A Clash of Gods - Chapter 44
Chapter 44 Granted A Manor
“Why?”
Duan Canghai said, “Although people from the Rising Sun Escort Agency were all dead, the escort carriages were still there. However, the goods on the carriages were gone and nothing was left.”
“The goods were gone?” Yang Ning raised his eyebrows tightly, and said softly, “That’s strange. If those killers wanted to rob them of the goods, they could just pull the carriages away. Why did they leave the escort carriages there? Is it possible that they wanted to place the goods on their own carriages?” He shook his head, “If they wanted to rob the goods, they must fulfill their task as quickly as possible. It would take them a lot of time to reload the goods. Do they all infuse their brains with water?”
“Well, Your Excellency, what does ‘infuse their brains with water’ mean?” Duan Canghai felt that this phrase was very novel, so he immediately asked Yang Ning modestly.
Yang Ning glanced at him and said, “The brain is full of brain medulla. But when it is mixed with water for a long time, the brain will not work any longer. Can’t you understand this?”
Duan Canghai praised Yang Ning in his heart, thinking that the metaphor the earl used was really novel and interesting. But he wondered why the earl could go straight to the heart of the matter now because the earl was not clever in the past. He thought that the earl now was much smarter than ordinary people.
Since the earl returned to the mansion, he had changed quite a lot. Could the earl become smart after being kidnapped and stimulated? If this was the case, then it was really a blessing due to misfortune. Perhaps the Marquis of Honor and the ancestors of the Qi Family were blessing the earl.
“Your Excellency, you are right. This is the crux of the matter,” Duan Canghai said, “The escort carriages were still there, but the goods were all gone. That’s really strange.” Then he said, “Qi Feng heard many people suspected that the two escort teams were robbed by the same group of people. But I think it should be impossible.”
Yang Ning nodded and said, “The methods of two cases are different. Besides, once such a big case was done, they must want to hide themselves immediately and rarely would continue to rob in a row.” He thought that the escorts of the Four Seas Escort Agency died because they were just unlucky. As a matter of fact, those Mysterious Flying Cicada Ninjas did not really want to rob the goods. The escort carriages were gone because those Mysterious Flying Cicada Ninjas needed to deal with them for covering their tracks. They just wanted to kill Xiao Guang, so they naturally didn’t want to invite trouble from the escort agency.
He remembered that when he left, the elder in gray robe was still fighting with those Mysterious Flying Cicada Ninjas. He didn’t know whether the elder was dead or alive.
Duan Canghai gave a thumbs-up, “Your Excellency, you point out the problem sharply.” Then he said, “Strange things happened in succession. Although these two escort agencies are strong, they must lose out heavily after so many people were dead.”
Yang Ning thought of the phrase “the goods were gone”. Suddenly, an idea came to him, and his eyes jittered slightly.
It was illogical that these robbers moved all these goods on their own carriages. In Yang Ning’s view, there were only two possibilities. Either the robbers worried that they might be chased by others if they used the original carriages, so they used their own carriages. And the premise was that the goods were easy to carry, which would not take them much time.
However, even if they changed the carriages, they would never waste time on the accident scene if they were slightly smarter. They definitely pulled the carriages to a place away from the accident scene and then changed the carriages.
In addition to this possibility, there was the other possibility. As Duan Canghai said, the goods were gone by themselves.
If they were just ordinary goods, of course there was no such possibility. But if those goods were alive, they could walk by themselves.
Thinking of this, Yang Ning jarred slightly.
If this was the case, then the Rising Sun Escort Agency was likely to be the one that was in contact with Xiao Yishui, and Xiaodie was taken away from the Huize county seat by this escort agency.
Then it was possible for the goods to walk.
Yang Ning’s heart beat fast. He hoped that his speculation was correct. If so, it was very likely that Xiaodie and other girls had not been sent to the capital. Instead, they left halfway.
He was both happy and worried. If some people killed these escorts halfway and saved Xiaodie and other girls, it would be the best result. But if those people were also evil guys, Xiaodie might fall into the tiger’s mouth after just getting rid of a wolf den. If so, Xiaodie would be in great danger. And that would be worse than being taken to the capital by these escorts.
If the escort agency took Xiaodie to the capital, he might find Xiaodie’s whereabouts by using the power of the Mansion of the Marquis of Honor and secretly inquiring about her. After all, he got the information about the Rising Sun Escort Agency in such a short time. So it would not be too difficult for him to find Xiaodie.
But if Xiaodie fell into the hands of the other group of people, it would not be easy for him to find her.
“Your Excellency, what’s the matter with you?” When he saw that Yang Ning’s expression was strange and changed constantly, Duan Canghai was worried for not knowing what Yang Ning was thinking about.
Yang Ning found a second wind and said, “Nothing. I was just thinking that no one has come to our mansion today.”
Duan Canghai said, “These days those people who should come have already come to our mansion. If there are other visitors, they should be from other cities. When we are going to bury the general, there will be more people.”
Yang Ning nodded and asked, “Where is Steward Qiu? I haven’t seen him for a long time. By the way, has he borrowed the silver?”
“It is not difficult to borrow thousands of silver from the money shop if we use the pawnshop as a pledge.”
Yang Ning replied “Oh” and then said, “He borrows the silver from the money shop? Uncle Duan, our mansion is so big, and it can be considered as a first-class wealthy family. How can our mansion be short of silver? Even if we don’t have enough silver at the present, do we have to use the pawnshop as a pledge to borrow money?”
Duan Canghai said, “I don’t know much about these things. But according to the rule of the money shop, people must pawn something even if they only borrow one piece of silver, not to say thousands of pieces of silver.”
