Ch11 - Villa

The black steed carrying the handsome prince swooshed by on the streets, and the common people who set up stalls on the street kept their calm and one after the other got out of the way.

“Did you see? If you keep on being noisy, then we’ll just let the Cheng Wang take you away.” The woman who sold vegetables threw down her basket, and pointed to the silhouette flying by to the child who wouldn’t stop crying.

Jing Shao reined in his horse to slow down his speed, and happened to hear this sentence, could not help but knit his brows.

“Rumor says that the Cheng Wang is tyrannical, killing 100,000 prisoners of war on the battlefield, just a mention of his name causes young children’s nightmares.” This was one of the justifications for why during that time, those people accused him of official misconduct, he killed and took prisoner, 100,000 people. Really ridiculous, not to even mention the campaign against the Xiongnu nomads, he himself only brought 50,000 troops and horses, the entire Xiongnu military did not even have 100,000 people. During that time, he led 2,000 troops to surround the Xiongnu with their general, trying to urge them to surrender, but those people’s nature was fierce, even facing death they would not surrender, so he just let people kill wave by wave, at the very end, the general when trying to take a group of soldiers to break out of the enclosure, he was beheaded by Jing Shao. The living people they were able to capture was less than 500, moreover, each of them hated all the Chinese troops to the bone, if they did not kill them then it would cause no end to trouble. 

It turned out, that rumors have already been circulating since this time.

The weather was sunny and cloudless today, the sun slid in from the open window, and the wide sandalwood desk was warm. Mu Hanzhang sat at the desk, holding an accounting ledger, and carefully checking his dowry.

The North Marquis’ House had a great line of business, but their numbers were also large. After calculating, the total amount of property allocated to him was less than 30,000 silver taels His mother who did the accounting had looked through it and could pick out any problems. Although 30,000 did not make him lack too much, it also did not let him receive any additional advantages. Moreover, they could not give him any ancestral properties or land, and after the passing of the new year, the actual silver given to him was basically nothing. All that was left to him were some untouchable villages, farmland, and then some silver was also used to deal with his wedding attire and the like.

In the eastern outskirts, he remembered that there is a barren forest, with black locust plants growing thickly, and craggy, rocky soil, making it impossible to plant anything. It was also not suitable for building a courtyard. It was basically a waste. And this vast piece of soil still accounted for most of his “family property.” Mu Hanzhang sneered, Concubine Du was really not afraid of people criticizing her behind her back!

However, in this way, he basically has no cash in his hands. The 100,000 taels that his mother gave me was a lump sum, and he did not want to move this sum of money unless absolutely necessary.

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“It must be about the matter of household allowances. If she says that it will take a few months to hand over the account books, you must not agree to her.” Yun Zhu wrinkled his nose, his tone quite resentful. 

Hearing this, Mu Hanzhang, didn’t say anything, only invited Madam Song into the small study.

Song Lingxin skillfully smiled as she walked in: “Qie visited rather rudely previously, hoping Wang Fei will not blame.”

Mu Hanzhang was impatient in dealing with her, and after exchanging civilities for a couple of sentences he asked her what the issue was.

“According to the customs, after Wang Fei has crossed the threshold, all the economic affairs of the family should be handed over to you. It is only that the prince’s palace has always distributed the silver the first of every month. There are many affairs this month, handing it over now to Wang Fei, I am afraid things will go wrong, so Qie came to ask Wang Fei to allow this subordinate to retain it.” Song Lingxin said with a smile. 

Mu Hanzhang looked down, playing with the white jade paperweight on the table, thumb unconsciously rubbing the smooth and rounded edge. This is a small habit he has when he thinks about things: “Since that’s the case, you continue to manage it for a few days, as for the supervision of the other wives, tonight wait for Wang Ye to return and then we will discuss it.”

Seeing that this person was not bothered, Song Lingxin’s complexion turned green, but she shortly regained her smile: “Yes, we still need to seek Wang Ye’s opinion, just Qie saying it is not the most important. There is one more thing…” as she said this, she put a small book from her hands down onto the table.

“What is this?” Mu Hanzhang glanced at it, there was no writing on the book cover, only a painted peony flower.

