Chapter 296

Chapter 296

Can a strategist not ascend the throne? Volume 9: The Plague of Drought and Locusts, Flying Troops to Liaodong Chapter 296: The People Share the Same Heart

Belonging to the book:


Can a Strategist Not Ascend the Throne?

Chapter 296: The People Share the Same Heart

Zhaoji also froze for a long time before replying, “Yes, why is it so difficult…”

Cai Yong, a great scholar of the time, could not possibly be without any background, but after losing in political struggles, the Cai family of Chenliu clearly did not provide him with any protection, forcing him to seek refuge under the Yang family of Mount Tai. The Yang family couldn’t even protect their own nephew, showing they were no longer a prominent family.

If even those with names and surnames faced such difficulties, how much more so for those who might have used nicknames since childhood, let alone those who never even had a courtesy name.

In remote areas with poor medical conditions, a simple cold could be fatal or leave lasting aftereffects.

Not to mention the conscription during wartime, which was truly a deadly task.

Now, with the addition of drought and the likely locust plague in a month, it was like adding the final straw to an already precarious situation.

Listening to Qiao Yan’s heavy tone, Zhaoji belatedly realized—

The Guanzhong, Bingzhou, and Liangzhou regions she saw were already in better condition due to Qiao Yan’s various measures.

To infer the situation of the entire Central Plains based on these three regions would be a grave mistake.

In those places, no one used the alluvial fans formed by mountain ranges and their meltwater to predict the location of underground reservoirs. Nor did anyone, after obtaining a mechanical genius like Ma Jun, still have him focus on developing tools for digging wells and channels instead of weapons.

Now, with Huang Yueying collaborating with him, they developed an impact drilling device that was easier for the public to understand and build.

Cai Zhaoji followed Qiao Yan’s steps and added, “No wonder the Marquis had me record in the May issue things that could be easily learned. If this knowledge can help more people survive, the time and benefits we lose are nothing.”

A key content in the May issue was how to collect rainwater during occasional rains in a drought.

This collection wasn’t about placing a basin outside to catch a bit more water.

Household containers were limited, and the water collected this way was a drop in the bucket for the needs during a drought.

It taught how to let surface rainwater be retained in a more suitable way, partly stored and partly evenly infiltrated into the soil, rather than quickly flowing through and depositing in puddles.

Interestingly, one measure was previously used to regulate the Wei River flow.

The stone cage.

Learned from the Dujiangyan project.

In modern terms, it’s like a hierarchical control structure, placed in small river channels during droughts to slow runoff, allowing water to infiltrate the soil slowly, moistening more land.

Those responsible for water conservancy projects in the three regions already knew the size to weave and the best placement, operating skillfully.

The reason for publishing it in the Leping Monthly Report was to prevent misunderstandings of maliciously cutting off water flow and to let other regions learn this self-rescue method.

Compared to her first proposal to try printing, now was a better time for it to shine!

Everyone would only be grateful that, at a time when enlightening the people and uniting to overcome disasters was most needed, such a method allowed paper to maximize its effectiveness, rather than having all the painters buried in copying work, possibly wasting paper in the process.

Few would notice that this technology had started an unstoppable trend.

Thinking of the court decision to mass-print “Jijiu Pian” as the first major text this summer, Zhaoji couldn’t help but recall Qiao Yan’s promise to her.

Everything will come gradually.

“Jijiu Pian,” a children’s literacy textbook compiled by a eunuch official in the former Han dynasty, included not just literacy but also much common life knowledge. Printing it this year was nominally justified, as the monthly report’s various tips to help survive the disaster year needed to be widely known.

Though not as catchy as the literacy rhymes Yang Xiu wrote during Qiao Yan’s time in Leping, it had more official legitimacy.

To Zhong Changtong, who came to pay respects to Qiao Yan in Chang’an half a month ago, there was something interesting in “Jijiu Pian.”

A line in it read:

“Marquises with fiefs have land ministers, accumulated learning leads to no ghosts or gods. Fengyi and Jingzhi govern the people, clean and fair, comforting the obedient and close.”

This seemed to reflect Qiao Yan’s current actions, emphasizing again the belief in human triumph over heaven.

Zhaoji didn’t think that much, just pulled her thoughts away from the prospects of printing and saw Qiao Yan had walked ahead again, quickly chasing after: “Marquis, wait for me!”

Don’t walk so fast just because you’re tall and have long legs!

