The Tea Caddy

Ten days had already passed since we arrived in Yawang. Beating the bothersome county commandant and county assistant and parading them through the streets hadn't been enough — I'd used the magistrate's authority to dismiss them on the spot.

In truth, a county magistrate held no such power. But in times like these, who was going to care about something that happened inside a single county?

As if by some miracle, nobody paid it any mind. Yu Bi was diligently studying under Lu Zhi while carrying out her duties as magistrate, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were handling public order within the county.

"..."

I, however, was sunk in a private agony no one else could see. A woman's shadow drifted toward me as I sat there.

"What are you doing?"

It was Jian Yong — the stubborn woman who had led hundreds of retainers all the way from Zhuo County to Hanei.

Her stats were those of a typical B-rank civil officer, befitting a member of the Jian-Sun-Mi trio. Of course, for Yu Bi's forces, even talent like this was something to be grateful for.

"Uh, well..."

But she was a little hard to deal with. I understood she was curious about what I was doing, but did she have to press in this close, breathing right against me?

She was a pretty girl by any measure. Long, glossy black hair cascading freely down her back. A beauty mark beside her nose that completed a soft, full-featured face.

Whether she simply preferred tight clothes or was just built that way, she had a quietly sensual figure. Sitting pressed up against me like this made it hard to even breathe.

"First Yawang Development Plan? What's all this?"

"What do you think? You alone brought three hundred hangers-on. Sure, a pack of sworn brothers that size could swagger around anywhere they liked — but if we're going to survive the chaos that's coming, we need to stockpile supplies."

That was right. For days now I'd been agonizing over a development plan for Yawang County that none of the three — Yu Bi, Guan Yu, or Zhang Fei — was paying the slightest attention to.

Especially with the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition about to form any day now, I needed to get something done before that happened.

"Develop... why? Can't we just do the magistrate's job properly?"

"Sure, a magistrate is basically a job the state sends out to squeeze poor farmers. But if you make the other side wealthy before you squeeze them, doesn't the take get bigger?"

The principle is so simple I don't know why I have to explain it. There has never been a case of enriching a nation and strengthening its army without first developing basic industry.

People say nomadic tribes achieve 'strong armies' without 'wealthy nations'? The Xiongnu already knew how to work iron during the Warring States period.

Unifying the realm with nothing but divine strategy and peerless generalship only happens in novels. Even combining Han Xin and Zhang Liang barely equals what Xiao He alone contributed.

So we had to start with basic internal administration. The silver lining was that this place was inside a game.

Internal administration here ran much like a game system.

Pulling up the city information gave a rough picture of the situation. Being only county-rank, there was no hope of major revenue.

Helpfully, everything secondary was stripped out, showing only the expenses needed to maintain the troops. Looking at the income and expenditure, it seemed possible to roughly double our current forces.

Of course, if we squeezed and plundered the way Dong Zhuo or Yuan Shu did, we could wring every last drop out of the place. Hell, if we starved everyone here like a swarm of locusts and moved on, gathering a few thousand men wouldn't be impossible.

But even now the tax rate was five-government, five-people — half to the state, half to the commoners. Completely insane, right?

Amazingly, this was an era when Cao Cao's six-government, four-people rate was greeted with cheers. The tax code was just that different.

Which meant other administrators and magistrates were squeezing even harder. We were already collecting Swedish-level taxes while providing zero welfare — raise the rate any further and everyone would simply flee.

Prestige represented relations with the surrounding great families. Yawang's actual population was higher than the number shown, but a portion of those people had been absorbed as retainers of the local gentry — listed as 'tenant farmers' and living, in practice, as serfs.

The problem was that they truly were serfs, paying taxes to the great families rather than the government. Raise Prestige high enough, though, and you could extract modest income through patronage from those same families.

But Yu Bi was neither a local nor a name anyone had heard of. The great families would slam their gates in her face — and the number we had now was only thanks to Lu Zhi's reputation.

Public Sentiment was exactly what it sounded like: popularity among ordinary commoners. High Public Sentiment reduced bandit activity and peasant uprisings, and word of mouth would draw in new population.

The political theater of parading the old commandant and assistant through the streets had won us instant popularity. Yu Bi was soft-hearted enough to enforce the tax rate strictly by the book, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were frequently clearing out minor bandits. So we were well above average.

Training was the soldiers' proficiency, directly affecting unit combat power. At 100, they performed at full capacity.

Morale determined how much of that combat power a unit could actually sustain. If Morale dropped, even Training at 100 would see ability degrade.

Training and Morale were calculated multiplicatively. If Training was 90 and Morale was also 90, unit combat power came out to 0.9 × 0.9 — only 81% efficiency in practice.

Most of the troops were the youxia bands Jian Yong had brought from Zhuo County. They'd always been well-trained, and settling into a stable life had maxed out their Morale.

But all of that was what everyone else was already doing — enough to keep pace, not enough to overtake anyone. On this scrap of land, we had to try something, anything, to pump resources if we ever wanted a path to becoming a real warlord.

Which meant the thing to watch was the line at the very bottom: Applied Technologies. Develop various technologies and you could push income past the normal ceiling.

And here, that meant one thing only — Tuntian. Implement the military farming colonies that had been the foundation of Wei's rise, boosting food production while absorbing refugees and exploding the population!

"..."

There are prerequisite technologies? Well, even a game wouldn't just hand you a broken skill right away. Fine — start with the lowest-level one, Military Colonies!

