Chapter 1 Ye Tao's Changed Plans

Ye Tao didn't go to Jinzhou anymore. After what happened that night, going to Jinzhou was no longer so meaningful. In any case, the various agreements reached with Chang Hongquan would be gradually implemented. Whether Jinzhou's original defense was lax or tight didn't matter. Either way, he was going to sell them horses and send instructors to give Jinzhou a cavalry unit that might not be large in scale, but would definitely be outstanding in quality. Of course, this outstanding quality was relative to the quality of Chun Nan's own cavalry. Chun Nan, which had never had a tradition of cavalry, wanted to train its cavalry to be as powerful as the Tieyun Cavalry, Jingyun Cavalry, Blood Kirin Army, or Flying Tiger Camp. It was almost completely impossible. The Flying Tiger Camp, Jingyun Cavalry, and Tieyun Cavalry were all born cavalrymen. That kind of horsemanship and cavalry tactics that seeped into their bones could not be cultivated no matter how hard they tried. The Blood Kirin Army's strength came from its mechanisms and the continuous influx of money. Jinzhou could not meet any of these conditions.

Since they were attacked in Chun Nan, Xu Yao and Zhou Rui simply made their secret escort public. The two elite teams made their banners clear to protect Ye Tao. With a formidable force of nearly four hundred men purely from Dongping, anyone who wanted to make a move would have to think twice. Although after the news spread, some people in Chun Nan's anger towards Ye Tao grew day by day, what was even more frightening was the extent to which the Daoming Sect had infiltrated Chun Nan.

Yizhou was not on the border between Xiling and Chun Nan, but it was not too far from the border. In such a place, the Daoming Sect, in order to pursue a person and an object, could mobilize a general with a fairly high-ranking "title" and a considerable number of soldiers, and could also mobilize a gang with a resounding reputation in the local area. If it weren't for Ye Tao, if it weren't for Ye Tao blatantly allowing two escorting armies to sneakily protect him within Chun Nan's borders, whether it was the threat of the gang or the army falsely claiming to be pursuing fugitives, perhaps both the person and the object would have fallen into the hands of the Daoming Sect. And mobilizing nearly three thousand people overnight? What kind of energy was this?

At this point, although Chun Nan had always adhered to the principle of a hundred schools of thought contending and did not deliberately suppress any school or sect in the name of the government, it could not help but be restrained. The fact that a female attendant beside the Lotus Consort was recruited by the Daoming Sect a few years ago could still be said to be an accidental event, but when taken together, the strength of the Daoming Sect in Chun Nan made people's hair stand on end. Xiling was an enemy country, and if Chun Nan were to do this during a war between the two countries, and create a few thousand people behind the army, the consequences would be unimaginable. Three days after receiving the incident report, the Chun Nan court, only five days after the actual occurrence of the incident, made a resolution to completely eradicate the evil cult. And according to Chun Nan's consistent habit of large-scale purges, large-scale implication, framing, and even conspiracy were almost inevitable.

Ye Tao didn't care about Chun Nan's internal affairs, but Chun Nan wanted to get the person and the object that Ye Tao had obtained. But two batches of people came one after another, and were simply turned back by Ye Tao with a simple "impossible." In fact, the next day, Ye Tao had Zhou Rui personally take ten guards and ten special operations camp soldiers to escort the Zanglong Box away quietly. If they were to encounter anyone blocking them, Ye Tao told Zhou Rui to take any means he could to ensure that the Zanglong Box arrived in Dongping, arrived in Danyang, and fell into the hands of the Tan family. In fact, Zhou Rui only needed to reach a certain border between Chun Nan and Dongping. There, a battalion of the Blood Kirin Army was waiting for Zhou Rui to escort the Zanglong Box back to Danyang together.

Ye Tao stayed at the Wanke Villa for another two days. After finalizing various matters, he directly led the large team towards Yuhang. Now his team was really flamboyant. Going to inspect various places in Chun Nan would be a complete display of force, and he wouldn't be able to see the true strength of Chun Nan's local areas. It would be better to go to Yuhang early, accompany Dai Qiuyan to Yuhang Port to see how it was different from Yicheng, write and sketch, and visit the traditional architectural structure of the clock tower and its huge construction and expenditure. Ye Tao really didn't like dealing with irrelevant people from Chun Nan, but Feng Zi's idea was very good: if you don't want to deal with them, then don't. If they insist on coming over, then they are asking for a beating. In any case, he was already not very popular in Chun Nan, so it wouldn't matter if he was even more annoying. What could they do to him? In fact, those who would not welcome Ye Tao were those Chun Nan ministers who were not very likable in the first place. If Ye Tao went to the clock tower construction site, let alone the person in charge of the project would definitely warmly welcome Ye Tao, such a super master, to come and guide them, even if they didn't welcome him, there were still many technicians from the Ye Clan Workshop Construction Department on site. Who would dare to risk being "struck" for a while because they didn't welcome Ye Tao?

Thinking about it this way, Ye Tao felt relieved. Anyway, coming to Chun Nan once and getting a Zanglong Box and Chen Kai was already a huge gain. To want everything to go smoothly would be too much against the heavens.

But no one would have thought that Gao Senqi was actually among those accompanying Ye Tao all the way to Yuhang. Ye Tao did not haggle much with Gao Senqi and agreed on the matter of acting on the front line. In the next two years, Ye Tao would maintain a certain number of troops on the border and maintain a limited state of contact. In the buffer zone, due to the need to create a tense situation, and also to facilitate exchanges between the two sides and to conduct trade activities, Ye Tao would fund the establishment of an organization with a completely clean background that would please both sides, possibly a ferry, a post station, or a cargo yard. This would depend on what Ye Tao thought of at the time.

