The leisurely life of the Qin people

Chapter 11 The Master's Reflection

This autumn, the autumn rain fell endlessly in western China. The young master's residence still had not been built on or at the foot of Shangyan Mountain. After two people died near the vertical shaft that was being excavated, the place seemed even quieter.

Everyone just kept their heads down and worked, no one even dared to speak loudly.

A not very big pavilion was built on Shang Yan Mountain. The young master often came here. Just like today, it was raining in autumn. The rain had been falling all day long, and the young master was looking at the hazy rain scene all day long.

Li You came in wearing a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat. He saluted and said, "Sir, this is a letter from my father."

Fusu put the hot tea aside, took the bamboo slips and looked at them carefully.

Li You looked a little embarrassed and whispered, "My father said that if you don't like these prisoners, they should be sent to build the Great Wall in Yan."

This was indeed the only thing the teacher wrote about in the letter.

Fusu said, "Sit down for a while."

Seeing that the young master did not reply immediately, Li You sat down again and asked, "Young master, is there something on your mind?"

The clay pot next to it was still placed on the clay stove. The water was boiling and you could hear the sound of the boiling water bubbling in the pot.

Fusu took some tea leaves from a cloth bag and poured them into a ceramic bowl.

Tian An immediately picked up the kettle and poured a bowl of boiling water into it. Fusu said, "Let it cool down for a while before drinking."

Li You said, "Thank you for the gift, sir."

The Qin people mainly drank alcohol, and making tea was probably something only the literati and officials in Qi and Lu would do.

Li You had never left Guanzhong, but he had probably heard of it.

Fusu explained: "This is a tribute from all over Bashu."

Tian An explained, "The young master asked me to look for it. I heard about it before, and this year someone happened to offer it as an offering, so I gave it to the young master."

When the tea cooled down a little, Li You drank it in one gulp and breathed a sigh of relief.

Fusu continued, "It's actually quite good that Zhang Han killed the two leading fugitives. Look, these people are working harder than before. If we had let them go, it would have caused chaos in the newly built Shangshan Township, but killing them would have brought more order here."

"People have to die for something meaningful. Since they're going to escape, they might as well die. That would be more valuable to the progress of the canal excavation, wouldn't it?"

Li You nodded and said, "Sir, what you said is absolutely right."

Not far away, there was a dispute. Perhaps some people wanted to pay a visit to the young master, but were blocked by the guards. Tian An saw that the young master was still talking to Li You, so he went over to ask.

Inside the pavilion, some of the drizzling autumn rain will drift into the pavilion.

Fusu said: "Zhang Han is a military man after all. He governs people just like he governs the army. Without rules, there will be chaos. He will establish rules. Even those who desert from the army will disrupt the morale of the army, so he will kill them to stabilize the morale."

Li You nodded again.

Zhang Han was a simple man, his actions and words were also very plain, and he knew exactly who should be killed and who should be rewarded.

Therefore, the entire Shangyan Mountain is like being in the army, with strict rules for daily life.

A mile from the pavilion, there was a small path leading up the mountain. The path was paved with gravel. When Tian An saw that the visitor was Chunyu Yue, a doctor from the court, he saluted and said, "Doctors, are you here to see the young master?"

"We are here to pay our respects to you, sir."

Tian An looked back at the pavilion, then faced the others and said, "The young master is in the process of self-reflection and will not be seeing any guests today."

Chunyu Yue looked at the pavilion somewhat unwillingly and left.

In the pavilion, Fusu said, "Tell the teacher that everything is fine here."

Li You nodded and saluted.

Fusu was indeed reflecting on himself and felt that he should get to know more about the kind of people of this era.

The place became quiet again, and no one knew what the young master was thinking at the moment. He just looked into the distance without saying a word.

The excavation of Shang Yanshan continues. The three thousand servants are the most loyal. These three thousand servants are divided into team leaders, who are in charge of the two thousand prisoners.

It's probably the same here as it is in the army, or even worse than in the army.

The autumn rain lasted for another three days. The longer this autumn rain in western China lasted, the stronger the cold wind from the northwest became and the colder the weather became.

Fusu wore thicker clothes than usual and personally inspected the constructed canal.

Shaofuqing Wang Ben has been very busy these days because the autumn rain in western China caused mountain torrents, several places in Hedong were flooded, and there were some unrest in Nanjun, so the Qin army was sent to suppress it.

