“Can strategists not ascend to the throne?”
In the fourth volume, at the end of Zhongping, storms gather in Luoyang. Chapter 106: The Book on Agriculture.
Qiao Yan, of course, had more reasons than what the system mentioned.
Having agricultural books isn’t just about how many people can be fed; the key is how many extra mouths they can support.
If the Han Dynasty were to crumble, getting the imperial seal ahead of Sun Jian—or even snatching it from him—is entirely within the realm of possibility.
But getting Qiao Yan to sift through Bingzhou’s farmers to find the best ones and then send them to teach in various counties, all while brainstorming ways to boost crop yields, would take an immense amount of effort.
Back when she was confined in Leping and Liu Hong’s death was still a ways off, she had the leisure to study the Book on Agricultural Practices and tinker with pig-raising techniques, but now that her domain has expanded from Leping to encompass all Bingzhou, doing that seems a bit out of touch.
Weighing the pros and cons, the choice is clear.
Better to trade that imperial seal—which doesn’t really represent divine mandate—for agricultural books.
Once the grain yield is sufficient, she could even hire Xiongnu and Xianbei as laborers for those open-pit mines instead of relying solely on the interests of the noble families in Bingzhou to hand over their hidden laborers in charge of mining.
So let’s trade!
Her strategist system is really a bit too naive. The other side openly stated that hoarding grain is for rebellion, and yet it remembers Qiao Yan mentioning her actions were in imitation of Liang Xi, the Governor of Bingzhou under Cao Wei, without even suspecting that she was harboring the same idea. After she made her decision, it rushed off to contact the other side.
This time, there was no need for a three-day search period; it wasn’t long before a guarantee for the transaction was handed to Qiao Yan. After she signed the contract, what appeared in her hands was a book on northern agriculture.
After flipping through two pages, Qiao Yan realized that the deal, which she’d thought was good, might have underestimated the value.
This agriculture book was said to be suitable for northern farming, but it only meant that the details like seed selection, cultivation seasons, and methods were more in tune with the northern environment; it didn’t imply the contents were limited to that.
Whether it was due to the host’s experiences or the knowledge stored in the farming system, there were substantial records about local fertilizers in this book.
For example, ammonium sulfate and land sulfuric acid.
The latter doesn’t literally mean sulfuric acid, but is equivalent to the fertilizing effect of ammonium sulfate.
Both of these fertilizers could potentially be produced under Han conditions.
A bit of a special raw material would just be some dehydrated plaster powder.
Did the Han have plaster? Of course!
During the Western Han, Liu An, the King of Huainan, made tofu using plaster. This agricultural book even thoughtfully noted that there were gypsum mines around Linfen in Shanxi, so they should be able to find some if they go a bit north.
This couldn’t be more convenient.
As for the process of converting raw gypsum into dehydrated gypsum, Qiao Yan had some recollection of that.
Continuing to read the agriculture book, she came across the records of compound fertilizer base fertilizers. The materials for this kind of fertilizer were indeed a bit more troublesome, including animal bones, but this was nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium compound fertilizer, which was remarkably effective and could significantly enhance grain yields with slow-release.
Animal bones…
Upon seeing this, Qiao Yan couldn’t help but let her mind drift to the north.
Where could she get animal bones? Aside from the pigs raised in Leping, when nomadic peoples winter-slaughter their cattle, sheep, and horses, the meat obviously ends up in the mouths of the Hu people, but what about the bones?
Probably, aside from being made into bone tools, the leftover parts were just buried on the grasslands.
This is quite a lucrative source!
Compared to the current situation in Bingzhou, where it’s hard to find meat and collect animal bones, the Hu people eat meat mainly due to insufficient plant resources to fill their food needs, and indeed they have an environmental advantage in raising livestock.
And these animal bones could be converted into bone meal or defatted bone meal, essential components of fertilizer, just as the agriculture book stated.
She’s definitely gotta hit up those nomads!
Calming herself down from the excitement of suddenly wanting to march against the Hu people for all these benefits, she continued to read through the agriculture book.
Besides the fertilizers that could be produced under current productivity conditions, there were also various farming tools that had universal significance between the north and south.
Qiao Yan herself was not an expert in farming, and because of that, the most she could recall was a significant historical innovation: the curved plow, which she had previously tasked the academy’s agricultural experts to study.
Indeed, the principle of specialization held true.
According to what’s written in the book, seed selection and improvement require at least five to six years, which is a long-term process. For short-term results, the most critical operation is deep plowing.
How to deep plow? It still depends on various farming tools.
It was exactly because of the records in this agriculture book that she realized the curved plow she asked them to make wasn’t perfect enough.
