People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 725 Sometimes it’s okay to recycle waste!

"Wait a minute." Chen Han held his sleeve and said, "Tomorrow morning, please ask Mr. Zheng to take the lead in petitioning for the establishment of the 'Voucher and Invoice Department'."

As he spoke, he pushed the copper ruler that Zhu Youwei brought to Zheng, who had a livid face, and said, "Just say that this was made by you and the Institute of Physics."

When the third watch gong sounded, the duty room had already drafted twelve rules. Zhu Yunhuan held up the "Lianhe Shuilu Tu" and exclaimed: "Uncle! The freight from Suzhou to Hangzhou..." Chen Han looked at his finger and saw that the freight of the new route marked with dark blue in the map was 70% cheaper than the official route.

"This is the true meaning of the vouchers." Chen Han tapped the mark of the Women's Workshop on the map. "Last month, they used the vouchers to rent a boat to carry cotton yarn and helped tea merchants transport goods along the way. Both sides saved 30% of the freight." He lowered his voice. "If the Xu family and others were allowed to monopolize the vouchers, these new roads..."

"It will become their blood vessels for drawing blood!" Zhu Gaochi slammed the account book shut.

The fifth watch drum sounded, and when everyone dispersed, Chen Han stayed alone in the duty room to sort out the documents. Suddenly, he heard the sound of tiles, and looked up to see Zhu Youwei leaning against the window, turning a special voucher with her fingertips - the dark pattern on the voucher turned out to be a miniature "Anti-Counterfeiting Digital Writing Method".

"Money, my wife?" Chen Han chuckled.

"It's a sword hanging over the heads of unscrupulous businessmen." Zhu Youwei placed the copper ruler on his desk. "The Institute of Physics made it overnight. There is a logarithmic table engraved on the ruler." She lowered her voice. "The lawyer of the Xu family was just found collecting vouchers by the Qinhuai River."

In the early morning light, Chen Han stood on the steps of the Ministry of Revenue and looked into the distance.

The crisp sound of coupons rubbing against each other could be heard in the morning markets across Jinling City. Madam Liu, who was pushing a modified garbage truck, was writing accounts on the truck board with charcoal.

A gust of wind blew by, and the badly printed pages of vouchers in her basket rustled, and the red-lettered mark "Monopoly should be banned" could be vaguely seen.

At this moment, the eunuch accompanying Zhu Biao came hurriedly and said, "Master Chen, the prince wants you to go to Xuanwu Lake as soon as possible!"

There was a thin layer of ice on the surface of the lake, but Zhu Biao was standing in a newly built thatched hut on the shore, staring in a daze at the ten steaming pots in the hut.

Seeing Chen Han coming, the prince pointed at the brown pulp boiling in the pot and said, "How come the 'voucher pulp' you invented was used by Songjiang cloth merchants to boil and dye cloth?"

"Your Highness, this is not my idea." Chen Han stirred the pulp with a wooden stick and scooped up a few strands of fiber for a closer look. "The pulp mixed with Liaodong birch bark is particularly tough. The cloth merchants are very good at applying what they have learned..."

Zhu Biao tapped lightly on the wooden pillars of the thatched hut with his fingertips, and the thin ice on the lake surface made a slight cracking sound.

He grabbed a handful of boiled fibers and threw them into the pulp pot, splashing brown water on Chen Han's clothes. He pretended to be angry: "Duke Qian is so generous! The anti-counterfeiting secret formula developed by the Institute of Physics has become a filthy thing in the merchant's dye vat in the blink of an eye?"

Chen Han brushed off the slurry on the corner of his clothes, squatted down and picked up half a piece of broken coupon from the mud. In the soaked paper pulp, the fibers of Liaodong birch bark shone like golden threads. "Your Highness, do you remember the "Record of Canal Transport Losses" submitted by the Ministry of Works last year?" He rubbed the fibers with his fingertips, revealing the indigo particles entangled inside, "The 300,000 dan of cotton yarn shipped to Songjiang every year will be reduced by 20% due to mildew."

The prince's brows twitched imperceptibly. Sparks flew from the charcoal basin in the corner of the hut, startling the sparrows that were stealing food under the eaves.

