“A million stones!”
This number was simply too exhilarating, especially since a locust plague was looming, making it seem like food shortages were on the horizon.
Fortunately, the nighttime patrols to catch locusts had paid off big time, and the efforts to care for the sixty thousand acres of mountain fields were definitely showing remarkable results!
As soon as Zhang Niujiao shouted with barely contained excitement, the people around burst into cheers of joy at the bountiful harvest.
When Qiao Yan planted this patch of yam, she had already told them it was a backup food supply for Leping County, just like the thirty thousand stones of food she brought earlier. If disaster struck, it would be a lifesaver.
First, they dealt with the bandits, then provided cheap mulberry bark winter clothing, and now managed the locust plague—
With her growing reputation, Qiao Yan could even count on the villagers to cheer for her as she returned to Leping; how could they doubt her words?
This meant Leping would have a capital for survival next year!
Who wouldn’t feel thrilled about that!
Even Qiao Yan—
Even though she had estimated the yam yield when Qin Yu reported the field numbers, seeing the conservative estimate of nine hundred thousand stones become a solid million in front of her made her heart race alongside the cheers.
This was food for survival…
Taking a deep breath, she managed to calm her emotions slightly.
However, she couldn’t let her guard down just yet because, while a million stones sounded staggering, not all of it could be consumed directly.
Part of it would serve as seed tubers for next year’s yam planting, stored just like the ones they harvested last autumn—with layers of sand and yam.
In fact, this year’s yam harvest was much more suitable for cultivation than last year’s mountain yield due to improved fertilization and care, so the survival rate of the seedlings next year would undoubtedly increase.
“Shouldn’t the lord consider planting a bit more next year?” After watching Qiao Yan stand in front of a sand table model that had completely transformed into a representation of Leping’s agricultural distribution, Qin Yu couldn’t help but ask.
“No, no expansion.”
Facing such a staggering yield, Qiao Yan struggled to suppress the urge to increase yam cultivation. “Let’s stick to the plan—use the other half of the land set aside for yam, and this year, let’s plant beans to nurture the soil. You take people to organize the seed yams and store them in a separate warehouse.”
Going overboard would lead to trouble, and since the fields couldn’t immediately go through another planting round, managing beans also required some hands, which meant Leping’s manpower couldn’t handle more land.
Plus, this harvest depended entirely on the Black Mountain Bandits not owning any fields, with almost ten thousand people operating as a mobile workforce—
If all the villagers started planting, it would backfire.
“Have Chu Yan come to see me.” As Qin Yu prepared to leave, Qiao Yan added.
She had only brought Dian Wei back to Leping, and Chu Yan had returned promptly after arranging for those followers. Hearing Qiao Yan had business for him, he showed up without delay.
For him, it wasn’t exhausting; he felt this was an acknowledgment of the responsibility Qiao Yan trusted him with.
After hearing what Qiao Yan said, Chu Yan couldn’t help but perk up.
“I need you to take thirty thousand stones of yam to the Central Plains. You decide how many people to take with you. Sell it as medicinal herbs to pharmacies along the way, and as food to the areas hit by locusts. Bring back the cash for buying rice in Bingzhou, Taiyuan, and Shangdang. I’ll have Xu Fu accompany you to help ensure everything’s calculated right. You two support each other and make sure to get this done for me.”
Though the yam yield was huge, it couldn’t be stored like grains; even with ventilation issues sorted out, and the extended winter making preservation easier, it could only last six months at most. Therefore, Qiao Yan couldn’t let the yams rot here.
Some would go directly to the Black Mountain Bandits as food reserves, some would be exchanged with the villagers, and when manpower was available in winter, they could make a batch of yam flour to sell elsewhere in Bingzhou, but that still wouldn’t be enough!
There’d still be a significant surplus.
A fitting approach would be considering that Bingzhou was less affected by the locust plague and still had some food surplus, so yams could be exchanged with other regions. However, since there wasn’t an urgent need, the rice gained would inevitably be a loss. It’d be better to choose a slightly more complicated method.
Only in places with urgent food shortages could yams be transformed from medicinal material to emergency rations for greater profit.
However, traveling to places facing hunger would certainly pose risks. Dealing with those people required enough toughness, so after weighing her options, Qiao Yan figured she could only leave this task to Chu Yan.
“I’d like to ask Qiao Hou two questions.” Being entrusted with such an important task didn’t fluster this sharp-minded Black Mountain leader; he immediately spoke up.
