Chapter 215- Acceptance
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
After E'Lai tamed the Nian beast, they left the back mountains and went towards the Military Affairs Department. In the next week, he would finish the construction of the Eastern camp and the 3rd regiment. Ouyang Shuo had already given the appointments of various majors to E'Lai and Ge Hongliang.
In the afternoon, Ouyang Shuo called the director of Internal Affairs Tian Wenjing into his office to discuss about the mountain barbarians.
Ouyang Shuo invited him to sit. "The military is expanding, so we need many elite mountain barbarian warriors to build the heavy armored infantry units. However the nearby mountain barbarian tribes have been used up. Based on how I see it, we need to travel farther into the mountains to get their trust. The mountain barbarians are important assets, and our policy must be maintained.
Tian Wenjing nodded and said, "I understand sire's meaning. Tomorrow, I will rush to Xuanniao tribe and ask them to act as a middleman to help us visit the various tribes and pass gifts to show our sincerity."
Seeing Tian Wenjing really understand what he wanted, Ouyang Shuo was touched. "It's been tough on you."
After that, both of them discussed specifics of the operation until 5 PM before ending the conversation. One could see how much focus and importance he placed on the mountain barbarians.
……
8th month, 21st day
Receiving Ouyang Shuo's invitation, Song Jia and Song Wen came to Shanhai City.
The Battle of Muye let Song Wen feel Ouyang Shuo's strength and influence. When he went home, he thought about it and decided to personally follow his sister here to discuss further cooperation.
Ouyang Shuo didn't hold any grand welcoming ceremony, and just brought them directly back to the lord's manor.
One the way back, although Song Jia was curious about Shanhai City, she didn't ask. During this visit, she had already decided to move over.
The meeting room was arranged based on rank and power so it was good to welcome guests there. He brought both of them to the guest room, and a servant brought them drinks before going away.
"Brother Song must stay here for a few days and allow me to show you around." Ouyang Shuo laughed.
Song Wen laughed. "Since you asked, I can't decline." He took a mouthful of the tea, and his eyes brightened as he exclaimed, "Good tea!"
"I didn't expect brother Song to know about tea, unlike me."
Song Wen waved him off. "I don't know anything about tea. It's old grandpa Song who often drank tea at home so he would drag me along, and after a while I learned a bit.”
Ouyang Shuo nodded. "Since it's like this, before brother Song leaves, can you bring some tea leaves for grandpa Song? It also counts as a little gift from me. This tea is called white tea and is a famous tea in Guangxi. We managed to find a wild tea garden nearby to make such a tea."
"Thank you. My grandpa treats tea like his life. It's so hard to find good tea here. To find something like this, he had been nagging at me. This is such a huge favor." Song Wen was delighted.
Song Wen was the heir to the family, so his business skills and interpersonal skills were great. During the Battle of Muye, he had developed a friendship with Gong Chengshi and Xunlong Dianxue. His motive was to remove the distance and the obstacles between them and Tianshuang Town to allow them to join the Shanhai Alliance.
His actions actually worked. After the battle, Ouyang Shuo discussed with them through the alliance channel about Tianshuang Town and didn't face any obstacles.
In addition to the fact that they were going to accept Wufu, Ouyang Shuo wanted to suggest to invite Tianshuang Town at the same time. As expected, they were both approved.
And that was thus the reason for this trip.
After accepting Wanshi Town and Tianshuang Town, Shanhai Allaince now had 8 members, the same as Yanhuang Alliance.
Yanhuang Alliance's actions were what made Ouyang Shuo decide to accept the 2 new territories.
Of course before officially accepting Wufu, Ouyang Shuo did some investigations. If he was a spy sent by Di Chen, then they would be in a lot of trouble.
The results of the investigation made him less worried. Combining the results with what he remembered in his last life when Wufu didn't join any camp, only then did he totally not worry.
Song Wen's visit obviously wasn't to reminisce about the past. During the Battle of Muye, he understood that Ouyang Shuo liked to build branches of the Four Seas Bank in his allies' territories.
Before he came, he had discussed about this matter with his father and grandfather. They all came to an agreement that for Tianshuang Town to achieve their goals, they needed to rely on others.
