Dream of the Red Chamber: From a Border Ruffian to a Capital Tyrant

On this day, the sky was clear and the breeze was gentle. Golden sunlight, like scattered gold, fell on the majestic Yanmen Pass.

Jia Lang, dressed in a black chainmail with a scarlet battle robe over it, wearing a phoenix-winged purple-gold crown and a three-foot-long sword hanging at his waist, looked heroic and dignified as he strode towards the military camp's training ground.

Even before reaching the camp gate, the chilling atmosphere was already palpable.

The guards, seeing Jia Lang's javelin-like figure from afar, were immediately invigorated, straightening their backs and slamming their halberds heavily to the ground.

"Greetings, General!"

This shout, full of energy, soared into the sky, causing the surrounding air to tremble.

Jia Lang nodded slightly, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. A gentle yet authoritative smile appeared on his face as he said in a deep voice:

"Yeah, guys, you've worked hard!"

With that, he waved his hand, his battle robe fluttering, and strode straight into the depths of the military camp.

The moment they stepped into the training ground, deafening shouts of battle erupted like thunder.

Looking around, all one could see was dust flying everywhere. The veteran soldiers who had originally been stationed at Yanmen Pass were now gathered in groups of three or five around the new recruits, loudly instructing them on combat techniques.

Jia Lang stood with his hands behind his back, not disturbing the crowd, but standing on a high platform to the side, squinting his eyes and observing quietly.

Upon seeing this, he couldn't help but furrow his brow.

Although these veterans had rich combat experience, their methods of guidance were completely chaotic and disorganized.

Some soldiers yelled at the recruits to train them in brute force, while others only taught them some unorthodox and underhanded tricks. Although these crude methods could help recruits survive in the chaos of battle to some extent, this was hardly the iron army that Jia Lang wanted.

What Jia Lang wanted was a strong army that obeyed orders without question and was as easy to command as an extension of its own arm!

There must be unified commands, unified tactics, and unified discipline!

With such a disorganized training method, when the soldiers encountered the Xiongnu cavalry, they were like a rabble, collapsing at the first charge!

After pausing briefly at the military camp and making a decision in his mind, Jia Lang turned around and quickly returned to his residence.

Upon entering the study, Jia Lang dismissed his attendants and went straight to the desk to sit down, casually flipping through some training ideas he had hastily jotted down over the past few days.

My thoughts raced, and memories of my past life flooded back like a tide.

The first thing that catches the eye is the "password".

In his view, regardless of whether it is the era of cold weapons or hot weapons, a unified command is the soul of the army!

"Attention! At ease! Right dress!"

Simple commands can enable thousands of soldiers to move in unison and march in perfect unison in an instant, thus unleashing astonishing team combat power.

This is not just about discipline, but also about spirit!

Next came physical training.

Simple cross-country running with added weight is the best way to hone a soldier's strength and endurance.

Only by running faster than the enemy and catching up with them can you maintain your stamina in a long, drawn-out battle and wear down your opponent!

Oh, and cavalry too!

In this era dominated by cold weapons, cavalry were like tanks on land, an absolute weapon of mass destruction!

With proper training, this cavalry will become Jia Lang's sharpest spear, invincible on the battlefield.

However, reality dealt him a heavy blow.

Although located on the border near the grasslands, the Yanmen Pass warehouse had very few warhorses, only about five thousand at most, and most of them were old, weak, sick and disabled.

Want everyone to be equipped with horses?

That's wishful thinking.

Jia Lang secretly plotted:

These five thousand horses were barely enough to equip the newly formed imperial guard.

This personal guard was the 'Xuanjia Guard' that he named.

Apart from the old guard who fought alongside him in the previous battle, most of the newly recruited Xuanjia Guards were lone wolves with no ties to their families, and they had an almost fanatical loyalty to Jia Lang.

This unit, fully equipped with armor, warhorses, and bows and arrows, consists of his most trusted confidants whom he intends to take with him when he returns to the capital!

Since the shortage of warhorses was a foregone conclusion, Jia Lang turned his attention to other "black technologies" that could enhance combat power.

