Isolated town in northern border region

On the third day after Xiao Lie claimed to be ill, the threshold of the Northern Xinjiang Bank was lowered by three inches due to the crowd.

The notice was posted in the early hours of the morning, and before the ink was even dry, it was surrounded by a huge crowd.

The notice had three lines of text.

"The bidding for phosphate fertilizer technology is divided into five processes, with each process being bid on independently. Land contracts are used as collateral, and the highest bidder wins."

There is another line of smaller text below.

"Only one trial production line is retained in the northern region, with an annual output of no more than 100 shi (a unit of dry measure)."

Those who had been discussing the prince's relapse of his old illness in the teahouse fell silent after reading the notice.

When the news reached Qingzhou, the head of the Wang family was looking at the account books.

After reading the notice, he closed the ledger and said something to the steward.

"Prepare the car, we're heading to the capital."

"The butler asked."

"How much silver are you bringing?"

The person in charge of the Wang family thought about it.

"Just bring the land deed; the silver is useless to us."

His tone was calm, but when he put down the ledger, his fingertips lingered on the cover for a moment, as if he were checking a crease that wasn't completely dry between the lines of that page. He no longer had the strength to smooth it out.

The steward accepted the order and left. The Wang family's carriage left the city that afternoon, leaving a new rut on the official road.

Meanwhile, the entrance to the Beijiang Bank in Youzhou City was packed with people.

Less than two hours after the notice was posted, Manager Sun of the grain shop in the west of the city squeezed in front of the counter with a stack of land deeds.

The dozen or so people standing behind him were all grain merchants and landlords from various states. Some of them had ridden all night from Yongzhou, their hair still damp with dew.

Manager Sun's hand trembled slightly as he handed the stack of land deeds through the window.

"I want to bid for the first process."

The clerk behind the counter took the land deed and handed him a receipt.

"The bidding will begin in three days. Please present this receipt for entry."

Manager Sun took the receipt and looked at it over and over again. He turned around and walked out, but tripped on the threshold when he reached the door. Someone next to him helped him up.

After he regained his footing, he turned around and said something to the man.

"Are you here to bid as well?"

The man nodded.

Manager Sun asked again.

Which one?

The man hesitated for a moment.

"The second one."

Without saying anything more, the two walked out of the door, but they both turned back to look at each other before turning in different directions.

The news of the fertilizer technology tender was like a spark falling into a haystack.

Agriculture is the foundation of all ages, and the technology that can increase the yield of farmland is something that can determine life and death.

Xiao Lie broke down the three technologies of phosphate fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, and quick-acting compost into five processes.

From ore crushing to acid-base neutralization, from fermentation formulation to granulation and shaping, and finally to application methods.

Each process is tendered independently and is unrelated to the others.

This means that a family can only obtain complete blueprints for one or two processes at most.

To master the complete set of techniques, one must join forces with other established families.

But Xiao Lie had calculated that no one would join forces with him.

In the teahouse, someone was counting on their fingers for a long time.

"With five processes involved, and each of the five families taking one step, no one can produce a complete fertilizer."

"But if someone hands over their part of the process to someone else in exchange, then the land deed they pledged to the bank is essentially given away for nothing."

The person next to him chimed in.

"What if all five families sit down to talk?"

The first person shook his head.

"Talk? How can we talk? The Wang family and the Li family have been fighting over land in Yongzhou for decades, and the Zhao family and the Qian family were still in court last year."

"You'd be better off making them sit down and fight than sit down and talk."

An old man in the corner had been silent until he finished listening to the discussion. He put down his teacup and slowly said something.

"They don't need to talk to me."

"The prince had already figured out their tricks!"

"If you were in that situation, would you give away your family heirloom?"

He left a message as he got up and left the teahouse.

"Just you wait and see, within a month, those powerful families will start fighting amongst themselves."

On the seventh day of the bidding process, Beijiang Bank launched its first batch of affordable fertilizers.

Not much, only three hundred shi (a unit of dry measure), which was put on the market at cost price.

On the morning the notice was posted, people from several villages outside Youzhou City came in oxcarts to pick up goods.

An old farmer surnamed Liu squatted on the edge of the field, holding a handful of grayish-white powder in his hand, turning it over and over, and then bringing it to his nose to smell it.

"Can this thing really increase crop yields?"

A person wearing a uniform from the Northern Xinjiang Workshop squatted down next to him.

"Try it on a small plot of land, it's free."

The old farmer thought about it for a while, then marked out a small plot of land and spread fertilizer there, leaving the adjacent plot for comparison.

Half a month later, the wheat seedlings in that plot were a full half finger taller than those next to it, and their color was also a shade darker.

An old farmer squatted on the edge of the field, looking at the difference between the two plots of land, and rubbed the mud off his hands.