Yu Niang was just one of the many in an inconspicuous village at the foot of Mount Qi.

Being at the foot of Mount Qi, it was naturally in the Guanzhong region.

But unlike what outsiders might think, living in the fertile Guanzhong plains didn’t mean a wealthy life.

No.

Not only no, but people here might be even worse off than known.

During the Zhongping era, the Liangzhou rebels ravaged the three auxiliary regions, and Qishan County was among them.

Yu Niang, only four or five at the time, could never forget that scene.

These barbarians who rampaged through Guanzhong didn’t consider that since the court moved from Chang’an to Luoyang at the beginning of the Later Han, Guanzhong was no longer prosperous but a barrier against Liangzhou, burning and looting as they pleased.

Though quickly driven back to Liangzhou, shifting the conflict to their own territory, her father died that year protecting their family’s assets from these bandits.

From then on, young Yu Niang had to take on more responsibilities at home.

With fewer strong laborers, they couldn’t farm the maximum of a hundred mu per household, and the arable land in Guanzhong wasn’t that much, so they mostly lived off the mountains.

Life was ignorant and peaceful, even the death of Emperor Ling seemed like a distant, unreal news.

Then, Dong Zhuo fled to Chang’an.

Yu Niang was relieved her family had no men to be conscripted, but hearing of possible tax increases, she grew anxious.

She carefully counted the coins saved under the bed over the years, finding not a single extra, and worried if this savings could last a year.

Fortunately, Qishan was so poor it drew little attention from Dong Zhuo.

There were no garrisons, no military farms, just people living day by day.

Yu Niang thought, if life could just go on like this, it wouldn’t be bad.

Then, two years later, new royal troops, a new emperor, a new army arrived.

These news seemed veiled, not truly reaching them.

Until officials under the Grand Minister of Agriculture in Chang’an visited each place, coming to her…





The village where they were located.

To Yuniang’s great surprise, the visiting official was actually a female officer.

She swiftly decided on the method of reallocating the farmland after the statistics, and even Yuniang, who lived with her mother and sister, was allocated a total of 25 acres of land.

As the female officer was about to leave, Yuniang couldn’t help but gaze at her curiously for a long time.

Perhaps because her gaze was too bold, she was caught red-handed.

The officer asked her name, and upon hearing “Yuniang,” she didn’t leave immediately but instead asked, “Which ‘Yu’?”

Yuniang pointed to the elm tree at the village entrance and replied, “This ‘Yu’.”

The officer suddenly laughed, “Then we are quite fated. My name also has a ‘Yu,’ but it’s the ‘Yu’ without the wood radical. ‘Yu’ has the meaning of stability, so when the lord gave me my name, it was extended from this meaning. You have an extra ‘wood,’ doesn’t that make it even more peaceful?”

Yuniang wasn’t sure if they could really enjoy peace.

The Qishan Mountain behind them was part of the east-west extending mountain range, but in the past, it didn’t provide a sense of security as a barrier and support. Instead, in the twilight and night, it looked like a place hiding countless dangers.

Fortunately, they now had land, which gave them the means to fill their stomachs.

Her sister soon found a job in the widespread recruitment in Chang’an City, earning a relatively stable salary.

Although they now had to take on the task of cultivating the 25 acres of land, Yuniang felt that it was much better than in the past.

She was ten years old and could push the distributed curved plow. Without the help of oxen or donkeys, the improvement of this farming tool allowed her to assist her mother in reclaiming and sowing the land, and they accumulated a batch of grain in the autumn harvests of the first and second years of Jian’an.

The land was indeed a bit small, but it didn’t matter; they didn’t eat much.

After saving enough grain for the next year, her mother discussed selling the remaining grain with her. After all, the grain price in the Guanzhong region was stable now, and if they really lacked grain, they could buy more. This way, their money jar had a bit more money.

In Yuniang and her mother’s plan, this money would be used to pay for the rental of oxen for plowing next year, so the time saved could be used to do more needlework, which could be sold for more money than the rental fee.

It was a very cost-effective deal.

Yuniang had already thought it through. When they saved a bit more money, they would move closer to the central part of the Guanzhong Plain, closer to the Son of Heaven, and perhaps they could see the female officer who said they were fated again.

But it seemed that heaven didn’t intend to favor people like them who had come out of a dangerous situation and only wanted to live a good life.

After her sister returned home on leave, she brought news from the city that there might be a drought and locust plague this year.