Therefore, the court and the army were very busy.

It cannot be said that Wang Ben was incompetent as the Shaofu, but that he was too busy to handle everything.

Because of this autumn rain, disasters occurred in various parts of Guanzhong to varying degrees. The servants at the foot of Shangyan Mountain were very nervous. They arranged people to guard the granary day and night and guard every intersection with sticks in their hands.

The old Qin man standing at the intersection stared unfriendlyly at every pedestrian passing by.

The reason for such tension is the autumn rain. The autumn rain irrigated the land of Guanzhong, bringing water but also brought bad things.

The war had only ended for half a year, and people had just emerged from the chaos of war. They used their past experiences to judge the current situation.

Whether before or after a war or when a disaster occurs, there are always the most bandits and robbers.

At this time, the first thing every family thinks about is protecting food and protecting their families.

When it was time for dinner, Fusu walked past where the servants lived and saw them eating in groups of three or four.

Their quarters were separate from those of the other prisoners.

Most of these servants have already started their own families. This should have been the case for generations in their family when Lu Buwei was still alive, and it is the same for these people now.

Looking at these servants, Fusu could at least find some warmth in this cold era.

An autumn rain caused disasters in so many places. This was the worst thing that could not have happened for the First Emperor, who was ruling in a centralized manner.

Fusu could even imagine that his father might be pointing at the new team formed by the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers and cursing at them in the Zhangtai Palace because of this incident.

Agriculture was still the main industry in this era, and whenever a disaster occurred, food was the most precious thing.

Agriculture in this era was extremely fragile. Just a long autumn rain could cause disasters of varying degrees in various places.

The agricultural level of this era seems very vulnerable to disasters.

The Great Qin is not so beautiful.

Fusu saw carts of grain being transported out of Xianyang City and teams of troops leaving Guanzhong.

The court was extremely busy, and the Qin army and officials left Guanzhong and rushed to various places.

Li You was transferred to Hedong, and Wang Ben hadn't been seen for a long time.

And this Shang Yanshan was briefly forgotten by them.

Two months later, it was late autumn and winter was about to begin. There was still frost on the ground in the morning.

As Fusu was eating breakfast, the old men guarding their homes with sticks at the intersection were gone. Only then did he feel that the disaster of the autumn rain was over.

The recent reports from the court were mostly about how some people died in certain places, who was killed in the suppression of rebellions in certain places, and how the forces of the old six kingdoms were stirring up trouble and were suppressed by the Qin army.

When Zhang Han saw that the young master liked to eat celery, he also took some celery and put it into the earthenware pot to boil it, then picked it up and ate it, chewing it in his mouth.

Zhang Han secretly had an idea in his mind: he would plant celery all over the mountain. When the cold wind blew, Fusu took a sip of hot tea and exhaled a breath of hot air, which turned into a cloud of mist in the cold air.

Although people don't have to worry about food in winter, people in Shangyan Mountain are now controlling their diet. As long as they are not hungry, they will not eat too much, because the only food they have will last until next autumn.

When Tian An saw the pile of files on the desk and the young master's melancholy expression, he wanted to curse.

Looking at Zhang Han wolfing down the bread and eating celery, Tian An was eager to try. Zhang Han was such a fool who only knew how to eat and didn't even know how to share the worries of the young master. He really wanted to scold Zhang Han loudly.

Because this piece of land is the private property of the young master, from the land to the population, and then to the food.

If you have to do all these things yourself, you will be busy with them all day long and will not be able to be distracted.

The young master hasn't read for some time.

In the past, the young master loved to read quietly, but now, he is troubled by these things every day.

Looking again, the young master was actually quite passionate about these things. He was tirelessly calculating how much food two thousand people would need to eat every day and the daily construction progress.

These things should not be done by you, young master.

Fusu felt that people always needed to learn, starting from governing their own territory and slowly sorting out how to solve the problems of food, clothing, housing and transportation for two thousand people. Fusu found this process very interesting.

We must prevent two thousand people from freezing to death, prevent two thousand people from starving to death, and maintain production order.

In this resource-scarce world of Qin, which family has two thousand servants?

And no one starved to death or froze to death this winter.

This is enough to show that the family has good governance capabilities.

At least until now, no one has starved to death or frozen to death in Shangyan Mountain.

