Worry
Bai Jingyan pressed her lips together. It seemed Great Yan and Xiao Rongyan had learned of the famine in Yanwo even before the Jin court—or before she herself had.
It occurred to her that in her past life, news of the Yanwo famine may never have reached the capital because the examination fraud scandal had never come to light, and because most of the refugees had never crossed into Great Yan to spark an uprising.
Someone had been trying to bury the past examination fraud beneath a far larger affair—turning the people's eyes elsewhere and carving out a path of survival for Wen Jinkang. Could that be why Li Mu had been forced to drag the Yanwo famine into the open?
"On my way here, I met quite a few Bai Family Army soldiers in the border villages. I gave them orders to lead some of the refugees to the secret stronghold in secret. Shenshu and General Wei are lending their strength. They've been building houses and tilling fields."
For Bai Jingyan, there could be no better news.
Bai Qingjue, in truth, had another reason of his own. The reason he refused to give up, continuing to search for the Bai Family Army like this, was not only to reclaim the soldiers—but to find the family members who might still be alive. He simply could not bring himself to believe that, of the seventeen sons of the Bai family, no survivors remained besides himself and Bai Qingyun.
The loyal Bai Family Army would surely have thrown away their lives to protect the young generals of the Bai clan.
Bai Qingjue had come back to let the Bai family know that he was safe and sound. Unable to return to the Bai Manor in Dadu without any plan in place, he had hurried to reach Mount An'yu a full day before Old Master Guan Yongchong's birthday and waited for Bai Jingyan there.
His eldest sister was in the mourning period, so she would never attend the birthday banquet itself. And knowing her character, she was certain to come a day early to offer her congratulations.
After their brief meeting, Bai Qingjue had to return to the Southern Border to prepare for what lay ahead.
Bai Jingyan and Bai Jinchi were sorely reluctant to part with him, but they had no choice but to let him go.
The road back was drenched in the noon sun.
Bai Jingyan raised the carriage curtain and gazed out at the blue lake and beautiful scenery beyond the window. Her heart felt a little calmer.
Xiao Rongyan was fast with news and faster still with action. His network of shops scattered across the land made it possible.
Xiao Rongyan's shops, spread throughout the rival states, gathered a wealth of intelligence for Great Yan.
There was Xiao Rongyan, the Minister of State who could see far into the future, and there was a wise sovereign like Murong Yu. That was why Great Yan had risen above the other states as a powerhouse. Even if three nations allied against it, they could not so much as ruffle Great Yan's hair—instead, they merely handed Great Yan a pretext to attack them.
Bai Jingyan lowered the curtain and closed her eyes, sinking into thought.
The balance of the world was about to shift. And that moment was drawing near.
Who, then, would come to rule all under heaven?
When Bai Jingyan's party arrived at Bujae, Yue Shi happened to be on the verge of leaving.
The moment he spotted Bai Jingyan, Yue Shi called out toward Xiao Rongyan, who was about to board his carriage.
"Master, Lady Bai has returned."
Xiao Rongyan turned his head. Bai Jingyan was stepping down from her carriage, supported by Chun Tao. He turned and offered her a respectful greeting.
"Commandery Princess. County Princess."
"Master Xiao!"
Bai Jinchi's spirits lifted at the sight of him.
"Master Xiao."
Bai Jingyan asked calmly,
"Master Xiao, were you just leaving Bujae?"
"I was."
Xiao Rongyan drew closer to her.
"You left your sandbags at the Crown Prince's residence yesterday, so I came to return them. But I was told you had gone to Mount An'yu."
"I'm sorry for the trouble."
Bai Jingyan gave him a slight nod.
"There is also a matter I hoped the Commandery Princess might help me with."
Xiao Rongyan looked at her with deep, searching eyes.
"I was transporting white tea from Suyang to the State of Liang when it was plundered along the way. The court is presently consumed by the Yanwo famine and the matter of Liang's artillery, and His Highness the Crown Prince says he has no leisure to concern himself with mere bandits.