But after agreeing on these things, Gao Senqi could be said to have done his best. Gao Senqi and Ye Tao seemed to have become close friends. Gao Senqi would come to Ye Tao every day to chat and debate. And Ye Tao actually explained Yunzhou's various administrative policies to Gao Senqi item by item, and even clause by clause. Speaking of which, many of these governance strategies were measures that had already been tested and effective in Yunzhou or other parts of Dongping, and some were strategies that were being tested in Yunzhou. They should be quite instructive for the Northern Liao Western Route Army, which was somewhat simple, crude, and inefficient in local governance, but the more Gao Senqi listened to Ye Tao's explanation, the more he shook his head.

Later, it was Feng Zi who explained to those who felt that Ye Tao's actions were inappropriate, and everyone understood. Ye Tao did tell Gao Senqi a lot of things, but even if Gao Senqi knew these strategies and knew why these strategies could work, the Western Route Army did not have even one ten-thousandth of a chance to copy them. Differences in geography, culture, customs, and so on were certainly one aspect, but the more critical aspects were the other two. The first was: those who learn from me live, those who imitate me die. Even if the Western Route Army had many strategies that were not very successful, they were all running there after all. The cost of changing them was something that had to be carefully considered every day. The Western Route Army, which was rushing to build a strong military system, could not afford to delay. The other was the different attitudes of the two countries' rulers. The Dongping ruler regarded Yunzhou as a pilot project, hoping to explore new ways of governance through the command of Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, and others, but the Northern Liao ruler, under the instigation of many ministers, regarded the Western Route Army's jurisdiction as a thorn in his side. If the Western Route Army dared to change the system without authorization, it was estimated that Gao Pei and Gao Senqi and his son would soon lose their heads. In fact, if Gao Pei's Western Route Army really had this strength, Gao Pei, who was not optimistic about the future of Northern Liao, might really rebel, but he was just a local emperor, and was completely different from a real ruler.

Ye Tao not only agreed to the Western Route Army's request, but also had in-depth conversations with Gao Senqi about various important matters, and even prohibited anyone from spreading the news. This strange choice made everyone stunned, and they couldn't figure out what Ye Tao wanted to do. But, since it was Ye Tao's order, everyone respectfully obeyed. And Tan Xiaopei's order, which arrived a few days later, actually affirmed Ye Tao's approach. This made everyone even more confused.

What finally relieved everyone was that two days before entering Yuhang, Gao Senqi finally left with his soldiers. But this time, their cavalry did not have to work hard to travel by boat, but with the documents issued by Ye Tao, they went all the way from Dongping through the jurisdiction of the Grand Canal Governor's Office to Danyang, and then from Danyang to Thunderclap Cliff, and then from Thunderclap Cliff all the way east back to Northern Liao. The road was full of prosperous and wealthy areas of Dongping and Yunzhou, especially the large areas of farmland in southern Yunzhou and the well-developed water conservancy system, which really made Gao Senqi, the important general of the Western Route Army, who had food problems almost every year, very envious.

Nevertheless, Ye Tao still came to Yuhang. He came to Yuhang, the place where his deepest impression seemed to be the year he first met Tan Weixin, when Tan Weixin wanted to open a Wujing Hall but ultimately did not implement it.

What Ye Tao did not expect was that there were quite a few people waiting for him in Yuhang. His old friend, the old sea merchant Muhammad, was currently in Yuhang, which did not surprise him. The situation that Muhammad came to report was that Master Qi was currently rushing over from Nanyang, and another group of members of the Seven Seas Trading Company who had set off from Yicheng were also at sea. Whether in terms of time or location, it was likely that this year's Seven Seas Trading Company Executive Meeting would be held in Yuhang. Ye Tao was still very happy about this kind of gathering with old friends. He received a considerable amount of dividends from the Seven Seas Trading Company every year. As the Seven Seas Trading Company's business grew, this dividend became more and more exaggerated. But Ye Tao also deeply felt that the time and energy he had put into the Seven Seas Trading Company was not worth this annuity, and it was time to solve this problem.

But Chang Hongquan and Tan Weishi had also arrived in Yuhang, which surprised him quite a bit. According to the itinerary, Chang Hongquan, the head of the Chun Nan delegation and the head of the family visit, should have arrived with the Lotus Consort's carriage no matter what. But unexpectedly, the sudden appearance of the Zanglong Box threw Chang Hongquan into a frenzy. In order to be able to discuss the disposal plan for the Zanglong Box and the contents inside with Ye Tao as soon as possible, Chang Hongquan disregarded all the rules.

Tan Weishi's reason for arriving early was even more embarrassing. Tan Weishi actually had a big fight with the Lotus Consort. Tan Weishi felt that there was no need to maintain even the pretense of family harmony, so he directly took the young scholars of Dongping and Liu Xiangyuan's troupe and rushed to Yuhang first, arranging the poetry gatherings, chess gatherings, qin gatherings, calligraphy and painting gatherings, Dao discussions, and troupe performances one by one. And Tan Weishi's outburst clearly showed that he did not want the scholars of Chun Nan to overwhelm them. Many Dongping scholars also united as one, with a strong momentum to fight a cultural turnaround. The current Tan Weishi was not very easy to get along with.