"These..." Chen Han pointed to the steaming pot, where the boiling slurry was emitting a strange blue-gold color. "They were originally the leftovers of badly printed vouchers. According to the old rules, they should be burned, but the apprentices of the Physics School found that the slurry made from the waste mixed with Ryukyu sea sand can make the cloth three times more durable." He shook out a handkerchief from his sleeve and dipped it into the pot. When he took it out, the coarse cloth was dyed with a uniform lake blue. "Touch it and feel it."

The moment Zhu Biao took the handkerchief, he felt an unfamiliar softness on his fingertips. This touch reminded him of the old leather coats that were replaced with new armor when he inspected the border troops five days ago. They were also recycled, but the pot of rice water in front of him exuded a sense of ingenuity.

"Feng Er, a cloth merchant from Songjiang, came to see me yesterday." Chen Han stirred the pulp pot with a wooden stick, and the steam formed fine beads of water between his eyebrows. "He said that the 'Quanqing cloth' dyed with this waste material can be exchanged for two more mink skins in Liaodong." The tip of the stick picked up a piece of unmelted paper, on which the words "Made in the 25th year of Hongwu" were vaguely visible. "What do you think, is this a waste or an increase in income?"

There was a crisp sound of ice breaking outside the straw shed. Several craftsmen in shorts were pushing carts loaded with scrapped banknotes, leaving winding tracks on the thin frost. Zhu Biao noticed that they all had wooden signs on their waists that read "Physics Institute errand boy", but the way they pushed the carts was clearly that of experienced dock laborers.

"Where is the decorum of the court?" The prince accidentally knocked over the pulp bucket at his feet, and the brown liquid seeped into the mud. The eunuch who was keeping accounts jumped up in shock, "If the censor knew that the secret recipe of the Ministry of Works was circulated in the market--"

"Your Highness, please allow me to report." Chen Han interrupted and took out a blue booklet from his bosom. The pages were densely written with numbers. A steep upward curve was drawn in red pen between the "amount of waste coupons burned" on the left and the "output of new dyeing workshops" on the right. "Before the twelfth month of last year, it took 360 workers in each prefecture and county to destroy waste coupons. Now merchants are competing to buy them, which not only saves the court this expense -" He pointed his finger at the red mark at the end of the booklet, "The new military uniforms made by the Guanglu Temple using 'court blue cloth' have saved 40% of the budget compared to previous years."

Zhu Biao grabbed the abacus on the desk. As the sandalwood beads clattered, he caught a glimpse of the scraps of paper stuck to the sole of Chen Han's boots - they were clearly fragments of the "Material Transfer Order" with the seal of the Ministry of Revenue.

"What a good 'waste recycling'!" The prince sneered, "But if everyone uses the anti-counterfeiting formula to dye the dye vat, how can this voucher be anti-counterfeit?" He scooped up a half piece of unmelted voucher paper from the starch pot and held it up to the sunlight - the dark pattern of "Hongwu Tongbao" that should have been visible had already become blurred.

Chen Han untied the belt around his waist in a leisurely manner. The moment the copper buckle popped out, three pieces of colored glass embedded in the inner secret compartment were revealed. "The Institute of Physics predicted this last month." He placed the colored glass pieces on the broken ticket, and the originally blurred dark pattern actually showed a triple shadow under refraction. "The real anti-counterfeiting technique is here. The one on the scrap ticket is just a trick."

The sound of ice breaking was getting closer. Zhu Biao turned his head and saw a dozen craftsmen on the other side of the lake chipping ice to get water. The dye vats piled beside them were all labeled with cinnabar "Specialized purchase of waste materials with vouchers". A merchant wearing Hangzhou silk chased after him with an account book in his hand. The seal of "Supervised by the Women's Workshop" on the book was dazzling red.

"I was just about to report this." Chen Han pointed to the glass kiln in the distance. "According to the newly drafted 'Workshop Management Regulations', anyone who purchases more than 50 dan of scrap materials must register as a craftsman and keep samples." He took out a piece of pine soot ink and drew on the table. "Look, why not make the best of a bad situation - from now on, there will be three levels of anti-counterfeiting, and the scrap materials will be left as one for merchants to study. The more they study..."