“Doesn’t my family know some wealthy people?” Yang Ning said, “The capital is the most prosperous place, and there are so many nobles. My…my family should know some people anyway.”
Duan Canghai shook his head and said, “There are indeed many people who are on friendly terms with our mansion in the capital. But the old marquis has set rules before and our mansion is forbidden to have financial intercourse with any officials.”
“What?” Yang Ning asked with surprise, “Are there such rules in our mansion?”
“Your Excellency, you didn’t care about these things before, so you don’t know,” Duan Canghai said with a straight face, “The old marquis is upright. Even if he was conferred the title of nobility, he was still honest and upright. As the old marquis said, when people had financial intercourse with others, they would be bound by interests and it would be inconvenient for them to fulfill their own tasks. When the general was alive, he also strictly abided by the rules set by the old marquis and did not have financial dealings with the nobles.”
Yang Ning sighed, “So, even if someone sends the silver as a tribute to our mansion, we cannot accept it?”
“Of course,” Duan Canghai said seriously, “Besides, when the general was fighting at the front, the imperial court granted many rewards to him. But the general would give the rewards to his subordinates and never leave a penny for himself.” He continued, “But the general was a marquis with a manor of thousands of households. The old marquis has been granted a manor of three thousand households and hundreds of hectares of fertile fields. Therefore, we don’t have to worry about food and clothing ordinarily.”
“What the fuck!” Yang Ning couldn’t help swearing, “Our mansion has been granted a manor of three thousand households and hundreds of hectares of fertile fields. But we can only ensure that we don’t have to worry about food and clothing? Uncle Duan, you must be kidding me.”
Seeing that they were worried about thousands of pieces of silver, he was really puzzled and thought that the Mansion of the Marquis of Honor was really poor. At this time, he knew that the income sources of this mansion were really strong.
The family was in charge of a manor of three thousand households, so its income must be considerable. Besides, it even had hundreds of hectares of fertile fields. Although there were hundreds of young and old people in this mansion, it was really easy to support these people.
“No kidding.” Duan Canghai knew that the earl had no idea about money, so he patiently explained, “Although our mansion has a lot of income sources, the expenditure is also great.”
“Expenditure?” Yang Ning said, “I don’t know what expenditure can cost so much money.”
Duan Canghai smiled bitterly and said, “Your Excellency, you may think that a manor of three thousand households and hundreds of hectares of fertile fields equal to a lot of money. In fact, the incomes of our mansion are very low.”
“What does this mean?” Yang Ning frowned, “Does anyone rob our mansion of the silver?”
“No,” Duan Canghai lowered his voice, “The manor of our mansion is in Jiangling, which is the ancestral home of the Qi Family. The old marquis is also from Jiangling. The manor is in the old marquis’s homeland and the taxes collected by him every year are few, so this income is much less than those of other marquises. And the old marquis set a rule when he was alive. He distributed the taxes from five hundred households to the family of Third Elder Lord.”
Yang Ning now realized something. No wonder that Gu Qinghan and Steward Qiu mentioned the silver from Jiangling. It turned out to be the income from households of the old marquis’s manor.
But he didn’t expect that the income of five hundred out of three thousand households were transferred to the family of Third Elder Lord, who were actually supported by the mansion.
“Even if this is the case, it is impossible that the silver is not enough?”
Duan Canghai said softly, “The old marquis and the general are both kind and loyal people. They fought on the battlefield and treated their soldiers like brothers. When soldiers were killed on the front line, pensions from the imperial court were not too much. Their wives and children were naturally miserable. The old marquis set a precedent when he was alive. Many soldiers who followed him were dead on the battlefield, leaving their old parents and young children alone who found it hard to survive. So our mansion would allocate a part of income to support them. Although it was not much, it could help them to survive. The general also continued to use the method of the old marquis. Your Excellency, you can calculate the cost. In this way, how much money will be left in our mansion?”
Yang Ning was startled, because he didn’t think there was such a reason.
There were many soldiers who followed these two marquises to fight on the battlefield. Even if only a small part of them needed financial help, that would also be a huge expense for the mansion.
“Well… The Battle of Huaishui has lasted for three years and there are countless dead and injured people. You don’t count those people who died over the past three years, do you?” Yang Ning said, “Does our mansion need to support their families in the future?”
“If that is the case, we can’t fulfill the task even if our mansion is granted another manor of three thousand households,” Duan Canghai shook his head and said, “If our mansion supports too many people, others will say that our mansion is buying popularity. That is counterproductive. In fact, some officials have already defamed our general in the imperial court. Fortunately, the King trusted the general completely and knew that our old marquis was loyal, so he turned a blind eye to this.” He lowered his voice, “This time the general passed away, and there was no instruction from the imperial court. I am afraid that no one will consider the families of those soldiers who died in battle.”
Yang Ning now realized why the mansion could not make ends meet. It was because of this reason.
However, it could also show that these two marquises really won the hearts of the people. No wonder that the soldiers were willing to go through fire and water with them.
At this time, he heard a voice from outside, “The Marquis of Martial Arts comes to offer comfort!”
Amidst the voice, Steward Qiu suddenly showed up, hurried to Yang Ning, and lowered his voice, “Your Excellency, the Marquis of Martial Arts has arrived. This is the second time he has come to our mansion. I am afraid he wants to see you.”
“See me?” Yang Ning frowned, “Why does he come to see me?”
Steward Qiu said, “Your Excellency, the Marquis of Martial Arts is your future father-in-law and you are his future son-in-law. Knowing that you have returned home safely, he naturally comes to see you.”