MLMD -Chapter 119 A Letter from Home

Seeing how lazy Yue Yang was being, Hailanzhu viciously twisted him hard at the waist again, making Yue Yang cry out in pain with an “Ow!”

“All right, all right, I’ll get up—okay?” Seeing the threatening look in Hailanzhu’s almond-shaped eyes, Yue Yang realized there was no way he could keep lounging in bed. With a helpless sigh, he slowly climbed up. After getting dressed and washing up with his wife’s help, he sat down in a reclining chair and asked lazily, “So, what is it? You can tell me now, right?”

“Well… this…”

Now that Yue Yang was actually ready to listen, Hailanzhu hesitated instead.

Seeing this, Yue Yang couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s this? Just now, when I wasn’t out of bed yet, you looked anxious as if the sky were falling. Now that I’m all ears, you won’t say anything? If you don’t speak up, I’m heading out.” As he spoke, Yue Yang stood up and pretended to leave.

“Don’t—! I’ll tell you, all right?”

Seeing Yue Yang about to go, Hailanzhu quickly grabbed him and forcibly pressed him back into the chair. After hesitating for quite a while, she finally said, “Yue Yang, actually… it’s like this. A couple of days ago, I received a letter from my elder brother. In it, he said that recently the Later Jin Khan, Huang Taiji, intends to marry off his fourth daughter, Princess Gurun Yongmu, Aisin Gioro Yatu, to my brother’s third son, Biltahari.”

“Your elder brother?”

Yue Yang was stunned for a moment. After a while, he slapped his forehead as realization dawned on him. That’s right—aside from Hailanzhu and Dayu’er, his bargain-price father-in-law Zaisang also had a son. That son was Hailanzhu’s elder brother, named Wuxeshan. Wuxeshan was much older than Hailanzhu, and his own son was already seventeen or eighteen—indeed, just about the age to marry.

“Huang Taiji wants to marry his daughter to your elder brother’s third son? That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with me, does it?” Yue Yang said lazily, slumping back in his chair, looking completely uninterested.

To be honest, Yue Yang wasn’t the least bit enthusiastic about this matter. He had barely heard of Wuxeshan, and hadn’t even seen him when he went to the Khorchin grasslands to fetch his bride. That alone showed the man was determined to throw in his lot with Huang Taiji—otherwise, he wouldn’t have failed to show up even for his own sister’s wedding.

After several months of marriage, Hailanzhu had more or less figured out Yue Yang’s temperament. Seeing his lack of interest, she knew her husband had no good feelings toward this elder brother of hers.

Biting her silver teeth, Hailanzhu continued, “Yue Yang, my elder brother hopes that you and I can go to the Khorchin grasslands again to attend my nephew’s wedding. After all, my brother has always doted on me since I was little. Now that his son is getting married, if I don’t go as his aunt, it would seem inappropriate. I…”

At this point, she couldn’t continue, because Yue Yang was staring at her and asked in a teasing tone, “Wife, do you also think we should go to Khorchin to attend your nephew’s wedding?”

“I…” Hearing this, Hailanzhu fell silent.

Yue Yang said seriously, “Hailanzhu, to be honest, I don’t understand your elder brother at all, and I’ve never met him, so I can’t judge his character. But from the moment I went to Khorchin to fetch my bride and he never once appeared before me, I already understood his attitude toward me.”

He sneered coldly and continued, “Based on my guess, why do you think Huang Taiji was in such a hurry to send people to your abu to propose marriage and bring you away? I suspect your elder brother may not have been uninvolved. Think about it—when I went to the Khorchin tribe the first two times, how did people like Daišan, Aobai, Dodo, and Dorgon treat me? And what about your younger sister, Bumubutai—what was her attitude toward me like?

“Later Jin and Great Ming are destined to be enemies. The rise of Later Jin has been built upon the corpses of my Great Ming soldiers and countless commoners. In the future, either Later Jin or Great Ming must fall. Under such circumstances, your elder brother uses such a clumsy excuse to lure the two of us to the Khorchin tribe—don’t you ever think about what the consequences might be?”

The room fell into silence. After a long while, crystal-clear tears slowly welled up in Hailanzhu’s eyes and dripped onto the floor. A moment later, her low, choking sobs could be heard as she said, “Yue Yang, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through. I almost led you into grave danger.”

Yue Yang let out a long sigh, stood up, walked over to her, and gently pulled her into his arms. “It’s not that you didn’t think it through. It’s that you would rather force yourself to believe your elder brother truly has your best interests at heart than believe he might harbor ill intentions toward us.”

“Wuu…” Hailanzhu clutched Yue Yang’s waist and burst into tears. “Elder brother… how could he do this? Doesn’t he know that you and Later Jin are already irreconcilable enemies? How could he bear to harm us?”

