Chapter 177: Hardships And Trials Forge Jade From Stone
Normal people understand national governance like this.
I pay taxes to you and accept your management, you protect my personal safety, and you ensure I receive basic fair treatment.
That is, the principle that people often say—power and obligation are equal.
Actually, in many cases, power and obligation are a pair of mortal enemies.
Everyone wants more power and fewer obligations, rather than keeping the two in a relatively balanced position.
However, the constituent elements of power and obligation are different; one is metal, the other is ice and snow.
When the balance is level and the power side is low, the obligation side will be raised high, exposed to sun and rain, and eventually vaporized until it disappears.
When the obligation side sinks, the power side will rise, and when it receives the sun’s shine, power will be cloaked in a layer of golden light.
Looking through history, we can draw a conclusion: whenever the obligation side sinks, the emperor or ruler of that period will be placed on the altar by the people.
And whenever the power side sinks, the emperor and ruler of that period will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.
1 However, that’s just it; once the power holder says “make the common people suffer a bit,” those so-called literary descriptions like “wailing swans everywhere,” “exchanging children to eat,” “white bones exposed in the wild, a thousand li without the sound of chickens” will become reality.
1 The education Yun Ce received, as well as what he learned by ear and eye, made him absolutely unwilling to let these cruel literary terms appear in his territory.
1 Therefore, every day at dawn, he took his subordinates out hunting and did not return from the wasteland fully loaded until very late.
1 Despite this, he still could not feed twenty thousand mouths.
1 Hunting itself is a very personal matter; this kind of work might support a family or a village, but wanting to support over twenty thousand people through hunting is purely a dream.
1 Even if Yun Ce were the world’s best hunter, it wouldn’t work.
1 Feng An and Liang Kun took over a hundred carts of beast hides and left Jingkou Pass, carrying the Yun Clan’s meager property, hoping to purchase some grain elsewhere.
1 Zhang Min sent a letter every day to Wu Tong far away in Chang’an begging for aid, with wording growing more humble each time and descriptions more severe.
1 E Ji led the women to dig through ice and snow on the beastless wasteland, parting grass leaves to find every edible food; sometimes, they wouldn’t even overlook grass roots that still had a bit of green.
1 After Cao Kun sent eight thousand people, the grain in Yun Clan Villa began to decrease at a visible speed.
2 At this time, Yun Ce understood that to go hungry, they had to go hungry together to ensure stability, so rationing naturally came into being.
2 In Yun Clan Villa, the best food went to the children, pregnant women, and the warriors guarding Jingkou Pass; that is, they could still guarantee two meals a day, while the rest, including Yun Ce himself, had only one meal a day.
2 An Ji’s small kitchen had not smoked for many days…
2 However, morale in Yun Clan Villa was still fairly stable, especially since people saw Yun Ce and E Ji, this pair of man and woman, eating just like them—a bowl of porridge and a grass cake each day; even if dissatisfied, they had nothing else to say.
2 At night when sleeping, E Ji quietly leaned motionless in Yun Ce’s arms; the Great Han’s long days and long nights were very severe torment for those with empty stomachs.
2 E Ji’s egg broke, so she ate Zhang Min’s egg, but she was still very hungry.
2 Only when E Ji couldn’t endure the hunger would she poke Yun Ce’s chest with her finger; at such times, Yun Ce would conjure a roasted rabbit leg or a large piece of roasted meat out of thin air.
2 Today was no exception.
2 It was a very large roasted fish.
2 The roasted fish was wrapped in large grass leaves; though completely cold, the aroma was still overpowering.
3 E Ji was very hungry; although she knew poking her husband with her finger would get her a large piece of food, she never used this power lightly.
3 Only when truly starving beyond endurance would she use it; she knew the food her husband could conjure was certainly limited—if there were enough, he would have brought it out long ago; the food for her was probably saved from her husband’s own mouth.
3 E Ji got up holding the roasted fish and went out; Yun Ce could hear An Ji and the others’ suppressed cheers.
3 In this scene, Yun Ce felt somewhat guilty; perhaps he really should have accepted Cao Kun’s suggestion.
3 “Going hungry together is actually pretty good.”
3 E Ji returned to Yun Ce’s arms with a scent of roasted fish.
3 “At least, the people in Yun Clan Villa now look more like a family; I saw some children saving food and secretly giving it to those too hungry to walk, women secretly giving their meager food to a favored man, and many men who joined the hunting giving beast internal organs they wouldn’t eat before, boiling them for their favored woman.
3 Young Master, it’s really pretty good; people with affection and righteousness are rare wherever they are placed; back in Hekou Village, everyone got through winter this way.
