Chapter 1013: Tangerine Caramel — Shanghai Love (4)

“Northern Campaign,” they called it, but it wasn’t some earthshattering revelation.

Because the Central Plains had always done this on a schedule—launch a Northern Campaign, and once that wrapped up, launch a Southern Campaign. March up and down, invade, flip the world over, repeat.

Why?

Because if you want to sit on top as the strongest country, it’s way easier to beat the crap out of your dangerous neighbors than it is to improve yourself.

Like, if you want to move up from second place in class, it’s easier to ruin first and third place than it is to raise your own grades.

So the Central Plains always did it that way.

Up north, they attacked and trampled the Mongols and the Jurchens, the “barbarians.” Down south, they invaded Dai Viet and burned everything to the ground, over and over.

As an aside, Dai Viet is pretty damn wronged.

That is, in Qing’s hometown, it’s the country called Vietnam.

The Mongols and the Jurchens are nomadic peoples at the root.

Nomads, in other words, are a people of plunder—gangs of pre-robbers, thieves by nature, born with “bandit” stamped on their foreheads—so if you don’t smash them on a regular basis, they build up strength and run wild in every direction.

But Dai Viet is a settled people like the Central Plains—an agricultural state that lives by planting seeds in the ground.

More than that, Dai Viet had been a tributary state of the Central Plains for thousands of years. Generation after generation they served the Son of Heaven and paid tribute.

Please look kindly on us, please don’t invade us, please—

But the Central Plains didn’t care about that.

They took the tribute like they were supposed to, and when the season came, they drove their armies south and invaded anyway.

Of course, the Central Plains had their own reason, too—because among the neighboring countries, these Dai Viet bastards were the most dangerous of all.

Do the people of the Central Plains fear the growth of our Vietnam?

Yes! They’re actually terrified!

Because in the history up to now, the country that was strongest after the Central Plains—the second-strongest state under heaven—was Dai Viet.

If they didn’t keep it stomped down like this, it might unify the south and become a great empire on par with the Central Plains, so to prevent that, they’d waged “preventive wars” on a regular cycle for thousands of years.

However.

The last war had been a very, very long time ago.

After the Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven tore the imperial palace apart once, the Son of Heaven—who had been grabbed by the collar and dangled from the top of the Forbidden City—had attained a great enlightenment.

Ah. This isn’t the time to be beating up northern barbarians and southern barbarians.

There are things far more dangerous than barbarians—those filthy degenerates called “murim” are parasitizing my land.

“Cultivate yourself, regulate your family, govern the state, bring peace to the world,” right? Before you talk about the world, you have to put your own house in order. First, I need to catch the parasites inside the Central Plains.

Thanks to that, the Mongols and the Jurchens and Dai Viet all benefited by reflection—since there were no invasions from the Central Plains, they could breathe easy, multiply their populations, and build national strength......

If Qing knew, she might have thought, Is it that Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven senior again? What, is he up on some snowy mountaintop rolling a snowball around?

But Qing didn’t know any of that.

She didn’t know anything, period.

Maybe it would be different if someone like Zhuge Ihyeon or Sima Chunbong—those show-off smart types—were here, but as for the people actually sitting here?

Seomun Cheong. Seomun Cheong, specifically.

Seomun Jayeo. Half illiterate. Replaces it with cuteness.

Seol Iri. Rock-bottom on the Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society “intelligence ranking.”

Gongsun Yoye. Spent her entire life learning martial arts, so she doesn’t know a damn thing either.

So the only thought Qing managed was:

Northern Campaign? War? Hm. That’s... kind of unpleasant.

And then it ended.

It’s not like Qing was some guardian of world peace, and it’s not like she had any reason to go to Beijing and shout, “I hate war! I absolutely oppose war!”

So after hearing mildly grimy news first thing in the morning, they rented a carriage and set off once again toward Shanghai County.

*****

The Central Plains’ maritime policy was simple.

Don’t go near the sea.

That was the Maritime Prohibition Decree.

The important point here wasn’t “don’t go out to sea,” but “don’t even go near it.”

The Son of Heaven said not to live within ten li of the shoreline, period.

Still, that was more of a recommendation from the Son of Heaven to his children than an ironclad national law.

So if you really wanted to live on the coast, sure, you could.

The problem was that there wasn’t any place in the Central Plains more dangerous to live than the coast.

Because pirates were swarming.