Lightly patting her shoulder, Yue Yang sighed. “It’s not strange. Everyone serves their own master. Since he chose to follow Huang Taiji, he naturally has to perform well. Otherwise, Huang Taiji wouldn’t marry his own daughter to his son. But I don’t think they expected to trick us into going to Khorchin just like that. There should be follow-up moves.”

Leaning against her husband’s chest, Hailanzhu snorted softly. “Of course. My elder brother isn’t that stupid. In the letter, he also said he wants to ask us for some tea bricks and salt—not too much, just a hundred cartloads.”

“A hundred cartloads…” Yue Yang sneered. “Why doesn’t he just go rob someone? Do you have any idea how much silver a hundred cartloads of salt and tea bricks are worth? Does he think my money is blown in by the wind? And he actually dares to ask!”

“Exactly—that’s what I thought too.” Hailanzhu also snorted in dissatisfaction. As Yue Yang’s principal wife, she had fully embraced the philosophy of what’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is still mine. After taking over the household finances, she had managed the Yue residence in impeccable order, with clear signs of developing into a miserly expert. Now her own brother opening his mouth for a hundred cartloads made her deeply unhappy.

“I think your elder brother isn’t really asking for himself,” Yue Yang quickly added, having thought of another layer. “He’s asking for Huang Taiji, right? Think about it—how many people does your brother’s household even have? A hundred cartloads of salt and tea bricks—he couldn’t finish them in a lifetime. If it weren’t for Huang Taiji, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Hailanzhu found her husband’s reasoning very sound. But realizing this also made her feel a faint sadness—she sensed that the distance between herself and her elder brother and younger sister was growing wider and wider.

After pondering for a long time, Yue Yang said, “How about this: a hundred cartloads are impossible. Our things don’t fall from the sky—why should we give them away for nothing? Since your elder brother is marrying off his son, we’ll send him one cart of salt, one cart of tea bricks, and some silk. Then we’ll write him a letter. What do you think?”

“That’s all we can do.” After thinking it over, Hailanzhu couldn’t come up with a better solution. The hundred cartloads mentioned in Wuxeshan’s letter were pure extortion and utterly unrealistic. Sending a few carts was neither too much nor too little, and it wouldn’t completely damage the sibling relationship.

After discussing it a bit more, Yue Yang finally left the house and, as usual, went to inspect Wuli Village.

Compared to a year ago, Wuli Village could now be described as having undergone earth-shattering changes. With the cement factory, smelting plant, steelworks, and several military factories successively starting operations, along with the continuous expansion of land reclamation and military farming, large numbers of refugees flocked here after hearing the news.

The influx of refugees caused a sharp population increase in Wuli Village. With the population boom came all kinds of business opportunities, and many merchants also moved in, bringing prosperity to the village.

When Yue Yang arrived at Wuli Village, Shunbao—who was drilling the troops—hurried over as soon as he heard the news.

“Young master, you’ve come at just the right time. I was just looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” Yue Yang looked at Shunbao curiously and scolded him with a smile. “You little brat, instead of training the troops properly, you come looking for me? Let me tell you, if you don’t train them well, I’ll deal with you!”

“That’s not it, young master.” Shunbao sighed. “It’s like this—some days ago, that military factory sent over a batch of tiger crouching cannons. I ordered test firings, and something went wrong. Those cannons actually… actually burst!”

“What? They burst?” Yue Yang was instantly alarmed and hurriedly asked, “Was anyone hurt?”

Shunbao took a deep breath. “Fortunately, during the test firing, the gunners strictly followed the regulations and hid in the rear blast shelters. That’s why there were no casualties. But that entire batch of artillery was scrapped.”

Yue Yang frowned. “Did you fail to follow procedures during the test firing? Or did you load too much gunpowder?”

“I’ve been wronged, young master!” Shunbao became anxious. “We used standardized powder charges during testing. Every charge was weighed—there was no chance of using too much or too little powder.”

“If the powder wasn’t excessive and the testing didn’t violate regulations, then the problem lies with the cannons themselves.” Yue Yang’s brows knit tightly.

“Exactly!” Shunbao inhaled deeply. “Afterward, I inspected those cannons and found many air bubbles inside the barrels. Cannons like that are completely unqualified. If such artillery were issued to the soldiers, something terrible would happen!”

“Nonsense—utter nonsense!” Yue Yang was furious and blurted out, “If I remember correctly, the artillery factory is managed by Uncle Laifu, right? Why didn’t you go question him—eh… wait… that’s not right… Hmm, you really couldn’t question him.”

At that moment, Yue Yang remembered that Yue Laifu was Shunbao’s father. As a son, how could he possibly go and confront his own father? In this strictly hierarchical society, that would be a grave act of unfilial conduct.

“All right then. I’ll personally go and question your father later!” Yue Yang said resentfully.