Chapter 141

It was unfortunate that even she, someone well-versed in forgery, could not detect a single flaw in the letter.

The calm and composed words indeed came from the same man who had once broken into her bedchamber in the dead of night, driven to madness, and nearly strangled her to death.

However, he made a slip in the very last line.

He did not explicitly mention sparing Ji Wujiang, yet he wrote about how their last meeting had been rushed, leaving many words unspoken.

If the newly crowned Empress of Bo found the time, she was welcome to set a meeting place of her choosing.

Jiang Xiurun found Feng Liwu to be unbearably arrogant—not like a sovereign ruler, but more like a hedonistic scoundrel who, once catching the scent of a rare delicacy, would stop at nothing to obtain it.

Ji Qing’s life was at stake, so she had no choice but to reply.

However, after much deliberation, she realized that if she outright refused Feng Liwu’s request, Ji Wujiang’s survival would be uncertain.

The assassins raised by Feng Liwu were all elite warriors.

Ji Wujiang had already endured several ambushes, where the attackers specifically targeted his refined, scholarly face—not striking to kill but delivering enough blows to serve as a warning.

If their blades were to shift just slightly lower next time, blood would surely be spilled within five paces.

Ji Wujiang had yet to remarry.

His face could not be disfigured, nor could he lose his life due to her careless words.

After weighing her options, Jiang Xiurun used the pretext of state affairs being too demanding to travel far.

Instead, she chose to meet in Anxi, leaving the timing up to him.

This choice carried great significance.

Anxi belonged to the Liang Kingdom—it was land seized by the Liang emperor during his western conquests a decade ago.

However, the region was now plagued by bandits and filled with all sorts of vagrants and outcasts, making it far from an ideal place for a refined and peaceful meeting.

Moreover, Feng Liwu’s relations with the Liang were tense.

By asking him to meet her on Liang’s territory, she was placing him in a difficult position.

If Feng Liwu read her letter, he would surely grow suspicious and try to change the location.

By exchanging a few more letters and factoring in the month-long journey, she would be able to buy herself valuable time.

A ruler who was nothing more than a foolish hedonist would have no concerns—spending his days indulging in pleasure.

But if Feng Liwu aspired to be a capable sovereign, his daily affairs would be endlessly complex.

Jiang Xiurun was now experiencing firsthand the burdens of rulership, and Feng Liwu’s empire was dozens of times larger than Bo.

Surely, he had even more to deal with.

Matters of romance and entanglements could naturally be stretched out over time until they eventually faded away.

Take now, for instance—Feng Liwu already seemed much calmer than before.

The day when they would become nothing more than distant memories in each other’s minds was surely approaching…

With this optimism, Jiang Xiurun sent out her reply.

Just as she had expected, after this, Feng Liwu did not respond for a long time.

The assassination attempts on Ji Wujiang also seemed to cease.

After recovering from his minor injuries, Ji Wujiang was able to return to court and resume assisting the empress in state affairs.

The old, rusted armor and weapons had to be replaced, but even with the barely sufficient military budget, they still needed a large amount of pig iron.

(T/N:Pig iron is an iron alloy with a relatively high carbon ratio , with the carbon composition accounting for about 2.5 to 4.5 percent of the entire alloy. Pig iron is quite brittle in texture and must be refined into steel before it has more uses.)

This pig iron was monopolized by the Qi Dynasty.

Although Ji Wujiang had some connections to acquire a portion, the amount was far from enough.

They had no choice but to seek craftsmen to mix in some copper, allowing them to make do for a while.

By autumn, little Baoli had already started to toddle around, rolling forward in a wooden walker that Feng Liwu had sent.

Meanwhile, the first batch of Bo rice had been successfully sold to neighboring countries, exchanging for a surplus of millet that filled the granaries.

The food crisis in Bo had been significantly alleviated.

However, what concerned Jiang Xiurun even more was the movements of the surrounding states.

Liang was currently entangled in troubles.

Previously, it had dominated the region, expanding its territory aggressively and seizing lands.

However, for some reason, banditry had recently become rampant in Liang.

Despite years of good harvests, the heavy taxation imposed by corrupt officials meant that the common people saw little benefit.

Moreover, after its previous confrontation with Qi, Liang had suffered internal damages.

It attempted to consolidate its control over the smaller states around it but faced threats from the Qi Dynasty.

Left with no other choice, Liang increased taxes on its people to survive the crisis.

This, in turn, fueled public resentment, leading to widespread banditry.

Among the rebel leaders, one even claimed to be a prince of Anxi and crowned himself the King of Anxi, vowing to reclaim lost lands.

Leading a desperate army of displaced peasants, he stirred up chaos throughout Liang.

While the turmoil in Liang allowed Bo to rest easy and watch from the sidelines, Jiang Xiurun couldn’t help but feel suspicious upon hearing the name “Anxi.”

In her past life, no such figure had ever emerged.

If a few rebellious farmers had truly risen, they shouldn’t have been able to cause such an upheaval in such a short time.

According to Ji Wujiang’s spies embedded in Liang, the rebels’ weapons were forged from high-purity refined iron.

Furthermore, their commander seemed to be a seasoned military veteran, employing strategic formations and engaging Liang’s army in well-matched battles.

Based on the intelligence gathered, Jiang Xiurun judged that although these rebels might not match the elite forces of Qi or Liang, they were still stronger than Bo’s newly armed and constantly training troops.

If such a rebellion had occurred in Bo, the state would have already fallen.

Initially, Liang had underestimated the rebels, dismissing them as mere farmers.

