Henry said, “Don’t keep me in suspense, just tell me.”

“That’s what I heard from the patrolmen in the village.”

Edward picked up a twig, wrote a fourteen on the ground, then a three, and pointed at them as he spoke: “The law says, if you can capture one member of a band of thieves alive, it’s equivalent to killing two enemies in battle, and the government will reward you with fourteen taels of gold! One tael of gold is worth 576 half-taels of coins…”

Before he could finish counting on his fingers, Henry had already done the math in his head, gasping, “Fourteen taels of gold, that’s 8,064 coins… My goodness.”

“That’s right, that’s right! Since you caught three, you’ll get more than twenty-four thousand coins as a reward!”

At this, Edward patted Henry’s shoulder enviously and said, “Henry, you’ve struck it rich! If you become wealthy, don’t forget your friends!”

……

PS: The reward amount for catching thieves is based on the Qin bamboo slips from Yuelu Academy, “Case of Suspected Purchase for Catching Bandits”: “For capturing one member of a band of thieves, the reward is fourteen taels of gold.” Of course, whether these thieves count as a “band of thieves” will be discussed later.

Chapter 0005: Never Seen So Much Money

“More than twenty-four thousand coins!?”

Henry was stunned by this astronomical number.

Wow, that’s enough to buy ten sets of top-quality armor. Converted to grain, that’s over three hundred shi, nearly twenty thousand jin!

But thinking about it, it made sense. For a ruler, nothing is more urgent than dealing with bandits. Qin law, like its predecessor the “Canon of Laws,” puts the laws against banditry first, because bandits running rampant on the roads cause great harm to public order. The Grand Administrator of Nanjun expressed deep distress over this in official documents, so it’s only natural that heavy rewards are offered to encourage officials and commoners to catch thieves.

Now Henry was feeling quite pleased. If everything was as Edward said, he would go from a penniless, lowly soldier to a wealthy man in Qin.

But then he noticed the eager look Edward was giving the three thieves, and a thought flashed through his mind. He smiled and said, “Edward, you’re not quite right.”

“What’s not right?” Edward was taken aback.

Henry said, “It was clearly the two of us who encountered the bandits and subdued them together. The credit should be shared with you!”

“I…” Edward was at a loss for words. He had just been regretting not taking down the thief he faced, and was a bit envious of Henry’s luck, but he hadn’t dared to ask for a share of the credit. After all, it was Henry who single-handedly captured all three thieves! He had just stood by and watched, not helping at all.

But Henry didn’t see it that way: “It was thanks to you holding off one of the thieves. Otherwise, if all four had rushed me at once, I’d be a corpse by the roadside right now.”

“I really don’t deserve it.”

Edward blushed and tried to decline, but Henry had already made up his mind, patting him and saying, “We’ve been through life and death together. This fortune should be shared!”

This moved Edward deeply. He opened his mouth several times, but swallowed his words each time. After a long moment, he bowed deeply to Henry and said, “Henry, from today on, I, Edward, will treat you as my own brother! If you ever need my help, just say the word!”

Henry quickly helped him up. In Henry’s eyes, although Edward wasn’t much of a fighter and talked too much, he was a decent person—especially since he hadn’t run away when things got tough. So Henry felt this was a friend worth having, and that his promise might really come in handy someday.

Besides, “an innocent man gets into trouble for his wealth.” Henry felt uneasy about receiving such a huge reward alone. He couldn’t watch all three prisoners by himself anyway, so it was better to have a partner to escort the thieves together. Even after splitting the reward, he’d still get over sixteen thousand coins—more than enough.

With this money, even a few years later when he joined the army, Henry wouldn’t have to write home asking his mother for money or clothes. The gears of his fate had shifted, just a little.

While the two of them were politely arguing, among the three thieves, the two wounded ones were groaning in pain, but the burly, bearded man who was tightly bound suddenly burst out laughing.

“Hahahahahaha!”

He laughed so hard that spit dripped into his beard, as if he’d just heard the world’s funniest joke and was about to laugh his guts out.

Edward was furious. He went over and gave him a hard kick, cursing, “Thief, what’s so funny!?”

The bearded man looked up, grinning, and said, “I’m laughing because I never knew I was worth so much. Why did I live over thirty years without ever knowing?”

Henry and Edward were both stunned. The bearded man started rambling, “My name is Clark. Just like you, I was once a good citizen and a soldier of Qin, never left my home county. Then one day, the government conscripted me, so I set out in ragged clothes, eager, hoping to earn some merit by taking heads and bring honor to my village. But who would have thought…”

“Who would have thought you’d find out the battlefield isn’t so pleasant?”

Henry could more or less guess what the bearded man had been through. In his previous life, he had an uncle who’d fought in the border war, and he’d told them not everyone is cut out for the battlefield. For some, even a whiff of death is enough to break them. When you charge forward, there are always some who run the other way.