3 Once we survive this famine, we will truly be a family.”
3 Yun Ce hugged E Ji and didn’t want to speak; he had a way to prevent these people from going hungry, but unfortunately, he couldn’t do it—as soon as he did, it would be very unfavorable for future army building.
4 “Show me again.” With some food in her stomach, E Ji started acting up again.
4 Yun Ce flexed his left arm, and it turned into the dragon claw form that E Ji loved very much.
4 After the arm changed, it was as cold as ever, scales gleaming with metallic sheen, the sharp dragon claw as powerful as always.
4 E Ji hugged the dragon claw, somewhat reluctant to let go; she took out a handkerchief wanting to wipe it carefully, but seeing Yun Ce’s unpleasant expression, she sheepishly stopped.
4 Women admire the strong by nature; E Ji preferred her husband becoming incomparably powerful—even if having this dragon claw meant the child she bore might have such a claw, E Ji still liked it.
4 “Tomorrow, I plan to set off for Danwang Mountain.”
4 This was a long-discussed matter; Yun Ce should have gone to Danwang Mountain long ago, but with insufficient grain in the villa, he had to stay and hunt actively to get more food for everyone.
4 Now, if he didn’t go, things there might conclude.
4 “Go with peace of mind; Feng An’s letter says they’ve traded for some grain, Wu Tong in the capital also said he’s prepared some provisions and they’re being transported; I went to the rabbit plain yesterday and dug sixteen burrows—there’s plenty of grain inside.”
4 For this woman in his arms who had given her beloved jewelry to Feng An to raise funds for buying grain, Yun Ce truly felt he couldn’t ask for more from her.
5 She used to be very poor; those pieces of jewelry were all obtained for her by him; as a girl, she really fanaticized over those shiny golden things; many, many times, she would lay them all out one by one, wipe each one, carefully put them away before sleeping, and upon waking in the morning, the first thing was to check if her treasures were still there…
5 Yun Ce left before dawn; E Ji pretended not to wake, but tears from the corner of her eye wet the pillow.
5 The red date horse galloped across the wasteland, wind whistling past Yun Ce’s ears, the ground rapidly receding; now, after being scorched by earth fire, the red date horse seemed even more powerful, almost ignoring rugged roads, crossing mountains and ridges, still fast as lightning.
5 When Yun Ce reined in at the ridge by Danwang Mountain, he found this mountain, very famous in the Great Han, had now become a burning volcano.
5 And at the foot of the mountain, intense fights were still ongoing; just looking at the corpses on another battlefield nearby where a battle had just ended showed that these two sides were truly engaged in a fight to the death.
5 In the telescope, Yun Ce saw Cao Ling; this guy was now wielding dual blades in combat with a short, stocky bearded man; from the ferocious combat power he displayed, it was clear they held the upper hand on the battlefield.
5 No sight of Cao Kun on the battlefield, nor the Cao Clan’s old butler; Yun Ce believed these two must be nearby.
5 The short, stocky Fire Tribe man seemed to be retreating; Cao Ling led men sticking tightly to them, unwilling to let the Fire Tribe people leave their combat group.
5 Probably worried the Fire Tribe side had powerful long-range covering weapons.
5 The Fire Tribe man stuck by Cao Ling suddenly roared, no longer retreating, instead slashing three blades in succession, forcing Cao Ling back two steps; then, rather than retreating, the Fire Tribe man led his few partners straight into the midst of the troops led by Cao Ling.
6 Then, this Fire Tribe man stopped fighting and instead spread his arms, as if welcoming something; the other Fire Tribe people also stopped fighting simultaneously, doing the same action.
6 In contrast, Cao Ling seemed to see something terrifying; he buckled a giant shield onto his back, then went on all fours, running faster than a horse.
6 Unfortunately, it was still a step too late; suddenly a large swarm of black dots appeared in the sky, flying to the highest point before rapidly descending—this was not arrows, but their landing speed was more than twice as fast as arrows; then, Yun Ce saw the warriors who had been surrounding the Fire Tribe people falling one after another, blood spurting from various parts of their bodies.
6 Of course, the Fire Tribe people left on the battlefield fared the same, but with even more harm; Yun Ce personally saw the burliest Fire Tribe man’s body turned into a sieve by the black dots falling from the sky.
6 Cao Ling was still alive; his back’s giant shield was stuck full of iron spikes fallen from high altitude.
6 A suspension bridge on Danwang Mountain was slowly raised by someone, finally clanging into place straight upright blocking Danwang Mountain’s gate; outside the gate, as the suspension bridge rose, a bottomless chasm stretched between the two forces.
6 Yun Ce finally saw Cao Kun in the telescope lens; this guy who everywhere acted like a playboy had donned armor at this moment, standing among a group of people in equally ornate armor, seemingly inconspicuous but actually the center of everyone’s attention.