The innovation of the curved plow wasn’t just about changing the straight shaft to a curved one, or making it shorter to save man and beast power; there was another reform! They installed the adjusting beam and plow arrow, to regulate the depth of plowing, adapting to different crops and soil.
And the precise cultivation practices that work with the curved plow were also recorded in the book, having evolved in the northern environment during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties.
What are these practices? After the soil is turned, large chunks of dirt remain in northern dry environments, so they first break the soil with plowing, and then crush it with harrowing.
The adding of the adjusting beam and plow arrow to the curved plow, just like its main body, were wooden, but the harrow usually had iron teeth, making it an iron farming tool.
This brings us back to a question.
The biggest iron mine in Bingzhou is located not just anywhere, but in Yanmen!
To expand the production of iron farming tools, they’d have to strike against the Hu people!
At this moment, the Xianbei who were stationed outside Yanmen and Yunzhong were already feeling quite overwhelmed by the efforts of Zhang Liao, Zhang Yang, and Guo Yun. They had to guard against internal disputes while also facing staunch resistance from fierce warriors, making it challenging to carry out their previous plans to raid for resources for winter.
Little did they expect that this newly appointed Governor of Bingzhou had even more terrifying thoughts.
Not only did she want to secure mining operations around Yanmen and Dingxiang from disturbance, but she also aimed to increase labor for open coal mines, justify why she didn’t have the capacity to send troops to Luoyang, and source more animal bones for producing compound fertilizer, and switch her bandits and potential captives into respectable citizens—
So yes, she absolutely wanted to go beat them up!
Who wouldn’t want to throw a candle for those Hu people after hearing this?
When Guo Jia was called by Qiao Yan and received the reasons behind this three-year campaign against the Hu people, he couldn’t help but choke for a moment, slowly pulling his gaze from the paper in front of him to rest on Qiao Yan’s face.
He considered himself to be among those friends who often joked about not getting involved, but now it seemed that this Qiao Marquis was truly the standout.
However, thinking further, he realized that this was undoubtedly good news for his upcoming plans.
In years often marked by famine, people would go to incredible lengths for a meal.
To survive, many would resort to eating tree bark. Not to mention, now they could actually get food.
If this news were to spread, informing the martial populace of Bingzhou, they would oppose the Hu people and plunder…
“So, coming back as a prisoner, huh? Just to haul some livestock bones from their land back here to boost our farmland? That should help feed more folks, and maybe by tomorrow, we’ll have a decent troop gathered at the provincial governor’s door.”
“Even if we don’t spread the word far and wide, just using this to rally the border soldiers should be enough to lift their spirits.”
And it saved Guo Jia a lot of chatter.
He had his doubts about Qiao Yan’s suggestions for fertilizers, but remembering the vast improvements in farmland he saw in Leping, he figured she wasn’t joking about this stuff—she was suggesting effective methods for sure.
Grain is the lifeblood of the people, and getting them to jump onboard with this bone meal fertilizer might be tricky, but other fertilizers could definitely be pushed out in time for next year.
Of course, the nitty-gritty of how to go about it—especially with mining the gypsum—was obviously not his thing.
His focus was strictly on the Xiongnu and Xianbei.
He waved the paper in his hand and said, “With this plan, plus Wen Yuan, Zhi Shu, and Lü Fengxian joining the mix, I’m not worried. Let Qiao Hou wait for good news.”
Guo Jia was feeling quite accomplished as he set off, clutching Qiao Yan’s plan and appointment papers, vowing to himself that he wouldn’t act recklessly.
Qiao Yan watched him, all bright-eyed and ambitious, and couldn’t help but compare it to how he was when he first arrived in Leping, just hanging out with Xi Zhicai. Gave her a bit of a guilty feeling.
But thinking about how next year could likely be her last year of peace, she quickly squashed that guilt down.
What’s there to feel guilty about!
Everyone coming to Bingzhou should just get their act together; if everyone was like Jia Xu—who’s sharp as a tack since childhood and was praised by Yan Zhong as talented as Zhang Liang or Chen Ping—but just wanted to be a wallflower and go with the flow, that’d be a disaster!
With this thought in mind, Qiao Yan took advantage of Jia Xu going with Qin Yu to check the government storehouses and conveniently gave his elder son, Jia Mu, a fake assistant position under the banner of provincial official duties.
Now, her team was composed of mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son combos.
Plus, this was a little nudge for Jia Xu.
If he doesn’t step up, tomorrow his son will take a higher position than he does, and if there’s any screw-up on his son’s part, the dad better step in to cover for him and at least think of a clever plan!
So, she happily tossed the task of finding and mining gypsum, as well as cataloging supplies, onto Jia Mu’s plate.
