Chapter 176

“So going forward, I’ll move at my own pace, never letting any trade chips limit me or disrupt my rhythm. I don’t know the situation of the livestock system’s host, but I know I don’t have any assets to offer as trade chips. Do you get what I mean?”

What could she offer someone focused on breeding?

A bulk feed deal?

Who knows if the other party needed that.

What if it just so happened the other was a rebel wanting to hoard grains and raise pigs, and thought the imperial seal would bring good fortune? She wouldn’t have a second one to conjure up.

The system seemed to comprehend.

It might be its delusion, but with the acquisition of Liangzhou and Sun Jian’s death, Qiao Yan’s qualities as a local lord were becoming increasingly apparent.

When facing Huangfu Song and Liu Yu, she maintained her respect as a loyal minister of the Han, often holding back her aggressiveness.

But when facing her subordinates or when alone, it was a different story.

It observed the distinction while asking, “Wait, what trade chips can you offer to the beast taming system’s host?”

Qiao Yan replied calmly, “Professional strategists and generals can provide military formations for her beast army; what do you think?”

[……] The system fell silent for a while.

It found it hard to evaluate what sort of logic led Qiao Yan to propose such an idea.

Given her approach to founding Leping Academy, it even suspected she would throw out questions to her subordinates in the form of assignments to glean more answers.

But then again, if the opposite side was indeed someone from another timeline who obtained a beast-taming system, able to command woodland animals as subordinates, suddenly hearing that strategists like Guo Jia, Xun You, Cheng Yu, Jia Xu, and even Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao could arrange a more offensive formation for her… that might just…

Be quite appealing.

This really was a trade chip that wouldn’t interfere with Qiao Yan’s plans.

It’s just that the subordinates being assessed on such issues might be left dumbfounded for a while.

Overall, it really didn’t seem… like a big deal.

[I’ll go ask.] The system struggled to recover its thoughts before finally responding.

“Don’t look so gloomy; muster some confidence for the trade talks.” Just as the system was about to head off to negotiate, it heard Qiao Yan pipe up again.

The system grumbled inwardly, but it couldn’t entirely blame its own mood; it was all because Qiao Yan constantly pulled out new tricks.

But then it listened to Qiao Yan say, “Think of something happy; what do you think my strategists would say if I gathered them together and asked if I was the number one strategist in the world?”

How would they respond?

It was probably like asking the lord to initiate a plan for a beast army in light of the big picture—at best, a little mischievous curiosity.

The system was left speechless.

There shouldn’t be anyone to contradict that.

Thinking thus, it actually felt there was hope for its mission!

With that thought, the system skillfully approached the corresponding beast-taming system and reported back to Qiao Yan a few days later.

According to what it had discussed with Qiao Yan, the opposite party, who was a beast-taming system existing within a low-tech ancient background, was being approached for trade for the first time.

Upon hearing the trade conditions proposed by Qiao Yan, the other side’s system directly handed the decision-making power over to its host.

[She said the trade is feasible, but the beast-taming system grants her a high affinity with animals, which is non-negotiable. What she can trade is just her animal husbandry manual.]

[As for exchange conditions, she needs three military formations, each corresponding to different stages of her development.]

The system paused, hesitated for a long time before saying, “She said, regardless of the final optimal solution, to pass Zhao Yun’s plan along with the first trade…”

Qiao Yan, while sipping tea, nearly choked.

What’s this? A fan of Zhao Yun?

But achieving the trade turning out in her favor was still good news for her.

Subordinates in Bingzhou and Liangzhou faced an odd question.

Come up with a military formation for a team made entirely of animals.

What kind of question was that?

Even though Qiao Yan liked to engage in strange tactics, and it was conceivable to treat different animals as distinct troop types, even someone with a relatively rich imagination like Yang Xiu found it hard to grasp what it meant for a pig weighing fifteen hundred jin to be able to crash through two trees in one go.

Was this an alternative descriptor for heavy-armored cavalry or a war chariot?

But since it was Qiao Yan’s order and there was a deadline to submit answers, they still diligently turned in their responses.

Regardless of the feelings of the strategists and generals suddenly facing an animal formation question from Qiao Yan, she was quite satisfied with receiving what she needed.

She sifted through the responses and packaged up the most reliable ones to send back in exchange for that husbandry manual.

Upon flipping through it roughly, she found plenty of references to consider.