"The more time the court has to spare to upgrade the real secret method," Zhu Biao continued, his fingertips dialing an astonishing number on the abacus. He remembered that when he inspected the Physics Institute last month, those apprentices deliberately "leaked" the outdated gear drawings to the Xu family - the pot of slurry in front of him was clearly the same way.

Chen Han's stick touched something at the bottom of the pot. When he scooped it up, he found a bundle of fibers wrapped with gold thread. "Look, this is the yarn that failed in the experiment of the female workers. It was supposed to be thrown away, but now it is mixed with the waste and it has enhanced the toughness of the cloth." He pulled it gently, and the gold thread drew a smooth arc in the sunlight. "Merchants are fighting for this, but they don't know the real secret is--"

"In the Liaodong iron sand powder that you mixed in." Zhu Biao leaned over and sniffed the slurry. The faint smell of iron reminded him of the quenching pool in the Military Equipment Bureau. When he stood up, half a wrinkled blueprint slipped from his sleeve, on which was drawn the transmission structure of the improved loom. "Can the quiver made of this cloth by Feng Er hold 30% more arrows?" Cheers came from outside the straw hut. It turned out that an old craftsman accidentally sprinkled copper powder into the dye vat, and the dyed cloth glowed with strange rainbow colors in the sun. Chen Han looked at the group of dancing craftsmen and whispered, "Your Highness, anti-counterfeiting is like fishing. Throwing some bait can see which fish are the most greedy."

Zhu Biao's eyes swept over the boiling pulp pot, the busy craftsmen, and finally fell on Chen Han's clothes stained with paper pulp. He grabbed the eunuch's brush and heavily wrote the word "approved" on the "Material Transfer Order".

"The grand court meeting will be held in three days." The prince slapped the approval document on Chen Han's chest with such force that the paper pages rustled. "You should explain the principles of 'waste' and 'fishing' to those old stubborn people." When he turned around, his official boots rolled over the broken certificates on the ground. The two words "Hongwu" stained on the soles of his shoes left clear marks on the snow.

Chen Han looked across the lake. Merchants were competing to bid for the newly released iridescent cloth. A tall and thin man secretly hid a handful of fiber in his sleeve pocket. When he turned around, the unique tattoo of the Xu family's secret agent was revealed on the back of his neck.

The sound of running water under the ice became clearer. Chen Han took out a piece of rose cake and broke it in half. He handed one half to the eunuch who was keeping accounts: "Tell Guanglu Temple to add an extra stew to the celebration banquet tonight."

"what?"

"Just think of it as..." Chen Han looked at the dyeing factory with smoke in the distance, his smile deepening, "adding some bait to the fishes."

As he was talking, a woman's crisp voice came from outside the straw hut: "Make way! The newly arrived waste vouchers need to be poured into the No. 3 pot!" Two female workers wearing blue headscarves came running with bamboo baskets and poured the scraps of paper into the pot with a clatter. Zhu Biao's eyes jumped: "This... this is a bad voucher printed by the court!"

"Don't worry, Your Highness." Chen Han smiled and pointed to the cloth drying outside the shed. "Look at that piece of cloth with dark ochre patterns. It uses the dye mixed with coupon paper. The price of the cloth is twice as expensive as ordinary cotton cloth. The 'coupon paper special fee' collected by the Ministry of Revenue every ten days is enough to print another 20,000 new coupons."

Zhu Biao was stunned for a while, then laughed: "What a circular account! No wonder father said your voucher is 'bait'..."

Before he finished speaking, a rapid bell rang from the other side of the lake.

The front of the Women's Workshop was crowded with people. When Chen Han squeezed into the crowd, he saw Li Zhen picking up a young man in brocade clothes and throwing him to the ground: "The young master of the Xu family sent someone to sneak into the Physics Institute to peek at the loom drawings, but was caught by our female workers using arithmetic problems!"

The young man struggled to run, but Xiao Tao held the shuttle to his throat and said, "Your accountant can't even get the math wrong, so what's the point of stealing the blueprints?" The surrounding cloth merchants burst into laughter.

