Chapter 112: Flaws Everywhere, Storms Everywhere
When leaving Chuyun Prefecture, it was still Flower Festival Month. From Dragon Gate Post Station to Lantian County, Yun Ce and the others traveled a total of Flower Festival, Yangchun, Qinghe, and Midsummer, four months.
Counting the journey, it was twenty-seven thousand li.
They traveled a lot of roads and very quickly, plus Miss Hong helped him clean up afterward. His traces in Daizhou Prefecture were wiped very clean, so the death of that Daizhou Inspector who died in Chuyun Prefecture had no connection to him at all. The Great Han government officials only thought he died at the hands of the rebel Miss Hong.
During these four months of travel, Yun Ce truly got to see the appearance of the Great Han.
E Ji, An Ji, and the others always thought that the people of the Great Han Homeland must certainly be well-fed and clothed, wearing gold and silver. As a result, along the way, many places were even not as good as Chuyun Prefecture.
If the people of Hekou Village were placed in the Great Han Homeland, they might not survive at all. But in Chuyun Prefecture, because there are few people and abundant resources, they instead manage to survive.
Originally, such vast land could easily support six hundred million people, but unfortunately, their agriculture is basically still in the slash-and-burn stage, with very low land utilization, leading to many places in the Great Han Homeland becoming poorer year by year due to population growth.
Moreover, this problem of becoming poorer due to population growth will only intensify day by day.
Because with more people, more people participate in gathering, and the seeds of primitive edible plants surviving in the natural world will decrease, leading to even fewer edible plants that can be gathered the next year.
In fact, animal husbandry cannot support a country of six hundred million people at all. This is why ancient nomadic people always split apart and eventually perished.
1 From these angles, looking at the current Great Han, he is already old. From their Shehuo when recapturing Haikun Prefecture and Chuyun Prefecture, it should have been clear.
1 Their enterprising spirit has already begun to collapse.
1 For nomadic people to survive, the most important method is to open up territory, continuously expand their domain, continuously expand their grassland, striving to ensure everyone has enough grassland for grazing, thereby supporting a large population.
1 Jingzhao Prefecture alone has a population of thirty million, as said by Lantian County Magistrate Lin Weizhou; it should be official data, so credible.
1 But Jingzhao Prefecture’s area is not large, not even one-tenth of Chuyun Prefecture, and there are many mountains and lakes here. Resources might have been extremely abundant initially, but with Chang’an standing here for over one thousand six hundred years, the resources here have long been exhausted.
1 Not to mention anything else, just the vegetation here is much worse than in Chuyun Prefecture. Even the mountains around Chang’an have no trees.
1 E Ji has calculated that nowadays, the biggest household expense is grain, and the second is fuel, that is, firewood and charcoal.
1 Nomadic people have always relied on the mountain to eat from the mountain, on the water to eat from the water; they do not understand what sustainable utilization is.
1 The most fatal problem is not here.
1 Rather, they made a mistake from the very beginning.
2 Nomadic people are naturally meant to wander around grazing; they should not have hastily established cities when productivity had not yet risen. Such cities originally could not be sustained for one thousand six hundred years; sustaining a hundred years would be good. Now, they have sustained one thousand six hundred years. In Yun Ce’s view, it is still the Great Han people’s powerful cohesion that has kept resource-consuming cities like Chang’an and Luoyang alive.
2 To be precise, from the day Chang’an and Luoyang were established, they have lived by sucking blood, sucking the blood of the entire Great Han people.
2 This branch of the Great Han has not experienced scenes of complete collapse and disintegration. With the Ancestral Fire, the Emperor divided the world into thirty-six prefectures. Until the powerful Huo Qubing overturned this long-standing era, and on his remains, a Great Han far stronger than the Yellow Emperor’s inheritance was established.
2 Jumping from clan society directly into semi-slave, semi-feudal society—this should be Huo Qubing’s achievement. It is not a social system upgrade developed on their own. They can enjoy some social dividends early on, but the dividends eventually consumed must be paid back.
2 Today’s Chang’an is at the peak of flowers on brocade and oil frying in fierce fire. Once the prefectures and counties near Chang’an cannot bear Chang’an’s consumption, the prefectures responsible for supplying Chang’an will extend farther away. The farther, the greater the consumption on the road. The greater the consumption, the more prefectures need to participate, which is a vicious cycle.
2 Unless they can develop efficient agriculture at this time.
2 Speaking here to Doggy, Yun Ce looked up at Steward Qiu and the others, who were holding the newly forged plough, crookedly ploughing the fields.
2 Yun Ce said to Doggy again: “Hope it comes in time. If not, it doesn’t matter. This society will collapse sooner or later. Chang’an and Luoyang sucking blood is just one of the major problems.”
2 For such social investigation reports, whenever Yun Ce has time, he does one for himself, then has Doggy organize, record, and file them.
2 On the long return journey of twenty-seven thousand li, Yun Ce saw too many social realities. He feels he has a preliminary cognition of the Great Han this country.
3 Now, all Great Han people think it is the Gui Fang people hindering the Great Han’s development. As long as the Gui Fang are eliminated, the Great Han can return to the prosperity of a thousand years ago.