Taking pig farming as an example, since pigs weren’t the mainstream livestock today, Qiao Yan could only find a mention about making pigs fat in the general knowledge, but this book had much more detailed information.

For example, it mentioned starting with short-snouted, soft-haired piglets.

For the beast-taming system’s host, this could allow her to organize larger wild boar charges, and for Qiao Yan, it might just give her a chance to set a new record in pig weight gain.

Not just pigs; for cattle, the faster, the better.

No matter the purpose on the other side or for Qiao Yan needing cattle for plowing, the principle remains the same.

Unlike with pigs, cattle needed to be chosen based on proximity between the eyes and horns, big eyes with white veins, long neck bones, and the length from the nose to thigh equaling the length from shoulder to waist.

Then comes the diet.

For pigs, aside from the previous feed, mixing sesame and salt can create a fatty paste sprinkled with bran to add meals for fattening.

In addition, the husbandry manual recorded quite a few animal diseases.

As for cattle, even when tamed to be quite obedient, they still had to contend with problems like cattle plague, bloating, and lice.

After all, one could never expect to be entirely free of issues.

“`

“If a well-fed cow drops dead, just swap it out for a new one; otherwise, the costs are way too high.”

Qiao Yan pondered over the materials for treating cattle plague—cinnabar, grease, and clear liquor—confirming that she could obtain them through normal channels, which made her feel a bit more at ease.

She flipped through the pages again.

The care manual for animal husbandry certainly covered more than just the diets and ailments of pigs, cows, and sheep.

It even had sections on wolves, tigers, leopards, and even elephants! But in light of her current war situation, most of it was not terribly actionable.

However, the section on training birds did offer some practical options.

For example—carrier pigeons.

Back in the Han Dynasty, pigeons weren’t even tools for delivering messages! They became renowned simply because a tablet mentioned how during the Chu-Han contention, Xiang Yu chased Liu Bang, and Liu Bang hid in a well. The pigeons perching above prevented the pursuers from suspecting he was inside, and since then, pigeons were seen as symbols of good fortune, mostly found on jade objects, serving a symbolic purpose.

It wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty that pigeons were actually used as messenger birds.

Admittedly, pigeons don’t just fly freely between two locations; they’re usually raised in one place and brought out only when needed. Thanks to their magnetic memory, they can return home after being released, thus serving the purpose of conveying military messages.

But a one-way message doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Land messengers might get caught by enemy troops, and before carrier pigeons became common, this was a visual blind spot!

Now with a manual guiding them on feeding and treating common ailments, Qiao Yan had the means to develop this further.

From this perspective, the deal was too good to pass up.

She promptly sent a letter to Bingzhou, instructing the fortress in Leping Mountain to start training carrier pigeons based on these methods.

Earlier, the local cement production was also done here.

Theoretically, this was the last place Qiao Yan could expect news to leak out.

The people here were either carefully selected from the Black Mountain Bandits who had submitted or were those who were brought back during the locust plague while Chu Yan was out selling yams.

Even the students at Leping Academy had become distanced from the fortress base in the mountains as the recruitment area expanded.

Clearly, keeping pigeons here was the best option.

After that, she extracted sections from the manuals regarding the care of cows, sheep, pigs, horses, and even hunting dogs to hand over to the two in charge of farming in Wuwei Commandery and Jincheng Commandery.

Given Zhao Yun and Cheng Yu’s personalities, they would surely not question Qiao Yan’s authority when they received her orders; they would quickly select people to implement the tasks.

Especially Zhao Yun.

His criteria for evaluating Qiao Yan was based on what she did, not what she said.

From requesting help to deal with thieves to eventually wholeheartedly following her, it was because Qiao Yan, the Marquis of Leping, truly managed to bring stability to the people of Leping.

Seeing her now extend this stability from Bingzhou to Liangzhou, Zhao Yun had even less reason to question her decisions.

He simply remarked on the situation in Wuwei Commandery where the Luoshui Qiang people had been mixed with Han settlers as planned.

Qiao Yan contemplated for a moment and replied, “For this new feeding strategy, let’s start with the Han settlers. If it works, it could serve as a crucial point for communication with the Qiang people and promote their learning of the Han dialect.”

In the face of clear benefits, what’s a little language learning?

This measure to enhance their strength had already started in November of the second year of Guangxi.

