The leisurely life of the Qin people

Chapter 14 The Last Vegetables

The man who came was Li You. He walked quickly to the door and saluted, saying, "Sir, my father and General Meng Tian are on their way."

"Meng Tian is here too?"

Li You placed his hands on the stove to warm them and whispered, "General Meng Tian must have come in a hurry. My father returned from the palace last night and hasn't slept all night since. It must be something very important."

Outside the study, Nuer led a group of women to prepare today's meal.

After winter, there are fewer and fewer edible vegetables, and the pickled radishes prepared in the fall have been distributed to each household.

Fusu ignored Li You's words and asked outside, "What are we having for dinner today?"

Hearing the young master's question, Tian An replied, "General Zhang Han cut a lot of celery. He said it was the last celery of the winter, and there would be no green vegetables after the snow."

Fusu saw carts of celery piled like small mountains being pulled past him and said, "Very good, let's eat celery then."

"I'll get ready now."

Zhang Han usually has a big appetite and he can eat anything that is edible.

While the servants were eating celery, Zhang Han was also chewing celery, taking a bite of raw celery and a bite of cake.

After eating the last crop of vegetables this winter, Guanzhong officially entered the season when there was no living thing on the ground.

After dinner, the women here put on thick clothes and began to weave linen, preparing clothes for winter.

Nowadays, large armies are returning to Guanzhong one after another, and the spoils they are bringing are increasing.

Just as Li You said, Prime Minister Li Si came here with General Meng Tian and a troop of soldiers, and also brought a lot of equipment.

The scene was a bit chaotic and busy, with soldiers coming and going pulling cartloads of stuff into the small village.

Meng Tian explained, "Yesterday another troop returned from Hangu Pass, bringing these with them. General Wang Jian sent someone to bring them here, saying they were captured items and were presented to you, my lord."

Fusu stood in the snow and looked at these things, which were covered with a thick layer of snow.

These things can be classified as captured sundries, which shows that General Wang Jian was a very frugal person. When he returned victorious, he brought back everything he could, including these sundries. To be precise, these are sundries.

You have to pick them one by one to see if they can be used.

Fusu looked through the carts of miscellaneous items brought in by the army. These things were not complete, just like some wood piled together, and no one knew what they were.

There were even some unknown pottery jars with very strange styles. Nuer picked out a few small pottery jars. The carvings on the outside of the pottery jars were very beautiful. They should be things from the royal palace of Chu.

Li Si saw the young master and everyone else busy picking out these miscellaneous items. When they picked out some useful things, the young master smiled happily.

It's a rare opportunity to have some free time to come here and visit the young master... Li Si also smiled when he saw this, and he kept standing aside and smiling.

Fusu pulled a piece of wood from a half-broken plow and said, "Teacher, are there many of these kinds of debris in the army?"

Li Si nodded and said, "There are quite a few. If you need them, I'll have them delivered."

"it is good."

Li Si pulled a scroll of documents from his sleeve and said, "This is a military document. General Meng Wu, the Grand Commandant, wants to send all 2,000 prisoners from Shangyan Mountain to Yandi to build the Great Wall."

Upon hearing this, Fusu stopped moving.

Li Si seemed to see through the young master's thoughts and said, "Meng Wu has been ill since returning from his expedition to Chu. He can no longer travel far. Let General Meng Tian go to Yan."

Fusu continued to dismantle the various wooden utensils, some of which were even parts of the large bed, and some still had signs of being burned.

Fusu was like a scrap recycler, patiently sorting and organizing the things sent by the army.

Meng Tian was finally going to build the Great Wall, and he was also going to take these two thousand prisoners with him.

Just like in the county system, the Qin Dynasty was stubbornly persistent.

The same is true for building the Great Wall in the north.

Li Si waved behind him, and Meng Tian understood and stepped forward, bowing and saying, "Young Master."

At this moment, Meng Tian was wearing the unique armor of the Qin army. The friction of the armor could be heard as he walked. He clasped his fists and saluted, saying, "Sir, I am ordered by the emperor to go to Yan to build the Great Wall."

General Meng Wu was old, and General Wang Jian was also old. The Qin State unified the six states and destroyed the last Chu State, but this war seemed to have drained the Qin State.

Old General Meng Wu can no longer travel far, and Old General Wang Jian has not returned yet, perhaps because he is too old and cannot move for too long.

The future of the Qin State still depends on the next generation.

Fusu patted his shoulder and said, "Take care on your journey."

Meng Tian saluted again and then led his men to gather the two thousand prisoners.

These prisoners seemed to have been loaned to Shang Yanshan, and now they were taken away by Meng Tian. After Yan and Zhao were annexed by the Qin Dynasty, the defense of the northern border was extremely important, so the progress of the excavation of Longshou Canal had to be sacrificed and people had to be sent to build the Great Wall.

Although he had expected this, Meng Tian also mentioned this matter.

I hadn't seen him for half a year, but the first time we met, I didn't have time to say a few words before he had to rush to the north.

Fusu bid farewell to Meng Tian and the two thousand prisoners.

Zhang Han looked far to the north, as if seeing Meng Tian off, with an expression in his eyes that was unclear whether it was envy or sympathy.

After the prisoners left, Fusu felt that there was a sense of emptiness behind Zhang Han. Before, there were always one or two people following him, waiting for orders at any time.

