62. The Treasure of Xinping

The Prince was indeed still a Prince. The depth of the old fox's scheming left even Xia Lin feeling shocked. Leaving the Second Brother here was essentially placing a super layer of protection around the little Princess.

It guarded against fire, theft, and Xia Lin, while also sounding noble in name. After all, since his younger sister was observing a period of devotion for him, he would remain chaste for his sister. This arrangement was executed with exquisite cleverness, leaving no room for anyone to criticize.

Fortunately, Xia Lin did not harbor too many inappropriate thoughts about the little Princess. To say he had none at all would be unrealistic; after all, what young man in the prime of his youth doesn't let his mind wander a bit during the silent nights? Thinking was one thing, but it didn't go far—after all, she was still just a child...

"Second Brother, you must watch over Qianqian carefully for these next three years. If I am not mistaken, this place will surely attract many eyes in the future. If she runs around recklessly, she will inevitably become a knife pointed at the Prince's Estate." Xia Lin sat down, his annoying habit of wandering hands acting up again as he immediately began to snap up the Second Brother's cold appetizers.

"I know that much without you needing to remind me," the Second Brother rolled his eyes. "You're eating all my bamboo shoots!"

"These shoots are delicious, spicy and flavorful. Did you add bitter smartweed to them?"

Then, amidst the little Princess's reluctant and lingering gaze, Xia Lin was chased out of the guesthouse. There was truly no way around it when the Second Brother refused to let him stay. The little Princess stood at the threshold, clutching the hem of Xia Lin's sleeve tightly. "You must come to see me often... I have to stay here for three years."

"I know, I know." Xia Lin patted her head. "Don't pull such a long face either; in three years, you'll only be eighteen. Just treat it like going to boarding school in Hengshui."

"Huh? What Hengshui? What boarding school?"

"It's just an expression, consider my words as nothing." Xia Lin chuckled and said, "Alright, I should be going too. Because of you, the work on my hands has been delayed for over two months. If I don't go back soon, the villagers might stage an uprising."

The little Princess didn't speak, but tears quickly welled up in her eyes, pooling at the rims without falling, making her look like a heartbroken puppy—a sight that tugged painfully and softly at one's heart.

"Oh, really, there's no helping you." Xia Lin turned around and opened his arms to her. "Give me a hug."

The little Princess wasn't thinking about propriety in front of others at this moment. With a soft cry, she leaped forward and stubbornly refused to let go, repeating a thousand instructions and entreaties that Xia Lin must come to see her once every month.

"Once a month is a bit too short. It's not like I don't have things to do. How about once every three months?"

"No! In three months, I'll die of lovesickness."

An absolute hopeless romantic! This eerie lovesickness was truly beyond saving, so with no other choice, he had to continue bargaining. "Then two months, surely that's acceptable?"

"Um... fine, two months it is. But you're not allowed to lie to me."

"Alright, alright... Oh dear..."

Only after making this promise was Xia Lin finally allowed to leave. Upon returning to Xinping Township, his desk was already piled high with various matters dating from the beginning of the year up to the present. Although the trivial disputes over stolen chickens, seized ducks, and tricked cattle had already been handed over to Chuntao for handling, the business regarding the workshops and various commercial houses was still piled up high.

Xia Lin now also needed to begin recruiting soldiers and stockpiling grain; the amount of work on his plate was genuinely overwhelming.

"Master, last month an extremely beautiful woman came looking for you. When she saw you weren't here, she left," Chuntao said as she walked over and placed a cup of tea by his hand, speaking in a soft voice. "Do you know her?"

"I know, that was Yu Tingyun, the famous courtesan from Jinling."

Hearing this name, Chuntao felt a momentary shock internally, followed by a sudden surge of strong crisis awareness. Although as a maid she wasn't supposed to feel jealousy, she couldn't help it because Yu Tingyun was truly gorgeous. Didn't Chuntao know whether she herself was pretty? Of course she knew, and precisely because she knew, she understood just how breathtaking Yu Tingyun really was.

"She's someone who talks sheer nonsense from head to toe, not a single word of truth in her. She relies on having a bit of good looks to flirt everywhere. She's alright looking, but I think she's inferior to you." Xia Lin looked up at Chuntao. "Yes, truly inferior to Sister Chuntao."

There weren't many scumbags who could turn a gloomy atmosphere cheerful with a single sentence, but Xia Lin managed it. Extreme contrast is always more effective than a direct compliment. If he had simply called Chuntao a celestial beauty, she would have suspected the master was just trying to sweet-talk her to get his way. But when he claimed that so-and-so was worlds apart compared to her, she felt the master possessed exceptional taste.

"Then I won't disturb the master's official duties any longer."

"Wait a moment." Xia Lin looked up at Chuntao. "By the way, why is it that after just over two months since the Lunar New Year, the yamen accounts have a surplus of so much money? Did something happen?"

Chuntao let out an "oh" and explained, "It's like this. After the New Year, a group of wealthy merchants arrived in the township, coming from the Suzhou and Hangzhou regions. Relying on their immense wealth, they bought a large plot of land. I told them at the time that the Township Magistrate wasn't around, but these wealthy merchants still left the money behind, saying it was a deposit."

Hearing Chuntao's description, Xia Lin stroked his chin, genuinely marveling at how formidable the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang were. Their business instincts were engraved deep into their bones; even in a place like Xinping Township, they could sniff out commercial opportunities and begin hoarding land here.

Fine then, if they loved hoarding land, let them hoard it.

