Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Can a strategist not ascend the throne? Volume 6: The Two Provinces Stand Firm, the Silk Road Reopens Chapter 176: The Name of the Expedition

The system has been with Qiao Yan for so long that it feels it can tell her personality just by its normal operation. Qiao Yan is not the type to back down.

She claims she doesn’t want to manipulate wild beasts into an army like the southern barbarians or raise messenger pigeons, but just wants to know how to raise cattle, sheep, horses, and even pigs to be plump and strong.

But clearly, she wants it all.

Whether it can be achieved is another matter, but it’s always good to plan for the long term.

At most, she’ll settle for second best when the time comes.

She then asks, “There should be such a system, right? One that trains wild beasts for use in an ordinary ancient environment. If there are no suitable wild beasts, cattle, sheep, and horses should also be able to assist.”

Seeing her expression of longing, the system wonders if it’s being looked down upon by its host.

However, before this thought lasts long, Qiao Yan says, “Different fields have different expertise, each with its own strengths. Don’t overthink it.”

The system asks, [Then why don’t you ask the animal husbandry system? If there’s a farming system, there must be an animal husbandry system, which is more professionally aligned.]

It feels that this might not just be due to Qiao Yan’s “I want it all” mentality.

Qiao Yan shakes her head: “You’re wrong. In the early stages of transactions, the other party proposes the terms. When our advantage isn’t clear, we can only accept their conditions.”

“But think about it, the jade seal transaction with the farming system would be a loss under different conditions or backgrounds. We can’t expect every host to give enough time for a buffer.”

“So from now on, I will only move forward at my own pace and won’t be limited or disrupted by any bargaining chips. I don’t know the situation with the animal husbandry system’s host, but I know one thing: I don’t have anything to offer as a bargaining chip. Do you understand?”

What can she offer to someone focused on breeding?

Bulk feed transactions?

Who knows if the other party needs that.

If it’s another rebel wanting to stockpile grain and raise pigs, also wanting a jade seal as a good omen, she can’t produce a second one.

The system seems to understand but not fully.

It’s not sure if it’s an illusion, but with the acquisition of Liangzhou and Sun Jian’s death, Qiao Yan’s traits as a regional warlord have become increasingly apparent.

When facing Huangfu Song and Liu Yu, she still acts as a loyal minister of the Han Dynasty, mostly restraining her aggressiveness.

But when dealing with subordinates or alone, it’s a different story.

Noticing this difference, it asks, [Wait, then what can you offer the beast-taming system’s host as a bargaining chip?]

Qiao Yan calmly replies, “Professional strategists and generals providing military formation plans for her beast army, how about that?”

[…] The system remains silent for a long time.

It’s hard to evaluate what kind of thought process Qiao Yan has to come up with such an idea.

Given Qiao Yan’s establishment of Leping Academy, it even suspects she might present this as a test question to her subordinates to get more answers.

But if the other party is really someone who has crossed into ancient times and obtained a beast-taming system, capable of commanding mountain beasts, hearing that someone like Guo Jia, Xun You, Cheng Yu, Jia Xu, or even Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao could arrange a more aggressive military formation for her team, selecting the best option, it really…

It’s quite tempting.

This is indeed a bargaining chip that doesn’t interfere with Qiao Yan’s plans.

It’s just that the subordinates being tested on such a question might be stunned for a while.

Overall, it’s… not a big problem.

[I’ll go ask.] The system finally gets its thoughts together and says.

“Don’t look so down, have some confidence in negotiating with people and systems,” Qiao Yan suddenly says as the system prepares to negotiate.

The system grumbles, it’s not its fault for acting this way, it’s all because Qiao Yan always comes up with something new.

But hearing Qiao Yan say, “Think of something happy. If I gather my strategists and ask them, am I the best strategist in the world, how would they answer?”

How would they answer?

Probably just like the lord wanting to initiate a beast army formation plan. Asking such a question without affecting the overall situation is just a bit of mischief.

The system is speechless.

No one would refute that question.

Thinking this way, its mission objective really has hope!

With this thought, the system skillfully contacts the corresponding beast-taming system and reports back to Qiao Yan a few days later.

As it told Qiao Yan, the other party, as a beast-taming system in a low-martial ancient setting, being approached for a transaction is a first.

Upon hearing Qiao Yan’s proposed terms, the other system directly handed the decision to its host.

[She said the transaction can be done, but the beast-taming system grants her high affinity with animals, which is non-tradable. What she can trade is her animal husbandry manual.]

[In exchange, she needs three military formation plans, corresponding to her different development stages.]