3 “Without water, how do you farm?”
3 Yun Ce, who was watching Steward Qiu and the others ploughing through the window, was startled awake by Zhang Min’s words. He frowned and looked at Zhang Min: “Why haven’t you left yet?”
3 Zhang Min shook her head: “I want to see how you farm. Now tell me, without water, yet you’ve started digging the water channel. Just ask you, where does the water come from?
3 I see the end of your water channel is Dragon Lake, and Dragon Lake’s water surface is lower than the water channel. How do you get the water out of Dragon Lake? I saw you have people make a lot of large spoons. The spoons are so big; are you going to scoop water with spoons?”
3 Yun Ce nodded: “You know I have great strength. Others can’t use those large spoons, but surely I can. I estimate you can use them too, just a bit strenuous. But it’s only seven or eight hundred mu of land; us two working hard is no problem.”
3 Hearing this, Zhang Min’s pair of pretty eyes widened round. She hurriedly said: “The spoon is too big. I can scoop for a short while, but not for a long time. My internal breath won’t support it for long. By the way, how long do you plan to scoop water?”
3 Yun Ce touched his chin: “One day, at least from sunrise to sunset scooping water.”
3 Hearing this, Zhang Min’s face turned pale. She waved her hands repeatedly: “I can’t hold out.”
3 E Ji’s head poked in from outside the window, looking at Zhang Min: “You are the concubine in the household, no different from cattle and horses. Work won’t kill you, so work yourself to death.”
4 After scolding Zhang Min, E Ji smiled at Yun Ce: “Young Master, the cattle you wanted have been bought. Do you want to slaughter one to eat meat today?”
4 Yun Ce shook his head: “Bought to work, not to eat meat.”
4 Zhang Min puzzled: “Cattle are for eating meat.”
4 Yun Ce’s gaze swept over E Ji and Zhang Min’s faces, painfully holding his forehead with his hand. He knew he had another task: to train the cattle, make it obediently work, like pulling the waterwheel to continuously scoop water from Dragon Lake into the water channel to irrigate the over eight hundred mu of crops at home.
4 Seeing the cattle, Yun Ce sighed again. He expected the cattle’s bodies to be very large, but did not expect them to be so huge. This thing is not much smaller than an Asian elephant. Such a large livestock, how much fodder can it eat in a day?
4 Five hundred jin enough?
4 No wonder this thing can only be used for meat.
4 The Red Date Horse, seeing a new animal at home, curiously ran to the cattle, reared up, and pawed at its head with hooves.
4 This cattle’s personality seems extremely gentle. Even with the Red Date Horse’s copper hammer-like hooves smashing its head, it just mooed a couple times, tilting its head to let the Red Date Horse smash.
4 Yun Ce’s eyes suddenly lit up. He said to Zhang Min: “Can the method to tame Thunder Smoke Beasts be used on cattle?”
5 Zhang Min shook her head: “Yes, the method to tame Thunder Smoke Beasts basically applies to many large livestock. Cattle naturally work. It’s just that performing the secret technique once is quite valuable. Are you really going to use the secret technique on cattle?”
5 Yun Ce laughed: “Have to test it.”
5 “This thing is already very gentle.”
5 Yun Ce shook his head: “I need obedience, not gentleness.”
5 Zhang Min looked at the cattle, then at Yun Ce, suddenly jumped up and punched Yun Ce’s head, then quickly ran away, shouting while running.
5 “You want to use cattle to help you scoop water, right? You swindler. No wonder I seriously considered helping you scoop water just now.”
5 E Ji tiptoed, padding a handkerchief to gently rub Yun Ce’s head, while angrily saying to Yun Ce: “She should scoop water day and night without rest.”
5 Yun Ce pushed away E Ji’s hand, somewhat worried: “Our home has no grassland; how to support these six head of cattle?”
5 E Ji pointed to the dead volcano Mingyu Mountain not far away: “Pull them to work when needed, release them on the mountain to find food themselves when not.”
5 Yun Ce looked at Mingyu Mountain: “If that mountain were ours, it would be great.”
6 E Ji puzzled: “That’s barren mountain, only grows grass. The trees have all been cut down by the surrounding people.”
6 Yun Ce laughed: “The land on that gentle slope is very fertile. It’s a pity to only grow grass.”
6 E Ji tentatively: “How about you go to Lantian County to find the county magistrate and buy that barren slope?”
6 Yun Ce patted E Ji’s cheek: “Truly a qualified steward wife. As long as you are here, the Yun Clan has no reason not to prosper.”
6 Hitching the cart-pulling sheep to the sharp soil-breaking ploughshare, the ploughshare enters the soil one and a half chi deep—not deep enough yet. But if the ploughshare goes deeper, the cart-pulling sheep can’t pull it.
6 Knowing that the first ploughing needs deep tilling, with no choice, Yun Ce let it be for now. Now is the farming season; after waiting for this crop to harvest bountifully, when there is ample time, then think of a way.
6 Since the home is established here, there should be a belief in building the home. Whether on Earth or in the Great Han, the home must be well built.
6 As for the Great Han court, that is another matter.
