Chapter 293: Steps To A Ceasefire
Jia Xu was clearly stunned, but he quickly reacted. He wasn’t surprised, as he had the same thought back then. He just didn’t dare say it outright and only subtly reminded the Lord that Gan Ning was worth winning over more deeply, but he got no response from the Lord, so he didn’t dare mention it again. Now that the Chancellor brought it up again, he really didn’t know how to respond, so Jia Xu could only remain silent.
Cao Cao seemed not to need any response from him either. He pondered for a moment and said, “Go to Chaisang and test him out to see if there’s any possibility of a marriage alliance between our sides.”
Jia Xu immediately reacted and hesitated before softly reminding him, “Chancellor, Gan Ning already has a wife at home.”
“Of course I know that!”
Cao Cao said coldly, “He doesn’t need to divorce his wife. He can make my daughter his principal wife, and his current wife can step down to be secondary. How could Qiao Rui’s daughter be above my daughter?”
Helpless, Jia Xu could only bow and say, “This subordinate obeys!”
After a pause, Cao Cao added, “There’s news that Liu Bei’s special envoy has arrived in Chaisang. While you’re there, also probe the other side’s intentions.”
“This subordinate understands!”
Jia Xu withdrew, and Cao Cao sighed lightly. These past two days he had somewhat of a headache. After carefully studying the maps and terrain, he realized that Danyang Commandery and Yuzhang Commandery were separated by heavy mountains with no official roads connecting them. Travel between the two places could only rely on Yangtze River waterways.
It was precisely this sense of powerlessness in attacking that made Cao Cao have a slight thought of giving up, and that thought in turn gave rise to the idea of a marriage alliance.
The Yangtze River was full of Western Chu warships tightly controlling the river surface. Although civilian ships were now allowed normal navigation, large-scale civilian ship navigation was not permitted—only up to two or three ships sailing together at most.
The eastern section of the Yangtze River was under Zhou Yu’s responsibility. Zhou Yu had selected Qiupu County to the west of Danyang Commandery as the fleet’s mother port. Qiupu County was surrounded by mountains, isolated from the surroundings, and could only be accessed by water routes.
Qiupu County was not far from Ruxu Pass, so Zhou Yu’s navy was effectively keeping watch on Ruxu Pass.
Jia Xu’s passenger ship had just come out of Ruxu Pass when it was immediately intercepted by a Western Chu Army scout ship. Jia Xu did not hide anything and proactively admitted he was Chancellor Cao’s special envoy heading to Chaisang on a mission.
Upon hearing it was Jia Xu on the mission, Zhou Yu sent ships to escort Jia Xu to Chaisang while also sending a carrier pigeon letter to notify Chaisang.
Gan Ning and Liu Bei had already reached a framework alliance treaty, with both sides forming wartime allies for one year.
Then came various cooperation plans to be carried out within the framework of the alliance treaty. First was upgrading each side’s intelligence stations to liaison offices, with both sides promising not to spy on each other’s military secrets and tacitly permitting open intelligence gathering.
Next was free trade, though many details below were still under negotiation, such as unifying business tax, prohibited goods lists, checkpoint searches—these details had fairly large differences between the sides.
Liu Bei’s business tax was one in five, while Gan Ning’s side had one in ten, a twofold difference. For another example, Gan Ning’s side had no checkpoints in non-wartime, whereas Liu Bei’s side always had heavy checkpoints no matter the time, so both sides needed to sit down and negotiate.
That morning, Jia Xu’s passenger ship arrived in Chaisang, where Deputy Strategist Pang Tong greeted Jia Xu at the dock.
The passenger ship docked, Jia Xu went ashore, exchanged pleasantries with the approaching Pang Tong, and the two got into a carriage heading to the guest house inside the city.
It was still early, so after chatting briefly with Jia Xu, Pang Tong rose and took his leave.
Shortly after, Pang Tong hurriedly arrived at Gan Ning’s official residence, and Lu Su had also come.
