Fan Qi didn’t go far after he left in the morning. He kept hiding in the garden until late at night, when there was no one around. He sneaked out.
Upon hearing Jiang Yun say this, he suddenly looked up and said, “You agreed to help me?”
Unexpectedly, Jiang Yun glanced at him and said, “I’m tired. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
Fan Qi: “……”
Fan Qi suspected that the little vixen was deliberately teasing him again, but he has done such a shameful thing already, what’s there to fear anymore? He said, “Tomorrow is tomorrow.”
So the next morning, when Ji An brought the palace attendants to deliver breakfast, he saw a strange scene. The young gentleman, who was neat and tidy, sitting in the pavilion reading a book, with Fan Qi standing tall and imposing next to him.
The young gentleman gently tapped the table with his finger, and Deputy General Fan, who had always been irritable, eagerly poured tea and water.
Ji An was greatly surprised, and the other palace attendants also looked at each other.
In the pavilion, Jiang Yun took a leisurely sip of tea, then slowly put down the tea cup and looked up at Fan Qi, who was already flushed with anxiety. “Thank you, Deputy General Fan.” He said.
“You tell me, what’s the solution?” Fan Qi said impatiently
Jiang Yun said, “It’s still too early to talk about this. I need to know the composition of all the families in the Jiuda Battalions, the battalions’ distribution, information on the commander, generals, and officials in the battalions, as well as the relationships between those noble children, especially between their families.”
“In one morning, Deputy General Fan should be able to handle it, right?”
Fan Qi was completely confused.
“What does this have to do with my affairs?”
Jiang Yun: “With Deputy General Fan’s brain, you naturally couldn’t figure it out. I want this information by noon. Now that it’s already dawning, it will take half an hour for Deputy General Fan to arrive outside the city and half an hour to come back, leaving not much time for Deputy General Fan.”
Fan Qi left in a fit of anger and frustration.
He thinks to himself, if the little vixen dares to play with him again this time, he will be at odds with the little vixen for the rest of his life.
Ji An personally set up breakfast and said with a smile, “There’s only Young Master who has the means to clean up even this reckless and impulsive Deputy General Fan.”
Jiang Yun picked up a piece of jujube paste cake and took a small bite without speaking.
Helping a deputy general from an enemy country who is not friendly to him is not beneficial to him and is not worth his effort. However, this is a good opportunity to understand the distribution of power in the Sui Empire.
The military battalion can be considered the most typical small imperial court, especially in a battalion like Jiuda. It is mainly composed of descendant of aristocratic families with their internal forces intertwined, and the hidden currents are rough. He could roughly judge the Sui Empire by sorting out the relationships and the strength and weakness of the distribution of aristocratic families in the court.
Knowing oneself and the enemy, one will never be defeated in a hundred battles.
He is trapped in the private courtyard everyday, so he rarely has the opportunity to learn about this information. If he inquired too much, it was inevitable to arouse suspicion from that person. This was an opportunity to push the boat along with the flow. Just like when he goes to an unfamiliar environment, he first look at the layout and terrain distribution.
At noon, Fan Qi did return, sweating profusely.
He is a rough and clumsy man who doesn’t know many words, and some of what he couldn’t understand was drawn directly on the paper.
Jiang Yun glanced briefly and said, “It’s too simple. I not only need to know these people’s family background information but also their temperament and preferences. Even if it’s their favorite foods or their most disliked foods, the finer the better. Also, in the future, please use oral communication and don’t draw blindly.”
Fan Qi is not good at socializing, and it took him a lot of effort and brain teasers to uncover these informations. Hearing this, he felt that Jiang Yun was simply looking for bones in an egg.
But this time he was so determined to make a breakthrough that he held back from making a remark, so he asked, “Are you really trying to help me, not to tease me?”
Jiang Yun faintly replied, “You can not do it.”
Fan Qi gritted his teeth, crumpled the paper into a ball, and turned his head to leave.
At dusk, Fan Qi came back panting again and recounted his latest information to Jiang Yun in detail. Jiang Yun sat behind the table, taking notes with his brush and drawing a relationship diagram.
