Chapter 67 – The Ten Villages

In the late spring of the 10th year of the Qingli reign, Fan Xian came for the first time to the Ten Villages, a secluded mountain village he called Fish Intestine. The village looked remote and peaceful, deep in the mountains, but the lights in the dark night were so dazzling that they overshadowed the stars in the sky, which was heartwarming.

Ten villages must be more than ten families, from the road to the big mountain pass road, those in the field beside the spring side of the farmers will be far more than ten families. Those farmers weren’t really farmers either, but rather patrollers used to block the Great Mountain from inside and outside and keep the secrets of the mountain.

Fan Xian was able to cross these lines of defense and easily enter the ten villages because these lines of defense, these extraordinarily detailed security arrangements, were all made by him. The defense arrangements that gathered the wisdom of countless officials’ drawings from the second and sixth divisions of the Procuratorate were indeed very impressive. Of course, when Fan Xian was making the plans, the officials of the Supervisory Academy all only knew some fragments of them, without even realizing that these drawings had become a reality in the northeastern part of the continent, on the outskirts of a small mountain village.

Walking up the path between the mountains, just after traveling past a pond, he watched those densely packed, staggered buildings, revealing their true colors under the starlight.

Fan Xian’s heart was slightly moved, and as he stood here, he secretly sighed with emotion, thinking that even if there were people from the outside who occasionally stumbled into this place, and only looked at the buildings outside, I was afraid that they would only think that it was a huge manor built in the mountains by some very rich family.

As soon as he stopped walking, his figure was revealed under the starlight, and then a dozen or so crossbows and arrows poked out of the darkness, aimed at him.

Fan Xian lowered his head, hiding his features in the darkness, and lifted the hood on his back over his head before taking out a small token at his waist and flashing it at those murderous crossbow arrows.

A longtime laborer came out of the darkness, cautiously approached Fan Xian, and took the small token and looked at it carefully for a long time before waving his hand, making those crossbows and arrows in the darkness behind him disappear.

The eldest laborer led the way, leading Fan Xian around the green stone road between the manor houses to a remote place. After confirming that there were no other people watching around him, he dropped to both knees and knelt down, saying excitedly, “Greetings, Lord Tiji.”

Fan Xian smiled as he looked at him, this one of the first members of Qinian’s group, and a good hand that Wang Qinian had helped himself to take in back then, had not been seen for more than two years. This secret agent obviously did not expect Lord Fan Jr. to suddenly appear in the Ten Villages, and was overwhelmed with excitement.

“It’s been hard on you these past few years.” Fan Xian looked at the longtime laborer and said, “Keep the news of my arrival to yourself for now. Take me to see a few of the old shopkeepers first.”

“Yes.” The foreman lowered his body and bowed respectfully, then suddenly spoke up, “The Boss Man also came two days ago.”

Fan Xian was startled and asked, “When was that?”

“Eight days ago.”

“Quickly take me to him.”

Two shadowy figures traversed the complex of the Ten Family Village in the company of starlight. Fan Xian couldn’t help but use his afterglow to survey these buildings, which were of a different height from ordinary homes, looking at the specially designed doors and windows as well as the ventilation equipment, and secretly thinking to himself that he didn’t know if the inside was empty or already covered with objects.

Although everything in this village was built bit by bit with the silver he provided, but after all, the stakes were high, so Fan Xian had cut himself off from everything here in the past two years. Including his most loyal subordinates in Jiangnan, none of them knew that he had actually hidden such a village in a corner of the continent.

This was also the first time Fan Xian had come here in person, so he couldn’t help but be a little curious while being moved with emotion. I don’t know those people, those silver, those drawings together, after more than two years of time, what exactly will this village become.

The two of them traveled to a certain small courtyard in the depths of the village. The room was still dimly lit, reflecting Fan Xian’s very long and thin shadow, which hit the stone steps. Fan Xian whispered a few words to the secret agent of the Qi Nian team, who smiled and retreated, not arranging for anyone to come here to watch over the area. If someone was really able to penetrate the Ten Villages and threaten young Lord Fan, then it would be redundant to send anyone else.

Fan Xian straightened his clothes outside the room, walked in, and kneeled down on both knees to the middle-aged man with a neutral and serious face at the back of the book case, performed a big salute, and said in a sincere voice, “My child has met my father.”

Fan Jian, the retired Minister of Revenue, instead of mourning his old mother in Tanyu City and traveling the sea with Liu, appeared in this small mountain village in the combination of Dongyi City and Northern Qi. This was truly an unexpected image.

Fan Shangshu looked at his son in front of him, the surprise in his heart swept over and immediately became complicated, and with a gentle smile, he helped him up. Father and son hadn’t seen each other for more than two years, and would have deserved this kneeling gift from Fan Xian, except that the former Shangshu knew in his heart that his own son, was not a character who liked kneeling, and from this kneeling, he also sensed something about it.