“These are the arrangements for the dates of attending to Wang Ye’s bed.” As Song Lingxin said it, she always felt that confronting this male Wang Fei to talk about these things was a little embarrassing, but they couldn’t just not talk about it, “Qie has talked it over with our two younger sisters, and we wrote all of the discussed dates on there, inviting Wang Fei to look over it. The earlier we can determine this, the better, as it will permit us to prepare the management arrangements.” 

This subject also made Mu Hanzhang somewhat uncomfortable, and so after expressing that he understood, he waved his hand to dismiss her back to the West Court.

In the suburbs of Beijing, Cheng Wang’s Villa.

This villa was bestowed upon him by the emperor. Behind it was a tall, inclined mountain, and on the mountain was lush green vegetation and the babbling of brooks, it was the villa he stayed at during the summertime.

“This subordinate greets Wang Ye!” Once he entered the villa, a tall man in black clothing took the lead, stepping forth to make one’s salutations. 

“Where is Ren Feng?” Jing Shao handed the horse to one of the servants welcoming him and asked the big man dressed in black.

“The commander is in the martial arts practice arena, this subordinate will go fetch him.”

“No need, you can just follow me to go take a look.” Jing Shao placed both his hands behind his back, not rushing but not moving too slowly either through the round, wooden porch, heading west of the villa.

The area of the villa is much larger than that of the palace in the city. The entire west side has been converted into a martial arts arena. In the center of the arena is a three-foot-high wooden platform, and the weaponry was placed on a rack on top of the platform. At this time, two people wearing gray Imperial bodyguard uniforms were busily sparring on the platform. 

One person wielded a broadsword, and the other wielded a pike, one would attack the other, and the other would follow suit, below the platform were a crowd of people wearing the same gray colored Imperial bodyguard uniforms. Once a brilliant bout of sparring occurred, they would all shout and yell praises, it was extremely lively.

When Jing Shao came, he just happened to see that the broadsword wielding competitor had been thrown off the stage by his opponent. His sudden powerful thrust that caught his adversary off guard was quite beautiful.

“Good!”

“Wang Ye!” Everyone only just noticed the arrival of their master, and they all knelt down to pay respects one by one. A man dressed in black exercise clothing, with a lanky stature walked out from the crowd and knelt down on one knee in front of Jing Shao: “This subordinate was not aware of Wang Ye’s arrival, please excuse this one for not going out to meet you, hoping for Wang Ye’s forgiveness.” 

“You rascal, what are you acting for!” Jing Shao permitted everyone to rise, and gave his head a slap. This man dressed in black was the commander that everyone spoke of. This villa housed the two hundred guards who belonged to the Cheng Wang’s inner circle of guards. Ren Feng was the commander of these guards.

“Hehe…” Ren Feng smiled and stood up. The scar that cut across his left eyebrow to the other corner of his made him look rather fearful, but the way his face became round when smiling actually made him seem rather simple and honest. “The last time Mr. Yun said this subordinate was too vulgar, and not understanding of etiquette, so this subordinate wanted to learn some of those high-ranking officers’ etiquette.”

Jing Shao raised his eyebrows: “Just you?” After he finished speaking, he gave him a slap again, grabbed his collar and dragged him onto the stage. “Don’t try bother with those useless things, come accompany Cheng Wang to loosen his muscles and bones.”

Ren Feng immediately complained: “Wang Ye, this subordinate has just fought for four hours.” 

“Less nonsense!” Jing Shao ignored him, and just threw him a weapon. He lifted the broadsword and charged forth to slash with the big knife.

By noon, Jing Shao, sure enough, had really not returned to the residence. Mu Hanzhang had lunch by himself, and then he went to the small study room with great interest. He threw the book with the painted peony flower on it aside. There was a rack of books in the study that did not belong to him. He has not had a chance to examine them carefully. Jing Shao said last night, this small study would belong to him from now on, and he could read all of the books there as he pleased.

Besides some of the new travel recollection essays he had read yesterday, it seemed that there were some books here that he had already read. Mu Hanzhang guessed that the books Jing Shao placed here before, were the books that he didn’t usually use, but hadn’t yet stored away in the Yinfeng pavilion’s big study. He reached out and took out a set of books wrapped in blue colored hard leather and put it on the desk. He slid out one volume out of the set to take a look.

It turned out to be a military book! But to think about it, it would be strange if there were poetry verses in Jing Shao’s study. 

Slowly opening it up, Mu Hanzhang could not help but widen his eyes. Between the orderly lines of black text, were numerous, densely packed annotations written in vermillion ink.