Zhu Biao looked thoughtfully at the lintel of the workshop door. Under the newly hung plaque "Women's Charity School", a dozen female workers were holding the "Simplified Logarithmic Table" and testing each other. In the distance, the peddler's cry came: "Exchange the voucher for a spindle! Three vouchers for one pair!"

The snow started to fall again, and Chen Han exhaled white air. Two months ago, the people in the Ministry of Revenue were still shouting about "shaking the foundation of the country", but now the whole of Nanjing seemed to be boiled into a pot of porridge by this small piece of paper.

Zhu Biao stood by the straw hut, his fingertips gently fiddling with the condensed water droplets on the edge of the pot, his eyes fixed on the withered lotus leaves frozen by a thin layer of ice on the lake in the distance. The early spring breeze brushed the hem of his dragon robe, causing it to tremble slightly.

"Chen Han," he said, his voice calmer than the water flowing under the ice, "If the officials in the court knew that you used the secret recipe of the imperial seal to cook the dye vat for the merchants--"

He pinched off a drooping grass stem with his fingertips. "They will say you broke the ancestral rules."

Chen Han placed the stick horizontally on the pulp pot, and the steam formed fine mist beads between his eyebrows. "Your Highness, do you remember the land survey in Zhejiang last year? At that time, the Ministry of Revenue used the old method, and after half a month of verification of 30,000 acres of land, there was still a difference of 800 acres." He took out an indigo handkerchief from his arms and dipped it into the pulp pot. When he took it out, the coarse cloth had been dyed with a uniform lake blue. "Later, the apprentices of the School of Physics recalculated using Arabic numerals, and the error was only three acres."

Zhu Biao took the handkerchief, and the soft touch from his fingertips reminded him of the new armor lining of the soldiers in the northern border.

The ice suddenly made a slight cracking sound, and a few fish that had woken up early crashed into the ice, leaving spider-web-like patterns under the ice.

"You mean..." The prince spread the handkerchief towards the sunlight, vaguely seeing the metallic luster flickering between the fibers, "Let the court officials see with their own eyes the usefulness of this 'waste'?"

Sparks flew from the charcoal basin in the corner of the straw shed. Chen Han took the opportunity to throw a handful of dried lotus stems into the fire, and the crackling sound was mixed with a faint scent of grass and wood. "Last month, Minister Liu of the Ministry of Industry impeached me for 'wasting national funds', but his family's newly opened dyeing factory——"

He fished out a ball of fiber wrapped with gold thread from the bottom of the pulp pot and said, "It was an old loom that was discarded by the Institute of Physics."

Zhu Biao covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief to block the steam. Chen Han knew that this was the prince's habitual action when thinking - just like when discussing the expedition to Liaodong three years ago, the young crown prince also weighed the pros and cons in the ink fragrance of the military newspaper.

"I remember the Zhou Li says: 'Nine duties are used to appoint all people, and in five days, all craftsmen are trained to produce eight materials.'" Zhu Biao recited the classics, his python-patterned cuffs brushing the edge of the starch pot. "But since the Han Dynasty, has the court ever really considered craftsmen as one of the 'nine duties'?" He traced the stitching on the edge of the handkerchief with his fingertips. "Just like this gold thread, it is just a dead thing with 'material consumption of three catties and two ounces' in the account book of the Ministry of Revenue."

The thin ice reflected the morning light, casting mottled shadows on the prince's face. Chen Han thought of the old leather coats that were replaced with new armor when he inspected the border troops five days ago. They were both court supplies, but the former were being reborn in the dye vat, while the latter could only gather dust in the warehouse.

"Your Highness, the officials are not against the vouchers." Chen Han stirred the water with a wooden stick, and a few pieces of undissolved voucher paper floated up in the vortex, "but these pieces of paper broke the rules they were familiar with."

The tip of the stick picked up a broken certificate, on which the words "Made in the 25th year of Hongwu" had been blurred by the starch water. "Just like the Xu family, they are not afraid of the new dyeing method, but that they can no longer rely on the 'exclusive secret recipe of Songjiang cloth' to raise the price."

……

(End of this chapter)