After listening, he looked up and said, “Not bad, there has been progress, but it’s still far from enough, and your information should be incorrect. You said that the Lin family’s son bribed the head coach with a thousand gold coins last month in order to get promoted, and that he was just a disciple of the Yan family, he’s not considered a noble. On the surface, his ostentatious momentum is actually very poor. So where did these thousand gold coins come from? Is the news really reliable? If these thousand pieces of gold were truly offered by them, would there be more insider information to uncover about the source of the gold? Also, you said that the two disciples of the Yan family enjoy spicy foods, and you also said that they suffer from severe hemorrhoids. As far as I know, people with hemorrhoids cannot eat spicy and stimulating foods. Which one is the right one?
Fan Qi’s head grew big as he listened.
He just finished speaking in one fell swoop. He couldn’t even remember what he said in some places, he didn’t expect Jiang Yun to be able to break it down one by one for him.
He said angrily, “With so many things, how can I remember everything?”
Jiang Yun crossed out the two words “hemorrhoids” and “liking spicy food.” He said, “Everyone wants to have an easy life, but the truth is, trying to have an easy life is a very difficult task, you will have to work harder than others. Just like Deputy General Fan, if you don’t want to get beaten any longer, you must learn to use your brain.”
“The two points I mentioned earlier, tonight Deputy General Fan must figure out the correct answers.”
Fan Qi wanted to slap the table again.
Tonight, where does he want him to go to get information in the middle of the night?
Jiang Yun continued, “Besides these, I also need to know if the noble disciples you mentioned have had any recent conflicts, whether physical or verbal.”
“What does all these trivial matters have to do with me? I still have my mother to take care of!”
“Then Deputy General Fan can go home now.”
Fan Qi could only leave in a fit of anger.
He wants to see what this little vixen can do.
After dinner, Fan Qi returned.
He supplemented the newly discovered information.
Jiang Yun was sitting under the window eating plums and suddenly frowned. “What’s that smell on you?”
Fan Qi said, “Isn’t it you who insist on me confirming whether those two bastards really have hemorrhoids or not? How can I know about such private matters? I can only go to the pit and keep watching!”
Fan Qi had a gloomy expression on his face because the mosquitoes in the pit were unusually large, and he was bitten all over.
Jiang Yun silently let go of the plum.
After walking to the table, he picked up his brush and wrote two lines, handing them to Fan Qi. “Tomorrow at lunch, do as I wrote.”
Fan Qi took it and read, staring in disbelief.
“Just this?!”
Jiang Yun nodded.
“That’s right, you can control the dosage yourself. The more stimulating it is, the better.”
“After finishing, you need to put things separately into the accounts of the Lu, Wei, and Wang families’ descendants, but you must not put the Lin’s.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need to know, just execute it.”
“……”
Fan Qi was still half believing and half doubting, unbelievable that such a simple and incredible method could help him get out of his predicament.
This seems to have nothing to do with him at all.
But the little vixen looked confident, so Fan Qi decided to take the risk and try it out, saying, “Alright, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
After Fan Qi left, Jiang Yun had nothing to do and continued to stare at the infographic on the table.
He discovered a special situation where, within a short month, the Jiuda Battalions had added three new type of grains and forage depots, a battalion not far from the capital. Why did they hoard so much grains and forage at once?
The next day was still a sunny day.
There were too many plum blossoms for Jiang Yun to finish alone, so he asked Ji An and Gao Gong to share them with the palace attendants in the private courtyard. Shi Fang happened to come over and was also honored to receive one.
Shi Fang asked, “What good idea did the Young Master give to Brother Fan? When I passed by the city gate this morning, I saw him riding a horse and leaving the city full of energy, just like yesterday.”
Shi Fang learned from Ji An that Fan Qi came to the private courtyard early in the morning yesterday to seek advice on the matter from Jiang Yun.
Jiang Yun picked up a plum and said, “It’s just a small trick. Whether it’s successful or not, it depends on his luck and intelligence.”
Fan Qi is pretty lucky.
Not long after noon, he excitedly arrived at the private courtyard and headed straight to the pavilion, reporting good news to Jiang Yun as soon as possible. “I used ten times the amount, and soon after those two fools finished their meal, they had abdominal pain and were about to die. One of them even had an@l bleeding, almost dying. Now they have been wrestling with each other.”
Shi Fang was confused when he heard it.
“What is ten times the amount?”
Fan Qi was in high spirits and he said so and so.
The method given by Jiang Yun was indeed very simple.
