Chapter 7176 Banquet

Chapter 7176 Banquet
At this moment, Cyprian was also somewhat stunned. After all, he had seen Zhang Ren's heroic figure before. Whether it was the Battle of Tianzhou or the Battle of Norsemania, Zhang Ren's mythical appearance was still very intimidating.

According to Cyprian, no matter if Zhang Ren is the Secretary of Heaven, or some Lucifer, or even Satan or something like that, as long as he is a top-level god, he should at least have some integrity and some things he shouldn't say. Cyprian should be able to tease him a bit.

So this guy is really shameless? How could he say something like that?

Even if we take a step back and assume he's not a Heavenly Scribe or Lucifer, based on Zhang Ren's performance in Odin's Tomb in Norse mythology, he was at least a top-tier commander of a large army among humans. Even if he didn't reach the level of an emperor, he wouldn't be far off. Under such circumstances, he should at least have some self-respect.

Even a beast like Perennis has some sense of pride. But what did he hear? He was practically telling me to get lost, but when he heard I could help him, he practically said we were like brothers. How can people be like that?

After Zhang Ren finished speaking, he stared at Cyprian, feeling only excitement and no sense of shame. After all, he was well aware of his own situation. In the battle at Odin's Tomb, Zhang Ren had actually completed all the advancement rituals, sorted out all the knowledge, and, with the guidance of destiny, had integrated it into his own command method.

This kind of command is Zhang Ren's command, not something learned or imitated. It is a custom-made product, and only Zhang Ren himself can bring it to its full potential.

It can be said that after losing Han Xin's Hand and Youxi Sword, as long as Zhang Ren regained his previous knowledge, he would return to his former glory as the peak human commander who slaughtered Odin's army like dogs. However, unfortunately, even though Zhang Ren mastered that knowledge at that moment, he was unable to use it at all after losing the external operating device.

After all, given Zhang Ren's physical condition, he simply couldn't run software at the peak of human capabilities.

This is also why Zhang Ren is half-dead now. To put it bluntly, even at this moment when he is communicating with Cyprian, Zhang Ren is still suffering from the curse of knowledge.

"You really have no dignity as a strong person. Even if you're not the true Vice-King of Heaven, you should at least be a strong person. How could you say such a thing?" Cyprian said with some lament. He had originally planned to tease Zhang Ren, but he didn't expect that Zhang Ren would surrender before he even mentioned anything. This is not funny!

"Enough nonsense. It's settled then. I'll ascend to heaven as the Vice-King of Heaven, and you'll be my Pope below. Now that I've indeed ascended to heaven, it's your turn to prove yourself," Zhang Ren said in a deep voice. He had been tormented by the knowledge in his mind, and now that he had the opportunity to integrate it, what else was there to say but to solve the problem as soon as possible?

Who doesn't want to be a strong person? Zhang Ren is a top-tier strong person!
"Vice-Prince of Heaven?" Cyprian's lips twitched twice. He really didn't know how to describe the term, and he also didn't know how to face Zhang Ren, who said this. You still remember that you are the Vice-Prince of Heaven? Damn it, don't think I don't know that when you were on trial in the Roman Senate, you said that you didn't report Christians because the fee offered by Rome was too low!

If this were a lie, that would be one thing, but the problem is that it's a truth certified by the Roman Senate. And because of this statement, Pompiñus has increased the reward for reporting Christians in recent years. Damn it, even Lucifer wouldn't do something like this!
This isn't even a question of whether it's abstract or not; this guy couldn't even imagine it.

"Without a doubt, it is me." Zhang Ren said with great pride. He felt that this title was quite good, and his lord also thought it was very suitable.

"And what about your lord?" Cyprian felt he really needed to argue with Zhang Ren on this point. Everything else could be put aside. He just wanted to know what kind of vice-ruler Zhang Ren was. Even after all that, he hadn't lost his title. He was truly impressed.

