"How much would it cost to go to the Qin Dynasty?"
"Give me 200 Yucai coins."
"Isn't that too expensive?"
"Brother, you're going from the starting station to the final destination. Apart from paying taxes to the country, I basically don't make any profit from the depreciation of the carriage and the horse feed."
"Here's 150 for you."
"Stop talking, 180, you can go if you want, or you can change cars."
Let's go.
...
Of course, the 180 wouldn't just carry one person. In fact, the vehicle was similar to a taxi, with six seats inside and one more next to the driver... So the drivers would usually shout, "Let's go, let's go, Qin Dynasty, we'll start when two more people arrive."
Of course, if you want to get off at intermediate stations like Tang and Song, the fare will be relatively cheaper. However, since there are no passengers in those places yet, it's hard to say what the price will be. At most, you can save 10 or 20 coins.
The Han Dynasty people didn't have a natural advantage in this endeavor, as they hadn't participated in any coalition forces and were unfamiliar with military strategy. However, under Liu Bang's training, they were generally able to quickly get up to speed. Gradually, some of the more resourceful ones even spontaneously started small-scale travel agencies. Especially after people from other dynasties began traveling, they collaborated with locals to develop projects like "Tang Dynasty One-Day Tour" and "Song Dynasty Three-Day Tour," all-inclusive of food and lodging. They gradually developed their own specialized services, some focusing on long-distance transport, others on short-distance routes. Catering to the desire to combine work and travel, some even started slower routes, stopping at each destination for half a day to visit the most famous sights, buy local specialties, and then continue on their way.
In its early stages, the Qin Dynasty recruited tens of thousands of laborers from other regions. Those sent by various dynasties were mostly soldiers who had served in the allied forces; after all, they had little money and couldn't afford a carefree life of travel, so finding work was their top priority. Within just a few days, the number of people helping Qin Shi Huang build the Great Wall reached 100,000, and the project progressed rapidly. Qin Shi Huang's joy was short-lived; the money was flowing out like water, and with war raging in Qin, there was simply no extra money to pay the laborers' wages. Liu Bang had provided him with hundreds of thousands of coins for talent cultivation, but this wasn't a long-term solution. Reluctantly, Qin Shi Huang had to turn his attention to earning foreign exchange. Fatty initially had a somewhat dismissive attitude towards commerce; he hadn't agreed when Liu Bang asked him to join in the transportation business, but now that it had reached a considerable scale, it would seem unfair to interfere. However, Fatty wasn't stupid. Of the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, and transportation—transportation was the last, so he focused on the first three. Initially, they worked with Liu Bang's men to sell food and clothing along the military roads. When Liu Bang's chariot stopped at a station, almost all the people surrounding it to buy eggs and flatbread were Qin Dynasty people. Later, they simply turned it into highway inns and hotels. This created an interesting phenomenon: you rarely see Qin and Han Dynasty people in other dynasties; they're all making money by hiding along the military roads.
Hua Mulan was right; you can't outsmart emperors like that. The Tang Dynasty scholars, highly sensitive to economics, were the first to notice this problem. Fang Xuanling's article, titled "Shocking! Serious Losses of State-Owned Assets," caught Li Shimin's attention. Other Tang scholars also began to focus on international finance, publishing works on topics such as "Our Foreign Exchange Reserves Are Less Than One-Fifth of Those of the Qin and Han Dynasties," "Who Is Paying for the Great Wall?" and "Famine in the Han Dynasty, Passing Through the Tang Pass," triggering a chain reaction in other countries. Suddenly, people flocked to the Tang Dynasty to study. The entertainment-loving Tang people even started a magazine, the most famous being the "Great Tang Era Weekly." Besides its economics section, it also included entertainment, gossip, and current affairs sections, boasting a huge circulation, especially among bored Han Dynasty drivers on long journeys—almost every one had a copy. This reversed the Tang Dynasty's trade deficit with foreign countries.
The Song Dynasty people, not to be outdone, began to focus on high-end hotels with their abundant wealth. They built star-rated hotels near military routes in every region, and from there, they ventured into real estate. They aggressively purchased land and development rights in every area, constructing countless apartments for temporary or long-term residence for outsiders, causing property values to skyrocket. The *Great Tang Era Weekly* jokingly referred to them as the "Song Dynasty Real Estate Speculators."