“Go ahead.”
“First, Qiao Hou, you’re giving me thirty thousand stones of yam. Are you really not afraid I’ll just take off with it and never come back?” Chu Yan asked seriously.
“Since you’ve chosen to come forward and offer yourself, I assume you’re not that shortsighted, so why would I doubt you?” Qiao Yan replied calmly.
Chu Yan certainly wouldn’t be that shortsighted.
After all, achieving this yield under complete inexperience was impressive; what could next year bring?
Moreover, he had witnessed Qiao Yan’s decisive nature firsthand when she showed just how effective she could be. He understood she was someone capable of great things and wouldn’t think that absconding with this grain would be a wise choice.
And it’s hard to say whether it was because securing a role under the Marquis of Leping had involved a rather challenging back-and-forth process, but he felt a newfound appreciation for his current position.
As Qiao Yan astutely noted, he wouldn’t choose to leave at this time.
He continued, “For my second question, may I ask, Qiao Hou, if we come across refugees in the famine-stricken areas ravaged by the locusts, how should we handle them?”
Qiao Yan smiled, “Isn’t that one of the reasons I want you to go to these places?”
Of course, in such a situation, any refugees gathered wouldn’t be able to settle in Leping.
They were different from the Black Mountain Bandits.
The Black Mountain Bandits had a clear origin, and Qiao Yan didn’t mind letting others know she had captured them; it was precisely that information that allowed her to secure some “seed funding” from the Changshan County governor.
But Qiao Yan had no intention of broadcasting the fact that they had harvested a whopping million stones of yam. Even when she spoke to Governor Guo, who had been supportive of her, she only mentioned a yield of four to five hundred thousand stones. So, moving excess food for money and recruiting some refugees back didn’t need to be public knowledge.
Thus, those people could only temporarily exist as hidden population under the Marquis of Leping.
At the right time, they could perhaps become rightful citizens.
In a time when mere survival seemed like a luxury for some, why would they even care about such matters?
Qiao Yan certainly couldn’t be accused of profiting off the people’s misery.
She was merely seeking to gain more benefits within reason.
With Qiao Yan’s attitude, Chu Yan knew exactly what to do.
He promptly prepared to head out to find Xu Fu, planning to discuss how many people they needed. Just as he was about to step out the door, he suddenly heard Qiao Yan say, “You might as well go out and take a breather.”
Chu Yan paused for a moment, his expression slightly moved, but it was quickly replaced by his usual calm demeanor, and he resumed his actions.
Although he didn’t promise anything out loud, he had already made up his mind: no matter what, he would ensure Qiao Hou got the job done!
With that part of the external dealings settled, trading with the county residents would also be much less stressful.
The yield from the fifty thousand acres of farmland within Leping County was roughly around a million bushels. Although there was some damage from the locust plague, the loss was minimal, and the Dragon Bone Waterwheel irrigation could even make up for that shortfall.
Therefore, exchanging rice for yam to ensure the county’s grain reserves could last longer was certainly within Leping’s abilities.
After weighing the risk of wind blight on their yam and how much they could store over winter, households began flocking to the county office to participate in the exchanges.
Thanks to the prior experience with locust plagues, the process of trading grain for locust eggs led by Cheng Li had already established a whole system for reception, trading, and registration, so there would be no chaotic scenes this time around—just an additional step of inventorying the goods.
As yams were exchanged for a slightly reduced amount of rice, creating a more stable food reserve, Qiao Yan couldn’t help but feel a little lighter in her heart.
Unfortunately, this trade couldn’t be too heavy, since while yams can fill you up, they just don’t pack the same caloric punch as rice when you’re working hard.
Right now, they were stuck right at that crucial balance.
Once this exchange was finalized, it would be time to deal with the Black Mountain Army’s settlement.
Right in the midst of the population registration, completing the relocation from Changshan to Leping wouldn’t be too difficult.
Qiao Yan had already mentioned it in correspondence with the Changshan prefect, who was more than eager to send those pesky refugees far away from his territory, so he wouldn’t hesitate to agree to Qiao Yan’s proposal.
The only minor hiccup was that for the nearly ten thousand members of the Black Mountain Army, they could only initially settle three thousand based on their contributions from this year, which was definitely too few.