Just Fan Jian did not open his mouth to ask, Fan Xian also did not say since his sister’s mouth, as well as the story of that year, he has guessed that the Fan House for their own survival, had paid what a painful price.

“Father, why have you personally come?” Fan Xian helped his father to sit down on the chair, and looking at those vaguely gray hairs on his father’s head, he couldn’t help but sigh in his heart. Counting the years, his father should also be retired in his hometown, but it was only because of his own affairs that he was still tired of the old man in the past two years, especially since his father had personally come to the ten villages, causing him to feel a hint of surprise.

Fan Jian smiled faintly and said, “Although my father is in Tanyu State, he can also remotely control the construction of this place, but over the past three years the days and months have accumulated, water dripping down the stone, the preparations for the Ten Family Village have already been done pretty much, and if you really have the boldness to rebuild an inner treasury here, I will not come to personally sit in on it, it is not assured by any means.”

A second inner vault? It turned out that this remote Ten Clan Village was carrying such great ambitions for Fan Xian!

From the time of the rebellion in Kyoto, Fan Xian had secretly rescued several of Qing Yu Tang’s old bosses out of Kyoto, plus he had presided over the inner treasury for a very long time, and as early as a few years ago, he had transcribed the inner treasury technology zong zong in the northern part of the Fujian province, plus the financial power he had nowadays, as well as the innate things in his soul that he had traveled through, so if the heavens were really willing to give him ten years of time, maybe he could really make this remote small mountain village, turn it into the The second Inner Treasury.

What is the inner treasury? It is the foundation that has supported Qing’s military strength for thirty years, and it is the endless source that the Emperor of Qing uses to replenish the treasury and people’s livelihoods. It is not an exaggeration to say that the inner treasury is one of the two major sources of Qing’s strength, and the other is naturally His Majesty, the Emperor, himself.

But Fan Xian actually wanted to rebuild an inner treasury outside of Qing!

Without a doubt, this was the most significant decision Fan Xian had ever made in his life. If this decision really turned out to be true many years from now, the entire world would change because of it, and Qing would no longer have the natural ability to be proud of the world.

What exactly was Fan Xian trying to do?

Nowadays, the world’s situation is very complicated, and this matter is the most important thing to shake the foundation of Qing, so in these two years, Fan Jian and Fan Xian’s father and son have been doing it extremely secretly, and the progress has been extremely slow, only asking not to attract the attention of the world, and not asking for the speed.

If in the future, outside the border of Qing, really appeared the second internal warehouse, do not want to know, this will give Qing’s national strength to bring what kind of strong blow and damage. Therefore, Fan Xian hid this matter from everyone in the world and only dared to cautiously consult with his father in secret.

“You’ve been away from Tanyu for a long time, and I’m only afraid that it will lead to arguments.” Fan Xian did not rush to discuss the second inner treasury with his father, but said with slight apprehension.

Although Fan Jian had returned to his old age, judging from His Majesty’s tactics of killing with a sword and slaughtering more than a hundred tiger guards, His Majesty did not have much trust in this close companion whom he had grown up with since childhood, and it was thought that within the city of Tanyuzhou there must have been a number of eyes and ears stationed by the palace, and if Fan Jian had not been resigned to his old age in Tanyuzhou, word of his departure from Tanyuzhou should have immediately traveled back to Kyoto.

“Your Inspectorate combed through Tanyuzhou, and my father’s men combed through it again.” Fan Jian looked at his son and smiled gently, “His Majesty does indeed seem invincible, but he is not a god after all, and his energy is limited, it is impossible for him to grasp all the nuances of the changes under the heavens, especially since you are secretly hiding it from him again. As for me leaving Tanyuu, I was supposed to wander to Dongyi City.”

The former Minister’s smile looked somewhat amused, “Before my father joined the Ministry of Households, he was originally a famous wanderer in Kyoto, and now that he has returned to his home town, it is only natural for him to go to these prosperous places in Dongyi City to paint beauties. His Majesty can’t be furious just because of that.”

“It’s still not right.”

“I’m just coming over occasionally to take a look and keep an eye on the progress.”

Fan Xian looked at his father, and while he was worried, he felt more than a little apologetic. He had been unwilling for his father, as well as Chen Pingping, to get involved in this incomparably perilous matter, only that he had no clue at all about the Ten Clan Village in the beginning. From a void, how could one rebuild an inner library? He is not the mother of leaf light eyebrow, although the hand has a ready-made, once experienced the construction of the Minbei inner library of the Ye family of the old shopkeeper, the hand also has a large number of inner library of all kinds of processes ZongLu, and even for the whole of the Minbei inner library of the setup of the three square is also extremely clear, but to build a new inner library, he still felt confused and flinch.

