Mythical Three Kingdoms

”So by that logic, even if we get it, it’s a tree without roots?” Zhang Song frowned. ”In that case, we’d be somewhat constrained by the Kushan.”

”That problem does exist, but right now we don’t have the strength to deal with the entire Kushan Empire.” Qin Mi shook his head. ”What I mean is, we accept Kushan’s tribute first, and we talk about other matters later.”

”That’s all we can do. At present we’re really out of reach when it comes to the Kushan. Building a road from Chengdu to here is more important than anything else.” Cheng Ji spoke with a bit of a headache. ”I think we might end up garrisoned here long-term.”

”A long-term garrison is fine. It’ll deter the Kushan, and we also need a massive amount of information on them right now—whether cultural, political, or military. Our understanding of the Kushan is almost nil.” Zhang Song tapped the table lightly, his expression grave.

”Don’t worry. After you go back, we’ll still be stationed here. When have you ever seen your elder brother handle affairs sloppily?” Zhang Su said with a smile. ”I’ve already discussed it with Ziyuan; we’re planning to reopen the Southern Silk Road, and the eldest young lady of the Wu Family can act as intermediary then.”

Everyone chuckled at that. They all knew the Wu Family’s eldest young lady had run away from home, and made quite a scene of it, because Wu Yuan had originally been slated to marry Liu Zhang’s third brother. Later, Wu Yuan hid herself away in Mount Tai or Ye City.

Supposedly she came under the protection of some big shot, and at that time Liu Mao also happened to die due to illness. Out of regard for Liu Zhang’s face, Wu Yi drove his own younger sister out of the house. In short, the matter was quietly dropped there.

After that, there was no news of Wu Yuan. She looked to have completely vanished. Yizhou was relatively closed off; the Yizhou People didn’t take part in many of the great affairs of the realm, news was sealed off, so this whole matter became nothing more than idle chatter.

Now that Zhang Su brought it up again, although Zhang Song and the others had long known that Wu Yi’s thoughts weren’t exactly pure, they truly hadn’t expected Wu Yuan to be able to act as a go‑between. This was no small matter: opening the Southern Silk Road was not something as simple as sending a few people down the road.

It required real, physical transport. You needed more than one or two merchant houses. If you really wanted to fully open the route and actually make money off it, running this road would probably require a tenth of the merchants under heaven—or rather, the cooperation of the aristocratic families standing behind them.

To be able to dispatch that much resource with just a casual sentence, the connections currently in the Wu Family’s hands were definitely no joke.

”I’m really curious, Ziyuan—how many people can your younger sister actually pull in?” Wang Lei suddenly asked with interest, and the others also turned to look at Wu Yi.

”My unworthy little sister is probably a bit more capable than I am. She’s essentially a vice chair of the Mount Tai Chamber of Commerce in charge of managing entries and exits.” Wu Yi said with a bitter smile; he himself could hardly believe his sister had climbed that high.

Although Wu Yi did take care of his sister—after Liu Mao’s death he handed over half of his own network to Wu Yuan and allowed her to use the Wu name—Wu Yuan becoming one of the vice chairs of the Mount Tai Chamber of Commerce, which controlled seventy percent of the realm’s commercial affairs, had truly startled Wu Yi.

Of course, there were many coincidences involved. The Wu Family had joined relatively early and was indeed very wealthy. More importantly, back at the Ye City alliance conference, the map the Wu Family presented had greatly pleased Chen Xi.

After a few rounds of back‑and‑forth, when the organization expanded, the Wu Family was selected. At that time, Wu Yuan was staying as a guest with Liu Bei. Lady Gan had to look after Adou, and moreover didn’t understand this stuff at all. She basically treated that authority more as an amulet, while the Zhang Clan simply didn’t have the time to handle things then.

Thus the Zhang Clan’s portion was mostly handed to Zhen Mi. Lady Gan had no capable close juniors, and she herself came from a small household; even sitting in her current position she felt a bit timid. If she didn’t manage things, she felt she was eating unearned salary, but the pity was she truly couldn’t find anyone to entrust it to.

Originally, Lady Gan wanted to hand everything over to Zhen Mi, but the Zhang Clan declined in order to avoid suspicion, leaving Lady Gan at even more of a loss as to how to handle it. Fortunately, that was when Wu Yuan appeared.

Wu Yuan herself came from an Aristocratic Family, her status completely on par with Zhen Mi’s. Both houses were aristocratic families in public face and great merchant houses in practice, so whatever Zhen Mi knew, Wu Yuan also knew. Wu Yuan stayed with Liu Bei for quite some time, and she and Lady Gan were among the rare ones who could really talk to each other.

Over time, Lady Gan learned of Wu Yuan’s identity and then entrusted her own share to Wu Yuan to manage. From that moment, the Three Giants of the Chamber were set: Mi Zhen representing Mi Zhu, Zhen Mi representing the Zhang Clan, and Wu Yuan representing Lady Gan.

It just so happened the era held commerce in contempt; handing everything over to those three, Chen Xi didn’t see any issue. ”Only petty men and women are hard to keep in hand”—there were some things Mi Zhu found embarrassing to do that the three of them, on the contrary, had no qualms about.

Later, when the Chamber expanded again, under Chen Xi’s subtle hinting, three more vice‑chair positions were added. The Zhang Clan directly stepped back and handed full authority to Zhen Mi. Wu Yuan gained a seat belonging to the Wu Family. The two of the Weii Family refused to bow their heads, so Chen Xi gave them one position, and the last was naturally reserved for Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang.

In this way, at the start of the year Wu Yuan truly solidified her post as vice chair, holding a vast amount of resources. It also meant she was completely tied to their ship and apparently had no plans to return to the Wu Family. All in all, she was doing quite well.