Jia Xu was low-key and kept to himself, so Jia Mu didn’t have much of a reputation either, and when he got handed such a hefty task, he was kinda confused about why this new provincial governor had her eye on him.
But in truth, people like Jia Xu who just want to float by are quite rare.
The motivated folks all believe in stepping up when the province has tasks, and Jia Mu felt the same way.
Mining gypsum for fertilizer might be under the agriculture umbrella, but it’s still a major operation that needs a team and management. With Jia Xu busy dealing with official duties in Shangdang, Jia Mu couldn’t find anyone to consult and figured taking the position wouldn’t be a bad idea, so he jumped right in.
This way, even if Jia Xu felt something was off, he clearly wasn’t about to pull that promise back.
As Jia Mu left, Qiao Yan wore a relaxed smile.
Then, following Lu Yuan’s advice, she brought in Jia Zihou from the Jia family to ask him a few questions about the local situations in the province and get his thoughts as one of the reformed figures in Bingzhou.
Given Jia Shu’s experience lending a hand in the community over the past twenty years, he was quite articulate, so Qiao Yan played it smart and asked if he’d be interested in taking up a clerk role at the provincial office.
Being from the same Jia family, this guy used to be hot-headed and vengeful, but now in his middle age, he seems to have mellowed out while retaining his straightforward nature.
It’s notable that he only avoided death under Guo Linzong’s plea, and landing an official position was definitely tough, so when Qiao Yan extended such an invitation, he immediately accepted.
Even if Qiao Yan assigned him tasks related to fertilizer categorization, like building compost fermentation pits, he didn’t slack off at all.
“Qiao Hou’s focus on agricultural welfare is a blessing for the common people of Bingzhou,” Jia Shu remarked.
However, this job was also touching on some secrets.
Building these fermentation pits would necessitate cement.
This homemade cement has lower production standards, so its strength is naturally not top-notch, and it needs maintenance to meet durability standards. But it does have some perks—at least in terms of corrosion resistance, it’s way better than regular cement when dealing with acidity and alkali, and is usually used for underground projects these days.
Given the materials and fermentation processes required for homemade ammonium sulfate and sulfuric acid, this homemade cement definitely takes the cake.
Jia Zihou, who was technically just a research guy but was also doing good work, was quite pleased with the administrative vibe of the provincial office. He had some regrets that Guo Linzong couldn’t see this new provincial governor; who knows what he would’ve said.
Qiao Yan was definitely happy with how the meeting turned out.
Just as Lu Yuan said, meeting with familiar noble families first and then with Jia Shu sent a strong message.
This signaled respect for the esteemed figures in Bingzhou and honoring efforts to turn over a new leaf.
Later, when she met Linghu Shao, as Lu Yuan mentioned, he indeed had a talent for strategy.
Given the personnel changes in Bingzhou, they needed people to fill various gaps. So, during the practical skirmishes, when his private troops challenged the Baibo Bandits, and hearing how he responded to her governance questions was enough for Qiao Yan to confirm he was a far better fit than Lü Bu at this point.
Even if his fighting skills might not even qualify him as a second-rate general, that didn’t lessen her belief that he was the perfect pick for the role.
Linghu Shao’s father had just taken up a protective role over the Wuhuan while he himself earned recognition within the provincial government, which was slightly surprising.
But thinking that this provincial governor only got the position after defeating the Xiu Tu forces made it all feel a bit more logical.
With these three meetings, Qiao Yan short-term goals now had people ready to execute on all fronts.
After thinking a bit, she ordered Liang Zhongning to be transferred from Guanglu Pass.
Both the Black Mountain Bandits and Baibo Bandits are flying the Yellow Turban Army flag, so why shy away from the Yellow Turban Army itself?
To put it plainly, the Yellow Turban uprising was just a last resort born from desperation; if Bingzhou could increase grain production and ensure people were fed, she truly wouldn’t need to worry about them turning against her.
No matter how Liang Zhongning ends up as her stepping stone against the Yellow Turbans, it doesn’t change the fact that he was once a leader of the Yellow Turbans.
All those remnants of the Yellow Turbans exiled to the Duliang general’s camp years ago, and those still hiding in various provinces are likely to revive after Liu Hong’s death; if she recruits them and crushes the uprising later, she’ll need someone to lead this crew.
Compared to other unknown Yellow Turban leaders, Liang Zhongning—who once sent her off into battle with a salute from Guanglu Pass—seemed a lot more fitting in her eyes.
Even though he was summoned back by the provincial governor and led to the office, the pair still ended up silent for a while.
Qiao Yan broke the silence first, saying, “It’s been years; is Liang Shuai thinking you’re friend or foe?”