Instead of mobilizing its main forces, it allowed local governors to send their own troops to suppress the uprising.

However, to their shock, the rebels fought with formidable strength, their well-equipped soldiers crushing three successive waves of suppression forces.

By the time the local governors realized they were dealing with more than just ordinary peasants, it was too late.

Their forces were surrounded, and the rebel army even had internal sympathizers within the city.

During the siege, these insiders ambushed the city gates, allowing the rebels to take control within just three days.

At this point, Emperor Liang began to panic and hastily dispatched elite troops to quash the rebellion.

However, deploying such forces was far more complex than local militias—it required meticulous coordination, including the collection and transportation of provisions, which took time.

By the time the elite forces arrived, the rebels had already conquered two more counties, seized Anxi City, and declared the establishment of the Anxi state.

Several battles followed, with victories and losses on both sides.

While the rebels couldn’t break through Liang’s elite forces, the latter also failed to reclaim the lost territories.

Just as Emperor Liang was preparing to mobilize more elite troops for a decisive strike, he received reports of Qi’s military movements—Qi’s forces had amassed at the border.

Fearing an invasion, Emperor Liang had no choice but to divert his remaining elite troops to the frontier to guard against Qi.

However, the Qi army neither attacked nor retreated, merely stationing itself there, tying down Liang’s best troops indefinitely.

With neither side able to gain the upper hand, Liang and the rebels reached a temporary stalemate, effectively splitting the territory between them.

Just as the fires of war in Liang subsided, Jiang Xiurun finally received a personal letter from the Emperor of Qi, Feng Liwu.

The letter arrived in an embroidered jasmine pouch, containing a fine silk handkerchief that emitted a faint fragrance when withdrawn.

This was precisely the kind of flirtatious trick favored by the most notorious libertines of Luo’an City—every detail exuding calculated attentiveness.

The contents, however, were concise and to the point:

“On the fifteenth of the Mid-Autumn Festival, an old friend awaits at Duanyang Tower.”

Jiang Xiurun stared at the letter for a long time before taking a deep breath and closing it.

This time, she didn’t bother verifying the handwriting’s authenticity—because this letter could only have been written by a complete madman.

Every word reeked of reckless arrogance, undeniably genuine!

All because of her offhanded remark about meeting in Anxi City, he had gone to every extreme—single-handedly orchestrating a civil war in Liang and forcibly bringing an entire Anxi state into existence.

Due to being confined to his residence for some time, his complexion had grown even fairer—making him all the more desirable to the noblewomen of Bo who had yet to marry.

Meanwhile, Jiang Xiurun, who had been running about the farmlands, had tanned from the sun, making her envy Ji Wujiang’s fair skin.

She ended up taking out the beauty balm that Feng Liwu had sent along with the books some time ago.

This balm recipe was something she had once created herself.

Back in Luo’an, out of boredom, she had flipped through the medical books on Feng Liwu’s bookshelf and formulated her own beauty ointment.

However, the original recipe required a rare Northern Red Ginseng that had been cultivated for fifty years, which was unavailable at the time, so she had set the idea aside.

During those days, when their relationship was still warm and affectionate, she had mischievously tucked the recipe into one of the books that Feng Liwu was reading.

But before he could even reach that page, he had already arranged his marriage to the Yang family and embarked on an expedition.

The day Jiang Xiurun sorted through the things Feng Liwu had sent, she found the ointment alongside the handwritten recipe she had left all those years ago.

She ordered the rest of the items to be sent to the palace storerooms, but she kept this one box for herself.

Opening the gilded container with its intricate clasp, a faint yet refreshing fragrance drifted out.

She dipped a fingertip into the balm and dabbed it lightly on the tip of her nose—it felt almost like a gentle kiss landing there…

Jiang Xiurun applied the balm to her face, staring blankly into the copper mirror.

Nearby, her son, Baoli, was shaking his rattle drum.

Noticing the fragrant cream on his mother’s face, he pouted his little bottom and clambered onto her lap, grabbing onto her clothes in an attempt to climb up and lick her face to see what it tasted like.

Halfway up, however, he changed course, burrowing into her embrace and nuzzling her for milk.

After nursing him and watching as he suckled while kicking his little feet about restlessly, Jiang Xiurun placed a kiss on his tiny foot and rubbed some of the balm onto his sole, making him giggle.

The slow, peaceful moments of raising her child in the palace had become her greatest comfort amidst her busy days.

With Ji Wujiang’s recommendation, Jiang Xiurun appointed several new officials.

These were individuals who had studied in the Central Plains and possessed broad perspectives and knowledge.

Together, they reorganized Bo’s governance, reduced taxes, and eased the burdens on the citizens—while significantly cutting royal expenditures.

Once again, the advantage of having a female ruler became apparent.

In the past, when an emperor ascended the throne, it was not only the empress but also the countless concubines and consorts who demanded extravagant spending on luxurious clothing and cosmetics.

The previous emperor, Jiang, had been especially indulgent—spending half the national treasury to curry favor with powerful states while squandering the rest on his own pleasures.

Now that Empress Yaren was in power, everything had changed.

The emperor’s former concubines were relocated to the “Tranquil Garden” to live out their years.

While they were provided with ample meals, the days of jewels and luxury were over.

For those who could not endure the solitude, they were allowed to leave and remarry, but they would no longer receive support from the royal treasury.

In the end, when all expenses were calculated, only the empress and her young prince remained under state provision.

Even the number of female attendants in the palace had been drastically reduced compared to before.

All the money saved was redirected by Jiang Xiurun into strengthening Bo’s military forces.