Mengde nodded firmly.
She smiled and said, “You actually guessed right.”
By this point, Mengde had already joined the group at the stables, holding the leashes of two dogs.
She mounted her own horse, while Yuan Shao and the others each found their own horses, which they had tied up earlier.
Riding their horses and leading the dogs, the group left the Cao residence and headed into the city of Luoyang for a leisurely outing.
As they rode, Mengde continued speaking to Liu Bei.
“The Han dynasty has been enduring threats from nomadic tribes for hundreds of years now. Ever since the encirclement of Baideng during the reign of Emperor Gaozu, it hasn’t stopped. It’s true that Emperor Wu once crushed the seemingly invincible Xiongnu Empire, but afterward, new tribes like the Xianbei and Wuhuan rose up, continuing to harass our borders. Liu Bei, you’re from Youzhou—surely you’re more familiar with all this than I am?”
Liu Bei, riding alongside her, nodded with a solemn look and replied, “You’re right, Miss Mengde. When I was a child, I experienced firsthand how the Xianbei raiders ravaged our counties. The entire village had to flee to the city for refuge.”
“The chaos lasted for half a month before things finally settled down. And that wasn’t the only time. Later on, I kept hearing about more and more skirmishes along the frontier. Every time, someone from our village would be conscripted to the front lines—and every time, nothing ever came of it. We’ve been fighting the Xianbei for over a hundred years, and even now, we haven’t wiped them out. Honestly, the imperial court… I don’t even know what to say anymore.”
Hearing his complaints, Mengde rolled her eyes at him with a sigh.
“You think wiping out the nomadic tribes is that easy?”
She began calculating the costs of war for Liu Bei.
“During Emperor Huan’s reign, the court spent over two or three billion coins trying to quell the Qiang rebellion in the northwest. That was about one-fifth of the empire’s annual revenue—equivalent to the Cao family ironworks’ earnings over three years and the Qiang rebels?”
“There were only around a hundred thousand of them. The court only dispatched several tens of thousands of troops. Now imagine what a war with the Xianbei would cost.”
She paused, then added with emphasis, “Take Emperor Wu’s war against the Xiongnu, for example. In the fourth year of the Yuan Shau era, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing led a massive expedition into the northern desert, smashing the Xiongnu royal court, pursuing them all the way to the Hanhai, and killing over a hundred thousand of their soldiers. They nearly wiped the Xiongnu off the map.”
Liu Bei’s face lit up with admiration.
“That’s what a real man should do!”
“You look all inspired now… But do you know what the cost of that campaign was?”
“What was it?”
Liu Bei looked at her blankly.
Seeing him so clueless yet full of bravado, Mengde couldn’t help but be both amused and exasperated.
“Emperor Wu deployed 140,000 cavalry for that war, with hundreds of thousands of infantry and laborers supporting them from behind, transporting supplies and equipment. Because it was a long-range expedition across the grasslands, the food consumption was enormous. Just for those 140,000 cavalry at the front lines, they needed over ten shi of grain per person per month—and even more for the horses.”
She gave him a meaningful look.
“If that campaign lasted three months, that means the cavalry alone consumed over 40 million shi of grain. That’s roughly 4 billion coins worth of grain. And after the war? Of the original 140,000 warhorses, only 30,000 remained. If one horse is worth 10,000 coins, then losing 100,000 horses is another billion coins in damage. On top of that, the emperor rewarded the troops with 500,000 jin of gold—that’s another 5 billion coins.”
Mengde held up three fingers.
“Just these three items already add up to over 10 billion coins. And that’s not even counting all the logistical costs: transporting food from the central provinces to the border, raising horses from colts, producing weapons and armor, building carts to carry supplies, and provisioning meat, preserved vegetables, and other essentials. If you tally it all up, the military budget could easily double. The imperial treasury couldn’t even cover it with several years’ worth of income.”
Liu Bei broke out in a cold sweat.
“It really costs that much?”
