Chapter 62: The Left-Pocket-to-Right-Pocket Plan

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At the moment Zang Ba fell from his horse, in a daze, he thought of a man—Zhang Fei, who had dared to challenge Lü Bu alone before Hulao Pass. Then, pitch black consumed his vision, and he knew nothing more.

Zhang Fei casually hoisted the falling Zang Ba up, preventing him from being trampled into mincemeat by the cavalry behind. He had figured it out: Zang Ba did not lose because he was too weak, but because the opponent he encountered was already at a non-human level.

"Zang Ba has already been captured by me! You lot, lay down your weapons and surrender!" Zhang Fei roared, his voice directly drowning out the screams of Zang Ba's elite guards.

"We surrender!" With their commander captured and their army fragmented, to not surrender meant only a dead end. Zang Ba's army, which had already completely lost its morale, lost all will to fight the moment Zang Ba was captured. Under Zhang Fei's roar, the entire force wilted completely like frosted eggplants.

Hua Xiong directed his men to capture Zang Ba's elite guards. Originally, after such a major battle, the task of rounding up prisoners would be assigned to the rear guard, as the frontline troops were generally exhausted after a fierce battle.

However, Hua Xiong had only this many men under his command; there was simply no rear guard at all. Under Hua Xiong's rigorous training, the former bandits had no notion that capturing prisoners should be done by the rear guard. Hua Xiong told them to do whatever, and they did it. Catching prisoners was surely much safer than climbing cliffs with boulders on their backs, not to mention that these bastards had already been beaten into submission earlier—what was there to worry about?

Under Hua Xiong's arrangement, his bandit troops divided into five hundred lightly wounded soldiers to herd the prisoners together like ducks, while another three thousand troops dispersed to maintain guard. The remaining men scattered like scouts to act as an early warning system.

As for the prisoners, driven along by Hua Xiong's bandit troops—who numbered only one-twentieth of them and were all lightly wounded—not a single one dared to resist. It seemed Zang Ba's elite guards had been thoroughly broken; at least in the short term, facing this silent legion that had defeated them, not a single thought of resistance arose.

"Zijian, I never realized your method of training troops was truly divine!" Zhang Fei, carrying Zang Ba, gave a thumbs-up to Hua Xiong, who was standing atop a boulder.

"Don't mention it. I don't even know what's going on myself. The military strategist made me train them this way, and to this day I still don't understand the reason. These people are simply not afraid of death; whatever I say, they do." Hua Xiong waved his hand, indicating that this wasn't an issue of his own troop-training ability, but entirely the capability of Chen Xi.
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"Yo, I never expected Zichuan to have such a trick up his sleeve, yet he didn't teach it to old Zhang. When I get back, I'm going to question him." Hearing this, Zhang Fei was first pleasantly surprised, then declared with indignant grievance that he would give Chen Xi a piece of his mind.

"It's better not to talk about giving the military strategist a piece of your mind. Wake Zang Ba up, and then you go lead your troops to blockade the surrounding key routes for me. The military strategist gave orders to capture Sun Guan, but I still don't know where Sun Guan is—how am I supposed to catch him? Let's hope Zang Ba knows," Hua Xiong said with a wry smile. The task Chen Xi gave him was not particularly difficult; the hard part was finding the bandit Sun Guan within Mount Tai. Right now, the only one who might possibly know was Zang Ba, which was why Hua Xiong had taken the risk of ambushing him.

Zhang Fei found a basin of water and splashed it directly onto Zang Ba to wake him up. He neither worried about Zang Ba's wounds becoming infected nor felt any need to show preferential treatment to prisoners of war. In this era, preferential treatment was essentially given if people looked pleasing to your eye, and handled casually if they didn't—who told you to be a prisoner of war anyway? Besides, experts at the Qi-Refining-to-Aura level did not need to worry about contracting illnesses; minor ailments rarely plagued them, but once they did fall sick, they were basically not far from becoming steamed bun fillings.

"Cough, cough, cough." Coughing up blood, Zang Ba opened his eyes. Seeing the two men he had spotted earlier looking down at him, he understood that he had been captured. Spitting out a mouthful of stagnant blood, Zang Ba asked with flickering eyes, "I want to know: have I been defeated at the hands of Zhang Yide from Yan?"