My trade with Liang is urgent, and it is an affair in which absolutely nothing can go wrong. I need a considerable amount of white tea this time. Suyang is the Commandery Princess's ancestral home, so I wondered whether I might ask for your assistance—that is why I've come. Among the distinguished families you know, is there one engaged in the tea trade?"
Plundered?
Bai Jingyan raised an eyebrow. Surely Qi Zhengyu hadn't been the one to raid it?
Xiao Rongyan's ranks were packed with masters. If the goods were important, a capable subordinate would have hauled them off himself—and the sum involved would have been enormous. How on earth could Qi Zhengyu have plundered such a thing?
When she lifted her head, she found Xiao Rongyan wearing a meaningful smile. Bai Jingyan grasped the situation at once.
"The Bai family's ancestral home is Suyang, but I have never lived there. A man as wise and perceptive as you could hardly be unaware of that."
"And yet this is a matter only the Commandery Princess can help with."
He wasn't stating it outright, but Xiao Rongyan clearly knew—that the very "bandits" who had "plundered" his goods were Bai Jingyan's own people.
He was not truly asking her to introduce a family in the tea trade. He was asking her to return his goods.
Even if it meant revealing that the bandit company was hers, Bai Jingyan had nothing to fear—after all, Xiao Rongyan's true identity would be his greatest weakness.
Even if her subordinates had turned into bandits, it posed no threat to Xiao Rongyan's interests or to Great Yan. Above all, before Great Yan had even risen, he would never make an enemy of her.
Great Yan's path forward was to grow strong in silence amid the chaos of the age—preparation for seizing the hegemony of all under heaven.
Since he already knew the truth, Bai Jingyan saw no reason to hide it.
"Master Xiao, you truly have eyes that see a thousand li and ears that fly everywhere, don't you?"
"Not quite to that extent. Besides, didn't we meet in Suyang recently? It's true I went to survey Suyang's markets and shops—but in truth, I went to recover the tea that had been plundered. It took a great deal of effort on my part. And only this morning did I finally receive word for certain."
Listening to the exchange between the two, Bai Jinchi felt her heart drop like a stone. She had realized that he knew the "bandits" were Bai family people, and that he had come seeking her eldest sister because of it.
Still, she assumed that so long as he didn't say it outright, he would keep quiet about it.
She found herself thinking that Xiao Rongyan might be an even more remarkable man than she had imagined. If a man like this married into the Bai family as their live-in son-in-law and helped her eldest sister—well, that would be a wonderful thing indeed.
Xiao Rongyan's subordinates were overflowing with capable people. The goods had been plundered, and only this morning had he discovered who did it—clearly, Xiao Rongyan held Qi Zhengyu in high regard.
One of Xiao Rongyan's men had once seen Qi Zhengyu risk his life to deliver a bamboo slip to the Bai family. Out of respect for such an act of loyalty, he had watched the man with particular attention, which was how he'd been able to identify him. Otherwise, he would never have connected a mere bandit to the Zhenguo Commandery Princess.
After confirming that the bandit belonged to the Commandery Princess, he had decided he ought to ask his master first, and so instead of acting on it, he had reported upward at once.
When word reached the Crown Prince that bandits had seized Xiao Rongyan's goods, he had been about to dispatch men to the local authorities. It was hardly a situation warranting troops to crush the bandits, but recovering Xiao Rongyan's property was within their power.
Yet the moment Xiao Rongyan heard this morning that the ones who had plundered his goods were Bai Jingyan's subordinates, he had stopped by the Crown Prince's residence immediately.
He said he no longer needed the Crown Prince's help—that he would ask the Zhenguo Commandery Princess to introduce him to a distinguished tea-trading family in Suyang. He begged the Crown Prince to ensure the local authorities did not interfere, now that he had an excuse to meet with the Commandery Princess, and then made his way to her residence.
Watching Xiao Rongyan cast aside even the goods meant for trade in his pursuit of a beauty, the Crown Prince quietly rescinded the order he had given to the local authorities.
"Master Xiao, you are far too modest. Didn't you know of the Yanwo famine far earlier than the Jin court itself? That is precisely what eyes that see a thousand li and ears that fly everywhere make possible."
