Chapter 49: Wealthy Merchants of Zhongshan

Soon after, Jian Yong returned.

He brought someone back with him, a man named Su Shuang.

This was a horse dealer introduced to Jian Yong by Zhang Shiping, a prominent merchant from Zhongshan.

Su Shuang was not from the Yuyang Zhang clan; he was an acquaintance Zhang Shiping had made while trading horses in the past.

During this time, Jian Yong had been boarding Liu Bei's eighty horses with Su Shuang, but they had not yet been sold, as the price still needed to be negotiated with Liu Bei.

The fact that Jian Yong could bring Su Shuang along was proof enough that Su Shuang was a trustworthy person, so both sides spoke quite directly.

"This year, commandery administrators and marquise-kingdom chancellors everywhere are requisitioning tribute horses, making horses very difficult to procure. Su would like to take all of the gentleman's horses off your hands. I wonder if the gentleman might allow Su to settle the payment in two installments?"

Su Shuang actually just wanted to discuss the settlement method: "Su has a solid reputation for keeping his word; the Chief Clerk Jian can vouch for this."

Jian Yong nodded from the side: "Brother Su is generous; he is even unwilling to charge for the expenses of boarding the horses."

"Right now, I am raising military supplies and do not plan to sell the warhorses... However, since Brother Su has helped board the horses, I must offer something in return. How about we do business in a better way?"

Of course, Liu Bei believed that Su Shuang was trustworthy, but the situation was different now; all the warhorses had to be kept for their own use.

"A different way?"

Su Shuang looked at the military camp by the Juma River: "Oh, military supply procurement?"

"No, do not misunderstand... What I mean is that the Juma River area will soon become a gathering place for horse merchants. I plan to build a bridge here and open a horse market for purchasing warhorses. Would Brother Su like to take a stake in it?"

Liu Bei pointed to an open space in the river bend below the camp's slope.

That was precisely the place where Zhang Shiping had previously attempted to cross the river.

There were river channels, mudflats, vast stretches of gravelly terrain, and wild grass there—unsuitable for clearing and farming, but quite well-suited for short-term horse raising.

"Why would this place become a gathering place for horse merchants?"

Su Shuang inspected the terrain, thinking that building a bridge was certainly a good thing, but right now there was nothing here at all...

"This is the headquarters camp of the Protector of the Wuhuan, and right beside it is the Xihe Market currently being built by Grand Tutor Lu's family. If horse merchants do not come here, or fail to pass through here altogether, they are either fools or horse thieves."

Liu Bei pointed to the military camp atop the slope and smiled slightly: "And fools and horse thieves naturally cannot pass safely through the territory of Zhuo Commandery, seeing as this is a military camp... Does Brother Su understand?"

Su Shuang swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

He understood. A wealthy merchant who had been trading horses for a long time naturally understood.

Liu Bei intended to use the military to control the commercial routes passing through Zhuo Commandery, setting up checkpoints and bridges here to turn this place into a transit hub for horse merchants transporting horses to the south—if anyone failed to transit through here, they would likely encounter some accidents along the road.

An accident much like the one Zhang Shiping had experienced.

"Then, how does Su take a stake?"

Such business was certainly worth doing, and Su Shuang would never let money slip through his fingers.

"You open a horse market here to collect horses and trade them to the south; I am responsible for building bridges, suppressing horse bandits, and securing the trade routes... You take a thirty percent share of the profits, I take a thirty percent share, and the remaining forty percent will be distributed among Commandant Zou's troops."

Liu Bei was very straightforward, hiding nothing at all: "Brother Su surely knows that this is a hundred times more profitable than going beyond the northern frontier to collect horses."

There was no need to hide it; if Su Shuang refused to do it, others would gladly take his place.

This was a fixed supply and marketing channel, requiring no searching for sources of goods and no risky journeys beyond the frontier. One simply had to intercept and collect horses along the road and resell them to the south, yielding sustainable profits with minimal risk.

"Understood... Su will return right away to gather funds, provisions, and fodder! Does Young Master Liu need money for building bridges, paving roads, and raising military supplies? Su is willing to offer some financial sponsorship."

Su Shuang's eyes lit up. He truly had not expected that merely boarding horses for a person for a month could yield such a harvest!

"We do need it, of course we do... But I cannot accept rewards without merit. If Brother Su is willing, he could instead sponsor some funds and goods to Commandant Zou's troops..."

Liu Bei portrayed himself as a benevolent man as pure as water: "After all, we all must rely on the military to guarantee our security."

A horse merchant's sponsorship?

Who would give away sponsorship for no reason at all, when they were not even clansmen supporting one another?

That was called a dividend.

It was also called a split of the spoils.

...