"Please help me invite my lord here." Zhang Ren reached out to support himself on the ground, preparing to get up, but after a few attempts, his body became somewhat weak. He then called out to the maid beside him with a hint of helplessness.

Upon seeing this, the palace maid quickly went to find Liu Zhang.

Cyprian was somewhat bewildered at this moment, and even more bewildered was that the Lord had truly come.

As the somewhat portly Liu Zhang arrived, Zhang Ren's initially dismissive expression turned serious. He even tried to rise and bow several times, but Liu Zhang stopped him each time. Bowing was unimportant; this guy was his top henchman, and whether he could make a name for himself in the future depended on Zhang Ren. He had to protect him, he absolutely had to protect him.

"My lord, let me introduce you. This is my subordinate, Cyprian." After being held down by Liu Zhang, Zhang Ren struggled a few times, realizing that he was in a useless state lately and there was nothing else he could do, so he explained to Liu Zhang with a bit of exhaustion.

Cyprian looked at the chubby man in front of him, whose face was full of benevolence, and was somewhat at a loss for words. Damn it, so you really have a master? By the way, is this master a real master?
"Um, are you the ruler of the Heavenly Kingdom?" Cyprian was a little stunned by Zhang Ren's actions, and after looking at Liu Zhang in silence for a while, he asked.

After all, he really didn't know what to ask. This person was obviously a high-ranking nobleman of the Han Dynasty. Whether he was a master or not was not important, but this was clearly not a good thing. However, Zhang Ren's actions made Cyprian very embarrassed, so embarrassed that he couldn't get over it if he didn't ask.

Liu Zhang was slightly taken aback upon hearing this. What was the Lord of Heaven? But after looking at Cyprian's face, he realized he was a Roman. Well, perhaps he wasn't fluent in Chinese.

In the past, the Romans also referred to the Chengdu area as the "Heavenly Kingdom." Originally, the Han Dynasty called it the "Land of Abundance." But I don't know how the Romans translated or transformed it. Anyway, when they learned Chinese, it was easy for them to turn it into the "Heavenly Kingdom."

Following this line of thought, Liu Zhang chuckled and said, "Yes, that's true, but I haven't been back there much these past few years. Why?"

Upon hearing this, Cyprian was somewhat dejected, and even began to wonder if something was amiss. At this moment, he was certain that Liu Zhang was not talking nonsense or deliberately exaggerating. The other party really was the ruler of the Heavenly Kingdom. Damn it, how could this be!

"What's wrong?" Liu Zhang asked kindly. Having lived without any pressure in recent years, Liu Zhang's mentality had become more peaceful, and his views on many people and things had become more benevolent. Therefore, when facing Zhang Ren's "little brother," Liu Zhang cheerfully said that this was also his little brother. There was no such thing as "the little brother's little brother is not my little brother."

“I just realized that history is indeed a bit outrageous.” Cyprian forced those headache-inducing thoughts out of his head and then grinned as wide as he could.

"I heard from Chen Zichuan that you're quite capable," Liu Zhang said with a smile, looking at Cyprian with the air of an elder.

"A little hardship, nothing to mention," Cyprian said calmly. This was his usual attitude whenever someone praised him, because his strength never needed anyone's approval. He was strong, and who could deny it?
"Ji Yu, come and have a drink." Seeing that Liu Zhang had run away and hadn't come back for so long, Yuan Shu took a wine cup and brought his new lackey, Zhen Yan, with him.

When Zhen Yan followed Yuan Shu, he was somewhat unwilling. Although he didn't know how Yuan Shu viewed him, Zhen Yan felt that it was a bit strange for him to follow Yuan Shu. There was nothing he could do. Yuan Shu himself was not a decent person, so those who followed Yuan Shu were naturally not decent people either!

This is what they mean by a wolf king leading his lackeys!
"Hey, wait a minute, my top general has come to see me with his men," Liu Zhang called out to Yuan Shu as he approached.

