Chapter 126: The So-called High-handed Approach
Yun Ce had not run far, and was holding a horse spear, standing at the road junction, waiting for Yu Heng, Qing Feng, and Ming Yue to come out.
As for Zhang Min, she had already taken Steward Qiu and the others to capture those black-clothed men scurrying everywhere.
Yun Ce felt that Yu Heng would not continue staying at Ren Hu’s home.
Sure enough, Qing Feng drove a fragrant carriage with a tense expression as he came out from Ren Hu’s home, and inside the cart compartment’s gauze curtain was a delicate face full of shame and anger.
Although he knew this woman was one of the Gui Fang people, her skin was still too seductive. Someone who could cuckold the Emperor and still gain forgiveness was someone Yun Ce could not kill, even if he caught her murdering someone on site.
Clearly, Yu Heng knew this reasoning. The last time she took a punch from Yun Ce, it was her forgiving him once out of consideration for him having saved her, but once was the limit. As the future King Huo’s mother, if Yun Ce were rude to her again, the consequences were not something he could bear.
Qing Feng did not know this, but he was still very nervous. He handed the reins to Ming Yue, drew his sword and was about to jump off the horse carriage, but saw Yun Ce waving his hand, signaling them to leave quickly.
When the horse carriage slowly passed in front of Yun Ce, Yu Heng suddenly opened the window gauze and looked at Yun Ce, saying: “You took the gold, right?”
Yun Ce said: “That is my gold.”
Yu Heng gritted her teeth and said: “How did you know I would come to Ren Hu’s residence tonight?”
1 Yun Ce pointed at Qing Feng and said: “He said it.”
1 Qing Feng was greatly anxious and quickly said to Yu Heng: “I didn’t say it.”
1 Yun Ce then pointed at Ming Yue and said: “Then it was he who said it.”
1 Yu Heng did not even look at Qing Feng or Ming Yue, and directly said to Yun Ce: “As a scholar, is it appropriate for you to speak such nonsense?”
1 Yun Ce glanced at Yu Heng and said: “Leave quickly. No one wants to see you implicated in this matter, not me either. I need your other subordinates to be handed over to the government officials. You had best make them shut up; this is good for you and for me.”
1 Yu Heng looked at Yun Ce once more; this time, she said nothing more, and Qing Feng drove the horse carriage rapidly away.
1 When Yun Ce found Zhang Min, the battle there had basically ended. Seeing that they had captured twenty-one killers alive, he was quite surprised.
1 Steward Qiu and his hundred-odd men were purely hunters; in terms of martial art, they were far inferior to those killers. They might manage remote sneak attacks, but live capture—such a thing was not to be thought of.
1 “Did you do this alone?”
1 “Your retainers are not up to the task.”
2 Yun Ce looked at Ren Hu’s residence plunged into darkness and said: “Now, we have money. Is it possible to buy a batch of loyal, reliable guards with high martial prowess?”
2 Zhang Min shook her head and said: “Loyal and reliable people generally have no real ability, and those with ability are generally not reliable.”
2 Yun Ce chuckled scornfully and said: “King Huo is someone who is loyal and reliable, with martial prowess far surpassing others.”
2 Zhang Min looked at Yun Ce and said: “So, he killed three Han Emperors.”
2 Yun Ce had been chatting with Zhang Min for no short time now, plus the time Yu Heng had fled; from the moment Yun Ce had shouted until now, it had already been half an hour, and no one from Ji Ming Post Station’s government officials had come.
2 The lamps that had originally gradually lit up were slowly extinguishing, finally returning to their original state.
2 “It seems the black pot for killing Ren Hu and his three brothers is one I must bear.”
2 “That is only natural. You want money, and you want the slaves under Ren Hu; you want so much. Taking the blame for murder for Imperial Consort Yu is still worth it.”
2 Yun Ce waited another half hour, but still saw no government officials coming, so he waved his hand. Steward Qiu immediately had his men kill all the surviving killers.
2 Entering Ren Hu’s home again, Steward Qiu and the others combed through this mansion that could be called luxurious like a fine-tooth comb, finding a great deal of money, and also a great many valuable things; they even found several women and children hiding in secret places.
3 Yun Ce did not harm them, merely having people avoid their hiding places and move away all the other things that could be sold for money. When Yun Ce left at dawn, Ren Hu’s home had become an empty house aside from the corpses strewn on the ground.
3 During the day, Yun Ce was not idle either. Taking Feng An and Liang Kun, he fully took over Ren Hu’s slave industry, gaining another five thousand two hundred male and female slaves of all ages.
3 Unfortunately, among the over five thousand slaves, the ones with the best physical conditions turned out to be Gui Fang people, and there were fully one thousand five hundred of them.
3 Naturally, Yun Ce would not bring Gui Fang people to the intermediate wasteland area between Iron Enclosure Pass and the Great Wall.
3 These Gui Fang people, aside from slightly darker skin, slightly deeper eye sockets, and yellowish eye color, were already not much different from Han people.
3 After having Doggy collect one hundred gene samples, he exchanged them at the neighboring slave market for three thousand ordinary Han people slaves.
3 No one knew why, but Gui Fang slaves were actually more expensive than Han people slaves.
3 “They are durable in labor, rarely fall ill, adapt better on the wasteland, and the best part is that Great Han law stipulates that killing a Han slave incurs thirty strokes of the staff and a fine of three thousand, but Gui Fang slaves are not under the protection of Han law—even killing and eating them is lawful and compliant.”
