Having Aunt Liu and her family here—seeing familiar faces—made him happy too. How could he possibly mind the trouble?
True, the paper mill had already finished hiring, and the chemical fertilizer factory was built and operational, with just the right number of workers—not too many, not too few. They couldn't just fire people for no reason, and there were no job openings to squeeze the Liu family into either. However, Fang Zichen had mentioned that after the New Year, he wanted to check out the northern regions. If feasible, he was considering setting up a few more factories there.
Hezhou wanted to rise—but how? Most of the population were common people. If they wanted to earn money, they could either work in a factory, but one factory only employed a few dozen or maybe a hundred people. What about the rest of the people? How would they get rich?
This had to be taken into account too.
He couldn't just build factories everywhere and have everyone go work in them, abandoning the land. The land was the foundation.
To get rich, the villagers had to sell what the land produced. But the town only had so many people, and they were relatively poor. Selling everything locally wouldn't move much product—they'd have to sell outside.
But why would outsiders buy their stuff? What did Hezhou have that others didn't?
A basket of eggs—was it worth hauling them out of town? To even break even, they'd have to sell each egg for five or six copper coins once they got outside. But an egg was just an egg—why would anyone pay extra for the same thing? They'd have to turn those eggs into something else to sell, something that only Hezhou had and nowhere else did. Then they could charge more, and as long as the price wasn't outrageous, people would be willing to buy.
As for what kind of factory to build up north, that would have to wait until he'd seen the place in person.
The reports submitted before were all useless. The former prefect hadn't done a thing, and the reports contained barely two usable lines—the rest was just flattery.
Who knew if those reports were even true, or just exaggerated puffery? He'd have to go down to the local level, see for himself, and only then could he reassess and make new plans.
---
Zhao Ger took them to get settled, while the children played in the yard. Gungun and Dandan ran around joining in the fun. With so many people around, they were overjoyed, yelping excitedly, making a huge racket—five of them in total, truly terrifying, like eight hundred vegetable markets rolled into one.
Liuliu had been tired on the journey and talked little. He'd had no friends in Yuanzhou either, so he'd grown rather reserved. But in his heart, he was always a playful child. Now, even though he was older, seeing Guaizai brought out his true nature again. The children chased each other around, giggling nonstop. Fang Zichen couldn't figure out what was so funny—he just thought the little ones looked like they'd eaten too much and started having fits. He was genuinely concerned.
"Shoo, shoo—go play outside."
Fang Zichen herded them out of the yard like sheep and led Lin Xiaoxia into the main hall.
Fang Zichen sat down, lightly tapping the table beside him. "So, what did you say happened in Hengyang?"
Lin Xiaoxia stood before him. "In the sixth month, I went to Hengyang to buy goods and found the place was under tight guard. One of my brothers knows some people there."
His expression was grim and hesitant. Fang Zichen narrowed his eyes slightly. "Speak plainly."
As the saying goes, snakes have their paths and rats have their holes. Lin Xiaoxia used to make his living hauling and delivering goods, always traveling around—mostly to Yuanzhou, Shangyang, Hengyang, and such. Occasionally, if a client paid well, he'd take jobs over to the Chao Kingdom border. Chao Kingdom and Da Xia maintained a facade of peace while trading, but his brother-in-trade frequently ran the Hengyang–Chao Kingdom route and had connections with all sorts of shady characters there.
Some news that even the Qin family troops couldn't dig up, his brother could find out.
Before the New Year, his brother quit that line of work and spent his days loafing around town. When he ran into Lin Xiaoxia on a buying trip—Lin Xiaoxia had previously come to Hengyang to buy chili peppers and milk powder, and the brother had helped set up those deals—Lin Xiaoxia couldn't just brush him off. So he treated the man to a meal, and after a few too many drinks, started complaining.
He said Chao Kingdom must have grown some guts, throwing away perfectly good days just to stir up trouble, costing him his livelihood.
Lin Xiaoxia knew that Guaizai had some connection with the Qin family, and he'd even stayed at the Qin residence for a while. So he probed a little and found out that his brother had a sweetheart working at one of the pleasure houses over in Chao Kingdom. During the New Year's festivities, he'd spent a night there, and the sweetheart looked worried. After much hesitation, she told him he should stop coming this way.
"Why?"
She frowned and said, "I've heard the merchants who come here to drink say that a whole lot of troops have been gathered up north—all of them recruited in the past few years."
The brother shrugged. "Doesn't Chao Kingdom recruit soldiers every year? What's the big deal?"
"This is different."
Sure, Chao Kingdom enlisted troops every year, but before, there was no war, so the military strength was at a basic saturation point, and conscription was light. But in these past few years, recruitment in the north had been especially heavy. Officially, they told people they were building imperial tombs and drafting laborers. No one knew exactly how many had been conscripted. All these matters were kept tightly under wraps—not a whisper got out. Now, northern cities like Xuncheng in Chao Kingdom were all under martial law. Ordinary merchants with no connections couldn't even get in. It had never been like this in previous years.
Plenty of merchants were sighing in frustration, not knowing the reason, and naturally nursing grievances.
The sweetheart had once attended to a certain master—a man who seemed to have some inside connections. While drunk, he had slurred a warning to her, telling her to save up as much silver as she could and move to the central region. Things were likely to get chaotic around here.
The town she lived in bordered Da Xia. If the two countries went to war, border towns would be the first to suffer.
Those were his words, but when he sobered up, he sternly warned her again that he'd just been rambling and she mustn't repeat it, or it would cost her her life.
There was no proof of any of this, but the brother knew his sweetheart truly cared for him and wouldn't lie about something like this. So he stopped running the Chao Kingdom route. If Chao Kingdom really was making moves, waiting until later to pull out would be too late.
After hearing this, Lin Xiaoxia went to the Qin family and reported it.
Fang Zichen frowned slightly as he listened. He recalled that back in the capital, Xia Jinghong had seemed to bring it up once, asking Fang Zichen what he thought about the matter.
Now Fang Zichen suddenly remembered—last time he'd sent the Qin Family Army to the northwest to gather intelligence, they'd found that Chao Kingdom had started secretly mass-recruiting troops four years ago. Around that same time, the Northern Qi tribes had also started reaching out more to the kingdoms around them. Was that just a coincidence?
At first, Fang Zichen had thought it simple—Da Xia was not to be trifled with, and the kingdoms might be trying to form an alliance. But due to wariness or some other terms not being settled, they'd dragged their feet. But what if that wasn't it?
They hadn't attacked together yet, perhaps because they knew the Northwestern Army wasn't much to fear—Da Yuan had almost held them off single-handedly. If several countries joined forces, the Northwestern Army certainly couldn't stop them—or at least, couldn't hold out for long. But once they pushed into the central plains, would the Qin Family Army just let them keep marching through?
No way.
And besides, they didn't even need to wait until the enemy reached the central plains. If the Northwestern Army couldn't hold the line—even though sending reinforcements was a last resort—the Qin Family Army would definitely step in to help if things got that desperate.
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