"Isn't this Cyprian?" Yuan Shu recognized him after a couple of glances. After all, the Yuan family's people had been staying at the Yuan family's old residence in Chang'an since they arrived, so Yuan Shu had seen Cyprian several times. "I heard Xun Youruo say that this guy is my nephew's future head steward. How did he become the underling of your top general?"

The relationship is rather complicated, but Xun Chen had told Yuan Shu about Cyprian, so this guy knew to some extent what position Cyprian held in the Yuan family. He was the future prime minister of the Yuan family who would inherit Xun Chen's position!

Although the Yuan family was far inferior to the Han dynasty, as a minor hegemon in Eastern Europe, they still had some prestige. Just look at how Rome would drag the Yuan family along to wade through trouble in Northern Europe and world wars – that's a testament to their strength!

The Yuan family desperately wanted Rome to reject this kind of thing, but just look at the other families. When they heard that the Yuan family had been dragged into Rome's trap again, their grumbling and their eyes filled with undisguised envy and jealousy spoke volumes.

"Lord Yuan." Cyprian bowed to Yuan Shu. He had met Yuan Shu several times at the Yuan family's old residence and knew about Yuan Shu's two sons, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu.

Cyprian imagined the situation of the Yuan family and thought that the Yuan family was indeed a super noble family, and that they could even create two such forces. It was only because they were defeated in the civil war that they had a chance to become emperor. However, this thought only passed through his mind and he did not say it out loud.

Otherwise, Yuan Shu would definitely have shut Cyprian up.

"By the way, you and Zhang Zhenxi are quite familiar?" Yuan Shu asked with some curiosity, then gestured to a palace maid to pour a cup of wine for Cyprian as well. The two clinked glasses before Yuan Shu asked.

Yuan Shu was a bit eccentric, but he was indeed the eldest son of a powerful family in Guandong, the Yuan clan of Runan. When he was alive, he still had some aristocratic air about him, and his every move was quite intimidating. Of course, out of 365 days a year, he probably only had less than five days when he could act like a human.

“Yes, I was the one who arranged the grand ceremony for His Excellency the Vice-King of Heaven to ascend to heaven back then,” Cyprian said with a smile. “I see that he is now burdened by knowledge, so I came to ask him if he needs me to help him strip away this knowledge first.”

"Separate?" Before Zhang Ren could react, Liu Zhang refused, "This cannot be separated. I specifically asked someone, and if it is separated, Gongwei will fall from command of the army. No, no, this knowledge should be maintained for now, and absorbed slowly is the right thing to do."

If it were simply a matter of stripping away this knowledge, Liu Zhang still had a way. Although the Han dynasty didn't have many secret techniques, they could still come up with some methods to strip away knowledge.
The problem is that this knowledge is extremely valuable. Once it is stripped away, Zhang Ren will lose this knowledge, and it will be questionable whether he can even maintain the level of commanding a large army, let alone reach the pinnacle of human power.

This is why Zhang Ren preferred to live a half-dead existence rather than try to detach himself from this knowledge. After all, as long as this knowledge remained, Zhang Ren could slowly absorb and process it. Once he had fully assimilated it, even if he couldn't reach the pinnacle of Odin's Tomb, he could still kick most of the world's commanders. There was no other way; this command style perfectly suited Zhang Ren.

More importantly, Zhang Ren's divine guidance can truly bless hundreds of thousands of people!

Okay, regardless of whether it can really provide a blessing or not, since everyone else believes that Zhang Ren can provide a blessing, then he must be able to provide one. So when Zhang Ren recovers, he has one more buff than Huangfu Song.

This is awesome.

“Your Excellency, the Vice-King of Heaven, cannot bear so much knowledge.” Cyprian looked at Zhang Ren and then said very seriously, “His physical foundation and his mental capacity cannot bear so much knowledge. Even without separating it, he cannot fully inherit it.”

Liu Zhang and Yuan Shu were both taken aback upon hearing this, while Zhen Yan seemed to be deep in thought.

“How is that possible? I perfectly carried it before…” Zhang Ren was stunned for a moment, then he also began to think with his head down, realizing the problem.

