Chapter 111: Not As Good As Imagined
Yun Ce had a thousand reasons not to go to Iron Enclosure Pass, because he was not a beneficiary of Great Han’s vested interests at all.
He was grabbed from Earth by a dragon and casually thrown here like trash.
He was unwilling to begin with, and after crawling out of the ancient forest on Tianzhu Mountain, he basically hadn’t had any good days, spending every day either robbing or on the way to kill, so where was any peace and joy?
E Ji glared fiercely at Zhang Min, then dragged Yun Ce back to the room to discuss how to handle that Chicken Dung Mountain.
In E Ji’s view, no matter how good Iron Enclosure Pass was, she wouldn’t go; best if Yun Ce could stay here forever, always accompanying her, best if he could watch her give birth to seven or eight sons.
Zhang Min was different; she felt that a good man should go to Iron Enclosure Pass to gain fame on the battlefield, killing Gui Fang people until heads rolled everywhere and blood flowed like rivers, expanding territory thousands of miles north, then at the Gui Fang royal court, seeing the marked iron pillar and carving a stone record.
The Yun Family manor was actually very shabby; this place used to be housing built for the steward, servants, and slaves. Except for a few rooms that could somewhat keep out wind and rain, the rest of the houses were drafty on all sides, hot in summer and cold in winter.
Fortunately, Yun Ce had already sent Feng An and Liang Kun with people to fire bricks and tiles; it was believed that it wouldn’t be long before this manor underwent a great transformation.
When they first arrived in Jingzhao, E Ji was still dreaming of living in Chang’an City; later, after Zhang Min explained things about Chang’an City, E Ji immediately backed off.
Tang Dynasty man Gu Kuang once said to Bai Juyi: Chang’an rice is expensive, hard to live there; that was just a relatively objective statement.
1 The Chang’an here was truly hard to live in.
1 Just think about it: during the unprecedented prosperity of Tang Dynasty Chang’an, no fewer than a million people lived in the city.
1 This place’s Chang’an had a population ten times that of Tang Chang’an, yet in such a vast Chang’an City, only 300,000 people lived there.
1 Of course, these 300,000 did not include servants and slaves.
1 People who mainly relied on nomadic herding and gathering for production were not suited to living in a huge city to begin with; fortunately, Chang’an’s commerce was extremely developed, which miraculously supported such a large Chang’an.
1 Jingzhao had 30 million people, but only 300,000 could enter Chang’an City.
1 So Yun Ce hadn’t been able to enter Chang’an, or even qualify to enter Chang’an.
1 In these days since arriving in Chang’an, Yun Ce’s heart had actually settled down; not entering Chang’an was fine, lest he discover their excessively luxurious lifestyle and develop a bad conscience.
1 “I’m telling you, keep that Chicken Dung Mountain well for me; it’s a treasure mountain that gold can’t exchange for.”
1 Hearing Yun Ce say this, E Ji said somewhat embarrassedly: “Concubine knows she was wrong; if Young Master is angry, just hit me a couple times.”
2 Seeing E Ji even pucker up her buttocks, Yun Ce patted it and then laughed: “No time to joke with you; I say that Chicken Dung Mountain is a treasure, it’s a treasure mountain; I’ll have great use for it later.”
2 Seeing Yun Ce didn’t seem to be coaxing her, E Ji’s mind turned and she immediately said: “Let’s raise chickens too, make the dung mountain even bigger.”
2 “Mm, we’ll definitely raise chickens later; you love eating eggs so much, but right now our land is too little, less than a thousand mu, not even enough for Steward Qiu and his group to tend.”
2 “Eh, what does Young Master want to do?”
2 “Do what? Of course farm!”
2 “Farming won’t work well, and it’s not easy to farm; you’d best drop that idea.” Zhang Min’s voice came from outside the door.
2 “We’re a couple talking; what are you eavesdropping for?” E Ji flung open the gate, catching Zhang Min red-handed.
2 Zhang Min pursed her lips and said: “Do you two do anything in the house besides talk? What else is there to do in bed? And farming—you think no smart people in Great Han have thought of that?
2 As it stands now, besides growing a bit of wheat and beans, things like your favorite baby beans can’t be grown at all, and they’ll attract insects.
2 Moreover, to farm, the land needs to be fertile first, right? Needs water, right? Look, the manor your wife bought is all black soil everywhere—can you farm that?”
3 Yun Ce didn’t want to deal with Zhang Min, this farming idiot; the land here was paved with thick volcanic ash to begin with—in such a place, forget farming, you could plant elephants and grow a pile of elephants.
3 The reason people here didn’t like farming was mainly because slash-and-burn agriculture habits were deadly. Not to mention, after thousands of years, this group hadn’t even developed proper farming tools—what the hell could they farm?
3 Reclamation, fertilization, irrigation, sowing, transplanting, de-insecting, re-fertilizing, re-irrigating, then harvest, finally storage—every step is full of technology.