The system pauses, hesitating for a long time before saying, [She said, for the first transaction’s plan, regardless of the final optimal solution, also send Zhao Yun’s plan…]

Qiao Yan, drinking tea, chokes.

What? Is she a fan of Zhao Yun?

But the transaction being finalized is good news for her.

Subordinates in Bingzhou and Liangzhou receive a strange question.

To arrange military formations for a team entirely composed of animals.

What kind of question is this?

Although Qiao Yan likes to do strange things, and although different animals can be considered as different military units, even the relatively imaginative Yang Xiu feels he can’t understand what a 1,500-pound pig that can knock down two trees in one go means.

Is this some alternative expression for heavy cavalry or chariots?

But since it’s Qiao Yan’s order and there’s a time limit, they still seriously submit their answers.

Regardless of how the strategists and generals suddenly being tested on animal formation questions feel, Qiao Yan is satisfied with getting what she needs.

She selects the most reliable answers, packages them, and sends them to the other party in exchange for the husbandry manual.

She flips through it and finds many useful references.

For example, in pig farming, since pigs aren’t the mainstream in current animal husbandry, Qiao Yan could only find records in ancient texts, but this manual provides much more detail.

For instance, it mentions selecting piglets with short snouts, soft fur, and less hair.

For the beast-taming system’s host, this allows her to raise larger wild boars for charging, while for Qiao Yan, it might mean setting a new record for raising pigs to a certain weight.

Not just pigs, but cows also need to be fast.

Whether for the other party’s use or Qiao Yan’s need for plowing, the standards are the same.

Unlike pigs, cows need to have eyes close to their horns, large eyes with white veins, long neck bones, and the distance from nose to thigh equal to the distance from shoulder to waist.

Then there’s the diet.

For pigs, besides the usual feed, sesame and salt can be mixed, mashed into a paste, and poured over bran to create a fattening supplement.

Additionally, the manual records many animal diseases.

For cows, even when well-trained, they still face issues like cow plague, bloating, and lice.

After all, it’s not always…





If a well-fed one falls, just replace it with a new one; otherwise, the cost would be too high.

Qiao Yan pondered over the cinnabar, oil, and clear wine for the cattle plague, confirming that these materials could be obtained through normal channels, which eased her mind considerably.

She flipped through the manual further.

As a manual for animal husbandry, it indeed didn’t stop at just the diet and diseases of pigs, cows, and sheep.

It covered everything from wolves and tigers to elephants. However, given the current battles she faced, these were not very practical.

But the section on taming birds had some operational potential.

For example—homing pigeons.

In the Han Dynasty, pigeons were not yet used for messaging. It was only due to an inscription that mentioned an incident during the Chu-Han contention, where Liu Bang hid in a well and pigeons perched above it, preventing pursuers from suspecting his presence. Since then, pigeons were seen as auspicious symbols, often appearing on jade artifacts as symbols.

It wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty that pigeons were used as messengers.

Admittedly, pigeons cannot fly freely between two locations. They are usually kept in one place and taken out when needed for military purposes. Relying on their magnetic memory, they can return to their original location after being released, thus achieving the purpose of conveying military information.

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

While land messengers might be discovered by the enemy, pigeon messaging, not yet a common practice, was a blind spot.

Now, with a guide on feeding and treating common diseases, Qiao Yan had the conditions to develop this method.

From this perspective, the deal was quite a bargain.

She immediately sent a letter to Bingzhou, ordering the fortress in Leping Mountain to start taming homing pigeons using this method.

Earlier, the production of primitive cement was also carried out here.

Theoretically, this was the least likely place for information leakage for Qiao Yan.

The people here were either specially selected from the surrendered Black Mountain Bandits or brought back by Chu Yan during the locust plague in the Central Plains while selling yams.

Even the students at Leping Academy, with the expansion of enrollment, were isolated from the mountain fortress base.

Raising pigeons here was obviously the most suitable.

Then, she extracted sections on cows, sheep, pigs, horses, and even hunting dogs from the manual and handed them over to the two responsible for farming in Wuwei Commandery and Jincheng Commandery.

Zhao Yun and Cheng Yu’s personalities ensured they wouldn’t question Qiao Yan’s orders but would quickly select specialists to implement the task.

Especially Zhao Yun.

His criteria for judging Qiao Yan were based on her actions, not her words.

He went from requesting Qiao Yan’s help in capturing bandits to sincerely following her because Qiao Yan, the Marquis of Leping, truly ensured the people of Leping lived in peace.

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

He then discussed the planned dispersal of the Qiang people in Wuwei Commandery, mixing them with Han settlers.