Last month, Qiao Yan had requested Lu Yuan to inform Sun Ce about the sealing of titles, which had been completed.

The request to seal Sun Ce as the General of Pacification and the Prefect of Kuaiji was naturally directed at Liu Xie in Chang’an, not Liu Bian in Ye City.

But just like Qiao Yan did not require Dong Zhuo’s approval for appointing Bi Lan as the Water Messenger or Yao Chang as the Qiang Guard, she didn’t need his permission for the appointment of Sun Ce as the Prefect of Kuaiji either.

It seemed more like a public announcement to utilize her own reputation to spread the word far and wide.

This announcement made Dong Zhuo slam his desk in frustration again.

In September, thanks to Sun Jian’s death, he had celebrated by drinking a couple more cups.

Sun Jian had killed his brother and his favorite general, and had almost managed to reach Luoyang perfectly timed to prevent his own escape. So his impression of that guy was second only to Qiao Yan and Huangfu Song.

Now that Qiao Yan had secured dominance in Liangzhou and Bingzhou, he could hardly create any trouble for her; for now, he simply had to guard against her attacks, leaving him unable to focus on anything else despite being in Chang’an.

At least with his schemes in Jingzhou implemented and Sun Jian dead, Dong Zhuo managed to eliminate a noxious threat.

Additionally, according to Jia Xu, sending Zhang Ji back to Guanzhong right after this collaboration wasn’t a loss for them but rather an opportunity.

With a single encounter, Liu Biao of Jingzhou would be convinced they were indeed viable allies.

So if Dong Zhuo still planned to seize Jingzhou from Chang’an, he could potentially do so without drawing suspicion from Liu Biao.

Unfortunately, the news arriving in Chang’an by the end of October wiped the smile off Dong Zhuo’s face.

“We can’t let her keep going like this.” Dong Zhuo realized the severity of the situation and began pacing back and forth in the hall.

Positions like Water Messenger and Qiang Guard could still be seen as internal appointments of Liangzhou, not critical posts.

It would be one thing if Qiao Yan appointed those roles like that.

But if she could announce titles like General of Pacification and Prefect of Kuaiji in such a manner, how was she any different from another emperor?

In her public documents, she stated that the Son of Heaven she revered had unfortunately fallen into the hands of rebels, closing his eyes and ears; if he could have his say, he would surely agree with her requests.

It sounds reasonable…

Not really!

For Dong Zhuo, appointing someone as the Prefect of Kuaiji today could very well get them appointed as Governor of Yang Province tomorrow.

Even though he knew rationally that Qiao Yan was shockingly intelligent and wouldn’t make such a move that would burn through her reputation, Dong Zhuo couldn’t help but question why he felt the need to hold onto this Son of Heaven!

It felt like he was just strengthening his opponents.

He abruptly came to a stop and walked over to Jia Xu.

“Sir, that rascal Qiao Yan holds military power now and is glaring at me, using the excuse of being the regent for the Son of Heaven to act out her appointments. What do you suggest I do?”

Before Jia Xu could respond, Dong Zhuo gritted his teeth in outrage, “She says I’m acting without justification, that the Han rebels are in power… If I become justified, would that work?”

Even if he claimed the title of Prime Minister and took charge, it still wouldn’t qualify as “legitimate” in the eyes of Qiao Yan—he’d just be labeled a rogue.

So he decided he might as well go all in.

“You see, His Majesty is now twelve years old, and according to the Han custom of marrying young, he’s already fit to wed. My daughter Dong Bai is thirteen, so aren’t they a perfect match?”

Dong Bai was Dong Zhuo’s granddaughter and was supposed to be brought to Luoyang for his political schemes, but due to Dong Zhuo’s sudden retreat westward, she had ended up in Chang’an with him.

Dong Zhuo’s plan had a template, namely Huo Guang.

An emperor’s consort, being a family member with a high position, is undeniably justified.

This sounded somewhat clever.

But then Dong Zhuo turned his direction and said, “As the saying goes, good fortune comes in pairs. Why not let my daughter, who lost her husband, marry you too? Then you’ll also be considered a relative of the little emperor. Let’s see how Qiao Yan will say we’re usurpers of power!”

The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed, and even his tone grew more triumphant as he asked, “What do you think, sir?”

Jia Xu, who had suddenly been made a prospective son-in-law by Dong Zhuo: “…”

He suddenly considered the possibility of running away from this whole mess.