And Fan Shangshu in the night before leaving Kyoto, and he talked to the whole night, lifted a lot of his doubts.

When Fan Shangshu realized that his son, taking advantage of the fact that the Princess had risen up in rebellion, was preparing to save the old bosses of Qingyu Hall in Kyoto, he knew that Fan Xian’s heart was thinking about something, so he said openly and honestly to his son:

“Building another inner treasury is more difficult than you can imagine. It would have been a great evil that would have shaken the state of Qing and changed the entire world’s momentum.” That night Fan Shangshu said to him in a serious tone, “My father is originally from the Kingdom of Qing, so of course I don’t want you to do this. But if you can convince me, you can leave the beginning to me.”

Fan Xian at that time was not thinking of making a complete break with His Majesty, the Emperor of Qing, nor was he thinking of becoming a sinner of Qing and plunging Qing, in which he had been born and raised, into potentially great danger, yet he still subconsciously began to dig into the roots of Qing.

He convinced Fan Jian with only two words.

“This isn’t an inner vault, this is something that mother left behind for this world. If mother were still alive, she would definitely not want, His Majesty the Emperor to use her legacy to fulfill his personal ambitions.”

“But your mother also wanted the world to be unified.”

“I don’t understand those very subtle things, but I understand women.” That silent night, Fan Xian said very seriously to his father-sama, “I only know that my mother, if she were alive, would not want the wealth she left behind to be forever in the hands of the man who murdered her.”

Fan Shangshu was silent for a long time that night, then nodded.

That nod was the passage of more than two years, and this father and son, who had the most silver money ever passed through their hands on the continent, began to secretly do this thing that was destined to shock the world. Perhaps this thing that the two of them were doing was too unbelievable in and of itself, so there was no force that had detected a hint of it.

Of course, this was also because of the consequences of Fan Xian’s extreme caution. For more than two years, apart from the secret flow of silver money, he had not utilized any of the power at hand to help the growth of the Ten Family Village. This small village was like a child that had been herded, slowly growing up amongst the green grass of the mountains. As for whether he would continue to herd sheep or be herded when he grew up, that was ultimately something that would happen many years later.

Fan Jian did not ask him what Fan Xian would do with the ten villages if, many years later, two inner treasuries really did appear in this world. Nor did Fan Xian ask his father why, as a subject of the Kingdom of Qing, he would make such a choice simply because of the grudge between his mother and that emperor’s old man.

The old treasurer of Qing Yu Tang, who had fled from Kyoto, came to the Ten Villages; the secrets of craftsmanship that Fan Xian had stolen from the inner treasury came to the Ten Villages; those strengths in the hands of Fan Shangshu that were the most secretive came to the Ten Villages; and the silver and money that Fan Xian had scavenged from everywhere under the heavens came to the Ten Villages, to the deep depressions of this great mountain.

Secrets, money, and force fermented in this obscure little place. After fermenting for two years, even if Fan’s father and son had done it more carefully, the Ten Family Village was ready for expansion, ready for the construction of a whole lot of infrastructure, ready to become the second inner treasury.

That was why Fan Shangshu had asked the black-robed swordsman to bring word to Fan Xian that a large sum of silver was needed.

This point in time was actually too far in advance of what Fan Xian had first anticipated. This was because from the beginning of setting the policy, he had never thought that he could compare himself to his mother, Ye Qingmei – Ye Qingmei hadn’t taken many years to build the inner treasury, and that was because the entire Qing royal family was supporting her, Uncle Wuzhu was there to protect her, and her abilities had originally exceeded Fan Xian’s by far too much.

Fan Shangshu clearly saw Fan Xian’s doubts and said with a gentle smile, “Those old men from Qing Yu Tang were all old men who were involved in the construction of the inner vault back then, and this second time around, the work is always going to be a bit smoother.”

Fan Xian smiled and shook his head, responding, “But it’s still faster than imagined.”

“Back when the inner library was being repaired ……,” Fan Shangshu seemed to think of those feverish scenes in the wild lands of northern Fujian many years ago, and smiled, “Your mother was actually resistant to being annoyed, and was unwilling to deal with these fine matters, and Old Five is even someone who won’t open his mouth once a year, so these fine and mundane matters, are all done by me.”

It turned out that he was the superintendent laborer who built the inner treasury back then, so it was no wonder that the ten villages had developed so rapidly. Fan Xian looked at his father and couldn’t help but feel a surge of admiration in his heart, secretly thinking that there was indeed a reason why His Majesty the Emperor was so scornful of his father that he would not hesitate to lose more than a hundred tiger guards to scrape clean his father’s strength in the capital.

