Liu Cheng finished the preliminary project at lightning speed.
He no longer wanted the vast quantities of silk, copper coins, and other goods in the Prince's Residence storerooms. There was too much, and moving it outside the city would be too conspicuous and difficult. After giving the workers some modest rewards, he spoke to Gao Song and transferred everything directly into the public treasury for military supplies.
He too had answered the call of the Western Islet spirit, setting an example for the subsequent work of replenishing the treasury and supporting the Northern Expedition.
It had to be said that this drew quite a few sidelong looks... Hold on, everyone else was carting off storerooms, and now that you had a legitimate opportunity, you didn't want it? Were you really going to enforce thrift and punish corruption?
At this point, the matter was considered settled.
Of course, his personality had something to do with it too. Left to himself, he naturally wanted to hurry up and finish the main work while the whole realm was still reeling. Ideally, it would still be reeling when he finished, and no one would pay attention to any flaws in his work.
He had even wondered whether he could settle everything before his second and third children were born in the eighth or ninth month.
This was, of course, a classic moment of performance-driven fantasy.
In reality, back in the present, Liu Cheng had barely begun the main project before stumbling over a political problem typical of the lands South of the Yangtze: in what capacity would he travel around the region to handle the coming work concerning the Way of the Celestial Masters?
In principle, the simplest, most direct method was to grant him a general's title. With that title and some soldiers,