Chapter 158: The Last Value
Chapter 158
When Jiang Yuqing arrived at the prison, torches had already been lit here.
A pitch black from head to toe Wo Country samurai, half bald with a shiny head, was trampled on the ground and could not move at all.
Jiang Yuqing was relieved immediately. The so-called Wo Country ninjas were nothing more!
In front of Da Xia’s top masters, they were simply vulnerable.
In terms of martial arts, our Da Xia was the ancestor of their Wo people!
The hero waved his hand, and immediately two people came up, dragged the ninja whose martial arts had been abolished, whose tendons and veins had been cut off, and whose tongue had been chopped off, into another prison.
External grasshoppers who dared to hop around in the site of Da Xia and dared to reach out were directly chopped off.
Seeing that he had no business here, Jiang Yuqing patted his hands happily and flew back home to sleep.
Since the person sent out had not returned overnight, Bampen Qiuxin knew that he had failed. He was both afraid and hateful, yet helpless.
He immediately submitted a letter requesting an audience with His Majesty the Emperor Xia Jing. Emperor Xia Jing didn’t even glance at him and directly ordered people to throw the disabled ninja into the State Guesthouse.
Since he didn’t appreciate kindness, then don’t keep face anymore. When asking a favor, one should act like they are asking a favor. Daring to play tricks, he indulged in his bad habit!
This trick of killing chickens to warn monkeys directly scared the Bampen brothers.
He would never have imagined that the Da Xia Emperor would be so tough that he didn’t leave them any face at all.
Not only that, Da Xia no longer provided food and drinks. Want to eat and drink? Fine, pay for it yourself. Accommodation fees should also be paid by yourself.
What kind of place was the State Guesthouse? It’s the best place to receive foreign guests in Da Xia. All facilities were top-notch, and there were also many guards from the Imperial Guards who took turns guarding twelve hours a day.
Under these conditions, it had to charge at least a thousand taels of silver per day, and, as announced by Jiang Wenyuan, the charges started from the day they checked in!
For Da Xia’s operations this time, the Wo Country people dared to get angry but did not dare to speak. Who made them wrong first? They had no choice but to submit another letter to Emperor Xia Jing to request an audience.
Emperor Xia Jing intended to hang them up for a while, so when he saw the memorial submitted by the Wo Country envoy, he picked it up and stuffed it under the table.
The table gets uneven after long-term use, and the memorial fits perfectly as a pad!
After this happened, in order to prevent Wo Country from making any tricks again.
Emperor Jingxia directly sent people to interrogate Bampen Turtle Saburo.
However, this guy was also a sly old fox. He roughly knew that he was still useful to Da Xia, so he was fearless and refused to say a word.
After two days of grinding, everyone was a little impatient. In order to avoid dreaming too much at night, Emperor Jingxia had no choice but to come to Jiang Yuqing and ask if she had any good ideas.
Jiang Yuqing took out a magic talisman and boldly blamed Huayang Zi for it.
"I have a magic talisman here obtained from Taoist Huayang Zi.
I heard that if you paste it on someone, no matter what secrets you want to know about him, he will involuntarily tell them out. Why don't we try it!"
When the emperor heard this, he was overjoyed. Something from Huayang Zi must be a good thing. So he asked people to bring Bampen Turtle Saburo out of the dungeon for him to interrogate personally.
When Bampen Turtle Saburo, who was carried out on a stretcher by six soldiers, appeared, even Emperor Jingxia, who was used to seeing major events, couldn’t help but suck in a breath: “Is this a demonized wild boar? So fat!”
Jiang Yuqing touched her head, rather embarrassed, "When he was captured, he didn't look like this.
Afraid that General Shi would accidentally kill Turtle Saburo, I lied to him that Turtle Saburo could be exchanged with Wo Country for treasure ships, one jin of meat for one ship.
I didn't expect that General Shi really believed it, and accidentally fattened him like this!"
Hearing this, everyone in the room looked at Jiang Yuqing and Shi Jing speechlessly, thinking what kind of freaks they were, one really dared to say, the other really dared to believe.
However, it had to be said that this idea was still quite good!
Bampen Turtle Saburo was certain that the Da Xia Emperor could do nothing to him. With eyes reduced to a thin slit by fat, he looked arrogantly at everyone.
Seeing this, the emperor didn't bother talking. He let Jiang Yuqing take action directly.
Jiang Yuqing arrogantly slapped the magic talisman on his forehead, and his head immediately fainted, just like when the previous generation's Master Lin had pasted zombies, very stylish.
Next, the translation officer from the Department of State Affairs took the stage.
Following the pre-prepared script, he asked whatever was needed and soon spilled everything Emperor Jingxia wanted to know, it really worked well.
Emperor Jingxia asked people to record the detailed treasure map. After seeing it, Shi Jing said excitedly, "I know where it is, on a small island in Ryukyu, the location is quite remote. 𝔣𝖗𝔢𝖊𝔴𝖊𝔟𝔫𝔬𝖛𝔢𝖑.𝔠𝔬𝔪
Sailing northeast from Jian Mountain Camp for one day and one night can reach there."
"That's the case. No delay, Shi Jing, Yuan Yun, you two will take soldiers back to Fuzhou to go to sea and search for treasures immediately. As for negotiations with the Wo people in a couple of days, your navy will have to leave someone behind to keep the situation under control."
"Yes!"
After everyone left, Emperor Jingxia sneaked up and asked Jiang Yuqing: "Qingbao, do you have any more of that magic talisman?"