“What did you think?” Mengde asked, hands on her hips and clearly annoyed.
“Emperor Wu almost bankrupted the entire empire to destroy the Xiongnu—half the population disappeared from the census!”
***
At that moment, Yuan Shu—riding nearby—stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Mengde, you really know a lot about war…”
“Of course! My dream is to become the General Who Conquers the West. Someday, I want to lead an expedition to the far west and see the Roman Empire with my own eyes!”
“The Roman Empire? What’s that?”
“In the ninth year of Emperor Huan’s Yanxi era, the Romans sent an envoy to meet him. If you don’t remember, you can ask your father—he should know. Ever since I saw that Roman envoy, I’ve wanted to visit the Roman Empire myself.”
Mengde answered Yuan Shu with a confident smile.
The truth was, in her past life, she had been a devoted spiritual Roman—constantly fuming or weeping over ancient Rome, and always fantasizing about hanging the Doge of Venice.
Now that she had been reborn in the second century AD, a time when both the great Han Empire and the Roman Empire still existed, how could she pass up the chance? If she ever got the opportunity, she would march west with her troops, reach the city of Rome, and boldly lecture the Senate until they had no choice but to crown her as emperor.
Then, on the eastern front, she would usurp the Han throne.
On the western front, she would claim the Roman crown through the authority of the Praetorian Guard.
Just imagining the scene of wearing two imperial crowns at once—East and West—made her heart race with excitement.
Mengde gazed off dreamily, lost in the thought.
Yuan Shao chuckled and teased, “You might want to become General Who Conquers the West, but you’re already thinking about logistics and budgeting. That’s supposed to be the job of the ministers back in court.”
“Remember how it was with Wei Qing and Huo Qubing? Emperor Wu and his cabinet handled all the supplies. The generals on the front lines only had to think about fighting. Mengde, if you’re thinking this much before a battle, maybe you’re better suited to be Minister of Finance or Minister of Agriculture, not a general!”
“I don’t want that! Dealing with all that paperwork would drive me crazy! Let someone else handle the domestic affairs!”
Mengde pouted.
At that moment, her gaze shifted to Liu Bei, who was standing quietly to the side.
‘This guy… one of the top-tier talents in civil governance in the future.’
‘Does he even know the value of being able to win the hearts of the people wherever he goes, even in times of chaos?’
Noticing Mengde suddenly staring at him with a suspiciously scheming look in her eyes, Liu Bei shivered.
‘W-what the…?’
‘Why does it suddenly feel like my future just got a whole lot darker?’
Trying to escape her ominous gaze, Liu Bei quickly changed the subject.
“R-right! Miss Mengde, weren’t we originally talking about these two dogs? What do they have to do with the nomadic border threats from the north?”
“Of course they’re related,” Mengde replied.
“The reason the northern nomads have always been a border threat is because fighting them is a losing deal. Not only is war with them unprofitable, even trying to govern them is a loss-making business. Just how poor those northern nomads are—you, Liu Bei, should know even better than I do.”
Liu Bei recalled the ragged nomadic cavalry he had seen raiding inside the border and nodded with a grim expression.
“They really are dirt poor…”
Seeing Liu Bei agree so readily, the others around them grew curious.
After all, Liu Bei was already seen as the poorest among them—a broke student who had come from the border regions to study in Luoyang.
If not for his charm and eloquence, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu would never have taken him under their wing.
And now, even this “poverty representative” was saying there were people even poorer than him? The Luoyang nobles who had never set foot outside the city became intrigued.
Yuan Shu asked, “So, just how poor are these Xianbei people?”
Liu Bei thought for a moment, then decided to go with a shocking example.
“How do I put this… Well, at the very least, no matter how hungry we Han people get, we’d never eat feces, right? But those Xianbei? Their food is often smeared with cow or sheep dung.”
“Ew… that’s disgusting!”
Everyone grimaced in unison, their faces twisted in revulsion.
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