3 Without this technology, without proper farming tools, farming is out of the question; not just this branch of Great Han—even fellow Earthlings, Africans, if they don’t know how to farm, they just don’t.
3 Fortunately, Doggy was a great comrade; back on Earth during its thinking training, some programmer had stuffed its head with a full set of crop planting technology, and now it all benefited Yun Ce.
3 Even if the plants here differ greatly from Earth plants, with a few trials, Yun Ce believed there would definitely be good yields.
3 Even if yields here weren’t as good as wild gathering output… that thought hurt his conscience; Yun Ce believed he could definitely farm good results.
3 Why does Chang’an City have only 300,000 formal residents? Isn’t it because Chang’an’s prices are sky-high? Even if Yun Ce’s farmed goods here had low yield, the cost would absolutely be more efficient than wild gathering, not to mention caravan round-trip transportation costs.
3 Yun Ce had observed that a day here was longer than on Earth, meaning even in the hot He Month now, many crops could still be planted.
3 For example, the beans E Ji loved eating so much, and the wheat Yun Ce had long craved; he’d wanted to eat a bowl of oily, spicy hot oil-splashed noodles for ages.
4 Of course, the current task was to perfect paper first; he didn’t know yet what reaction the court would have, so he had to take advantage of the time now and paper’s scarcity to first get a mid-level rank, then some money matching his rank.
4 Yun Ce had known long ago that money, for a certain person, was limited; limited money was the amount everyone was satisfied with.
4 A rich-as-a-nation person’s money actually had little to do with him; no normal country would allow you to have enough money to rival the state.
4 Because once it got too much, it wasn’t money anymore, but a weapon.
4 Like the soap Yun Ce brought out before—that was easily snatched by others; bringing out papermaking was different; the biggest users would be the court and scholars across the world.
4 The court wouldn’t allow one person or one family to control this thing, because it related to the state’s control of public opinion.
4 Arriving at the crude papermaking workshop, Feng An and Liang Kun looked at Yun Ce like seeing a god.
4 Yun Ce wasn’t concerned with the white paper on the drying racks; compared to white paper, the paper he could air-dry indoors was the life-saving stuff.
4 Tearing off a large sheet of paper from the drying rack, rubbing it in his hands, the paper’s toughness and softness were both excellent.
4 So, while the others didn’t understand what he was doing, Yun Ce clutched a handful of paper and dove headfirst into the newly built latrine.
5 Thinking about it brought bitter tears; when Yun Ce was in Tianzhu Mountain forest, he could only use leaves to clean up afterwards; later leaves were too fragile and hurt hands, so he used inner tree bark, until one time he used poisonous tree bark…
5 When arriving at Hekou Village, he discovered cloth woven from Yi Tree Fiber, but using it too much brought severe guilt inside.
5 Now it was good; Yun Ce felt his life finally had something right.
5 Coming out of the latrine feeling refreshed, he was met head-on by a crowd of resentful eyes.
5 Feng An was about to speak when Yun Ce stopped him, pointing to the paper on the drying racks: “You can take the paper there to record the subtle words of sages and great gods from all quarters.”
5 Then, pointing to the paper air-drying indoors: “That’s mine; you’d best not touch it.”
5 “Finally, one more thing: paper is basically a commodity made by grinding Yi Tree Fiber, adding lime to bleach it.
5 This thing is for writing on, for using; absolutely don’t sanctify a commodity, and don’t sanctify me just because I made paper.”
5 E Ji didn’t care what Yun Ce said; she carefully tore off lots of white paper from the drying rack, then watched Steward Qiu heartbrokenly fold the paper and trim edges with a huge curved knife.
5 She always felt Steward Qiu cut too ruthlessly, trimming away too much usable part.
6 “Paper, you only plan to offer it to Your Majesty?” Zhang Min’s words carried some resentment.
6 “The people behind you can’t even handle a broken soap; and you expect them to handle paper?” Facing Zhang Min’s accusation, Yun Ce was full of disdain.
6 “What if we can handle soap?”
6 Yun Ce eyed Zhang Min: “How you play, I don’t care; give me 1,000 taels of gold, and the secret recipe is yours.”
6 Zhang Min’s mouth twitched a few times, finally whispering: “What if I want it?”
6 Before the words finished, E Ji slapped Zhang Min on the head, angrily saying: “A mere concubine dares reach for the family’s secret recipe?”
6 Stunned by E Ji’s slap, Zhang Min finally glared at Yun Ce with red eyes: “I’m a concubine?”
6 Yun Ce pretended not to hear, dodging to the side to discuss with Feng An and Liang Kun how to further improve the family’s papermaking equipment, how to raise labor efficiency, how to make the produced paper whiter, tougher, and smoother for writing.
6 These were all urgent problems at hand, none of which could be ignored.
6 As for the question Zhang Min asked, Yun Ce thought it simple: as long as she didn’t meddle in this family, she remained Panxing Tower’s secret agent, high and mighty showing off power.