“This is an excessive amount of knowledge. I don’t know if a large-scale army commander needs this much knowledge, but I know you certainly can’t possibly handle this much,” Cyprian said with a smile.

“If I were to forcibly strip away so much knowledge like this, I wouldn’t be the commander of the Great Legion anymore, and all the pain I’ve endured would have been for nothing.” Zhang Ren shook his head repeatedly. “Let me see how much I can absorb and assimilate first. I’m working hard to absorb and assimilate every day now, and I can clearly feel my progress. We’ll talk about stripping it away when I can no longer bear it.”

Zhang Ren made up his mind almost instantly. He hadn't reached his limit yet, and he could clearly feel the experience and knowledge he was carrying constantly turning into his own wisdom. So he was somewhat resistant to Cyprian's suggestion. After all, he wanted to try to absorb and master the knowledge and make it his own.

“Well, it’s a bit difficult.” Cyprian shook his head. “In my opinion, the knowledge required to command a large army must be a system. If you can only absorb a part of it and cannot build your own system, you will definitely fail in the end. It’s not a matter of how much you absorb, but that you cannot build your own system. All your previous efforts will be in vain.”

Cyprian may not understand military matters, but that's a matter of lacking hands, not a lack of brains. On the contrary, Cyprian is very good at organizing and operating these things, and there is a strong connection between the military and organizational structure and operation, so Cyprian speaks about these things in a very logical and reasonable way.

At least it sounds like these people would have a hard time finding the problem. In reality, let alone these people, even if Huangfu Song came to listen to Cyprian explain the organizational structure of the army, he would have a hard time finding the loopholes. After all, the Knights Templar is an extension of this organization, a very close-knit organization that has existed for thousands of years.

While it may not have the same lifespan as the core architecture, it is still very difficult to find vulnerabilities in an organization that has survived for thousands of years from a modern perspective.

Therefore, facing Cyprian's eloquent speech, Yuan Shu, Liu Zhang, and Zhang Ren all showed solemn expressions. They had only considered that Zhang Ren would eventually absorb all this knowledge, but what if he couldn't? To be honest, they had also judged that he might not be able to absorb it all, but they had thought that absorbing more was always better than absorbing less, but they hadn't thought about the framework.

But now that Cyprian has mentioned framework structure, Zhang Ren and the other two have realized a problem they have to face: no matter how much you absorb, as long as you can't integrate it into a framework, the upper limit of the knowledge you absorb is still the same.

“Essentially, what you need to do now is to combine this knowledge into a framework that you can use, so that you can become a commander of a large army. If you just keep absorbing it, I think that’s just simple knowledge accumulation,” Cyprian advised thoughtfully.

Zhang Ren nodded; he had realized this as well.

“The problem you’re facing now is actually quite simple. Your original knowledge is definitely a framework that perfectly fits your cognition and can be applied to reality. But the framework of this knowledge is too large, too large to be applied to your current situation,” Cyprian said with a smile. “So what you need to do is abandon some of the knowledge and then reorganize the framework. That’s the most realistic approach.”

“Without a framework of knowledge, you can’t see what it really looks like, and naturally you can’t eliminate anything,” Zhang Ren said, sounding somewhat weary.

“Just acquire that framework you did back then,” Cyprian said with a hint of sarcasm. “Get back to that state where you had that kind of knowledge, and then look down on these things from that same perspective. Without affecting the whole framework, just remove a part of it, and many problems will be solved.”

Zhang Ren was taken aback upon hearing this, then nodded. Indeed, this was the real way to solve the problem. Moreover, Cyprian was right; it was indeed necessary to absorb the entire framework. At the very least, once the entire framework was absorbed, he would be the commander of a large army no matter what, and the rest would only be a matter of strength. However, without the ability to reorganize the framework, no matter how much knowledge he absorbed, he would only be operating under the command of a large army, which would not solve the problem at all.

"Thank you very much." Zhang Ren said sincerely. As for how to become the God Zhang Ren who integrated wisdom and built the framework back then, it was a bit difficult, but if he asked, it shouldn't be a big problem.