"Horseshoes...yes, horseshoes!"

A glint flashed in Jia Lang's eyes, and he slapped his thigh suddenly.

In this era, although saddles and stirrups were common, the concept of putting "shoes" on warhorses was still a blank!

It is important to know that warhorses' hooves are easily worn and cracked during high-speed raids and charges. In a major battle, the number of warhorses lost due to non-combat reasons is more than the number of warhorses that die in battle!

"If we could shoe our warhorses, it would not only protect their hooves but also increase their traction and boost their charging speed!"

Jia Lang muttered to himself, his breathing becoming rapid.

But then he calmed down, his brows furrowing.

Ideal is full, the reality is very skinny.

Making horseshoes requires a large amount of refined iron!

Iron is a strategic resource in this world. Even forging weapons is a struggle, let alone having enough iron to forge hooves for warhorses.

Not to mention that horseshoes require the process of refining steel hundreds of times, and it takes tens of thousands of hammer blows to forge one piece, taking several months.

This was a project that a border general like him could not possibly handle. It would probably only be possible to achieve it by returning to the capital, using the resources of the national treasury, and reporting to the emperor.

After calming down, Jia Lang's mind became even more active, extending from the horseshoe to a longer-term plan—making money!

An army is raised for a thousand days, but used for only one.

How can you train soldiers if you don't have money?

What kind of equipment should we craft?

Training a modern and powerful military is impossible without massive financial support; otherwise, it's all just empty talk!

Thinking of this, Jia Lang's eyes became incredibly fervent, and the magnificent military parade he had seen on television in his previous life flashed through his mind.

That perfectly aligned formation, those steps that seemed to shatter mountains and rivers, were his passionate dreams countless times.

"I never imagined I'd have the opportunity to create all of this myself!"

Jia Lang felt a surge of heroic emotion rush to his head, and he trembled with excitement.

He took a deep breath and quickly wrote down his thoughts on the paper.

First, institutional reform!

The newly recruited soldiers were dispersed and reorganized into five major camps: the front, rear, left, right, and central armies.

Secondly, the training syllabus!

First, verbal command training ensures unified command and strict adherence to orders.

Second, drill training, standing like pine trees and moving like the wind, demonstrates military might and facilitates coordination;

Third, physical training, including weighted cross-country running, push-ups, and pull-ups, to build a body of steel!

This training method has already shown initial success in the Royal Guard camp, and can be directly replicated and promoted.

However, when the pen tip landed on the last item, Jia Lang's movements stopped.

What troubled him most was the same old problem—military pay.

In this harsh and cold land, the government's funding was often delayed, and the so-called salary was often paid only once every six months or even once a year. Sometimes, when there wasn't enough money, they would even use stale grain and rotten rice to make up for it.

Previously, Jia Ren was in charge, so he didn't have to worry about these trivial matters.

But now, he is the ruler of Yanmen Pass!

Tens of thousands of mouths under his command are waiting to be fed!

Jia Lang's principle was simple: never delay payment! Pay on a monthly basis! And even double the amount!

Only when soldiers have money in their hands and food at home will they be able to fight with peace of mind, and only then will the cohesion of the army be as strong as steel!

The problem is, where does all this money that's being spent like water every month come from?

For a moment, Jia Lang fell into deep thought, his fingers unconsciously tapping the table.

Despite having countless ways to make money, such as glass, soap, and spirits, any one of them could make one richer than a country.

However, Yanmen Pass is remote and isolated, making implementation virtually impossible.

Firstly, transportation is inconvenient, so even if they are manufactured, they cannot be transported out.

Secondly, there is a lack of business talent.

That idiot Li Tiedan is a master at murder and arson, but asking him to do accounting and business? He'd probably get sold out and still be counting the money for the seller, ending up losing all his capital, down to nothing!

"It seems that in the end, we still have to rely on the imperial court and the emperor..."

Jia Lang put down his pen, looked at the bright sunlight outside the window, and his eyes gradually became deep and firm.

