have horses and ox carts, or fast-paced carts would flip."

Let’s not talk about anything else first, let’s repair the road.

She said, "The official road from Xin’an to Luoyang is up to the Nanyang Country soldiers to repair."

Zhao Erlang, unaware of the danger, agreed readily.

By the time Xie Shi found out, it was too late. He looked at Zhao Erlang and asked, "Erlang, didn’t you ask the magistrate for anything?"

"Ask for what?"

"Ask for money!" Xie Shi said, "Doesn’t road repair require money?"

With straightforwardness, Zhao Erlang said, "My sister has no money left. Today’s evening meal, Ting He is already mixing wheat bran into the bread, and the baked bread doesn’t taste very good."

"..." Xie Shi was exhausted and said: "To repair the road, you need money!"

Zhao Erlang casually waved, "I have money, let’s use mine."

He turned and said to Zhao Cai, "Go get my money box."

Zhao Cai glanced at Xie Shi, turned to get it, but didn’t hand it to Xie Shi, instead opened it in his arms for Xie Shi to see.

Xie Shi saw the mixture of gold nuggets, some silver ingots, and copper coins inside, realizing it was his own saved pocket money.

Xie Shi waved it away and let Zhao Cai put it away, and asked: "Erlang, what happened to all your loot?"

Not talking about houses and shops, he even captured many pearls, precious stones, gold, and silver items.

Zhao Erlang said: "I gave it all to my sister."

Xie Shi: "...Forget it, I’ll go ask for money."

Zhao Hanzhang finally sat at the table, calculating with an abacus against the account book.

Fu Tinghan, who was beside her sorting official documents, heard the abacus sound getting slower and sporadic, so he looked up at her, "Is the gap big?"

Zhao Hanzhang sighed with the account book, "The main issue is too many people to support, don’t know whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate. If Fan Ying brings back 200,000 people, I guess I couldn’t support them."

100,000 people, that’s just my limit, even now, we have to be very frugal to maintain.

Fu Tinghan turned over, found a few sheets of paper, and handed them over, "Sent from Chen County, reading it might cheer you up a bit."

Zhao Hanzhang reached out to take it, it was a military supplies inventory from Zhao Ming. Yu State was operating normally, with output from the two iron mines, enough to supply military equipment.

"Replace broken weapons among the soldiers and give them to the blacksmiths to melt into farm tools," Zhao Hanzhang folded these sheets into the ledger where they were recorded, then rested her chin and sighed.

Fu Tinghan glanced up at her, asking, "What’s wrong?"

"I’m thinking about money." She said, "I was calculating just now, thinking about where to get money and then realized only three places can yield money."

Fu Tinghan raised his eyebrows.

Zhao Hanzhang said, "First is the Liangjiang Region, which has been fairly stable and is a land rich in fish and rice, last time we bought quite a bit of grain from there; second is the Jiangnan area, it’s isolated, I’ve been thinking about its grain and cloth for a long time;"

Seeing her stop, Fu Tinghan asked supportively, "And the third place?"

Zhao Hanzhang slightly shifted her eyebrows toward the north, "Xiongnu and Xianbei territories, over the years Liu Yuan and his men have plundered quite a lot of good things from the Central Plains. In fact, the aristocratic families in Liangjiang and Jiangnan have always admired the Central Plains’ famous families. If we can buy those things back, and transfer them to the south, who knows how much grain and cloth we could trade for."

Glassmaking is very profitable, so for the past two years, Fu Tinghan has been producing glass in large quantities, just to support the expenses of Zhao Hanzhang’s army.

It can be said, the most profitable industry under Zhao Hanzhang’s name is the glassworks, whether merchants or aristocrats, even ordinary people, seem to be unable to resist the allure of transparent, exquisite glassware.

Zhao Hanzhang said, "I think, neither the Xiongnu nor the Xianbei will be able to resist the allure of glassware."

Fu Tinghan, "Besides money, what you lack most should be horses."

"Correct," Zhao Hanzhang lightly slapped the table, "It’s horses! Unfortunately, the Xiongnu and Xianbei are very guarded against us, hardly selling breeding horses to Han people."

Every time we buy horses, they are either gelded already or poor-quality breeding horses bought for a high price.

Zhao Hanzhang fears breeding a bunch of poor-quality horses.

Every time she urges the horse farm for horses, Wei Matou ends up asking her for breeding horses, which greatly troubles her.

Fu Tinghan, "Didn’t you send Wu Erlang to follow the Bingzhou envoy to Jinyang?" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Zhao Hanzhang said, "It’s not enough just relying on him, I want to cultivate a smuggling group that steals from my own position."

Fu Tinghan hesitated for a moment before understanding her meaning, "You mean you want someone who appears to not have been noticed by you, steals from you, takes your profits to cooperate with the other party?"

Zhao Hanzhang nodded.

Fu Tinghan stiffened his back and met her gaze, "Who?"

Zhao Hanzhang just looked at him.

Fu Tinghan, "...Why me?"

"It doesn’t need you to come forward, just borrowing your name occasionally is enough, all these things will naturally be done by people below."

Fu Tinghan, "For example?"

"For example, Fu An." Is there anyone better than Fu An to display Fu Tinghan’s identity?