With that, Xia Lin approved all these plots of land, and then turned around to designate the surrounding one thousand one hundred mu of prime real estate as red-line farmland. Anyone with eyes could see that this area was filled with weeds and barren wasteland; nobody knew how it could possibly be equated with arable land.

However, Xia Lin was not flustered. Didn't they like hoarding land? Then let them hoard to their hearts' content. Vacant land plots where no houses were built within one year after hoarding would be directly confiscated without returning the money. Furthermore, the township's industries were not without rules. Four major industries were strictly prohibited from appearing:

First, alchemy workshops. The people of the Great Wei still retained some of the Wei-Jin aesthetic, and practicing alchemy and consuming pills was one of them. This was an industry strictly banned in Xinping Township; once it appeared, it would be shut down and cleared out, with both money and land confiscated.

Second, brothels and the sex trade. All forms of entertainment in Xinping Township had to be clean and green. If someone had the ability to win over an entertainer and take them away, that was their own capability, but openly buying and selling sex was not permitted on the surface.

The third prohibited industry was human slave markets and human trafficking agencies. The biggest issue with these markets was human trafficking, and during years of famine, it even led to the buying and trading of human flesh. Master Xia was kind-hearted and couldn't bear to look at such things, so he directly outlawed them and refused to let them open.

There was nothing he could do if other places opened them, but since he enjoyed a relatively high degree of autonomy here, he simply wouldn't allow it.

The fourth and final business was gambling dens. If people gathered privately amongst themselves to play a few hands, it was a case of the people not complaining and the officials not investigating; but official gambling dens were not allowed to exist. This was because the emergence of gambling houses brought not just gambling itself, but also collateral issues like usury, underworld gangs, and forcing good women into prostitution. This posed a severe challenge to regional order and was extremely difficult to manage, so he simply cut it off cleanly with a single stroke.

Since the yellow, gambling, and drug industries were all banned, where would the common people's entertainment come from? Naturally, through the vigorous promotion of various visual and cultural programs. This era did not yet possess scripts and theatrical plays in the true sense. If he were to directly roll out a vernacular script version of *The Legend of the White Snake* or *Journey to the West*, wouldn't it sweep the market by storm? Most people couldn't read, but they could certainly understand spoken stories, right?

Thus, the Xinping Grand Theater had already begun construction before the New Year.

What should be done if those merchants refused to accept these measures?

Refused? If they refused, they could get lost. If they caused trouble, he'd gouge out their eyeballs. Slapping the military tally down on the table would let them witness what the deterrence of a minor warlord looked like.

He had troops now, brother! Come on, try it out! Suppressing rebellion was an imperial prerogative authorized beforehand and reported afterwards; anyone lacking eyes was welcome to challenge what national-level authority meant. If five hundred men weren't enough, he'd dispatch troops from Hongdu Prefecture; if thirty thousand weren't enough, he'd use fifty thousand. And if fifty thousand still didn't work, it wouldn't be Xia Lin making the move himself. Did they want to test the might of the Great Wei's iron cavalry? If they couldn't defeat the northern barbarians, couldn't they deal with a bunch of merchants?

This was why Xia Lin had yearned so deeply for the military tally. Once you had the tally, the entire concept changed. Even if you didn't have a single soldier under your command, the sheer awe-inspiring weight of the tally spoke for itself.

By the time he finished dealing with the matters concerning the merchants and looked up, he discovered it was already late into the night. His whole body felt as if it had been beaten apart with fatigue, and he was too lazy even to stand up. He simply shoved the items on his table to the side, lay down on the long desk, and fell fast asleep.

Until dawn broke, when he felt some movement beside him. Opening his eyes, he saw that Chuntao had woken up and was draping a blanket over his stomach.

Xia Lin sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Good morning, Sister Chuntao."

"Master, go sleep inside the room..."

"No need, no need." Xia Lin waved his hand. "There are still a lot of things to do today, I have to get up."

Worry flickered in Chuntao's eyes. "But the master has slept for less than two double-hours."

"Hey, at eighteen or nineteen, this is the prime age for striving, who sleeps that much?" Xia Lin hopped off the desk. "Come with me, don't worry about chores today, let's go eat outside."

Chuntao acknowledged the order. "Then I'll go fetch water for the master to wash up."

Xia Lin's main task today was to light the furnace. This ironworks had been completed in the first batch, but because he lacked the salt and iron monopoly rights, it had remained idle until now. Today happened to be the third day of the third lunar month, so lighting the fire in honor of the old Emperor's birthday would bring a touch of the Emperor's auspicious fortune. From then on, Xinping Township would soon become the largest and finest iron and steel production base in the entire world.

The coal from Yongshan was exceptionally good. Although the output of primitive coking methods was average, it was more than sufficient to handle the current scale of iron and steel smelting. In any case, Xia Lin had downloaded a complete set of the *Transmigrator's Essential Compendium* on his mobile phone, which contained detailed tutorials ranging from primitive penicillin to primitive steelmaking, and even "how to handcraft a submachine gun." All he had to do was follow the steps one by one.

Sometimes Xia Lin would sit there and fantasize that if he used three to five years to build an advanced military force wielding 7.62 semi-automatic rifles and artillery, he might be able to carve a bloody path straight across the entire realm.

Later on, however, through repeated calculations, it seemed... not quite feasible. Sheer numbers capped the upper limit. Still, if he had thirty to fifty thousand men, coupled with superior logistical support, there was no telling who would ultimately seize the realm.