Half a month later, when the first snow fell in Guanzhong, Shangyan Mountain remained unchanged. The houses here were still the same, and the mountains and the foot of the mountains were still the same.

However, the Longshou Canal is still being dug, and an additional vertical shaft is added every three miles, and one-fifth of the Longshou Canal has been completed.

Fusu spent an entire autumn learning how to organize the manpower and re-divide the work of these two thousand people into different types of work and work teams in order to dig the Longshou Canal more efficiently.

And he continued to let Zhang Han guard these prisoners in the same way as the military.

Fusu would come here every day at noon and return to Xianyang City in the evening.

Today was the same as usual, and Tian An led a person to the foot of the mountain.

This person was Li You, whom I hadn't seen for a whole autumn.

Fusu saw that he was still wearing his black official uniform, with mud stains on his shoes, his face was pale and he looked much thinner.

Fusu frowned and said, "How come you have become so thin after this trip to Hedong?"

The skinny Li You sat down cross-legged, took the water handed to him by Tian An, and without saying a word, picked up the kettle and poured it into his mouth.

Fusu listened to the other party swallowing loudly, brought over a bowl of pancakes, and handed over a bowl of pickles and some raw celery.

Li You looked thin and ate food with big mouthfuls.

Tian An brought a heater and placed it next to the table.

The pickles were made by the young master. They are made from bean paste, and they taste better when spread on the cake.

Tian An was about to remind everyone that the pickles were very salty and one should not eat too much at one time.

But Li You took the pottery bowl and swallowed a big mouthful.

Noticing that the man just frowned slightly because of the saltiness, he swallowed it, and Tian An said no more.

However, Tian An also felt a little uncomfortable. Li You ate too much. The food on Shangyan Mountain was rationed, and the food reserves were not much. One more bite would mean one less bite.

Therefore, the residents of Shangshan Township never welcome outsiders, and will even drive people out and kill anyone who wants to eat their food.

When it comes to protecting food, the three thousand servants and two thousand prisoners here share a common bottom line.

The young master's family assets were not large. Apart from a few hundred hectares of land, he only had these people.

After Li You finished eating, he burped very happily.

Fusu was holding a scroll of bamboo slips in his hand and reading it.

After looking around, Li You saw that there was nothing to eat, so he said, "Sir, it's been a long time."

Fusu said, "How did you become like this after going to Hedong?"

Li You replied, "There are floods and mountain torrents in Hedong."

"Yeah, I heard about it."

"After the mountain floods, there was an epidemic there, and many people died."

Upon hearing this, Fusu put down the bamboo slips in his hand. The correspondence documents recorded the situations in various places, but they were all cold words, recording how many people died, how much food was used, and how many soldiers and horses were there.

Li You really went to the disaster area in person.

Li You continued speaking, it was a place where the living did not want to live and the dead had nowhere to be buried.

In the face of disasters, human power is insignificant.

Li You even buried the body himself. He said that the dead body was very heavy, really heavy, and he couldn't lift it at all.

If you want to bury it, you need two people to drag it into the pit.

And I have witnessed with my own eyes a person go from being healthy to falling ill, becoming terminally ill, and finally dying in just over half a month. Some people even live shorter.

In any case, Li You couldn't sleep well while he was there, let alone eat.

Fusu thought it was a miracle that Li You even came back alive.

If Li You also contracted the disease, he would also be killed.

In fact, Li You could have returned earlier. He stayed in Hedong for half a month, and only after confirming that he was not sick did the soldiers let him go. He traveled for another month before returning to Guanzhong.

Li You muttered in a daze, "The dead body is really heavy, it's impossible to move it."

Fusu said, "Prepare some hot water and let him wash properly."

Tian An nodded and told several servants to make arrangements.

After washing himself clean and putting on thick clothes, Li You said, "Wang Ben, who suppressed the rebellion in Nanjun, was not much better than me. Haha... He was killing people, and I was saving people."

After not seeing each other for an autumn, Li You's eyes became much more determined.

Fusu said: "Humans are really insignificant."

Li You covered his face in pain and said, "Sir, I don't want to move dead bodies anymore in my life."

Soon, the Prime Minister's men arrived at the foot of the mountain and took away Li You, who was somewhat dazed.

Fusu said: "Actually, Li You is a very good person."

Tian An said: "The son of the Prime Minister is naturally extraordinary."

(End of this chapter)