“And the location of the Ten Family Village is good. You haven’t been here before, so there’s no chance to tell you about it.” Fan Shangshu still smiled, but the red threads in his eyes showed exhaustion, after all, he was also old, whether in Tanyu, or here, this former Minister of Household, single-handedly in charge of such an important matter, his mind and spirit were consumed to the extreme.

Fan Jian spread out a large map on the table, spreading it flat. Fan Xian came over and, through the dim light, gazed at the marked symbols on the map. Because of the markings, he easily found the tiny Ten Family Village in the central-eastern part of the continental map.

His eyes gradually brightened up, the geographical location of the Ten Family Village was indeed as his father had said, very marvelous, if in the future he was really able to open up the south-eastern road, straight to the shores of the Eastern Sea, touching the Eastern Barbarians’ City was very simple, but if this side of the Ten Family Village stayed quiet, the people on the outside would have no idea of what was happening on the inside.

“If you’re going to do it right away, there’s bound to be a large amount of supplies coming in, and it can no longer be moved by ants like it was in the previous two years, and it will definitely attract a lot of attention, so you’ll have to think again about whether or not you’re going to move or not even if your silver arrives on your account.” Fan Jian could see the hidden excitement in Fan Xian’s heart and reminded with a smile.

Fan Xian’s smile immediately became bitter, if he really wanted to turn the ten villages into Minbei’s inner treasury, recruiting laborers was one thing, a large amount of supplies coming in was another, and the simple blast furnace and those fine steel setups were even more impossible to hide from the eyes of fools, and I’m afraid that everyone would have guessed what was being done here.

And in terms of the significance of the inner treasury to Qing, as long as the court discovers the slightest movement, His Majesty the Emperor will not hesitate to send troops to the north to attack, at all costs, forcefully attacking Dongyi City and destroying the prototype of the new inner treasury in the ten villages.

“Of course, even if His Majesty sends troops to attack, the Ten Family Village’s peculiar location, which makes it easy to ask for help, is not such a good attack.” Fan Jian’s thinking appearance at this time, not like a minister of the Qing Kingdom, more like a traitor, he said indifferently, “The Ten Family Village, was originally the Ye Family Village, your mother’s subordinates back then, a large portion of them came from this village, in order to keep this place a secret, so the Ye Family Village went to the word “Mouth”, before it became the present-day Ten Family Village.”

“And this village was originally the first location your mother chose when she built the inner vault back then.”

“It’s only because of some other reasons that she re-located the Inner Vault to northern Fujian, which is extremely close to Quanzhou, within the country of Qing.”

“The reason we re-selected the Ten Villages is that we believe in your mother’s vision.” Fan Jian calmly looked at Fan Xian and said, “This location, back then, apart from your mother and Lao Wu, I was the only one who knew that it was easy to defend and difficult to attack is one thing, the key is that this is a place where none of the three forces in the world can fully commit themselves.”

Fan Xian was silent for a long time before saying, “I’d rather be cautious and slow with small intentions, but I can’t let His Majesty notice any traces.”

“Your mother is already gone, and with just the two of us, father and son, even though we have so many innate advantages in our hands, to build an inner vault in the Ten Villages out of thin air is something that is impossible to do without the work of several years and the strength of a nation.” Fan Jian closed his eyes slightly and said, “You started to move the inner treasury out of Qing Kingdom, originally you just wanted to threaten His Majesty under this guise, and it was necessary to be cautious in the beginning.”

Having his father’s mind pierced by an easy sentence, Fan Xian did not look the slightest bit surprised, saying softly, “Even if it’s a front, it still needs to be made real, and who knows what will happen many years from now? His Majesty isn’t a god after all, and there will be a day when he dies.”

“That’s why the moment you promised to allocate a large amount of silver money into the Ten Family Village, I began to suspect.” Fan Jian opened his eyes and sighed heavily, “Do you think that His Majesty will really take action against Chen Pingping?”

Fan Xian said after a moment of silence, “I don’t know.”

Fan Jian’s gaze forced a cold glare at him, “What if His Majesty really moves?”

Fan Xian was silent, not answering the question, only thinking of the ten villages where his cloth shoes had stepped.

This village was still quiet now, but in the future it would surely be incomparably glorious, no matter how things developed within the Qing court, no matter if there would be a great war between the world, but Fan Xian always held an attitude in his heart.

The inner treasury was not an inner treasury, it had come a long way from a certain world, and should benefit the people of the current world, and could not be the logistical department for someone’s thousands of troops and horses.

I’m sure Ye Qingmei thought the same way.

Someone had killed himself, and his own things had to help him to fight the world, Ye Qingmei’s heart would surely ache if she knew this.

Fan Xian pities his mother, who he has never met, and the more he pities her, the more he doesn’t want to make her heart ache.

If it didn’t work out, it was fine to destroy it.