Bai Jingyan said with a faint smile.
Xiao Rongyan rubbed lightly at the hand hidden in his sleeve. Squinting against the sunlight, he replied,
"And yet the Commandery Princess's own sources seem not so very slow either."
"Sister, don't stand out here talking—invite Master Xiao inside already! The least we can do is offer him some tea!"
Bai Jinchi flashed a bright look at Xiao Rongyan and greeted him.
"Master Xiao, are you pressed for time?"
Xiao Rongyan did not answer. He simply gazed steadily at Bai Jingyan with a smiling face, as though waiting to confirm her intentions before replying.
Bai Jinchi had raised the invitation, and Bai Jingyan, for her part, had things she wished to ask Xiao Rongyan about the Yanwo famine.
"Master Xiao, please come in."
Bai Jingyan adopted a courteous posture toward him.
Xiao Rongyan nodded.
"Then I won't refuse."
Once they were inside, Bai Jingyan ordered tea to be served, then asked,
"Master Xiao, when do you need the white tea by?"
"No later than the twentieth of this month."
Xiao Rongyan answered.
Bai Jingyan bowed her head, lost in thought for a moment, then looked up at his smiling face and spoke.
"Don't worry—just wait for word. I will see to it that the trade goes through without incident."
"Thanks to you, a great problem has been solved."
Xiao Rongyan offered her a light bow, then continued,
"You have done me such a great service—I hardly know how to repay it."
"Then tell me how long you've known about the Yanwo famine."
Bai Jingyan said.
"Since the beginning of the year."
Xiao Rongyan answered truthfully.
Bai Jingyan glanced once at Bai Jinchi, then asked,
"Master Xiao, do you know since when Great Yan has been drawing the Yanwo refugees into its borders?"
Xiao Rongyan answered her question calmly.
"When Yanwo was Yan territory, the Marquis of Hee ordered Sima Cheng, the great master of water engineering, to dig the Guanghe Canal. At the time, floods struck Pingyang City north of the Niuliang River with terrible frequency, and the canal was meant to solve that problem—but Yanwo, which had long suffered drought, was the one that reaped the benefit. The water flowing in irrigated the fields, and that same water made the land fertile."
Bai Jingyan nodded.
"But there was a shortage of labor, and the funding was insufficient as well. Anxious for the people suffering under the floods, Master Sima pondered long and hard before designing the canal so that water would flow into it only when the Niuliang River was at its height.
Yet that method could hold for exactly twenty years and no more. If the canal was to serve its purpose across the generations, it would have to undergo reconstruction after twenty years, so that the river's water could flow all the way to the Yangtze.
But later, Yanwo became the territory of Great Jin, and no one troubled themselves over the canal's repair anymore. The twenty years had already passed. When drought struck again last July, the Yanwo governor must have believed it would recover naturally once the year turned. But Great Yan knew this was only the beginning.
There was one thing even Great Yan had not foreseen—that in Yanwo, as in Yan itself, the winter snows would swell the Niuliang River until the Guanghe Canal overflowed its banks. And that come March, with the rainy season, the water trapped in the Niuliang, unable to reach the Yangtze, would inevitably bring flood disaster.
As it happened, Great Yan had just reclaimed Southern Yan, and so had ample grain and fertile land in which to shelter the refugees—naturally, they would have thought to take them in."
Xiao Rongyan said with a smile.
Only then could Bai Jingyan see the whole picture.
"I have already relayed what Master Sima said to His Highness the Crown Prince. The question is whether Jin has any leisure at present to concern itself with that place. Whether Jin can even afford to repair the Guanghe Canal. Ah—it seems war may soon break out between Liang and Jin."
Xiao Rongyan said.
Bai Jingyan's hand tightened hard around her teacup. Xiao Rongyan was not a man who spoke such words without reason. If he said war was coming, then war might truly come.
She lifted her head and looked at him, wondering whether a war between the two nations was itself one of the strategies by which Xiao Rongyan meant to achieve his aims.
Great Yan's main forces had gone to the Rong frontier. If war broke out between Jin and Liang, nothing could suit Great Yan better.