3 Hearing Zhang Min’s explanation, Yun Ce said with a half-smile: “What Zhang Yaliang did in Pingyuan City would have long been beaten into meat paste and made into meatballs under Han law.”
3 “Chuyun Prefecture has no concept of slaves.”
4 “Does that mean my eyes are blind?”
4 “They are convicted prisoners, or descendants of convicted prisoners, and do not fall under the category of ‘people’ as defined in Han law.”
4 Zhang Min seemed unwilling to discuss this topic with Yun Ce either, and pointed at the six thousand five hundred slaves crowded in the courtyard, saying: “How to arrange them—you should propose a system.”
4 Yun Ce laughed and said: “Select the strong and powerful from among the slaves: those who can best ten men are ten-man leaders; those who can best a hundred are centurions; those who can defeat ten centurions are commanders of a thousand.
4 Centurions are freed from slave status; commanders of a thousand may bring three people out of slave status, paid thirty percent of the salary of military centurions and commanders of a thousand.
4 Zhang Min frowned and said: “Why not have people from the Royal Hunting Ground fill these roles of centurion and commander of a thousand?”
4 Yun Ce looked at the sea of heads in the slave crowd and sighed: “This first batch of centurions and commanders of a thousand is very dangerous. Steward Qiu’s people have already passed the test, so no need for further testing. This is not how one tests human hearts.
4 Seeing that Yun Ce had already decided, Zhang Min asked no more. This was the habit she had developed at Iron Enclosure Pass: believe in one’s superiors, believe in one’s partners. At this moment, Yun Ce was, in her eyes, both her superior and her partner.
4 Zhang Heng, the Iron Enclosure Pass Transport Commissioner residing in Chang’an City, put down the paper in his hand and sighed slightly. As one of the few offices in the Great Han Dynasty already using paper for official work, every time Zhang Heng saw news written on paper, he still marveled endlessly at Yun Ce’s ability to create such a divine object.
4 “So, Ren Hu has been completely devoured by Yun Ce?”
5 Wu Tong, who had just quelled the Cong Prefecture rebellion, was kneeling at Zhang Heng’s side. The news on the paper had just been brought by him.
5 “Mm, devoured very cleanly. This official thought that he was extremely practiced at doing such things, and even considered not implicating Yu Heng—it doesn’t seem like the first time he has done something like this.”
5 “So, you think he is the young master of which noble family?”
5 Wu Tong took a sip of clear water from his small bowl and looked at Zhang Heng: “Since you ask this way, Lord Zhang, that means Yun Ce is not a scion of a noble family?”
5 Zhang Heng recalled in his mind what the High Priest had said to him, striving to drive the discomfort from his mind. Even now, he did not believe what the High Priest said—Yun Ce came from the ancestral land.
5 What sort of place was the ancestral land?
5 Some said it was beyond the thirty-third heaven; others said the ancestral land was on the full moon. Zhang Heng knew the ancestral land was related to dragons; people from the ancestral land could only come here with dragons as boats.
5 He urgently wanted to know more news about the ancestral land, but was blocked by the High Priest and the Grand Marshal. They still wanted to infer from Yun Ce’s actions what attitude and stance the ancestral land held toward the Great Han.
5 “Wu Tong, you are the foremost of the younger generation. Have more contact with Yun Ce.”
5 “Isn’t there Zhang Min there already?”
6 “That fool has already fallen in; she will definitely become Yun Ce’s wife in the future.”
6 Wu Tong laughed heartily: “That can also be considered a good match. After all, in Sheyang City, to evade the pursuit of me, Zhang Min, and Zhou Chengming and still be called an outstanding person of the younger generation is no exaggeration.
6 If Zhang Min can become his wife, this subordinate believes Yun Ce’s stance toward our Great Han should be friendly. If we share the same origin, then he is our cousin.
6 Wu Tong’s words startled Zhang Heng, who quickly asked: “You guessed this?”
6 Wu Tong laughed: “The High Priest asked me for a great deal of news about the Dragon Pearl’s disappearance in Chuyun Prefecture, and also got news from Bian Zhao about the disappearance of Chuyun Prefecture Shehuo.
6 Combined with the Divine Dragon suddenly appearing in Chuyun Prefecture rather than Chang’an, Yun Ce’s identity as a man who walked out of the wasteland is already obvious.
6 The Transport Commissioner just denied the possibility that Yun Ce is some noble family’s young master, so where does the strong air of a noble scion about him come from? If he really were a wildman, since when could wildmen make paper and farm?”
6 Zhang Heng smiled, stroked his beard, and said to Wu Tong: “Do you want to go be his deputy? Zhang Min that foolish woman might not be able to handle the things I instructed her to do.”
6 Wu Tong shook his head: “My cousin is very capable, but that doesn’t mean I, his cousin, must rely on him. Though our families are cousins, sometimes when distinctions must be made, it is better to make them clear.”
6 Zhang Heng sighed deeply: “From the bits of talent Yun Ce has shown, the ancestral land must be even more prosperous than the Great Han—at least, they can cross the star river with dragons as boats to come here, while we cannot.”
7 Wu Tong pondered for a moment and said: “Precisely because of this, we must face Yun Ce cautiously—neither overly fawning, nor overly cold.”
7 Zhang Heng laughed: “The High Priest has decreed: employ him heavily, employ him greatly, use him to death, squeeze out everything from him that the Great Han does not have.”
7 Hearing this, Wu Tong laughed, cupped his hands to Zhang Heng, and said: “Understood.”