What they worried about was whether Shanhai City had enough money to support so many branches running at the same time.
Especially with the situation with Fallen Phoenix City, forcing Ouyang Shuo to pay 20 thousand gold. Hence, Song Wen wanted to investigate some things.
In truth, just as he feared, Shanhai City's finances were very tight, and even the money needed to expand the money was only obtained from raiders.
However, all this was temporary. As long as Ouyang Shuo sold the grain that he had accumulated, he would be able to get large amounts of cash and support the expansion of the Four Seas Bank.
To let Song Wen relax and not worry, Ouyang Shuo revealed the Langshan mines to him. Upon hearing that Shanhai City had such a gold mine, Song Wen heaved a sigh of relief.
Seeing the two of them decide official matters, Song Jia was restless.
Ouyang Shuo naturally saw her being bored, shaking his head in amusement and calling for the servant.
"Sire!"
"Invite third Miss here, and tell her that we have an important guest."
"Yes!"
A while later, Bing'er followed behind the servant and walked in. "Brother, who came?"
Ouyang Shuo waved to Bing'er. "Baby, bring sister Song Jia to walk around the city okay?"
It has been close to 3 months that Bing'er had stayed here and had long became a local. With her being Song Jia's guide, it was more than suitable. Song Jia knew that Ouyang Shuo had a sister and that he treated her like a treasure, just that she didn't have a chance to see her.
To be able to see her today, she was so cute and well behaved, making Song Jia adore her straight away. Seeing her expression, Ouyang Shuo couldn't help but shake his head. Be it her, Sun Xiaoyue, or little aunt, they all couldn't resist her charm.
Bing'er agreed and said sweetly, "Beautiful sister lets go, Bing'er will bring you to play. The territory has so many fun places and Bing'er knows them all."
Her words made Song Jia swoon. She didn't care about Song Wen and Ouyang Shuo, walking with Bing'er out of the guest room.
Ouyang Shuo looked at Song Wen and both of them laughed out loud.
Although he had came into contact with Song Wen many times, Ouyang Shuo still felt that Song Wen had the aura of a prince. In addition to the thing with Song Jia, Ouyang Shuo didn't hide anything and told him all about what he learned during the territory building.
In truth, how to manage residents, building industries, government structures and finance policies, Song Wen didn't need any tips. The Song family’s financial group obviously had people to help him. What he needed was how to make use of the main territory to help the affiliate territories, and how to hold resident events to raise the cultural index, etc.
Of course if Ouyang Shuo could tell him how to open up financial channels, that would be good.
Unfortunately the Beimu saltpans was the highest secret of Shanhai City, so Ouyang Shuo wouldn't reveal it. Additionally, Tianshuang Town wasn't close to the sea so there was no use telling him.
Ouyang Shuo didn't forget to remind him to pay attention to grain prices. As a business family, they were very sensitive to market prices. Unfortunately they weren't familiar with the game and so they couldn't predict the change in grain prices through analyzing the entire Chinese region.
After hearing his analysis, his expression got serious. In truth, someone had already reported about it to Song Wen. Recently, the prices of grain of the market increased slightly. As it was a slight increase, however, he didn't pay much attention to it. Only after hearing Ouyang Shuo say it did he find that it was actually very serious.
When Song Wen bought Tianshuang Village, it was already the end of the 3rd month. When he just received it, he didn't know anything and was busy getting familiar with it. Hence, he didn't pay attention to small things like agriculture land reclamation. Waiting until Qingming festival to plant their first season of crops was already too late.
Hence, they got most of their grain from the market while producing very small amounts. As their territory population was low, it wasn't much of an issue. Ever since they rose to a town, and also built affiliate territories, the population increased, making them feel a little pressure.
On that day, to hear Ouyang Shuo say that the prices of grain was going to increase, Tianshuang Town’s small financial income wouldn't be enough to sustain it.
Luckily, Tianshuang Town and agreed with Shanhai City to open a branch of the Four Seas Bank, and both agreed to open operations by the end of the 8th month with a starting sum of 4000 gold.
The both of them didn't only talk about territory matters and also talked about fun things in life. During the casual conversation, they also talked about some interesting and embarrassing things about Song Jia, making them burst out in laughter.