Qiao Yan pondered and said, “Let’s start the new feeding method with the Han people first. If it works, it will be a crucial topic for communication with the Qiang people, promoting their learning of the Han language.”

In the face of absolute benefits, learning a foreign language is no big deal.

By the time this measure to enhance their strength was implemented from seed selection, it was already November of the second year of Guangxi.

Last month, Qiao Yan had Lu Yuan inform Sun Ce of the imperial decree conferring titles, which had already been completed.

The petition to appoint Sun Ce as General Who Subdues Rebels and Prefect of Kuaiji was naturally sent to Liu Xie in Chang’an, not Liu Bian in Ye City.

But just as Qiao Yan didn’t need Dong Zhuo’s approval to appoint Bi Lan as the Director of Waterways and Yao Chang as Protector of the Qiang, appointing Sun Ce as Prefect of Kuaiji didn’t require it either.

Rather than seeking Liu Xie’s approval, it seemed more like a public announcement leveraging her reputation.

Upon hearing this, Dong Zhuo slammed the table in anger again.

In September, he had been so pleased with Sun Jian’s death that he drank an extra cup.

Sun Jian had killed his brother, his beloved general, and nearly thwarted his retreat from Luoyang, making him almost as threatening as Qiao Yan and Huangfu Song.

Now, with Qiao Yan firmly in control of Liangzhou and Bingzhou, Dong Zhuo couldn’t cause her much trouble, only defend against her attacks, leaving him restless even in Chang’an.

Fortunately, the successful plot in Jingzhou and Sun Jian’s death had removed a major threat.

Moreover, as Jia Xu suggested, having Zhang Ji return to Guanzhong after this cooperation wasn’t a loss but an opportunity.

This move would convince Liu Biao of Jingzhou that they were reliable allies.

Thus, if Dong Zhuo wanted to move from Chang’an to Jingzhou, Liu Biao might not be on guard.

Unfortunately, the news that arrived in Chang’an at the end of October ruined Dong Zhuo’s good mood.

“We can’t let her continue like this,” Dong Zhuo realized the severity and paced the hall.

Positions like Director of Waterways and Protector of the Qiang could be seen as internal appointments in Liangzhou, not critical roles.

Qiao Yan arranging them this way was one thing.

But if even General Who Subdues Rebels and Prefect of Kuaiji could be petitioned this way, how was she different from another emperor?

In her public announcement, she claimed that the Son of Heaven she revered had fallen into the hands of rebels, deaf and blind, and would surely agree with her petition if he could speak.

It sounded reasonable…

Not!

To Dong Zhuo, today it was Prefect of Kuaiji, tomorrow it might be Governor of Yang Province.

Even knowing Qiao Yan was too smart to overuse her reputation, Dong Zhuo couldn’t help but wonder why he was holding onto this Son of Heaven.

It seemed to only benefit his opponent.

He suddenly stopped pacing and approached Jia Xu.

“Sir, that scoundrel Qiao Yan now holds military power, watches closely, and uses my support of the Son of Heaven as an excuse to petition for official positions. What should I do?”

Before Jia Xu could speak, Dong Zhuo gritted his teeth and said, “She says I act without justification, that I’m a traitor… Then if I were justified, would that work?”

If declaring himself Chancellor Regent wasn’t enough to be “legitimate” and he was still labeled a rebel by Qiao Yan—

He would make himself even more legitimate.

In the Han Dynasty, only regents from the empress’s family were considered legitimate, so Dong Zhuo had previously tried to link himself to the Dong family that raised Liu Xie.

But essentially, the Dong family wasn’t Liu Xie’s maternal family, and his Dong wasn’t the same as theirs.

Then… then he had to change tactics.

“Sir, the Emperor is now twelve, and according to the Han Dynasty’s custom of early marriages, he can marry. My granddaughter, Lady Weiyang, is also thirteen, a perfect match, isn’t she?”

Lady Weiyang, Dong Bai, was Dong Zhuo’s granddaughter, already titled when Dong Zhuo controlled Luoyang. She was supposed to be brought to Luoyang but met Dong Zhuo in Chang’an after his westward flight.

Dong Zhuo’s approach had a standard reference: Huo Guang.

Being a regent as the emperor’s in-law was indeed legitimate.

It sounded somewhat clever.

But Dong Zhuo then added, “Since good things come in pairs, why don’t you also marry my widowed daughter? Then you’d be the Emperor’s relative, and I’d like to see how Qiao Yan can call us traitors holding the court!”

He grew more pleased with the idea and asked, “Sir, what do you think?”

Jia Xu, suddenly proposed as a son-in-law: “…”

He began to consider the possibility of quitting and running away.