Chapter 54: Improvised Benefits

After the incident ended, Mengde and the rest of the Cao clan returned to their family fortress.

A wubao was a type of rural fortress that became widespread during the late Eastern Han, the Three Kingdoms, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

Simply put, it was a countryside stronghold built by farmers and aristocratic families to protect themselves in times of war and chaos.

Although the Eastern Han had not yet completely descended into chaos, order in the countryside was already breaking down.

Countless peasants, driven to desperation by heavy taxes and forced labor, had become drifters.

However, the large estates owned by aristocratic families didn’t need so many laborers, so these displaced peasants were left with no choice but to become bandits, raiding wherever they could—especially in places like Yuzhou, which was densely populated but territorially small.

Yuzhou now had over six million people, making it one of the most populous of the Han Empire’s thirteen provinces.

But its land area was far smaller than places like Jingzhou or Yizhou, and arable land was scarce.

As a result, the number of displaced peasants rose every year.

To protect themselves, aristocratic families all across Yuzhou had begun constructing wubao fortresses.

The Cao family was no exception.

The Cao family fortress was built in a strategically advantageous location, nestled between mountains and rivers.

Inside the fortress, countless households were crammed together.

Outside, scattered across the vast farmlands, were numerous small villages.

The scene resembled the fiefdoms of Western European nobles centuries later.

And in fact, the two were fundamentally the same.

In Mengde’s view, no civilization in the world was inherently nobler or more exceptional than any other.

The local aristocratic families of the Eastern Han were no different in essence from the feudal lords who rose after the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe.

Both were forms of power built upon the manor system.

As long as agrarian societies remained structured around manorial economics, the rise of powerful local factions was inevitable.

This was a universal developmental pattern dictated by objective social laws.

Only when agricultural economies broke away from the manor system could the expansion of local power truly be curbed.

One of the defining features of manor economies was their high degree of self-sufficiency.

The manors of the Eastern Han had a wide scope of operations—not just basic farming, but also forestry, animal husbandry, sericulture, weaving, ironworking, papermaking, and brewing.

These industries complemented each other, overcoming the limitations of single-function estates and greatly strengthening the economic power of the manor system.

By the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, some of the aristocratic manors were so powerful they could form private armies, forge their own armor, and manage their own logistics.

These families would bring their troops to the battlefield like mini-states within the empire.

While the Cao family’s estate was not as exaggerated as some of those later families, it was still nothing to scoff at.

Nearly ten thousand people lived inside the Cao fortress alone—about one-fifth of the entire population of Qiao County.

Currently, the Cao family directly controlled about eighteen thousand people.

To put that into perspective, Qiao County had a total population of just over fifty thousand.

Of that, nearly ten thousand lived in the Cao family fortress.

Over twenty thousand lived in the county seat.

Another ten thousand or so lived in the fortresses owned by the Ding and Xiahou families.

The remaining population was scattered throughout various villages in the region.

Because the Cao family controlled so much of Qiao County’s population, their authority in the area was absolute.

Most of the residents inside the Cao fortress worked in manufacturing, as ordered by Lady Mengde.

Over five thousand people worked in the fortress’s iron-smelting furnaces, producing over ten thousand tons of pig iron each year.

The rest were engaged in salt-drying, papermaking, glassmaking, and other industries.

Although Mengde had no intention of expanding these industries to dominate the entire Han market—lest she draw the ire of Liu Hong—she was secretly developing them as a technological reserve, ready to be deployed when chaos inevitably erupted.

Right now, developing these industries might provoke Liu Hong’s suspicion.

But when the chaos of the late Han arrived, the grass on Liu Hong’s grave would already be three meters tall.

Liu Xie would be nothing more than a puppet emperor in her hands.

And then, the girl could do whatever she wanted.

***

After returning to the clan, Mengde took the night to rest.

It wasn’t until the next day that she sought out the elders responsible for managing the family’s affairs and explained her plan to them.

Her plan required a massive amount of money and connections to negotiate with powerful families across the land.

Without the full cooperation of the Cao family, there was no way she could carry it out.

After hearing Mengde’s proposal, the elders exchanged uncertain glances.

Several minutes passed in silence before the elder in charge of finances finally spoke up.

“Miss, this plan you mentioned… what benefit does it bring to the Cao family?”

In theory, the plan offered no benefit to the Cao family at all.

Mengde wanted to spend money aiding the northern grasslands for three reasons.

First, to help the tribes recover from disaster and prevent the Xianbei from invading the south in the coming autumn.

Second, to inject the ten-plus billion coins the Cao family had accumulated over the past two years back into circulation, stimulating the Han economy and preventing a currency crisis.

Third, to experiment with using commercial means to resolve the grassland issue as a long-term strategy to pacify the north.

But none of these benefits would fall directly to the Cao family.

The gains would all go to the Han court.

The only possible indirect benefit would come from the commercial approach to pacifying the north—but even then, it would be the Han who profited the most.

At most, once the north was pacified, the Cao family might earn a little more by trading horses.

Meanwhile, the Han government would save an enormous sum on military expenses.

The benefits were completely out of proportion.

Yet Mengde couldn’t tell the elders the real reason behind her plan—that Liu Hong, in the final days of his reign, would commit a massive blunder by hesitating over the succession, leading to a devastating clash between the eunuchs and the empress clan that would wipe both sides out.

And once that happened, power in the capital would fall into a vacuum, only to be seized by the warlord Dong Zhuo.

At the same time, regional warlords would rise in rebellion, and the Eastern Han would descend into a new era of chaos and civil war.

If Mengde could prepare ahead of time in the northern grasslands, then everything she did for the Han today would belong to the future Cao Wei tomorrow, once she seized power and established her own dynasty.

The Cao family would never lose out in the long run.

But if she said that out loud, the elders would surely think she had gone mad from some unknown trauma.

Without hesitation, they’d tie her up and drag her before Liu Hong to confess her “crimes” in tears.

And if she only presented the three reasons she had just given, the elders still wouldn’t approve the plan.

After all, the Cao family had spent years building up their fortune and connections.

Why should they pour it all into a plan that only benefited the Han court?

Did they look like they had too much money and nothing better to do than throw it all away?

But small benefits—if she needed to, Mengde could always make one up.

Wasn’t lying through her teeth just another form of strategy?

With a faint smile, the girl looked at the elders seated before her and asked, “Gentlemen, my father has served as one of the Three Excellencies for six years now. And through our hard work, the Cao family has become one of the top aristocratic clans in the Han.”

“But I have one question for you all—can our Cao family be compared to the four-generations-of-high-office families like the Yuan clan of Runan or the Yang clan of Hongnong?”

At those words, every elder present shook their head.