"This thing... it's actually damn useful."

He turned and walked toward the village, his pace quickening considerably as he had come, as if he were rushing to lay down the remaining paving before winter.

The news spread like wildfire through the surrounding villages.

At the entrance of the Yongzhou branch, several farmers squatted in a corner, discussing their situation.

"We can't afford such a big bag, could a few of us buy one bag and share it?"

The person next to me said.

"The notice says you can buy them individually."

Several farmers pooled their money, bought half a bag of fertilizer, and divided it up on the edge of the field.

An old farmer clutched the small handful of fertilizer he had been allocated in his hand, and through the cloth bag, he could feel the granules slipping through his fingers.

He told everyone he met afterward.

"That stuff looks like stove ash, but it works better than cow dung."

After this news spread, even more people came to the bank to buy fertilizer.

Some people came pushing wheelbarrows, some drove donkey carts, and some carried fertilizer in cloth bags hanging from both ends of a carrying pole.

The queue outside the North Xinjiang Bank stretched from dawn until the sun began to set. Truckloads of bagged fertilizer were being transported along the official road to various counties, as if a root, unseen by anyone, was being buried deep in the soil before winter even arrived.

Xiao Lie's policies are like a slowly unfolding net, gradually tightening.

The major families were forced into a dilemma.

Either you have to use all your savings to bid for the land, or you have to mortgage the land to the bank in exchange for a blueprint;

They either abandon the technology and watch helplessly as low-priced fertilizers from northern Xinjiang seize all the market.

An elderly patriarch, over sixty years old, sat in the family council hall all night, and at dawn, he spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Bring out the land deed."

"Instead of letting those peasants use the prince's wealth to drive down grain prices, we'd rather earn it ourselves."

As he handed over the land deed, his fingers paused on the corner of the paper, trembling slightly.

As the land deeds were packed into wooden boxes and sent out of the mansion, he stood up, walked to the window, glanced at the fields awakening in the morning light, then turned back to his chair and sighed.

"Oh... I'm so sorry, my ancestors~"

After the bidding process concluded, the five processes were allocated to five different established families.

The family that had been in the business of ore crushing discovered that they did not have blueprints for the acid-base neutralization process, so the crushed ore powder was just waste.

The family that obtained the fermentation formula discovered that without the granulation process, the fermented fertilizer could not be transported at all.

The families that took over other processes also got stuck at different stages.

No one is willing to share their work process with others, because behind each process lies a land contract.

Once technology is exchanged, it's like exchanging your own land deed held in the bank for someone else's promise. And those promises are neither stamped nor signed, like a blank IOU, waiting to see who will pick up a pen and sign it first.

At the same time, Xiao Lie introduced a supplementary policy for affordable fertilizers.

He established fixed fertilizer sales points in major markets across the states to ensure a continuous supply at stable prices.

The grain merchants did the math.

Even if we acquire the complete technology, the cost of opening a kiln and building a factory, when spread across every stone of fertilizer, will deter people from buying it if the price exceeds the price in northern Xinjiang.

But if the price is set lower than that of northern Xinjiang, then we won't even be able to recoup the cost of opening the kiln.

A grain merchant who had come from Bingzhou stood at the bank entrance, watching the oxcarts carrying fertilizer, and whispered something to his companion.

"He's blocked the way! Even if we get the blueprints, we can only go by the price he sets."

"If we don't pay the price he sets, we won't be able to sell our products."

His companion remained silent for a moment.

"Then what's the point of bidding?"

The grain merchant sighed.

"If you don't bid, you get nothing."

The people were happy. In a village in Yongzhou, after the autumn harvest, the village chief stood under the big locust tree at the village entrance, looking at the grain piled high in the granaries, and said something to the villagers who had gathered around.

"This year's harvest is almost 30% higher than last year's."

Someone asked.

"Is it thanks to chemical fertilizers?"

The village chief nodded.

"You'll know once you try it."

There were no cheers, no applause, but the crowd did not disperse.

Some people stood there for a while, then turned around, went home, grabbed a few empty sacks, and walked towards the bank.

That autumn harvest, many farmers discovered for the first time that their granaries could be so full.

Someone squatted next to the grain pile, grabbed a handful of newly harvested rice, crushed it in his hand, looked at it for a long time, then grabbed another handful and chuckled.

Those hands gripping sickles began calculating whether to buy a few more bags next year, while those aristocratic families who once lived off land deeds and silver were pondering something else entirely in their backyards.

Two weeks later, the five successful bidders holding the technology were forced to sit down and negotiate.

They tried to put the five processes together, but no one was willing to take out their own blueprints first.

The negotiations lasted for three days, but ended in discord.

Some people smashed cups, some stormed off, and some closed the door and said something to the housekeeper.