Specifically—because Japanese pirates existed.

Japanese people taking ships to raid the coasts of the Central Plains was already a tradition over a thousand years old.

So the people of the Central Plains loathed pirates so much they ground their teeth.

But to the Japanese who’d lived on piracy for more than a thousand years, it was a noble family trade handed down by their ancestors.

So in the far future, in Qing’s hometown, when Japanese people treat pirates like some cool job and admire them—well, you could call that only natural.

Anyway.

The Son of Heaven’s “don’t live within ten li of the coast” was a kind of broad scorched-earth strategy aimed at pirates.

A scorched-earth strategy means meeting the enemy by clearing out everything inside your borders—homes, production facilities, crops, all of it.

Then the enemy invades and realizes that all that’s left is ashes, and there’s nothing they can scavenge.

In the end, they gain nothing, their supply lines stretch, their bodies get exhausted, and they can’t advance any further.

The technical term for that is the culminating point of the offensive, but since you’ll never use it in your life, there’s no need to remember it.

For that reason, if you lived on the coast and pirates looted you, that was entirely your fault.

So what happens if you get looted and feel wronged and go complain to the government office?

What? Pirates looted you?

Tsk. That’s why we told you not to live there.

What are you doing—beat the hell out of him!

Instead of avenging you against pirates, they beat the crying commoner who ran in for help.

Why?

Because this bastard chose to live there and “paid” wealth to Japanese pirates. And if people like him keep living on the coast and paying wealth, isn’t that why the Japanese keep coming?

In other words, it’s basically the same as colluding with them.

So as the official position of the Central Plains’ authorities, nobody lives on the coast.

Except for a handful of cities the state permits.

And Shanghai was one of those few permitted regions.

And so—Shanghai!

“Mm. This isn’t what I pictured......”

In Qing’s imagination, she’d expected a seaside tourist city, packed with travelers who wanted to see the ocean.

But when they arrived in Shanghai, the first thing they saw was a solid wall rising into the sky.

A wall wrapped around the entire city, and the nation’s flags stood on top, snapping and fluttering hard in the sea wind.

Still, the inspection was oddly strict.

There were eight separate checkpoints spread outside the city gate, and yet they examined people so thoroughly that the line refused to shrink.

Only after half a shichen passed in the queue did it finally become Qing’s turn.

And when the soldier saw their party, he made a limp, bored sound.

“Hm? Murim people? If so, you should’ve come straight in—why did you wait in line?”

“Huh?”

“Looks like you’re from out of town. Pass.”

What was that? Special treatment for murim?

There was no way government troops should react like this.

Anyway, the inspection ended so easily that they could go right inside.

But... why wasn’t it that crowded?

There were people, sure, but compared to Zhangjiagang, or Nanjing—where people had been packed in until it felt stuffed—this was practically quiet.

Well, nothing looks crowded when you compare it to Nanjing, but still.

It was simply too early for Shanghai to really develop.

It wasn’t small, but it wasn’t big either—just a moderately developed city.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go see the sea first. The sun’ll set soon, and if we go to the shore, there should be places to eat, right? Jayeo, have you ever seen the sea?”

“Nope!”

Jayeo chirped back, excited.

“And you, Yoye?”

“Me neither......”

“And Iri?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. You’ve seen it?”

“Yes.”

“What? When?”

At that, Seol Iri’s expression was... how to put it. Like she was looking at something kind of pathetic.

“Ice Palace.”

“Ice Palace?”

“North Sea.”

“North Sea? Where’s the North Sea?”

“North Sea Ice Palace.”

“Oh, right. Ice Palace was North Sea Ice Palace. But why do you talk like that? Are you Ice Palace or are you ice-brain? Can’t you answer normally?”

“Yes. Yes. No, yes.”

Ice Palace was North Sea Ice Palace? Yes.

Why do you talk like that? Yes.

Are you Ice Palace or ice-brain? No.

Can’t you answer normally? Yes.

“What is this? When we first met, you weren’t talkative, but you could still speak like a normal person. She’s getting weirder and weirder......”

Seol Iri’s lips lifted subtly into a faint smile—though to Qing, who was sensitive to Seol Iri’s expressions, it looked like an endlessly sly smile—

“I’m joking.”

“What is this, sudden cuteness? Seriously, if it wasn’t for your face... You’re pretty, so I’ll let it go.”

