Bring your aunt to eat big meat, the scumbag father's family is furious

"We have people assigned to guard every project," said Qiao Jianer.

Among them were soldiers, yamen runners, and young and middle-aged men doing corvee labor.

"There were guards, and they did their job well. However, they attacked in the middle of the night, choosing the third and fourth shifts when defenses were least relaxed. They arrived and left just as quickly, destroying key locations and even killing the alerted guards."

Qiao Jianer knew that no matter how much he heard, it would be worse than seeing it in person.

She called Zhou Biejia and Chen Zhizhong over, and gave the more critical matters to Zhou Biejia and the more daily matters to Chen Zhizhong.

Beijia is the head of the officials in a state and has certain decision-making power over important government affairs. Zhizhong is equivalent to the secretary-general and mainly handles daily affairs, which are relatively trivial and have lower power.

Princess Zhenguo had been in Tianhe Province for several months, and had been fulfilling her promises step by step and efficiently. Funds continued to flow in, and projects were built in various places. Tianhe Province also developed new districts, and the residents of the old city were well resettled, presenting a new look.

For more complicated lawsuits, the Princess Zhenguo would personally sit in court to hear the case, which greatly reduced the number of false and wrongful convictions.

She became more and more loved and trusted by the people, and her subordinate officials also became more and more convinced and respectful of her.

As long as those projects can be effective, Tianhe Province can have a good harvest this year and the people can have surplus food every year, I believe that the position of Princess Zhenguo in the hearts of all the people will never be replaced.

Qiao Jian'er did not tell her two subordinates what happened on the project to avoid causing unnecessary trouble. They just had to handle the tasks she assigned them.

She quickly arrived at the site. The more important the project, the more attention the other party paid to it, and the greater the degree of damage.

This is the largest water storage dam, which can be used for flood control and irrigation. There are countless farmlands nearby, so its function is self-evident.

Now a gap has been blown in the center of the dam, and all the water inside has flowed out. Fortunately, it is not the rainy season, otherwise the pouring water will submerge all the crops and bring great disaster.

The corvée laborers gathered around, talking among themselves, each with a look of sorrow and resentment on their faces.

"It was just completed and it was blown up. Which bastard who will end his family lineage did this? Let's catch these people and break off each of their bones and chop them into pieces and feed them to the dogs."

"That's right. They're clearly waiting for the right moment to start the project as soon as it's completed. They must have been watching from the sidelines for a long time. I heard that all of our projects, in addition to a small amount of imperial funding, were funded privately by the Princess Zhenguo. She also pays us wages, ensures our work and rest schedules are not too tiring, and provides both meat and vegetables for every meal. I wonder how the Princess Zhenguo would feel if she saw this."

"It's so infuriating and heartbreaking. I just want to find those people and use them to build a dam."

Amidst the indignation, Qiao Jianer appeared. Looking at the huge hole that had been blown open, her face was calm and cold, and she seemed to be wrapped in a layer of chill.

Everyone made way for her, fell silent, and looked at the Princess Zhenguo with great empathy.

Qiao Jianer observed the gap closely, where there were still remnants of explosives. She bent down to pick it up and took a look.

Following behind her were a few of her own people, all of whom were four top-notch masters who had survived numerous tests. Each of them could beat dozens of ordinary warriors. She named them according to the generation name of the character "火", Huo Ming, Huo Can, Huo Yu, and Huo Jue.

"This is not the gunpowder from Daze State." Qiao Jianer came to this conclusion.

Huo Ming said, "So, it must have been made by people from another country, or the people here bought the gunpowder from abroad in order to confuse the public."

"While the latter is possible, it's unnecessary. The gunpowder in Daze State is all of uniform specifications. The area is so vast and wide that even if Daze State gunpowder was used, it would be impossible to trace it in a short period of time. Unless we catch the perpetrator, we will never know who did it."

Qiao Jianer continued, "Although this isn't Daze Country's gunpowder, it's modeled after Daze Country's gunpowder. It's just that some of the raw materials were missing, so local materials with average performance were used instead. Otherwise, the destructive power would be even greater."

The Daze State had strict control over gunpowder, which could only be held by officials and was heavily guarded. If the army or engineering team wanted to obtain gunpowder, they had to go through strict approval processes.

So the other party simply used their own country's gunpowder.

Yes, she has determined that this was not done by the people of Daze.

Qiao Jianer faced the corvée laborers and said that they were going to disband and go home once the water storage dam was built, but now they had to patch up this hole.

"Everyone, I will pay you your wages first. Those who are willing to stay and make up for the loss will be paid later. Food will be provided as usual."

"We want to stay," the workers said.

They have put months of hard work into this dam, and now there is a hole in it. If they don't fix it, they will go home directly, feeling that something is missing.

It seems that now, wages are no longer the most important thing.

Fortunately, in order to deal with emergencies, we prepared some extra raw materials for building the dam, which are now in use.

Qiao Jianer dispatched more troops to defend each project, and asked several guards to stay at the most important construction sites to strengthen supervision before setting off.

The first country she suspected was naturally the Kingdom of Qinu.

The eldest prince went there to promote sinicization, not only in culture, but also in farming, military affairs, and all aspects.

For example, farming experience, blacksmithing skills, and the manufacture of gunpowder.

He did this for his own ambitious reasons. One day, he would use the power of the Qinu Kingdom to destroy the Daze Kingdom. The vast grassland in the north and the Daze Kingdom in the south would all be his territories. He would not have to spend a lot of effort to sinicize the north, but could let it surrender naturally.

Qiao Jianer sneaked into the gunpowder depot of the Qinu Kingdom, which was full of gunpowder and divided into two areas according to quality levels, one area was ordinary gunpowder and the other area was refined gunpowder.

She picked up a can of gunpowder and poured out the raw materials inside. Sure enough, they were exactly the same as those left behind when the water storage dam was blown up.

The case was solved so easily.

Qiao Jian'er sorted out the eldest prince's thoughts. He probably wanted to use this method to make the emperor feel that she was incompetent, thereby reducing his trust in her and gradually no longer entrusting her with important tasks.

There was a sound of footsteps outside, and she immediately put on the invisibility cloak.

The person who came in was none other than the eldest prince, followed by the official in charge of making gunpowder.

"Lord Mutai, a new batch of refined gunpowder has been put into storage. We tested it on the dam built by Princess Daze, and the results are quite good."

The eldest prince looked dissatisfied. "You haven't seen the explosive effect of Daze gunpowder. It's twice as powerful as this refined gunpowder and three times as powerful as ordinary gunpowder. This is the steppe. We don't have the fine saltpeter like Daze, nor do we have high-quality charcoal. Therefore, the finished gunpowder is much less effective."

Regardless of what he was saying, Qiao Jianer took out a matchbox from the space.

Destroy the powder depot and take Mu Tai away in one go, killing two birds with one stone.