Thus, each country excelled in different areas, leading to a period of prosperity in international finance. Liu Bang famously said, "Manufacturing produces material goods, but creating wealth is what truly matters." Because he acted early, his position in the transportation industry was unshakeable, essentially forming a monopoly. Initially, Han Dynasty drivers relied on "pulling" (hauling) for trade, but later, with the large-scale movement of people between countries, the demand for horse-drawn carriages exceeded the supply. These drivers became incredibly arrogant, their attitude towards customers less gentle, sometimes even rude, earning them the nickname "the iron-willed bosses of the military." Initially, his customers were mostly rough, uneducated soldiers, who would let minor squabbles pass. However, as the travel market matured, nobles and royalty from various countries also wanted to try it out, and they were no longer willing to tolerate such behavior. Liu Bang sometimes received over a dozen complaint calls a day. This infuriated him, but the established rules were too deeply entrenched to be reversed. He knew that a monopoly in an industry was dangerous, so Liu Bang, with a flash of inspiration, launched a new business: horse rental. Ordinary customers could rent a horse for one person anywhere along the route, leave a sufficient deposit, and then cancel the service and settle the account at any branch of the Han Dynasty Transportation Company with the receipt. The rental fee was only a small amount based on distance and time, effectively creating competition for horse-drawn carriages and deterring the railway giant from acting arrogantly. As for the nobles, Liu Bang specially introduced VIP services for them. The drivers were well-trained and courteous, the carriages were made of pure gold, and the horses were carefully selected, often numbering in the hundreds. Free drinks were provided inside, and beautiful young women would explain safety precautions and offer meticulous smiling service at the start of the journey. Of course, it was very difficult for an ordinary noble to charter such a carriage by themselves, so the spacious carriages were divided into different areas, including economy and first-class cabins…
Chapter 195 I Am Your Father
These past few days, I've been wandering around the military road, watching the Qin people do business, chatting with Liu Bang's taxi drivers, and sometimes picking up a copy of the "Great Tang Era Weekly." When they see the Tang Dynasty jade seal on the front of my car, they usually won't charge me, but I still pay. If you want to have some fun, you can ask Li Shimin to pay, but magazine vendors are small businesses, and I can't bring myself to do it.
Of course, sometimes if the journey is short, like when someone in the Song Dynasty wanted to travel to the grasslands, I would give them a ride...
Most dynasties had already sent their surplus populations abroad, but they still reserved a certain number of slots for wealthy people and nobles to travel. Princess Wencheng and Songtsen Gampo, for example, traveled abroad many times. After discovering the popularity of grassland tourism, they suggested adding Tibet to their itineraries to experience the most authentic and rustic Tibetan culture. However, as everyone knows, traveling from Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty to Tibet was incredibly difficult; even riding in Liu Bang's VIP golden carriage, it would take a month or more. It was a test of both time and money, only suitable for those with both wealth and leisure, like those who had been relieved of their military power by Zhao Kuangyin. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to go, but couldn't due to time constraints. Therefore, Princess Wencheng proposed opening a second military route in the Tang Dynasty, directly connecting to Tibet. I thought it was feasible; we've already built the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, so opening a military route shouldn't be too difficult. However, this matter had to be postponed because I was still preoccupied with another matter: the Battle of Red Cliffs.
In retrospect, Cao Cao's claim of 700,000 or 800,000 troops was indeed an exaggeration. According to the report Liu Laoliu gave me, only 150,000 people died at the Battle of Red Cliffs, meaning Cao Cao's actual number was at least half. But that's still a considerable number. Since World War II, it seems there hasn't been a war where so many people died directly, demonstrating the brutality of the era of cold weapons.
What drew my attention to this matter was an article submitted by a Northern Wei dynasty official and published in the *Great Tang Era Weekly*, titled "On the Actual Casualties of the Battle of Red Cliffs." The author claimed that his ancestors had personally participated in the battle. The article cited data from family genealogies and letters, very close to 150,000, which immediately brought the issue to mind. The frustrating thing is that with the deadline fast approaching, I feel powerless. If this data were just historical data, it wouldn't matter, but it represents real, living people. For example, if we estimate how many people in an African tribe will starve to death based on disaster situations, international bureaucrats still have to put on a show. Moreover, these hundreds of thousands are our compatriots; saving them has a much more tangible meaning. Watching the customers and vendors from other dynasties happily haggling in the military corridor, I couldn't help but ask myself: Couldn't people from the Three Kingdoms period truly have this kind of happiness?
Later, I couldn't hold back any longer and called Liu Laoliu. I asked him bluntly, "Could those 150,000 people from the Three Kingdoms period have survived?"
Liu Laoliu asked in bewilderment, "Not dead? Where are you going?"
As soon as he asked "Where are you going?", a sudden idea struck me, and I blurted out, "You're following the same military strategy, aren't you? Isn't the principle the same?"
Liu Laoliu was taken aback for a moment before bursting into laughter: "Oh, what's wrong with Xiaoqiang? Do you really want to wear your underwear on the outside, or do you want to turn a disaster movie into an inspirational one?"
