Chapter 195: Changes in the Border City
Hearing that Yan Jiu and Miss Yan were right behind, Yan Shiyi was so excited he wanted to go out of the pass to meet them, but was stopped by the Yan Clan Bodyguards: “Young Master, we can just wait here. It’s not safe to go outside the border!”
Jinsui directly called over a farmer from the nearby Tuntian Camp: “Count how many rapeseed plants he trampled and make him pay!”
Yan Shiyi was so angry he almost fell over: “I’m your Salt Representative, I supply so much salt to the eateries every year, and you want me to pay for trampling a few rapeseed plants!”
Xie Maolin quietly tugged at Hei Hu: “Who is this young master?”
Hei Hu chuckled: “He’s the Yan Clan Head’s younger brother, we all call him Eleventh Young Master.”
Xie Maolin gasped. Didn’t they say the Yanzhou Gentry didn’t obey the Prince? That the Prince could only manage a small border city, and the Yanzhou Gentry of the Sixteen Prefectures had joined forces to resist the Prince.
It seems the rumors were false! The Yan Clan Head, being in the Northern Frontier, had to cooperate with the Prince.
This Yan Shiyi, being in Yandi, didn’t have the arrogance of a gentry young master.
Xie Maolin felt much relieved. He had always worried that the Yanzhou Gentry would oppose the Prince, and if they discovered the Prince had brought back soldiers from their Northwest Army, they would surely report it to the Imperial Court.
Yan Shiyi was still inquiring about Yan Jiu and Miss Yan. Seeing that Jinsui was indifferent to him, he pestered Gu Changxiao. Gu Changxiao’s answers were brief and to the point, so Yan Shiyi wasn’t satisfied.
He then went to clap Hei Hu and the others on the shoulder: “This young master will host a meal for the entire Black Feather Camp later. By the way, Hei Hu, Baozhu misses you every day!”
Hei Hu’s face immediately turned red. He put his fat hand around Yan Shiyi’s shoulder and, like pouring beans from a bamboo tube, told him about what happened in the Northern Frontier.
Yan Shiyi was very excited to hear it, regretting deeply that he hadn’t gone along. Such exotic scenery, if he missed this chance, who knew when he would get to go again.
Jinsui continued to chat with Cheng Yu about the industrial zone: “Didn’t the Yanzhou Gentry object? I was always worried that with the Prince away, the Yanzhou Gentry would pressure you and restrict the border city’s development.”
Cheng Yu looked troubled when this was mentioned. He glanced at Gu Changxiao and said in a low voice: “This subordinate will first ask for the Prince’s forgiveness.”
Gu Changxiao immediately understood and said sincerely: “This King knows how difficult it is for Lord Cheng to guard the border city alone. Whatever you did during this time, as long as you didn’t harm the people, this King forgives you!”
Cheng Yu was surprised: “Your Highness misunderstands, how could this subordinate harm the people? This subordinate was merely trying to protect the border city’s interests, so I interacted frequently with the Yanzhou Gentry and agreed to some of their conditions.”
Jinsui smiled and asked: “Did you sign a contract?”
Cheng Yu smiled knowingly: “Of course not. How could this subordinate have the authority to sign a contract with them? Naturally, we had to wait for Your Highness to return before signing.”
Jinsui waved her hand: “Then it doesn’t count! If they dare to come to you, tell them to come to this King. Let’s see if they dare!”
She curiously leaned forward and asked: “Hehe, how did you trick the gentry? Was it even more excessive than what I did back then?”
Cheng Yu stroked his beard and smiled: “I can’t compare to Leader Ji. This subordinate only learned a few tricks from you, and was able to maneuver among the gentry.”
Grandpa Ling, listening from the side, tugged at his beard and quietly pulled Jinsui aside: “Girl, have you forgotten you’re a young lady again? Didn’t we agree that the things you did as the Fake Li King have nothing to do with you, Ji Sui!
If this continues, everyone in the world will know you’re a reckless, crazy girl.”
Jinsui quickly promised: “Don’t worry, Grandpa. When I return to the border city this time, I’ll honestly work for the Prince and Yan Jiu, and won’t cause any more trouble.”
But now Jinsui was genuinely curious how Cheng Yu had fooled the gentry, allowing the border city to develop so well without them suppressing or causing trouble.
Soon Jinsui understood why Cheng Yu said he learned from her. He had learned from Jinsui and Miss Yan’s Rouge Shop business:
“We used a strategy of ‘far alliances and near attacks.’ When the Yanzhou Gentry united to cause trouble, this subordinate pushed it onto Eleventh Young Master to block.”
Jinsui quickly asked: “Is Li Heng being a fence-sitter again?”
“Leader Ji guessed correctly. Since you and the Yan Clan Head left, Prefect Li has often claimed to be ill. However, he hasn’t pressured the border city.”
Jinsui raised an eyebrow and said to Gu Changxiao, leaning to the side: “You must not let Li Heng be transferred. Let him stay as the Prefect of Yanzhou until he dies of old age!”
Cheng Yu continued, saying that Yan Shiyi blocked the Yanzhou Gentry from causing trouble for the border city, and Cheng Yu then used the young masters of Yandi he met through the polo match to discuss cooperation.
He asked them to invest in building workshops, and in return, he promised to sell half of the finished products for them. The shares in various industries were to be auctioned off.
Jinsui interjected: “This is called bidding! It has a professional term. Haha, a polo match actually achieved such a large project of attracting investment. Not bad, not bad.”