"..."

This one isn't free either? Well, you have to know where the empty land is before you can plow anything.

Then start with Land Survey.

"..."

It doesn't even look that good — why so many conditions? Worse, the real bottleneck is needing five people.

Yu Bi's entire force has exactly five people. And a total of 390 means an average over 78.

Even if I drag Lu Zhi in and detonate Civil-Military Mastery, Yu Bi, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all drag the average down.

And the least useful person here is me. I dumped everything into Intelligence, so I'm single-handedly tanking the average.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Come on, let's just have fun. I'll make you feel good."

"..."

Whether she understood my dilemma or not, Jian Yong's first suggestion was to play. But 'make you feel good'? Was she talking about the same 'that' Xiahou Yuan had tried on me?

She was a social creature by nature. Just tilting her head with that little smile was already making my heart skip.

Maybe following her and clearing my head wouldn't be such a bad idea?

Bubble, bubble...

As if possessed by a devil, I followed her. But instead of taking off my pants, she was suddenly boiling water?

"What are you doing, Jian Yong?"

"Hmm? Boiling water for tea. I had some stashed away in secret."

Jian Yong pulled a tea caddy from her robes and gave it a little shake. That foxlike smile of hers made me want to grin right back — but was she joking right now?

"Hey! What do you think you're doing, eating something this precious all by yourself?"

"I'm eating it with you, aren't I? Or should I call Xuande over too?"

"That's not what I mean! Tea is something even the scholar-gentry can barely get a look at in lean times like these. If you've got something like that, you should be thinking about how to use it usefully — not drinking it yourself!"

I snatched the tea away at once. No matter how much of a northern country girl she was, how could she be this blind to the value of things?

"I don't get why you're acting like this. What are you planning to do with it?"

What was I planning? I'd been waiting for just such an opportunity. I immediately summoned everyone to the government office.

"You intend to visit Wen County? What do you mean by that?"

The moment I revealed my plan, Yu Bi voiced her confusion. Why should the magistrate of Yawang go on an inspection tour of Wen County?

"Don't tell me — you're going to call on the great houses of Wen County?"

As expected, Lu Zhi — a veteran of this world — hit the answer immediately. When I nodded, Jian Yong asked:

"Why go there?"

"Why? You lot got driven out of Anxi for breaking an Inspector's bones, remember? Why do you think that happened?"

"Because Xuande refused to share his bed, right? She should've just slept with him once."

"..."

Yu Bi and Jian Yong had supposedly been childhood friends — so why were they so different? Compared to Yu Bi, pure to the bone, this one clearly knew a thing or two, judging by how she treated me.

"You're looking at this far too simply. As Master Lu Zhi said before, failing to build friendships with other officials in the jurisdiction was one reason. But something even bigger that you missed: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you got on terribly with the educated class."

"The educated class, you say? You mean Confucian scholars and the scholar-gentry?"

Correct. Because the Han was a nation built on Confucian order, and the structure guaranteed that the educated class — those who could pursue scholarship — always held the reins.

The Recommendation System for selecting officials was irrational from the ground up. Under it, each province recommended one candidate a year and each commandery-kingdom one more — which meant people who already knew each other simply scratched each other's backs for the good of their own families.

After a few centuries of that, the Gini coefficient of power and wealth hadn't just collapsed — it had shattered. Local strongmen had become great families with power that simply could not be broken.

"If you'd been on good terms with the local notables, someone would have tipped you off for sure. And even after you drove out the Inspector, if those people had pleaded for clemency, the Administrator of Zhongshan might well have looked the other way."

"Do Yeop is right. Yu Bi, for all your studying, how do you not grasp something this simple?"

"Ugh... I am deeply ashamed. I've never been suited to scholarship..."

That was the problem. Compared to Yuan Shao, standard-bearer of the Pure Stream faction, and Cao Cao, standard-bearer of the Turbid Stream, Yu Bi at her absolute best was the CEO of a straw-mat co-op.

Building relations with the great families meant entering their world — and Yu Bi had never possessed that foundation.

That was why, even after taking Xuzhou, she'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠failed to manage the great families, gotten backstabbed by the Danyang troops, and lost everything to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lü Bu.

"Whoa? What's in Wen County that makes it so special?"

Zhang Fei asked out of pure curiosity. I turned my head slightly and deferred the explanation to Lu Zhi.

"Hanei lies close to the capital, so high officials have long kept residences here. Among them, the Hanei Sima clan of Wen County is a great house that stands shoulder to shoulder with the Runan Yuan clan and the Hongnong Yang clan."

That's right. I was about to pay a visit to the house of the famous Sima Zhongda himself.

That had been the first reason I'd planted Yu Bi here in the first place.

"And what good does getting friendly with people like that do? I can't stand those types who hold their heads high just because they can write a few characters."

Of course Guan Yu couldn't resist throwing in a dig. The histories did say she'd always gotten on particularly poorly with the scholar-gentry.

But listen, you — we're short one single educated person and can't even research a technology!

"Then Lady Guan Yu, please stay and guard the office. We'll handle this ourselves."

"You're planning to leave me behind? What scheme are you cooking up?"

"It's not a scheme — if you go, you'll pick a fight for no reason. So rest here today."

"I'm coming. And someday I'll tear that mask of yours off. Face and all."

"..."

I'd been wondering when that line would show up today. And so it was decided that everyone would go together.

But was it really all right to bring Guan Yu along?