Jiang Yuqing, upon hearing this, immediately shook her little head like a rattle drum: "No more, just this one. I used personal connections and pestered it from Taoist Huayang Zi.
It is said that this talisman was also passed down from his ancestral master and was obtained with great difficulty. If Your Majesty wants it, why don't I help you ask him again?"
Emperor Jingxia quickly shook his head: "No need, no need." He knew how precious Huayang Zi’s stuff was.
Even as the emperor of a country, it was not easy to get something from him.
Because the old guy's catchphrase was always "I only give treasures to destined people."
Damn destined people. If he didn’t want to give it, then he didn’t want to give it. He had to make it sound so pure and unconventional. He would not go up there to annoy him.
After asking the questions, Emperor Jingxia had people throw the fainted Bampen Turtle Saburo back into the dungeon.
When it was quiet with no one in the dungeon, Bampen Turtle Saburo gradually woke up from his coma, moved his huge body with difficulty, struggled to get up, and leaned against the wall to sit down.
His small eyes looked at the only bright little window with sadness.
He had been a generation of hero dominating the sea for decades and had experienced countless storms.
Today, defeated and captured, he became a prisoner and was fed like a pig by the Da Xia people every day, having lost all dignity long ago.
On the other hand, he didn’t have the courage to die. Whenever he wanted to end his life, there would be a voice in his mind telling him to persist, maybe there would still be the day he escaped.
Whenever he felt sad, he would think of the huge amount of treasures he had accumulated over the years hidden on a certain island in the sea.
If he died like this, no one knew who would take advantage of those treasures. Thinking like this, he was reluctant to die again.
At the moment, he missed his treasures again, and even thought about what he would do to make a comeback if he escaped this time and returned to Wo Country.
He knew clearly in his heart that the reason why Bampen Qiuxin and Bampen Bushoufu came to Da Xia was to pry the address of the treasures from his mouth.
Would he say it? Of course not, he would never let those two bastards take advantage even if he died. He would rather take this batch of treasures to the grave!
His thoughts were quite determined and good. He hadn't thought at all that when his consciousness was unclear just now, he had spilled everything clean including what color was his underwear.
He's now like a pig stripped of its red meat, with only the last layer of oil left, waiting to squeeze out his last bit of value.
After Da Xia got the news about the treasure, it was not worried at all. The Wo envoys were deliberately delayed for as long as possible.
Therefore, various documents submitted by the Bampen brothers were ignored.
On March 5th, the "Capital Newspaper" was officially published, priced at two cents per copy. Once launched, it immediately caused a sensation.
The newspaper had four pages. In addition to publishing court orders, it also included commentary articles by famous court scholars, gossip from the capital, interesting serial stories, etc.
There were even advertisements from some famous shops, as well as information on renting houses, selling houses, finding items, finding people, etc.
Whoever was literate would buy one and read it slowly, and the illiterates would also gather around to listen to literate people read newspapers.
The capital of Da Xia was very prosperous, and the permanent resident population alone was nearly 800,000.
As it was under the feet of the Son of Heaven, the literacy rate was quite high there, and on the day it was launched, 1.7 million copies were sold just in Beijing alone. More than 700,000 copies were shipped to other parts of the country.
Although it was only 2 wen per copy without high profit margin, this was going to be a long-term business. As time went by, more and more people got to know about the Beijing Gazette, and more copies would be sold accordingly.
In addition, with all kinds of advertising revenue, after deducting the fees for the scholar-officials' manuscripts and other costs, the money saved every year would be a very large figure.
What's more, the circulation of the newspaper would also educate the common people to some extent, allowing more people to have the opportunity to become literate. The implementation of government decrees would also become smoother.
The great success of the newspaper made Emperor Xia Jing and Jiang Wenyuan, his minister, laugh with joy. As a result, Emperor Xia Jing was particularly generous in rewarding the members of the Hanlin Academy, which really surprised them.
On the day the newspaper was first published, Jiang Yuqing also bought a few copies, one for herself to read and a few for her colleagues at the hospital.
It had to be said that these ancients were extremely clever. She had only given a rough direction at first, but they were able to make a newspaper so detailed and perfect. They were indeed very talented.
While the emperor and his minister here in Da Xia were happy with each other, the envoys of Wo Country who were detained in the State Guesthouse were in deep distress.
Because of the ninja incident, they had thoroughly offended Da Xia. Now not only were they unable to leave the State Guesthouse, they even had to pay for their own meals and lodging.
Eating was still fine, but especially the accommodation fee, which was actually 1,000 taels of silver per day, almost the same as robbery. What's more, they could not refuse. In short, whether they gave the money or not, they had to give it anyway, which was extremely stifling.
The Emperor had detained them for over 20 days since the ninja incident happened in early March.
Jiang Yuqing had also passed her 13th birthday and officially entered her 14th year.
A few more days later, until the end of March, news finally came from Fuzhou that Shi Jing and Yuan Yun had successfully arrived in Fuzhou, checked the navy, and were preparing to sail out to sea in search of treasure.
It was only then that Emperor Xia Jing remembered that there was still a group of fat sheep detained in the State Guesthouse. It was time to take them out for slaughter.
When they heard that Emperor Xia Jing had finally agreed to see them, the Banpen brothers almost cried with joy.
If they stayed in the State Guesthouse any longer, they would go bankrupt. The people of Da Xia were really ruthless.