Chapter 32: The Fish of Chagan Lake

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Su Zhongjing felt he was about to go mad.

He had been driven to the brink by this student of his—once more useless than a good-for-nothing, and now more insane than a madman.

“Is there anything even more ruthless?”

Chai Xiao nodded.

“Sir, you are a living Zhuge Liang, with a passion for astronomy and geography.”

“Mountain ranges and river systems are all at your fingertips.”

“I wish to ask you, Sir: the city moat has hidden inlets for dealing with sudden surges of water. But as for their exact locations…”

Su Zhongjing still had not fully grasped where his student’s “ruthless move” lay. He answered instinctively.

“The incoming waters divide in two; the vital point lies seven inches below the neck.”

“Here, and here. At the bends on either side of the moat, there is a hidden inlet.”

“Under ordinary circumstances, each inlet is sealed by two stone slabs, one above and one below, with an iron plate between them.”

“They are opened ahead of time only when floodwaters come rushing in.”

“Wait, Your Majesty. You mean…”

“We are still going to let the floodwaters in?”

“You are certain you want to play this big?”

“Are you really being this hard on yourself?”

Chai Xiao smiled.

“After Chai Huo has gone to so much trouble, wouldn’t it be unbearable if his spies didn’t witness the great waters entering the city?”

“Besides, this isn’t a flood. It is water used to block the river mouth and catch big fish!”

“If we stretch two large nets across these two inlets, we ought to haul up two or three hundred pounds of fish!”

“At ordinary prices, these fish would be worth only ten copper coins a pound.”

“But these are the first fish bestowed by Heaven during the Heavenly Offering ceremony. Forget doubling or tripling the price—if we sold them for a hundred times as much, one silver tael per pound, people would still fight to buy them!”

“When the time comes, we keep a hundred pounds and divide the rest into several lots for auction.”

“The bidding starts at one silver tael. Each increase is one silver tael. Whoever offers the most gets the hammer!”

“We can pin a giant red flower on the fish and let the winner carry it home. What glory! The neighbors would boast about it for at least ten years!”

“Or we could give it to Yi Taihe and the others to prepare into imperial cuisine for free—Braised Heavenly Fish. It would be worth at least forty taels, and bring even greater honor, bringing glory to one’s ancestors!”

“Of course, neither the red flower nor the imperial kitchen’s preparation would cost anything.”

“But once everyone sees the spectacle, those who failed to seize a fish at the auction will certainly head to the second-floor people’s market and the first-floor common market just to watch the excitement.”

“That is when the hundred pounds we kept will truly come into its own!”

“The large fish go to the second-floor market, and the smaller ones to the first-floor market.”

“Both sides sell strictly by weight.”

“On the second floor, we multiply the price by four again: six taels per pound. Absolutely imperial-grade prestige.”

“On the first floor, we double it again: two taels per pound. They will vanish in an instant!”

Su Zhongjing could not help covering his face.

Ever since his student had come from the capital to Great Xu, he had been thinking about ways to make money every moment, in every corner.

Now, with the city facing a life-or-death crisis—a “flood attacking the city”—being able to survive was already more than enough.

Who would dare think about making money?

Yet he dared!

Not only did he dare to think about it, he had thought it through in impeccable detail!

Money from ordinary households had to be earned, but money from the wealthy had to be earned even more!

Still, it was hard to blame him.

A burden of raising a million silver taels in ten days weighed upon both his shoulders.

Under such pressure, was it any wonder that silver and copper coins occupied his thoughts day and night?

What the Grand Tutor did not know was that his student’s heaven-defying scheme of “catching and auctioning fish” had been inspired by the first-fish tradition of Chagan Lake’s winter fishing.

Winter fishing at Chagan Lake had begun during the Liao and Jin periods, around the same time as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era into which Chai Xiao had traveled.

Every year after the New Year, the Liao emperor would bring his consorts and ministers to Chagan Lake for the Spring Hunting Camp.

They would cut through the ice to catch fish and hunt eagles and geese.

Then they would hold the First-Fish Feast and the First-Goose Feast, hosting grand banquets for the assembled ministers and tribal envoys.

The so-called ice cutting involved using ice chisels weighing more than forty pounds to bore hundreds of holes, each nearly half a meter in diameter.

A huge net, stretching more than a kilometer, was then slowly fed beneath the ice through those holes.