With Leping’s household registration, they could implement Qiao Hou’s new directives. They could either clear land in the mountains to farm enough to make a living, or continue cultivating the current yam fields, keeping half the harvest for themselves. Both options weren’t bad.
In July of this year, before Qiao Yan stormed into the provincial capital, she extended the one-year exemption from taxes that had been hastily implemented last year for another year. Under these circumstances, Leping had better terms than other places, so who wouldn’t want to settle here?
Unfortunately, there were only three thousand spots.
This called for strict adherence to rules during selection; otherwise, those who didn’t make the cut wouldn’t take it too well.
The first to receive household registration was Xi Zhicai, who took on the role of judge and registrar, dragging along Cai Yan and Yang Xiu to assist.
When Qiao Yan saw Zhang Niujiao coming over with the documents detailing his workload, with a size that could easily overshadow all three of them combined, she couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression—it was like a kid handing in homework to the teacher.
This scene was downright comical.
Zhang Niujiao completely missed Qiao Yan’s reaction.
For him, having received his household registration was a significant step towards achieving the career plan Chu Yan had laid out for him. He was feeling pumped and hardly had the capacity to notice anything else.
Speaking of which, what’s next again?
Oh right, recognizing characters!
I heard Qiao Hou intended to not only maintain the mulberry bark clothing industry this winter but also to expand the production of mulberry bark paper, obviously to increase the number of literate people.
But reading was a bit tough for him…
Zhang Niujiao thought to himself that, knowing he had to recognize characters sooner or later, getting the paper ready would be a safe bet. If recognizing characters gave him a headache, he might as well chop down some more mulberry trees first.
After chatting with fellow brothers who also secured their registrations through farming, he found they shared the same thought, and promptly gathered a group to head into the hills.
“If I hadn’t seen that guy with the same expression for his household registration as one would have for a marriage certificate, I might’ve thought he was planning to become a bandit again,” Qiao Yan couldn’t help but mutter to the system. “This action would have a fitting modern term—’the struggling student collecting supplies.’
【……】The system fell silent.
It was tempted to ask Qiao Yan whether this strategy of attracting population was really fitting for her strategist’s role, but before it could, she said, “At least cultivating yams isn’t purely physical; in delicate management, meticulous women are usually more capable. With most preparatory steps and the recognition of contributions in mulberry bark clothing being mostly handled by women, if half of these three thousand people were literate, couldn’t they do even more than just be the sidekicks of the Black Mountain Army from before?”
Seeing the look of hope in Qiao Yan’s eyes made the system completely forget what it wanted to say earlier.
As a still qualified atmosphere facilitator, it immediately responded: 【Rest assured, host, they definitely will!】
Qiao Yan felt satisfied.
This wasn’t just to butter up the system; she genuinely had hope for the future.
But before all that, she had to tackle another issue.
Just when harvest season and settling down were nearly at their end, she received urgent reports from her men stationed at Zhiguan Pass that an imperial envoy was entering the Bingzhou territory.
Qiao Yan immediately set off back to Jinyang.
When Cui Lie arrived at the provincial capital, he found this youthful county marquis clad in dark clothes and a red crown, exuding an aura of a refined gentleman, although he said “Greetings, esteemed sir,” there was a level of composure that far exceeded her age.
Although Cui Lie had guessed that someone this bold definitely wouldn’t greet an envoy barefoot and with disheveled hair, he was still taken aback by her gracious manners as a host.
When leaving the capital, Liu Hong had specifically instructed him to guide Qiao Yan properly, at least to temper her arrogance with his presence as a gentleman.
But no matter how Cui Lie looked at it—
He just couldn’t dampen her spirit!
Contrast that with Zhang Yi’s performance, and it was rather disappointing.
Although Qiao Yan had him under control, she hadn’t let him starve; in fact, she had even plumped him up a bit.
Now, this clean and well-fed guy was grabbing Cui Lie’s hand, crying like a waterfall, blubbering about how the Marquis of Leping had treated him disgracefully. He hoped that Cui Lie, as the emperor’s envoy, would accurately report the state of affairs here. One couldn’t help but feel he was just a bit too pathetic compared to Qiao Yan.
“Zitai…” Cui Lie replied with a conflicted expression, “You may call me an envoy of the heavens or a prefect of the districts; I truly apologize, but I am the latter.”
With Zhang Yi’s voice trailing off, Cui Lie continued quietly, “I am his Majesty’s appointed new Governor of Bingzhou.”