“No need to be so polite. Didn’t the Vice-King of Heaven say that I am your guiding light on earth?” Cyprian said with a hint of sarcasm, but Zhang Ren pretended not to hear it.

"Come on, let's drink! Cyprian, you did a great job! You've solved a major problem that's been bothering us for a long time." Seeing the joy on Zhang Ren's face, Liu Zhang knew that they had found a solution to the problem that had been bothering them for so long. He immediately grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and poured Cyprian a drink. Sometimes, he was completely unconventional!

Cyprian fled after a few drinks. Damn it, Romans would drink when offered a toast, but Liu Zhang would offer a toast only after someone had drunk it. What more can be said? He was so arrogant, he almost got Cyprian drunk.

The reason why alcohol can get people drunk is not only due to the alcohol itself, but also because of many other alcohols. These days, alcoholic beverages, even without distillation, do not have a high alcohol content, but the various alcohols with different flavors can really knock a person out.

"They ran away already. These young people these days are really not up to par." Yuan Shu clicked his tongue twice as he watched Cyprian flee in disarray, preparing to take his few inhuman brothers to another place to have a drinking contest with those disobedient noble families.

After calming himself down and confirming that there was a solution, Zhang Ren, who hadn't originally planned to drink, naturally picked up his glass, ready to relieve his worries!
Liu Zhang then gave Zhang Ren a few instructions before going to another location with Yuan Shu.

"Bo Fu, Gong Jin, let's have a drink!" Yuan Shu arrived at the group of aristocratic families and saw Sun Ce and Zhou Yu. Without thinking, he greeted them. The two of them were not polite and picked up their wine cups to drink. After all, a banquet is about meeting the right people and drinking the right wine!
"Then I'll trouble Lord Yuan to prepare more gold, and we'll settle the accounts with copper," Sun Ce said with a smile to Yuan Sui after finishing his drink.

Yuan Sui nodded repeatedly, expressing his gratitude for Sun Ce's support.

The Yuan family's gold production is actually quite high, but they have nowhere to spend it. Even though they have set up many gold jewelry stores in the Central Plains, ordinary people generally can't afford too much. You know, even when it comes to children wearing locks, only the major aristocratic families actually wear gold locks.

Only wealthy and powerful families could afford gold and silver locks. Ordinary people, even if they had some money, would at most use copper locks. Of course, to be fair, in this era where copper was money, copper locks were quite expensive and not something that ordinary people could afford.

So, Old Yuan's gold shop was just so-so. It could make a lot of money in a year, but if you really wanted to talk about how much, you could only say it was a steady stream of income.

Unexpectedly, during the banquet, when Sun Ce and Zhou Yu came over to offer a toast, they brought good news to Yuan Sui. They said that the Sun family needed more than ten tons of gold and needed the Yuan family's support. In exchange, the Sun family also had a large number of copper ingots, the quantity of which was not specified, which would be sold to the Yuan family free of charge.

In Tiannan Commandery, where Sun Ce and Zhou Yu were located, there were many copper mines. Over the years, they had accumulated a considerable amount of copper ingots. Originally, this copper could have been handed over to the national treasury so that Chen Xi could issue a batch of Wuzhu coins. However, with the combined credit of Chen Xi, the government, and the Chang'an Bank, issuing banknotes would have been sufficient.

In other words, there is a sufficient supply of Wuzhu coins currently in circulation, so there is no need to collect copper ingots to mint coins.

Of course, copper has other uses, such as electric motors and engines, which are unavoidable, so copper mines in Jiangdong have been continuously mined.

However, compared to the general situation in Yuan's region, which has a great need for various kinds of power machines, the demand in Jiangdong is not very large in the short term. Therefore, after learning that Yuan's family has reached the point of using silver to draw wire to make power machines, Sun Ce felt that he could make use of his own reserves of resources.