After confirming that the two disciples of the Yan family had hemorrhoids, Fan Qi secretly put a type of Longyan powder that could trigger hemorrhoid attacks into their food. Longyan powder is colorless and tasteless, and it is difficult to distinguish if one does not understand medical methods. After that, he asked Fan Qi to put the Longyan powder into the other three noble sons, Lu, Wei, and Wang’s beds.
The Yan family’s disciples are powerful and domineering. When they learn that they have been counted, they will inevitably become angry and look for the culprit. Lu, Wei, and Wang are the biggest suspects. These noble children are used to getting along with each other on weekdays, and under normal circumstances, they may not necessarily get into a big fight over such a trivial matter. However, Jiang Yun learned from the information collected by Fan Qi that these noble children are currently competing for a position, and the relatively weak Wang family has recently shown a tendency to break away from the Yan family and approach the Crown Prince Mansion. They’ve been in harmony on the surface, but secretly they’ve been at each other’s throats for a long time. If there is a slight conflict, It can stimulate all the hidden contradictions in the dark.
Shi Fang asked, “Why not just put it in the Lin family’s children’s account?”
Jiang Yun said, “Because someone saw that the Lin family had bribed the head coach a thousand gold in order to compete for the position.”
Shi Fang thought for a moment and suddenly realized, “I understand now. In this way, the children of the Lu, Wei, and Wang families will suspect that the Lin family deliberately framed them with Longyan powder in order to compete for the position, provoking conflicts between them and the Yan family. However, the Yan family was still holding onto those three families, it is really going to be a mess. They are fighting among themselves and naturally can’t bother to find Brother Fan anymore.”
“This subordinate really admires the Young Master’s brilliant plan.”
Fan Qi was hot-blooded when he said that, but now that he’s finished, he inexplicably feels a little uncomfortable.
He was shy when he revealed a basket of apples from behind and quickly placed it on the table, saying, “This… this is what my mother asked me to bring. She said, Make sure you accept it. This… this is what she wants.”
After speaking, he scratched his nose and ran away like a thief.
At this moment, outside the private courtyard, a beautifully decorated carriage slowly stopped.
The carriage door opened, and a young master in white clothes emerged, holding a seven-stringed zither in his arms. It was the Crown Prince of Luo, Luo Fengjun.
The servant asked, “Is the Crown Prince really going to pay respects to that Young Master Chu?”
The Crown Prince has always been aloof and does not take any of the nobles in the Sui capital seriously. The Monarch and Empress had advised him many times, but it didn’t work. This is the first time that the Crown Prince has gone out and taken the initiative to visit someone.
Luo Fengjun nodded and asked the servant to come forward and pass the message.
No one saw it, at the corner of the street, another carriage was parked there.
Zhao Yan looked around the alley for a moment, then returned to the side of the carriage and remembered his master, the Left Prime Minister, Jimo Qingyu, sitting in the carriage. He respectfully reported, “Master, this disciple heard that the Crown Prince is going to Mount Li for military training and won’t be back for two days. At present, only Chu Yan is in the private courtyard. Does Master want this disciple to pass on the message for Master?”
Zhao Yan was actually a bit speechless.
Because his master has asked him to drive over to the Crown Prince’s private courtyard for two consecutive days already, even though he came for Chu Yan, he refused to admit it and even refused to get off the carriage.
Jimo Qingyu originally wanted to say no, but after stroking his beard for a moment, he clearly made up his mind and cleared his throat, saying, “Go ahead, let’s just say this old man happened to pass by.”
Zhao Yan let out a sigh of relief.
If the master continues to procrastinate, there will be no chance left when the Crown Prince returns.
Jiang Yun had just received an invitation to pay tribute from Luo Fengjun and was considering it when Ji An sent another invitation to pay tribute from the Left Prime Minister Mansion.
Ji An was very nervous. The Left Prime Minister and His Highness were notorious for not getting along. It was a euphemism to say that water and fire were incompatible. Now, the Left Prime Minister suddenly took the initiative to visit His Highness’s private courtyard. What is this for?!
Jiang Yun said gently, “Then please invite them all to come in.”
So at night, Sui Heng finished his military training early, and when he arrived at the entrance of the mansion, he saw two very eye-catching carriages. Sui Heng narrowed his eyes and asked, “Who’s here?”