The 12-year-old Yuniang and her mother opened the money jar, looked at it reluctantly for a long time, and decided to buy a batch of grain first.

Because soon after this belated news arrived, she found that the water level in their well was indeed lower than before.

After the drought arrived, even the well water might dry up!

They really needed to store more grain, at least enough for another year.

The loss from this back-and-forth made her bite her fingers in pain for a while, but some inexplicable force made her buy a newspaper when passing by the Mei County bookstore, after discussing it with her mother.

The price of three five-zhu coins was definitely not expensive for paper and text, but compared to the price of rice, it was almost the price of a dou of rice, which was not cheap at all.

But the shopkeeper said that it contained survival methods for them to get through the disaster, and it was best to buy a copy, otherwise, they would have to buy a bottle of soy sauce to get a free one.

Compared to that, this was more cost-effective.

To save money to move from Qishan to Mei County, Yuniang certainly couldn’t bear to buy soy sauce.

Perhaps because the shopkeeper saw her hesitation in buying the newspaper, he gave her an extra copy of last month’s issue—the kind that was torn during delivery and couldn’t be sold.

Although it was a defective product, Yuniang felt as if she had found a treasure.

She couldn’t read, so she and her mother had to guess the pictures on the newspaper.

When they couldn’t guess, they asked the dozens of households living around to guess together.

It couldn’t be helped that the news wasn’t more accurately notified to such remote places.

The way to announce the drought and locust plague and the method of population and land statistics were different.

The imperial court’s regulation of the disaster was based on the top-down principle, checking from the main branch of the Wei River to the tributaries, so the well drilling for irrigation had to follow the order.

There were many such settlements of dozens of households scattered along the mountain slopes in the Guanzhong region, and they had to be dealt with one by one.

“Do we need to dig a deep well?” Yuniang pointed to the impact drilling rig on the newspaper.

By April, the well water in their village was drying up, and not just in their household.

They had to find a way out.

The oldest elder in the village asked, “Are you saying we should build this drilling rig ourselves?”

“Of course not!” Yuniang widened her eyes. “Did you see the note next to it? This large fan-shaped drill bit weighs over a thousand jin and is operated by these converted ropes and rods, allowing it to work by stepping on the pedal. Even if we pooled all our extra money, we couldn’t afford such a drill bit!”

“You said it yourself, it’s written here that we should cooperate with the county officials to drill wells, so there must be such equipment allocated in Qishan County. For our dozens of households, wanting to dig a well isn’t too much, is it?”

Not too much! Of course not too much!

Even though the earlier chaos in Liangzhou had reduced the number of people in each household far below the average of five, there were still a hundred people here, just wanting a well to survive, which wasn’t an excessive move.

Yuniang firmly said, “Let’s go to Qishan County and see if we can borrow one. We can transport it ourselves and operate the drilling without consuming their manpower.”

The elder thought for a moment and replied, “Good! Let’s send a few more people together.”

Yuniang’s guess wasn’t wrong. The drilling rig sent from Chang’an to Qishan County was still idle here. Originally, it was to wait for the deep well drilling to enter the next stage, saving a lot of manpower before being transported to the surrounding areas to assist the local villagers. Now that someone came directly and could explain the drilling process clearly, they immediately handed the drilling rig over to them.

As the drilling rig was being pushed towards the small village, Yuniang touched the newspaper she carried in her bag, and her eyes grew brighter.

She seemed to have done something very remarkable.

What made her even more joyful was that while they were going back and forth to Qishan County to borrow the drilling rig, the villagers left behind didn’t just wait.

They had already selected a suitable location for deep digging based on experience, leveled the well mouth, and set up a stone ring.

The pedal frame and the large cart were fixed above the well mouth, and then the tedious process of deep drilling the rock at the bottom of the well with the fan-shaped drill bit began.

Yuniang didn’t understand how the lever principle worked, but she knew that after such conversion, even her mother’s physical strength could participate in this self-rescue work, while she took on the task of managing the farmland.

In this way, no matter how severe the drought became, and even though the land was cracking more seriously, for this small village of over a hundred people, it was far from causing panic.

The sound of the drilling rig hitting the rock was a steady beat that calmed people’s emotions.

What was even more exciting was at dusk seven days later.

Suddenly, a voice rang out at the moment the sound of metal hitting rock stopped, reaching everyone’s ears—

“Water! The well has water!”