"If they don't pay, we won't pay either! Let's see who gives in first!"

This conversation was recorded by Jiang Min's men and sent to Xiao Lie's desk that very night.

After reading it, Xiao Lie made no comment, simply folded the paper and put it in the drawer, then said something to the clerk next to him.

Tell them that the second batch of affordable fertilizer will arrive next month.

The clerk accepted the order and left. The drawer closed with a slight click, like a thumbtack fitting perfectly into its pre-drilled hole.

At the same time, Zhou Xun left Beijing again.

This time, he brought not only a patrol team, but also a battalion of new-style muskets and three hundred veterans from the northern frontier.

His inspection route resumed along the path he had not completed last time, from Yongzhou to Bingzhou, from Qingzhou to Jingzhou, visiting city after city.

Wherever he went, the troops stationed in each state lined up to await his orders.

Some people tried to stop them, but when they saw the soldiers with muskets marching into the city, they withdrew their hands.

This time, Zhou Xun did not encounter any more missing witnesses or destroyed account books. He handled the cases he had investigated one by one, executing those who deserved to be executed, confiscating those who deserved to be confiscated, and exiling those who deserved to be exiled.

The people in the teahouse began to discuss how the situation had changed.

Someone was holding a bowl of tea and said...

"Zhou Xun is really ruthless this time."

The person next to him chimed in.

"It's not that he's ruthless, it's that the prince is ruthless."

"The prince has soldiers at his disposal and banks behind him. The fertilizer formula has bound the powerful families tightly, leaving them without even the strength to cause trouble."

Someone added in a low voice.

"I heard that several prominent families want to redeem their land deeds, and the bank said that they can, but at the current price."

"The current price is almost double what it was when they invested."

The first person shook his head.

"It's too late to redeem it. When you go in, you're a sheep; when you come out, you're a wolf."

The chatter echoed intermittently in the teahouse, occasionally punctuated by sighs or laughter, only to be quickly drowned out by new sounds.

Those once-powerful families who relied on land and tenants for survival are having their outermost shells peeled away layer by layer.

Some people began selling their ancestral homes, some sent their children and grandchildren to factories in northern Xinjiang to learn trades, and some sat in their halls all night before instructing their stewards to prepare a carriage to go to the capital.

But Xiao Lie still did not see them.

Every day, carriages of different surnames stop on the steps outside the palace gates, different people hand over visiting cards, and the same message is delivered from inside the palace gates.

"His Highness's old illness has relapsed, and he is unable to receive guests."

A family head who had come from Yongzhou stood outside the palace gates for an entire day, only turning away as dusk fell, cursing as he left.

"Damn it! They actually tied up Doctor Xu!?"

"Isn't this just causing trouble?!"

The butler whispered from the side.

"Sir, this Doctor Xu, I'm afraid... he's probably already dead, isn't he?"

The head of the family trembled upon hearing this.

"If that's the case... then His Highness will have to use his knife!"

There is still no news about Xu De.

Xiao Lie sat in the imperial study, with inspection reports from various prefectures spread out in front of him.

Zhou Xun's progress was faster than he had expected, and the level of cooperation from various states also exceeded his expectations.

After reading the report, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and thought for a while, then suddenly opened his eyes and looked out the window.

He read those reports over and over again—they were so smooth!

There were no obstacles, no excuses, no covert resistance; it was like a road that had been cleared in advance, waiting for Zhou Xun to walk across it step by step.

Xiao Lie tapped his fingers slowly on the table.

If it were done by a powerful family, they wouldn't have backed down so quickly.

They would engage in underhanded tactics after Zhou returned to Beijing, spreading rumors in the shadows, continuing to make insinuations in the newspapers, and delaying the handling of certain cases in local areas.

If it was Jiang Jun who did it, he couldn't have watched me subdue the powerful families.

Xiao Lie's fingers stopped.

With things escalating to this point, the powerful families would rather cut off their own flesh than hand over Xu De. Either Xu De is dead, or... it wasn't them who did it at all!

Xiao Lie sat up straight.

He flipped through the reports again and turned his gaze to another person—Jiang Min!

He immediately dismissed the idea.

But after that idea was rejected, it was like a stone that sank to the bottom of the water; it wasn't washed away, it just sank a little deeper.

He recalled Jiang Min's expression when she advised him not to be too hasty, and the tone of her voice when discussing Xu De's disappearance.

If we still can't find Xu De after all this, there's only one possibility: something's wrong with the people looking for Xu De!

He shook his head, as if trying to shake the thoughts out of his mind, and picked up the tea on the table and took a sip.

He put down his teacup, his finger pausing briefly on the rim.

"Perhaps, a spy from the Bureau of Folklore has infiltrated Min'er's ranks?"