After all, there's no point in leaving so many copper ingots there. It's better to exchange them for resources with the Yuan family. As for whether we make a profit or a loss during the exchange, that's not really important.

"They want to mint two hundred million gold-red commemorative coins?" Yuan Shu only understood what Jiangdong needed gold for after hearing Sun Ce's explanation.

“Yes, so we need a lot of gold.” Sun Ce nodded and said, “Chen Zichuan has agreed to help us roll it, but we need to provide the materials ourselves.”

Chen Xi had initially planned to provide the materials, but upon discovering that Sun Ce wanted to roll a copper-gold alloy, Chen Xi calculated the required gold and decided to let Sun Ce provide the gold himself.

It's not that there isn't that much gold, but it's unnecessary. In Chen Xi's view, it's just a commemorative coin issue, but you're making it so outrageous, what will others think?

"Does Eastern Europe have enough gold reserves?" Yuan Shu asked Yuan Sui.

“It’s enough, and it’s still growing,” Yuan Sui nodded and said.

The Yuan family mines around Sizhao City and easily find gold mines. Although they are all by-product gold mines and the output is not outrageous, they can still accumulate a lot of gold while doing other things. Now that they have power machines, it is even easier to do these things.

"Do you produce copper over there?" Yuan Shu asked Sun Ce.

"It's alright. To be honest, Luzon Island is the main copper producer. We also have some decent copper mines on the islands we occupy, but Luzon Island is relatively easier to mine." Sun Ce thought for a moment and said. He didn't pay much attention to these things, but he did have some understanding of the fact that Wu was rich in resources. It was truly abundant in resources!
“It’s fine. In our area, copper production is actually average, but gold and silver are relatively plentiful. And right now, engines and electric motors have a huge demand for copper.” Yuan Sui said with a headache. Communication with families like the Xiangli, Wang, and Zhang families relies entirely on the old folks in the Yuan family, because they can always find some incredibly powerful connections.

Regardless of the relationship, gold, silver, and copper are indispensable if you want to develop engines, electric motors, and certain high-end core components.

However, the problem for the Yuan family now is that while they have sufficient reserves of gold and silver, their reserves of copper are indeed insufficient, especially since the copper consumption of these items is quite outrageous.

“Then we can cooperate,” Zhou Yu said with a smile. “There are actually quite a few copper-producing areas in Tiannan County. We can provide the smelted copper, and the Yuan family can provide the gold and silver.”

Yuan Sui nodded upon hearing this. He had thought so before, but Yuan Shu always kept the Yuan family in check, telling them not to bother Sun Ce and Zhou Yu as much as possible. In the past, Yuan Sui thought that the Yuan family was thriving and there were no extra people, so he really had never gone to find Sun Ce and Zhou Yu.

This time, however, it was genuinely due to development needs. The Yuan family's lack of copper was an issue that couldn't be ignored. They had originally planned to discuss it with the Wu Kingdom after the Grand Court Assembly, but before they could even speak, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu had already arrived with resources to discuss the matter.

Although there is no explicit contract at the moment, what Sun Ce and Zhou Yu said was already better than Yuan Sui had imagined, so Yuan Sui was willing to reciprocate.

"We can discuss the details later. As for cooperation, our Yuan family is very willing," Yuan Sui said with a smile, quickly pulling Deng Tong and Yong Kai over. They were an unbreakable alliance, and for such an important matter, they had to be there to witness it!

On the other side, Zhuge Jin met his eldest son, Zhuge Ke, who was brought by his younger brother. To be honest, after not seeing him for two years, Zhuge Jin found that his son had developed a bit too much.

"Father." Zhuge Ke bowed respectfully.

"Kongming, you've raised your nephew very well." Zhuge Jin said happily. He realized that his son was very strange when he was three years old. Because he realized this, and also realized that he seemed unable to control him, he sent Zhuge Ke to Zhuge Liang. He didn't expect that in just two years, Zhuge Liang would raise his son so well.