"Well, Yide, the man recognizes you. See if he's an old hometown acquaintance of yours." Hua Xiong bantered with a chuckle.

"Hmph, I have no hometown acquaintances who are bandits. He most likely figured it out from my supreme martial prowess and formidable physique," Zhang Fei said unhappily.

"No need for 'most likely.' Zichuan said long ago that even if people in this world don't recognize you, there are quite a few who recognize the Zhangba Snake Spear. Your actual person isn't as famous as your weapon," Hua Xiong continued to banter with Zhang Fei, having virtually no fear of him.

"Tell me, how did you recognize me?" Zhang Fei grabbed Zang Ba and asked with a ferocious expression.

Hua Xiong stood to one side, half-squinting his eyes as he looked sideways at Zang Ba. He had learned this from Guan Guanyu: looking at people with this kind of gaze carried a special murderous aura and looked exceptionally dignified. At the very least, right now, Zang Ba broke out in a cold sweat from that single glance.

"Alright, Yide, stop joking around. Hand Zang Ba over to me; I still have things to ask him." Hua Xiong was not someone who couldn't tell the severity of a situation; a couple of jokes were enough.

"Handed over to you. Watching you fight a battle has left old Zhang's hands itching a bit, too, but unfortunately my men are all cavalry, making mountain warfare impossible." Zhang Fei tossed Zang Ba to Hua Xiong and said with a helpless expression, "Looks like I can only go with Second Brother to gather the refugees rushing in from Qingzhou."
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One must admit that in this newly opened turbulent era, when the common people no longer recognized the Han Court, pure disaster relief could no longer be rolled out. The reason was very simple: the common people did not believe you would distribute food for no reason. Even if word spread to Qingzhou, the displaced refugees were unwilling to believe it; they trusted more in their own strength to fill their families' stomachs.

Based on this realized reality, Chen Xi directly extinguished Liu Belt's idea of opening granaries to distribute food. Spending so much grain to generate such meager profits was simply not worth it. Hundreds of thousands of living people with hands and feet—where couldn't they generate profits? These people were money!

Conversely, directly distributing food meant you still had to support them, turning them entirely into a burden. Rather than doing that, it was better not to open the granaries, and instead directly have these refugees work, with money and grain settled as wages on a daily basis. How harmonious that would be!

Chen Xi snuffed out pure food handouts and directly initiated work-relief. Since they had hands and feet, letting them eat the food they earned themselves was much better than eating disaster-relief rations. At least eating food earned by their own sweat gave them a sense of dignity. Although national disaster relief was also an obligation, wouldn't it be more reasonable to give them work and food? Along the way, it could also stimulate commercial circulation and distribute a little money to let them see more hope—wasn't that much more promising?

Clinging to this train of thought, Chen Xi had no intention whatsoever of opening granaries for handouts. Anyway, the government's credibility was basically ruined, so it was better to establish a new monument, and even slip in a few selfish motives along the way.

For instance, under the guise of teaching them to fish rather than just giving them fish, he taught them to build houses and gave them food. Once they finished building, he told the refugees that the wages previously issued to them could be used to purchase the very houses they had constructed. For any shortfall, they only needed to pay a base deposit, and the official government could lease the houses to them first, to be repaid later when they had money.

Similarly, if they wanted to farm and had no money to buy fields, the government could grant fields to them. According to Zhao Zilong's compiled Tuntian (Military Colony) Decree, they would pay a four-tenths state tax and a one-tenth rental fee. After five years, only the state tax would remain, and the land would entirely belong to them. Of course, this grant was limited to fifty mu per adult.

Look, what a magnificent policy! Even Liu Belt was shocked, and even asked Chen Xi if the money and grain were enough to sustain such a toss-up. As a result, Chen Xi just smiled without answering. He wanted to ask Liu Belt: with which eye did you see me spending money? Wasn't this just transferring money from the left pocket to the right pocket? After making a full circle, wasn't the money still in hand, while the people generating wealth for you had actually increased instead?
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