"The only solution is to write letters to Emperor Qian Yuan, pleading poverty, playing the victim, and making empty promises!"

"Whether we borrow it or ask for it, this initial startup capital must be squeezed out of the capital city!"

.........

The Forbidden City, Beijing, the Hall of Heavenly Purity.

It's utterly ridiculous, so absurd it's unbelievable!

Emperor Qianyuan has been on the throne for fourteen years. In this long period of time, he has read through thousands of memorials, but he has never received a single private letter from a border general demanding money. Note that it was a private letter, not an official memorial!

According to the ancestral laws of the Dayong Dynasty, if a border general needed money or provisions, he had to first draft a memorial, submit it to the Ministry of War for review, and then the Ministry of War would submit it to the Emperor. After Emperor Qianyuan approved it, it would be transferred to the Ministry of Revenue for calculation, and finally the Ministry of Revenue would allocate the silver for distribution.

This process takes anywhere from three months to half a year; it's an inviolable rule.

However, since the founding of the dynasty, it has been unprecedented and unheard of for someone as audacious as Jia Lang, who disregarded the Ministry of War and directly bypassed all the checkpoints to write a letter to the emperor to "cry poverty" and ask for money!

Not to mention that Emperor Qianyuan had never encountered such a thing, even going back three generations, during the reigns of the retired emperor and the founding emperor, there was no precedent for such unorthodox behavior!

On this day, the air in the Hall of Supreme Harmony was thick with the scent of ambergris. Emperor Qianyuan, as usual, was reviewing memorials, the stacks on his desk piled high. The Grand Eunuch Xia Shouzhong carefully carried a letter, rushing in with barely touching the ground, his expression strange. He whispered:

"Your Majesty, this is... an urgent letter from Earl Jia Lang, the Champion, sent from Yanmen Pass."

"Jia Lang?"

Emperor Qian Yuan raised an eyebrow slightly, put down his vermilion pen, and took the letter with a hint of doubt.

The envelope was not written in neat small regular script, but rather in large characters that looked like chicken claws scratching the ground: "To be opened by His Majesty."

Upon opening it, Emperor Qian Yuan's lips twitched slightly.

The handwriting on the letter was far from beautiful; in fact, it was quite ugly, resembling chicken claws scratching the ground.

Moreover, the very first sentence of the letter almost made Emperor Qianyuan choke on his saliva:

"Your Majesty, hello! I am Jia Lang."

There is no word "臣" (chen, meaning subject) or "叩见" (kou jian, meaning to pay respects), it is as straightforward as a neighbor greeting each other.

What followed was:

"I have received your letter and have arranged for the 50,000 troops to be sent back to the capital."

"However, I have recently recruited nearly ten thousand soldiers, and training them requires funds. We are so short of money that we're practically selling our pants. I implore Your Majesty to grant us some funds to alleviate this urgent need!"

Looking at this memorial written entirely in plain language, even containing some colloquialisms, Emperor Qianyuan's forehead veins throbbed, and he inwardly grumbled:

"Outrageous! This scoundrel is an insult to all culture!"

"I am of inestimable worth, yet he dares to be so insolent!"

"Don't be angry, don't be angry. Why bother getting angry with a mere soldier? It's not worth ruining your health..."

Emperor Qian Yuan closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and forcibly suppressed the urge to tear up the letter.

After calming down a bit, he opened his eyes and looked at the self-righteousness in the letter, and found it inexplicably funny.

This Jia Lang really doesn't consider himself an outsider.

"By imperial decree, the Ministry of Revenue is to immediately allocate the full amount of salary and send it urgently to Yanmen Pass!"

Emperor Qianyuan gave Xia Shouzhong instructions, his tone tinged with a hint of helplessness, but mostly with satisfaction.

Although Jia Lang's way of asking for money was both funny and infuriating, Emperor Qian Yuan knew in his heart that this precisely showed that Jia Lang was an honest man who did not pocket the money but actually used it for training troops.

This valiant general, whom he had personally promoted, was working so hard on the frontier. For the court and for him, this was a great thing!