The mesh was usually six inches wide: large fish were caught, while small fish slipped through, allowing the practice to continue sustainably.

In modern times, ordinary fish from Chagan Lake generally sold for twenty or thirty yuan per pound, while freshly caught fish sold for forty or fifty.

But on the first day of winter fishing, the first haul of the first net was called the “first fish.”

It carried tremendous auspicious significance.

Its value could rise a thousandfold, reaching twenty or thirty thousand yuan per pound. A large fish weighing forty or fifty pounds could even sell for a million yuan!

The entire practice relied on the public’s competitive desire to secure an auspicious first prize.

Compared with that, Chai Xiao’s hundredfold increase was already rather restrained.

The main reason was that Great Xu’s purchasing power—especially at this time—was still relatively weak.

If they had been in the capital, facing those princes from the Chai clan who were rich enough to swim in oil and casually wagered a thousand silver taels—

then there would have been no need for restraint at all!

Ten, or even a hundred, silver taels per pound—he was certain they would still scramble to spend it.

At this point, Su Zhongjing looked toward the two leaves remaining in Chai Xiao’s hand and pursed his lips.

The meaning was clear: What were they going to do with the last ten men?

Surely there wasn’t an even more ruthless move?

Strangely, Chai Xiao placed one of the leaves far from the entire outer city.

Su Zhongjing shook his head.

What did this mean?

He could not make sense of it!

But after staring at that location for quite some time, a look of shock appeared on the Grand Tutor’s face.

“You actually know this place?”

Chai Xiao nodded and admitted it without hesitation.

“Today, at the Eastern Drum Tower, you said, ‘This flood will not enter Great Xu.’ Only eight words, yet they shook me for a long time!”

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“Those eight words sound simple enough.”

“But while I was doing my morning exercises, you summoned the Directorate of Waterways, the River Commissioner, and the local canal heads.”

“In other words, you reached through the entire chain of command, from top to bottom, with a single stroke.”

“That is the only effective way to gain a complete understanding of the situation and control the information.”

“So while you continued making arrangements at the Drum Tower, I did something besides sending Yao in to restrain the Imperial Guards.”

“I sought out several servants recently hired by the estates of the princes and nobles—people who were originally from Great Xu, especially some of the elderly.”

“One of them had worked as a hired laborer during the repairs to the inner and outer cities and the dredging of the moat. He told me this.”

At this point, Su Zhongjing took over.

“Besides the Clear River and the Pure River beneath the moat, one to the east and one to the west—what the common people call the Azure Dragon and the Jade Phoenix—”

“there is another hidden river, recorded in very few places and known to even fewer people. It lies five miles beyond the outer city, running almost perpendicular to the Ying River.”

“It is called the Clearstream River. The city’s residents over seventy call it the qilin.”

“Its flow is twice that of the Azure Dragon and Jade Phoenix combined. It, too, is separated by stone slabs and an iron plate.”

“But because so much time has passed, those who knew of it have either grown old or died. No one can say precisely where it is.”

“To be honest, I discovered it by accident as well.”

“The officials from the Directorate of Waterways and the River Commissioner showed me the county gazetteer and the Waterways Annals, but neither mentioned it.”

“In the end, they pointed me toward a pile of scattered bamboo slips written in a strange ancient script. I could only make out the general meaning by guessing at it.”

“Your Majesty, if you happen to find the old man who knew about it, that would indeed be a stroke of fortune.”

“It is simply impossible to know whether he still remembers the exact direction.”

Chai Xiao shook his head.

“I did not have this city-defense map with me at the time, so I never showed it to him.”

“But he said something that differed from the usual belief!”

Su Zhongjing froze.

“Differed from the usual belief?”

Chai Xiao nodded.

“He said that most people would believe the trigram favorable to the flourishing of great waters was…”

Su Zhongjing immediately understood. He pointed to the location on the city-defense map five miles beyond the outer city, north of where the Ying River and the Clearstream River met.

“The Kan Trigram!”

“Both the upper and lower lines are broken, with an unbroken line in the middle.”

“It represents water winding and flowing while continually converging and storing power, like rivers surging onward and lakes and seas stretching vast and deep, displaying tremendous strength.”

Chai Xiao nodded.

“But this place is precisely the opposite. It should be where the great waters escape—that is…”

Su Zhongjing shuddered, utterly perplexed.

“Could it be the Huan Trigram?”

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