Paved with Money

"Sigh. Lu San has actually sold off quite a bit of ancestral property already. I handled two of the transactions myself, so naturally I know best." Steward Feng tossed his head back and drained the wine from the bottom of his cup. Lü Qiuwei hurried to refill it. "I remember one time when Lu San's wife complained to him that their grandsons' food, clothes, housing, daily expenses, and schooling couldn't begin to compare to those of the clan head's children. Lu San snapped back: Grand Guardian Xia's maternal grandsons are naturally precious; how could we possibly compare?" This "Grand Guardian Xia" referred, of course, to Lu Zhensheng's in-law, Grand Guardian of the Crown Prince Xia Pei of the Mou Kingdom. "Then what's the crux of the matter?" Lü Qiuwei asked, a bit impatient. "How could the Lu family be broke?" "It all stems from that in-law relationship!" Steward Feng poked the tabletop with each word for emphasis. "The second son, Lu Qinglin, was clever and promising, so the Lu family poured everything they had into cultivating him. Entering Qianyuan Valley cost huge money; entering the Mou royal court cost huge money. You see Lu Qinglin climbing gloriously upward, but in truth, every single step was paved with money—that's the only reason his road was wide and straight." This was Blade Harbor. Only because he was no longer on Bailie soil did Steward Feng dare address members of the Lu family by their full names; he had no intention of going back anyway. Lü Qiuwei played the role of an unsophisticated bumpkin and took a gulp of wine. "Qianyuan Valley has such a great reputation. I hear money alone isn't enough to get in." "Money alone? There are plenty of folks with money! Can they all get into a top-tier sect like that? The key is finding the right people and greasing the right palms. Walking that entire circle of favors costs a fortune!" Steward Feng sneered. "I heard from Lu San that Lu Zhensheng sought out two elders from Qianyuan Valley to help together. The red envelope he gave each of them was at least this much—" He held up two fingers. "Two thousand taels?" "Multiply that by ten." "Twenty thousand taels of silver?!" That was twenty million copper coins—far too exorbitant! Wouldn't that count as massive bribery? "All the Qianyuan Valley elders had to do was say a few words, right?" Sitting nearby, He Lingchuan rubbed his temples as he listened. What did twenty thousand taels of silver mean? He Chunhua had painstakingly managed Red Cliff Road in Blackwater City for over a decade. His governance and administrative capabilities far exceeded those of ordinary officials, turning a frontier outpost into something akin to a provincial capital. Even so, the annual gross revenue of Red Cliff Road was only around a hundred and fifty thousand taels; after deducting all kinds of expenses, the surplus was just tens of thousands of taels. Only with that level of profitability did Red Cliff Road catch the eye of the Mount Rong Sect as a prime cash cow, qualifying it to serve as collateral for the Yuan Kingdom. Yet ten thousand li away, Lu Zhensheng had bribed two elders of Qianyuan Valley, squandering forty thousand taels of silver in a single breath! Was Lu Zhensheng simply a fool with too much money, or was a spot in Qianyuan Valley really that expensive? "You think that was the end of it?" Seeing Lü Qiuwei's sheltered reaction, Steward Feng grew animated. Perhaps the wine was rushing to his head, for his voice rose. "What about the middlemen before and after? Didn't they need greasing? Do you think Lu Zhensheng could find two elders on his very first try?" "And once he got into Qianyuan Valley, was that it? No more palm-greasing needed?" "Huh? Once he's already joined Qianyuan Valley, what else is there to pay for?" "Donations! Of course, Qianyuan Valley calls it a 'hardship sponsorship fee.' Do you think those magnificent, resplendent halls cost nothing to build? Do you think all those venerable, renowned masters and experts pass down their arts and teach classes for free?" Steward Feng said languidly, "Without donating money, how would you ever get sent by Qianyuan Valley on official tours to Beijia or the Mou Kingdom? Without donating money, how would you ever get an internship beside high-ranking generals and ministers? Those are all