Yesterday, they hadn't expected to be gone so long and hadn't prepared enough. At noon, Lao Wang had offered to invite Zhang Quan and the others to eat together, but Zhang Quan declined—not out of disdain, but because there were too many of them, all big men. If they'd accepted, they could easily have eaten half a month's worth of the family's food in one meal. The smallest silver they carried was half a tael—if they gave that much, Lao Wang, honest and simple as he was, would never take it.
Sweet potatoes and wild greens—even if they ate a whole basket, how much would that cost?
If Zhang Quan and his men ate and offered a few dozen copper coins, Lao Wang, being poor, would surely take them. But if they gave too much, and considering they were noblemen, he would never dare accept such a favor.
The area comprising Ronghe Village, Rongxing Village, Xiaping Village, and Fangniu Village—nine villages in total—had over ten thousand people registered in the rolls.
That was data from nine years ago. By now, the number was likely even higher. Registering a newborn at the government office wasn't free, and many poor families skipped it whenever possible, so there were plenty of unregistered people.
Shangyang, for instance, was also a prefecture but small, with only eight counties under it. Hezhou, by contrast, was large—many counties, many villages, and though poorer, had even more people.
This region was dry, with little summer rainfall. In modern times, there were plenty of drought-resistant crops, but here in Daxia, when drought hit, it seemed all they could plant was sweet potatoes.
This problem needed solving.
But if they really got down to it, they'd probably be busy for a long while.
Two hundred taels a month—not easy money!
He shouldn't have come. This bargain was turning out to be hard to take advantage of.
After playing with the children, Fang Zichen took out the map he'd brought. Zhao Ger watched him stare at it for a while, mark two spots, then zone out, lost in thought.
Guaizai ran in from outside, climbed onto his back, and said he wanted to play. Fang Zichen snapped out of it, pulled him into his lap, and went back to slacking off.
The next morning, Fang Zichen led his men straight toward Anping County, riding all the way to the Jing River.
Zhang Quan and the others had no idea what he was up to and just followed silently.
The upper reaches of the Jing River were inaccessible by road. At the lower reaches, they had to dismount and leave two guards to watch the horses, while the rest huffed and puffed their way up the mountain, sweating despite the cold weather.
Seeing Zhao Ger and Guaizai climbing quickly—not at all like pampered nobles—Zhang Quan wiped his sweat and secretly admired them.
At the upper reaches, Fang Zichen looked around, then pulled out his map again, comparing east and west.
Zhang Quan asked Zhao Ger: "Zhujun, what is Lord Fang doing?"
Zhao Ger shook his head—he didn't know either. But he knew Fang Zichen had his reasons.
Even though it seemed he'd never been serious about anything.
If Ronghe Village were truly hopeless, given his husband's nature, he would have come back yesterday and directly lit three sticks of incense to mourn the villagers.
Fang Zichen put away the map and turned to ask the men behind him: "Who among you can swim?" The river water was somewhat muddy, making the bottom hard to see.
Several imperial guards raised their hands.
"Good."
Fang Zichen had Zhang Quan go cut some thin branches from the mountain, stripped off the leaves, and joined them end to end, tying them with rope into a long pole.
"You two go to the middle of the river and measure the depth."
It was still cold, but the two guards stripped off their clothes without a word and went in.
Guaizai tugged at Fang Zichen's sleeve: "Father, don't you know how to swim? Why let the uncles go?"
Fang Zichen clasped his hands behind his back with an inscrutable air: "Your father is now a big shot. Big shots must have presence—just opening their mouths and making decisions is enough. If I did everything myself, these uncles would have no use for their talents and become decorations. That wouldn't be good—not good at all."
Guaizai tilted his head and studied him carefully. After a long moment, he grinned and said: "Father, you're just lazy and making excuses to fool people. Guaizai is smart—I won't be tricked."
Fang Zichen: "······"
This rotten kid.
Seeing the imperial guards looking at him with odd expressions, Fang Zichen's face turned purple as a pig's liver. He grabbed a small branch from the ground and chased after Guaizai.
"Beating a child? Someone's lost all conscience!" Guaizai yelped, wiggling his little butt and laughing as he ran off.
Zhang Quan watched them chase each other around, while Zhao Ger ordered a fire to be lit and stood by, his eyes curved into a smile as he quietly watched, saying nothing.
One guard sidled up to Zhang Quan: "Boss, what do you think Lord Fang is trying to do?" His series of actions was truly baffling.
Ronghe Village lacked water, so Fang Zichen had come to inspect the Jing River—there was some connection between the two.
But ... surely he wasn't going to make the villagers come all the way here to fetch water?
Not to mention the rocky, rugged mountain that was nearly impossible to cross—even detouring from Anping County, they had ridden nonstop for the better part of a day just to get here!
Zhang Quan didn't know either and was about to shake his head when the two guards who had gone into the river earlier came back out.
They were freezing cold, their skin turned purple all over. After they warmed themselves by the fire and got dressed, they gave their report.
They had pushed the pole all the way to the bottom, and it still hadn't broken the water's surface. The pole they'd tied together was nearly nine meters long. One guard gestured with his hands, showing that if the pole had been about a meter longer, it would have stuck out above the water.
Fang Zichen now had a clear idea.
He turned around again and stared at the mountain.
Zhang Quan heard him sigh, hands on his hips, speaking with great frustration: "Blowing up this mountain won't be easy at all!"
What the hell?
Zhang Quan thought he was hearing things.
Before he could even recover from the shock, he heard Zhao Ger let out an "oh" and ask: "Husband, are you planning to blow up this mountain the same way you blew up the Ma family back then?"
"Mm! But the explosives need to be improved—with that little bit of power, this mountain probably won't budge." Fang Zichen said.
This time, not just Zhang Quan, but even the few imperial guards nearby heard it clearly.
Blow it up?
With what?
They weren't ignorant people—they usually stood guard at the palace and would go to tea houses during breaks, hearing all sorts of strange tales. But blowing up a mountain? That was utterly unheard of.
Zhang Quan cast a heavy gaze toward Fang Zichen. Just now, Zhao Ger's tone hadn't held the slightest surprise—it was perfectly calm. And what was that about blowing up the Ma family?
Had he done it before?
Was this method actually feasible?
As far as anyone knew, there was only one way to level a mountain: throw massive amounts of manpower at it—digging, chiseling—and even that only worked if the mountain could actually be excavated. This rocky mountain had stone so hard that one swing of a pickaxe would split the tool in two. If it could be dug and leveled, the common folk wouldn't need officials to tell them—they'd have done it themselves long ago.
The peasants hadn't studied books, but they weren't stupid either.
On the way down the mountain, Zhao Ger was confused again: "Then husband, why did you come all the way to Jing River? And what was that measuring you were doing?"
"To check the water volume!" Fang Zichen saw that he still didn’t understand, so he put it in plain terms: "If you pour a bowl of water on the ground, it'll flow about a meter. But if you pour a basin of water, it'll flow over ten meters. If the Jing River doesn't have much water, even after we blow up the mountain and dig a canal with great effort, the water will flow through like a weak stream of piss—and that would be a total waste of work."
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