“Greetings, Marquis of Chu!”
Gan Ning set down his brush and smiled as he asked, “Have you talked with Jia Xu?”
Pang Tong nodded. “Jia Xu came for only one thing: Cao Cao wants a marriage alliance with the Marquis of Chu!”
“Marriage alliance?” Gan Ning was taken aback.
“That’s right. Cao Cao wants to marry his daughter to the Marquis of Chu and become your father-in-law.”
Gan Ning and Lu Su quickly exchanged a glance, their gazes in tacit understanding as they both simultaneously thought that Cao Cao wanted to cease fighting.
Gan Ning sneered, “Now that the warships are gone, he wants to stop the war. He thinks quite nicely, but does the world have such good things? He starts the war when he wants and stops it when he wants—what does he take us for?”
Lu Su, however, was quite serious and not emotional like Gan Ning. He pondered for a moment and said, “Cao Cao wants to withdraw his army but can’t save face, so the marriage alliance becomes a step for withdrawing. Marquis of Chu, if Cao Cao really retreats, we can not only retake the two commanderies north of the river but also move troops against Nan Commandery.”
Lu Su had never considered what a marriage alliance would mean for Gan Ning—after all, it wasn’t with him. He saw the marriage alliance as casually as buying vegetables in the market.
Gan Ning sighed. “But there’s no need to use a marriage alliance for that. Both sides can just talk.”
Lu Su then somewhat understood Gan Ning’s meaning—he didn’t want to form a marriage alliance with Cao Cao. He cautiously asked, “How about this subordinate goes and talks it over properly with Jia Xu again?”
Gan Ning shook his head. “No need. I’ll receive him tomorrow morning and talk with him personally!”
Jia Xu was not in the guest house. He was strolling inside the city with a few attendants—this was also part of his mission, to understand Chaisang’s current state. As a top strategist, Jia Xu knew from which details he could gather the intelligence he needed.
For example, the supply of wine in restaurants—wine was controlled in wartime and generally no longer allowed to be brewed from grain. Also, the state of able-bodied young men on the main street—if the army was conscripting heavily, there would be no able-bodied young men on the streets.
Or, for instance, the situation of citizens’ residences—whether there were chickens in the courtyards, cured meat hung out, rice cakes drying, etc. These could reveal the extent of wartime exploitation of the citizens.
But the most direct and effective way was still to check grain prices. Jia Xu found a very small and ordinary grain store, ‘Zhao’s Grain Store’.
Jia Xu stepped inside. The grain store was small-scale, with a dozen wicker baskets filled with various grains like wheat, rice, millet, beans, etc., mainly rice.
Jia Xu looked around—there were no other customers, only a middle-aged man slumped over the desk on the counter, sleeping.
Jia Xu coughed heavily, and the shopkeeper immediately woke with a start. He looked up at Jia Xu, quickly forced a smile, and bustled over. “Customer, do you want to buy rice?”
“Why are there no price markings on these?”
Jia Xu wasn’t there to buy rice; he just wanted to check the prices, but none of the wicker baskets had price markings.
The shopkeeper slapped his forehead. “Look at my pig brain—the prices were adjusted, and I forgot to put them up.”
He hurried back, took a dozen wooden tokens from the drawer, checked each one accurately, and inserted them into the wicker baskets.
Jia Xu looked closely at the price on the rice basket, rubbed his eyes again, and was immediately stunned.
The rice price was thirty cash per dou—impossible! Yecheng’s rice price was one hundred twenty cash per dou, Hefei’s had risen to two hundred cash per dou due to the war, Dantu County’s was one hundred cash per dou—how could Chaisang’s be only thirty cash per dou?
“Shopkeeper, this price is correct, right?” Jia Xu’s voice trembled slightly as he pointed at the price on the rice basket and asked.
“Correct. It was thirty-five cash per dou just a couple days ago, and today it dropped to thirty cash per dou. Sigh! Any lower and I’ll be losing money.”