guaranteed placements from Qianyuan Valley!" "Just going to Qianyuan Valley cost that much, to say nothing of entering officialdom later!" He picked up a piece of pig's head meat with his chopsticks. "With so many promising young talents in the Mou Kingdom, why did Miss Xia take a fancy to Lu Qinglin at first sight? Beyond his handsome looks, do you think his bearing, his refinement, and his manner of speaking could have been raised by an ordinary minor lord's household?" "So that's how heaven's favored sons are forged?" Lü Qiuwei glanced instinctively toward He Lingchuan. His Young Master had reached his present accomplishments without seeming to spend much money, had he? He Lingchuan caught his look and couldn't help a wry smile. True, growing up hadn't cost him much money. It had just nearly cost him his own life. He had escaped death by a hair's breadth several times; with just a little worse luck, he would have been gone. Lu Qinglin's kind of "meteoric rise" was the normal path of advancement for scions of noble families. Safe, efficient, and mass-produced. "All that would have been fine; the Lu family could still afford it." After all, they possessed a vast territory left by their ancestors, rich in natural resources. "But to fawn over their in-laws, the money the Lu family spent was truly ferocious." "To name just one example, the most beautiful garden in Qucheng belongs to the Lu family. It covers twenty qing and was built six or seven years ago, all because Madam Xia offhandedly remarked, 'There's really nothing fun in Qucheng.'" Steward Feng swirled his cup. "Do you know how much it cost to build that garden? I saw the account books—a full six hundred and sixty-seven thousand, three hundred taels!" "Six hundred and sixty thousand..." Lü Qiuwei counted on his fingers, struggling to comprehend the sum. To He Lingchuan, the scale was far more concrete: it was enough to cover more than a decade of Red Cliff Road's tax revenue. "Six hundred and sixty thousand taels, just to buy a satisfied smile from Madam Xia." "Not to mention that whether the Xia family needed tributes or the Mou Kingdom dispatched troops, they always invented excuses to make the Lu family pay. If they didn't supply money, they had to supply men. It's the same for all the small states bordering the Mou Kingdom." Steward Feng shook his head. "Both of those are bottomless pits, you understand?" Lü Qiuwei nodded. "Warfare is indeed expensive." No matter how fertile Bailie was, its territory and wealth were limited. When someone came to carve a slice every few days, it couldn't hold out forever. "So, to outsiders, Bailie looks like it's thriving and has latched onto the high branch of the Mou Kingdom. In reality, they've been tightening their belts tighter and tighter." Otherwise, the Lu family was merely a minor lord—why else would the Mou Kingdom back them up? "I hear the Ya Kingdom to the east is quite wicked too?" "Ah, that bunch is a pack of starving wolves, slicing flesh off Bailie every other day!" Steward Feng couldn't help sighing. "In the past, the Mou Kingdom constantly punished them, marching troops through Bailie several times. So the Ya Kingdom came to resent Bailie, constantly causing trouble for it." Bailie lay between the Mou Kingdom and the Ya Kingdom; naturally, if Mou wanted to punish Ya, it had to borrow passage through Bailie. "Now that the Mou Kingdom has locked horns with Beijia, it has no time to look east, so the Ya Kingdom took advantage of the opening to raid Bailie." Steward Feng asked Lü Qiuwei, "Late last year, the Ya Kingdom stirred up trouble first, and it ended with Bailie paying compensation. Heh, do you know how much Bailie paid?" Lü Qiuwei shook his head, of course. "Three hundred and fifty thousand taels!" Steward Feng shook his head. "And that was after Bailie bargained down; Ya originally demanded four hundred thousand taels. To scrape together that sum, Bailie sold off two mines and a parcel of land east of Blade Harbor." "Demanding money like that is quite convenient—ask and receive." Steward Feng shared plenty more gossip about the Lu family, though it was hard to say whether he was embellishing. Having gathered the intelligence he needed, He Lingchuan left Lü Qiuwei to continue bantering with Steward Feng, stood up, paid the bill, and departed.