Then, unbelievably, Seol Iri stepped closer, wrapped herself around Qing’s arm, and hooked their arms together.

And she tugged lightly as if to say hurry up, and the sensation against Qing’s forearm felt pleasantly satisfying (though less moving than Heema’s), so Qing thought, Fine, let’s go.

But Qing tilted her head.

What is she, a cat? The kind that comes over and rubs on you whenever it feels like it. But why did she suddenly get in a good mood?

No way to know.

Was she excited to see the sea?

Seol Iri glanced back, and Gongsun Yoye looked a little sulky, but Qing’s all-direction spatial sensing couldn’t read every fine detail.

So—finally, let’s go see the sea!

To the northeast along the coast, there were a bunch of tall structures. Qing figured that if they went there, they could see the sea and probably eat something good.

But then—

“Stop! Who dares stick their nose into military business! State your purpose!”

“Uh, we wanted to see the sea.”

The soldier’s face had tightened into a deep scowl, but when he saw the big blade Qing carried, he relaxed immediately.

At that blatant shift, Qing wondered, What? Are murim people popular around here or something? Why?

“Ah, you’re murim people. Looks like you’re from out of town. From here on, it’s a garrison—after sunset, passage is forbidden. Come back after sunrise tomorrow.”

Now that she looked properly, those tall structures weren’t pavilions at all. They were coastal forts and watchtowers.

If she showed an inspector token, she could probably go up, but there was no need to go that far.

Still, counting on the soldier’s politeness, Qing asked just in case.

“Ah. Yes. Um, is there an inn or a pavilion where you can see the sea?”

“You’re joking too hard. If you don’t want to get hit by the pirates’ cannons, do you think there’s any rich man in Shanghai who’d build higher than the city wall?”

If a building is tall, it can get hit by cannons.

Come to think of it, this wasn’t the seaside back home. In this crude ancient Central Plains, it was a plausible reason.

So... yeah. Then I’ll have to see it tomorrow......

*****

There were several reasons the court that issued the Maritime Prohibition Decree still wrapped Shanghai in high walls and developed it.

First, as the mouth of the Yangtze, it served as a coastal fortress that kept pirates from entering the river.

The Central Plains had always been a land of rivers and canals.

They valued rivers and canals so much that “governing the country” was described as “controlling the waters.”

And because canals connected the Yangtze and the Yellow River, a ship that entered the Yangtze could head north and penetrate deep into the Central Plains’ north and south.

Second, seafood was a major matter, too.

You could tell how much the people of the Central Plains loved seafood by the simple fact that there was nothing from the sea they wouldn’t shove into their mouths.

There were only two peoples on earth who loved seafood more than the Central Plains—those Eastern barbarians over there.

Anyway, if you want to catch seafood, you obviously need cities that handle fishing.

And finally, Shanghai was also a trade port where maritime trade was permitted.

The Eastern barbarians, Japan, and even foreign barbarians—who somehow found their way here from impossibly far away.

“Sea barbarians” meant barbarians from beyond the sea, those who arrived across the water—the barbarians from the Western Regions.

However, the scale of maritime trade with sea barbarians was tightly controlled under strict surveillance.

For reference, in the current Central Plains, the only sea barbarian officially permitted for large-scale trade was Portugal—just that one.

Even then, at first only small-scale trade had been allowed, but the Portuguese were extremely polite (they paid a lot of tribute to the imperial family), and unlike typical sea barbarians, they kept faith thoroughly (they didn’t do piracy).

The Son of Heaven praised that admirable behavior and allowed them to build a port on Aomen Island in Guangdong, and next to it, permitted large-scale trade in Xianggang County.

Meanwhile, on Aomen Island there was a shrine called Ma Kok Temple, built to honor Mazu, a female Taoist figure who had been very efficacious back in the Song Dynasty.

But the Portuguese barbarians—maybe because they mistook the signboard written on Ma Kok Temple for the island’s name—started calling it Ma Kok Island as they pleased.

And if you pronounce “Ma Kok” in the Central Plains style?

Macau!

And if you pronounce the trade port “Xianggang” in the Central Plains style?

Hong Kong!

Anyway.

Since Aomen Island and Xianggang were monopolized by the Portuguese, the other sea barbarians had to find other ports.

And at that time, there were other sea barbarians who knocked on Shanghai’s gates.

Barbarians with red hair who claimed they came from the Netherlands—red-haired devils.