Without thinking, I blurted out, "Can't I do something good for my unborn son?" But as soon as I said it, I realized it was quite interesting. I discovered that I had this thought in my subconscious. I suddenly thought, what if my son really is one of the 150,000 souls that were reincarnated? What if he grows up and finds out the truth? Will he turn against me? How embarrassing!
Liu Laoliu laughed and said, "Oh, so you're planning to make a movie called 'A World Without Thieves'?"
I said with a stern face, "Old man, you've been watching a lot of movies lately, haven't you?"
Liu Laoliu said, “Seriously, I’ve been thinking about this issue lately too. Although we in Heaven are sometimes a bit careless in our work, we’re not willing to take lives lightly. It’s good that you have this idea, but there’s a problem—if those 150,000 men were the Sun-Liu alliance, it would be better, at least you could talk to Liu Bei, and he would definitely support you in this matter. But the vast majority of these people are Cao Cao’s troops. How can you get Cao Cao to trust you? He’s done this before, offering good intentions only to be betrayed. How did Hua Tuo die?”
I shuddered. Yeah, I could just run straight to Cao Cao in the Three Kingdoms period and say: You're definitely going to lose the Battle of Red Cliffs this time, you might as well call it a day. You deserve to die, but you didn't. Should I take those 150,000 men and go do some small business with them?
Hua Tuo's death isn't enough to draw conclusions, as proposing brain surgery back then was considered too sensational—like someone offering to replace your head today. Another flaw of Cao Cao was his intolerance of dissenting opinions. Liu Fu was killed simply because someone said his poem contained crows, an ominous sign—something even Qin Shi Huang probably wouldn't have done. While those he killed generally received lavish funerals, I, Xiao Qiang, don't have that kind of high ideal. My belief is "better to live a wretched life than die a glorious death," and I most envy those who believe "to live long and not die is to be a thief"...
Seeing that I didn't speak, Liu Laoliu whispered a reminder: "Actually, there is someone who can help you."
"Who is it?" I asked eagerly.
"Your son!"
I exclaimed in shock, "My son is Cao Cao? Could it be that the one inside Baozi's belly...?"
Liu Laoliu sighed, "Alas, no wonder people often say that it's hard to be impartial. Now you have your own flesh and blood..."
I slapped my forehead: "You mean Little Elephant!" He wasn't right to say that. In fact, Baozi and I treated Little Elephant like family; whenever Baozi went out of town, he was the person she talked about most often. The reason I didn't immediately think of asking Cao Xiaoxiang for help was firstly because he was still a child, and secondly because I had almost forgotten that he was someone else's son.
I stammered, "Let me ask you something. When the Battle of Red Cliffs broke out, did Little Elephant... reach me?" I felt that was the key. If Little Elephant hadn't died back then, I think this plan would probably have failed. I didn't want to tell Cao Cao that he couldn't win the battle and that his son was about to die. If Cao Cao didn't tear me to pieces, I would think he was being too soft-hearted.
Liu Laoliu said, "Congratulations, the year of the Battle of Red Cliffs was the same year that Cao Chong died young."
Why does that sound so awkward?
I asked again, "Was it before or after the Battle of Red Cliffs?" Well, I think that's quite crucial. If it was before, it would be easier to explain. But if it was after—if things went smoothly then, I would have already been torn to pieces by Cao Cao. And if Cao Chong really did die shortly after me, then Cao Cao would have been a wasted son if he didn't dig me up and whip my corpse...
Liu Laoliu said, "Congratulations again. The Battle of Red Cliffs officially started in winter, while Cao Chong died in the spring of that year. It's hard to say whether Cao Cao's great defeat was influenced by the pain of losing his son."
I exclaimed excitedly, "This is indeed good news!"
Liu Laoliu said cautiously, "Don't you think we're a bit of a jerk?"
"...Anyway, you're no good. That's settled then. I'll go find Little Elephant and then figure out a way to get him to meet Cao Cao."
Liu Laoliu said, "Let me remind you again, Cao Chong cannot return to the Three Kingdoms period. This is a matter of principle!"
I scratched my head and asked, "Why? Didn't Brother Ying and the others all go back?"
Liu Laoliu said, "Are you stupid? Qin Shihuang and the others went back because they had spent enough time with you and were sent back by the Heavenly Dao. Cao Chong is different. He still has at least eighty or ninety years left to live. Going back to the Three Kingdoms now is just like you bringing Qin Shihuang and the others back to Yucai, which is against the rules."
"What should we do then?" I asked, my head throbbing.
Liu Laoliu said, "Find a place closest to the Three Kingdoms so that the father and son can meet."