"It's alright. Ke'er is very smart and loves learning." Zhuge Liang thought for a moment and said. He mainly taught Zhuge Ke some book knowledge every now and then, and the rest was all taken care of by Li Yuan. Compared with Huang Yueying, Zhuge Ke seemed to prefer Li Yuan.

As for why he became so well-behaved, well, after seeing the crazy women fighting in the inner courtyard, who were bigger than people and probably had water balloons of tons flying back and forth, Zhuge Ke realized that living was actually quite difficult. This is why, in just two years, Zhuge Ke, who was originally a bit thin, actually became quite strong.

My aunt from Liangzhou taught me that learning wasn't important; what mattered was that I had to be strong, because if I wasn't strong enough, I would easily be played to death. Only when I was healthy could I learn other things.

“Ke’er, you’ve grown up a bit now. Would you like to come with me to Tiannan County? It’s summer there all year round. We have meat for every meal, fruit before and after meals, and freshly squeezed juice for you.” Zhuge Jin stroked his son’s head, bent down slightly, and said with a smile. This was the simplest and most effective sales pitch that Zhuge Jin had recently developed.

There's no way around it; compared to other places, Tiannan County's current advantage is this: you definitely won't starve there. There's plenty of fish, meat, fruit, and coconut milk. Aside from the higher temperature, everything else is actually quite good.

As for the high temperature problem, it can now be solved with cooling etching, so it is no longer a problem. Therefore, looking at the chubby-faced and seemingly robust child in front of him, Zhuge Jin thought for a moment and decided that he could take the child to Tiannan County.

After all, both of his younger brothers and sisters-in-law were pregnant, and Zhuge Jin felt somewhat embarrassed to continue bothering Zhuge Liang. The reason he sent his son over back then was not only because he thought the child was difficult to manage and a bit mischievous, but also because he could help Zhuge Liang relieve his worries.

But now, with both of Zhuge Liang's wives about to give birth, Zhuge Jin also felt it was best not to let his mischievous children cause trouble here.

As for the servants and attendants in the Zhuge family, even if Zhuge Ke were here, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Having seen his wife after she gave birth, Zhuge Jin felt it was better to avoid causing too much trouble. Besides, Zhuge Ke was older now, and he could indeed take care of him.

"Really? Father, is there really enough fruit in Tiannan County?" Zhuge Ke asked with shining eyes. He didn't lack meat with Zhuge Liang, but there was really no way to get fruit. In the north, even with the logistics industry being quite good now, and the Zhuge family being a truly wealthy and powerful family, if there was no food, there was no food.

Zhuge Ke had no choice but to accept this. He was already quite fortunate to have apples and oranges to eat in winter, but he couldn't expect to eat fruit as a meal.

"Well, that's about it over there. They might lack other things, but they certainly don't lack food. They have a wide variety of fruits, including many local fruits that you can't find in Chang'an. You know lychees, right? You've probably eaten them a few times. You can get fresh ones there," Zhuge Jin said with a smile. "They produce all kinds of fruits over there. Fruits are the most common commodity that Jiangdong sells to the Central Plains."

“Uncle,” Zhuge Ke said, turning to look at Zhuge Liang. He was indeed clever, but he was still just a child. After his father described the benefits of Tiannan County, Zhuge Ke naturally felt a longing for it. After all, at this age, it was the perfect time for him to enjoy good food.

"Is the fruit production in Tiannan really that exaggerated?" Zhuge Liang patted Zhuge Ke's head, indicating that since his father wanted to take him, what could his uncle possibly disagree with? Then he looked at Zhuge Jin with some surprise and asked.

“Yes, the governor has been promoting cash crops. He prefers large-scale planting and harvesting to picking in the forest. In recent years, he has been having people take stock of the local fruit varieties in preparation for breeding improved varieties there.” Zhuge Jin nodded. These things weren’t things that couldn’t be said, so he naturally said what he thought.

Upon hearing this, Zhuge Liang felt even more at ease about Jiangdong. He now fully understood what Chen Xi meant when he said that Jiangdong did not regard him as a feudal lord.