After calming down, Fusu had to face reality again and began to calculate his private property.

The so-called private property was nothing more than three thousand servants and a few hundred hectares of land.

Li Si and Li You were arguing outside the house, and it seemed that there was some conflict between the father and son.

Fusu left the place and felt a little quieter after he walked away. He saw Tian An repairing a spinning wheel. While he was repairing the spinning wheel, a group of women were watching him.

Fusu stepped forward, took a look, and said, "Why not install a pedal underneath? That way, we don't have to use one hand to pull the string."

Hearing this, Tian An stopped what he was doing.

Fusu then explained the principle of the spinning wheel.

Tian An nodded and said, "My lord, what you said makes sense. Let's try it now."

In this way, Fusu had something to do when he was free. He stood aside and watched Tian An modify the spinning wheel.

This old spinning wheel was also captured by the Qin army and sent here.

Tian An saw that it wasn't badly damaged, so he thought of repairing it. While hammering on it with a wooden hammer, he said, "Sir, this is a spinning wheel made by the Chu people. In the past, Confucian scholars from all over Qi and Lu would go to the Chu people to make clothes. The Chu people's spinning wheels were the best."

Fusu leaned against the pine tree behind him and asked again, "What about now?"

"If what you said can really be made, then this spinning wheel made by the Qin people is the best in the world."

Fusu sighed, "If the people of Chu and the Confucian scholars learn that the Qin people have better textile skills and rob their customers, they will curse the tyranny of Qin."

Tian An smiled knowingly and said, "If your servants can earn some food and money from weaving, your family business will be secure."

Fusu smiled and said, "I'm not short of money."

Tian An nodded, "The wine presented by General Wang Ben is worth tens of thousands of coins. Young Master is indeed not short of money."

Under the current Qin law, alcohol is very valuable.

In this era, money is really nothing. Food is the most important thing, and agriculture is the foundation of the country.

Even the three thousand servants in the land under his feet had to calculate food carefully.

The common people had no idea how much money was worth, and were even still in a barter society.

Life at the foot of Shangyan Mountain is simple, with only two meals a day.

Only the lunch is hot and has some flavor of home.

At night, everyone ate dry food and there was no open fire to roast food.

Now that the two thousand prisoners have left, the pressure has suddenly been reduced a lot, but the construction of underground canals and vertical shafts can only rely on these three thousand servants.

Fusu stood beside the spinning wheel, watching the diligent servants put the old items brought by the army into the warehouses. These things did not belong to the servants, and their lives, including theirs, belonged to Prince Fusu.

Tian An skillfully used the mortise and tenon structure to make a lever. Fusu looked at him suspiciously. The old man was so skilled. Was he a craftsman?
I have never heard Tian An talk about his past. He only said that he had been in the Xianyang Palace for many, many years.

With his skillful modification, a spinning wheel finally saw a change.

Tian An sat down in front of the spinning wheel, holding the line in one hand and the other end of the line with the other hand. He raised his foot and stepped on the pedal, and the hemp line changed ends.

The women around exclaimed when they saw this scene, and they stared at the spinning wheel, each wanting to take it for themselves.

Whoever gets this spinning wheel will become the person who weaves the most cloth here.

After Fusu and Tian An left, the group of old women started quarreling over the spinning wheel, and even started fighting, with some people spitting at each other.

So, the Qin people are very simple, and they will do anything to realize their own value.

Fusu was sitting in the carriage on the way back to the palace when he suddenly realized something and asked, "What was the quarrel between the teacher and Li You?"

Tian An replied, "The Prime Minister wants Li You to continue serving as the schoolmaster in the court, but he wants to resign."

Li You was just a proofreader in the court who delivered documents. His job was probably to help check where the documents came from, their contents, or where they were to be sent.

The teacher was very attentive in teaching Li You and gave his son the best and most challenging position.

Of course, Li You is not the one in charge of these matters.

The person in charge of Shang Yanshan is naturally me, the young master, and the people who supervised the construction of the canal are Wang Ben and Zhang Han.

Just like when they went to Hedong, the teacher always put Li You on the front line but he didn't have to take the blame if something went wrong.

Fusu sympathized with his teacher very much. Young people of this age are in their rebellious period. Who doesn't want to live a more independent life? Rebellion is inevitable.

When the heavy snow in Guanzhong stopped, the sun finally appeared.

The canal excavation work that had been suspended for many days finally started again. The young master's servants tied hemp ropes around their bodies and jumped down the shaft, and then baskets of soil were pulled up.

When the people in the shaft climbed up again, they were covered in yellow earth from head to toe.

Li You didn't want to go home, so he actually lived with the young master's servants and even went down the well to dig canals with the servants.

After a day's work, Li You was thrown into the icy Luo River by the young master's servants and washed thoroughly.

After the servants washed the yellow mud off their bodies, they put on thick clothes and went home to be welcomed by the children.

Li You walked ashore trembling, his teeth chattering, put on a cloak and followed the crowd.

Li You observed the people here, their expressions, their smiles, and felt that he felt more comfortable here than in busy Xianyang.

Until Zhang Han blocked Li You's way.

"The Master said that he wanted the servants to learn to read and write. I wonder if Principal Li can teach them."

Li You smiled bitterly and said, "I can teach them to read and write, but I won't be the commander of the army anymore."

(End of this chapter)