Three Men Together (Part 1)

"Fourth brother! Fourth brother!"

Ji Fa hurriedly crashed through the small courtyard gate and headed straight for the north room.

Only after hearing the commotion did Li Ping'an pull his attention away from the Heavenly Palace song-and-dance troupe's performance. Risking being misunderstood by a group of Chang'e as disliking this particular dance, he returned that portion of his active consciousness to Ji Dan's body.

As expected, Ji Fa had come because of Di Xin's grain requisition order.

Ji Fa sat behind the low table, frowning at Ji Dan as he leisurely brewed tea. He muttered quietly, "What are we supposed to do about this?"

"What reactions have the other feudal lords had?"

"The distances are too great; we still don't know how the other feudal lords have responded. The King only gave us three months!"

Ji Fa spoke quickly:

"This season's millet was only just harvested. The King's order for Western Qi demands nearly sixty percent of everything we can collect!

"If that happens, forget marching out to war—even training in the Barracks will leave our soldiers going hungry every day!"

Li Ping'an raised an eyebrow slightly.

Di Xin's move was quite clever. Its only flaw was that he was too impatient.

If he had turned it into a slow-boiling scheme, making the feudal lords offer grain and fodder every two years, quite a few of them would have been dragged down by it within ten years.

As for the pretexts for each grain levy, those could have been invented at will.

"Fourth brother, what do we do?"

"Hand it over," Li Ping'an said. "If we don't, are we supposed to wait for the King to come attack us?"

"Huh?" Ji Fa frowned in thought.

He braced himself on his knees and stood, pacing back and forth through the small