Su Shuang was a sensible man, and within a few days, Liu Bei had a large sum of money in his hands.

It was not only enough to pay military salaries, but also sufficient to purchase large amounts of meat to improve their diet.

He had money, grain, and soldiers.

At this time in the Juma River camp, there were already eight hundred new recruits, and over two hundred auxiliary soldiers had been recruited to build bridges, pave roads, and handle transport.

Weapons were barely sufficient, and there were sixty sets of armor. Although they were mostly two-plate armor and cavalry leather armor, at least they were armor.

The eighty warhorses had been sent back by the chivalrous swordsmen, but most of those swordsmen did not join the army. In truth, they all had families or other attachments, and only a dozen or so decided to become soldiers.

Recruitment was still ongoing, but the requirements had been raised somewhat; subsequently recruited soldiers had to know how to ride horses, which slowed the progress down considerably.

Liu Bei was not short of grain for the time being either. He still held three thousand *hu* of grain in his hands, which would be enough to sustain a thousand or so men even with open consumption until after the autumn harvest.

The new recruits had all the food they could eat, and one or two pigs or three sheep could be slaughtered every day. This was handled by Zhang Fe, whose family frequently bought pork and mutton and had long-term suppliers.

Liu Bei never expected that Zhang Fei would ultimately end up as a pig-slaughtering butcher...

And by the way, he also became a cook, put in charge of managing the culinary soldiers—the culinary soldiers under Liu Bei were not auxiliary soldiers; Duan Jiong conducted performance evaluations every ten days, and only the best-trained squad earned the qualification to serve as cooks.

Zhang Fei must have been sneaking food in the kitchen every day, growing increasingly robust. He could hold down a pig with one hand and slaughter it with a stab, needing no help from anyone else...

The regular soldiers had a great diet. As long as they completed Duan Jiong's training, every individual could consume two *liang* of meat daily.

This was a shared understanding between Duan Jiong and Liu Bei—new recruits had to eat some meat for training to be effective; wolfish ferocity and bravery were fed by meat, while eating grass could only turn men into oxen and horses.

This treatment was outrageously good, and no matter how grueling the training was, not a single person dared to utter half a complaint; even taking beatings was done with a smile.

Of course, those who slacked off and cut corners definitely got no food to eat.

The only issue was that Liu Bei loved cleanliness and had an abundance of hygiene requirements.

For instance, defecating everywhere was forbidden; horse manure had to be collected and disposed of uniformly; anyone with lice on their body was barred from eating and sleeping; absolutely no one was permitted to drink unboiled water; hands had to be washed before meals and after using the latrine, and so on...

There was a whole mountain of such prohibitions.

Violating the rules brought light punishment in the form of repairing roads, building bridges, or digging latrines; heavier punishment meant receiving military floggings; and severe punishment meant getting no meat or even missing meals entirely—compared to eating meat, military floggings were truly nothing to speak of.

Since Liu Bei controlled the purse strings, meaning he managed the food rations and military pay, no one dared to harbor any objections against him. No matter how many demands he made, they had to be obeyed, and even Duan Jiong had to comply.

Duan Jiong felt that Liu Bei was using this method to quickly instill in the new recruits the good habit of obeying orders, so he was very cooperative.

Of course, the old general Duan Jiong was still alive to this day precisely because he himself loved cleanliness.

Duan Jiong also had a very effective set of methods for training troops.

The old man slept lightly and needed to get up at night.

Every time he rose at night, he would conveniently sound a sudden assembly.

This ensured that even Duan Jiong himself never knew precisely when a sudden assembly would occur...

Duan Jiong's method of sounding a sudden assembly was to ride his horse pitch-dark outside the camp, using the sound of hooves to wake people up.

The sound of horse hooves served as the drumbeat for a sudden assembly, conditioning the soldiers to form a reflexive response—this was Duan Jiong's precious experience from twenty years of military life.

Precisely because of this, though he had fought hundreds of battles in his life, his camp had never once been raided by Qiang cavalry.

After galloping around the military camp on horseback once during the night, Duan Jiong would enter the small drill ground before the main camp. At that point, anyone who failed to fully kit out and assemble on the drill ground would be sent off to dig latrines, and would furthermore receive no meat that day.

Digging latrines everywhere was Liu Bei's requirement; he did not interfere with Duan Jiong's troop training, focusing solely on logistics such as sanitation and rations.

Duan Jiong's sudden assemblies never involved lighting fires; illumination relied entirely on the moon, and scrambling in the dark to put on and strap down protective gear made it terribly easy to pinch oneself.

After enduring this a few times, the new recruits never took off their clothes to sleep ever again.

And right in the middle of a night training session, Duan Jiong finally waited for the person he had been expecting.

Zhang Sheng.