Cheng Yu also smiled: “Those gentry young masters said the same thing. The main reason they were willing to invest was that they wanted to continue coming to the border city to participate in the polo match, so they insisted we hold it every year.”
Jinsui was about to slap her thigh when she noticed Grandpa Ling glaring at her, so she changed her gesture:
“Of course, we’ll hold it! Next time, we’ll add advertising space next to the venue. The advertising revenue alone can cover the expenses of holding the match.”
Yan Shiyi heard the words “polo match” and immediately shouted: “When is it? This young master will invest!”
Jinsui whispered: “See? There are plenty of people like this who are foolish and rich! We won’t just hold polo matches, next time we’ll add more events and hold other competitions.”
At this moment, they passed an open-air square. The vast square was filled with rows and rows of long food items drying in the sun. Hei Hu exclaimed in surprise: “Dried noodles? We’ve opened a dried noodle workshop too? That’s great!”
From now on, there would be endless dried noodles! For Hei Hu, he didn’t care about other workshops, only about food.
Cheng Yu smiled: “They’re not dried noodles, they’re vermicelli. Potato vermicelli and sweet potato vermicelli. The orders are too many, and the workshop can’t dry them all, so they’re drying them in the nearby square.”
“Vermicelli? What are potatoes and sweet potatoes?” Xie Maolin felt like he had come to a fake border city. It was also a border prefecture city, so why was the Northwest Pass so poor and dilapidated, while this border city was so prosperous?
The journey into the borderlands had surprised him at every turn, and now he finally couldn’t help but ask.
Hei Hu quickly explained: “Those are our border city’s new crops. Leader Ji brought the seeds from the Taoist temple…”
Grandpa Ling raised an eyebrow. Which Taoist temple? How come he, an old Taoist, didn’t know?
But he had no intention of exposing his granddaughter’s lie. If one lie was a hole, his granddaughter had already become a net.
The lies she had told were countless!
“By the way, Lord Cheng, we didn’t see the first harvest of sweet potatoes and potatoes. How was the yield? Was it really eight hundred jin per mu?” Hao Duojin asked eagerly.
He had bet with several brothers. Some bet five hundred jin, some bet six hundred, but his Hei Hu insisted it would be at least eight hundred jin, because Leader Ji had said so.
Cheng Yu smiled: “More than that! Our experimental fields have sufficient fertility. Sweet potatoes yielded twelve hundred jin per mu, and potatoes yielded eighteen hundred jin per mu!”
A collective gasp of ‘hiss’ went through the crowd. The soldiers who had just returned were all astonished. The Northwest Army soldiers thought this official was lying, trying to get credit from the Prince!
How could there be such high-yield crops in the world? They weren’t grown by immortals!
Even Gu Changxiao was surprised. He had heard Jinsui mention these two crops as high-yield more than once, but his understanding of high-yield was similar to Hao Duojin’s. Eight hundred jin was already an astronomical figure.
In this era, a yield of over three hundred jin per mu was considered first-class farmland. Only the fertile paddy fields in Jiangnan could possibly exceed four hundred jin. If any mu exceeded five hundred jin, it would be reported to the Imperial Court as an auspicious omen!
Eighteen hundred jin! What did that mean? If all the people planted potatoes, no one in the world would go hungry again!
Grandpa Ling also stroked his beard excitedly. He had known about this for a long time. When the harvest came, Cheng Yu had specifically invited him to preside over the harvest sacrifice.
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought Cheng Yu was lying. Even now, no matter when he heard it, he would excitedly tug at his beard.
Only Jinsui’s expression was solemn. That’s not right! The potatoes and sweet potatoes from the Space had undergone generations of improvement, and the yield should be at least two thousand jin per mu. Why did the experimental field only yield over a thousand jin?
Was it the wrong season? Or insufficient fertility? Did they need fertilizer? It seemed they had to find a way to produce industrial fertilizer.
Uh, don’t say that industrial fertilizer is bad for crops. It’s not purely natural green food. You must know that every year thousands of people starve to death in this era, and seventy percent of the people can only eat half a meal.
We haven’t even reached the goal of eating our fill. Right now, the priority is to prevent starvation! High crop yield is the most important thing.
“Because the yield is too high, the transportation costs alone are extremely expensive, and the produce is prone to spoilage on the way. Eating sprouted potatoes can cause poisoning.
After much thought, this subordinate remembered that Leader Ji had previously said that these two were good materials for making vermicelli. So, we decided to make them into vermicelli. Once dried, they are light, easy to store, and transport.
And the residue left after making vermicelli is perfect for horse feed.”
Speaking of which, Cheng Yu thought of something: “Besides these potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and chili peppers, which are our border city’s special products, there are also the experiments that Your Highness instructed the Tuntian Camp to conduct.”
Jinsui was startled: “What experiment?”
Cheng Yu smiled: “This subordinate knew Leader Ji didn’t take it to heart.” He called her “Leader Ji” more and more smoothly. Cheng Yu was genuinely happy that Jinsui could stay in the border city in another identity.
He recalled that he had directly told Jinsui, “Even if you, the Fake Li King, want to rebel, I will support you.”
Haha, fortunately Gu Changxiao didn’t mind, otherwise he would surely have harbored resentment.
“It’s Chinese cabbage! Didn’t Leader Ji instruct them to mix the seeds of turnips and various other vegetables, and then collect different seeds generation after generation? They actually managed to collect some.”
Jinsui was overjoyed: “Have they grown? How was the harvest?”
Cheng Yu shook his head: “The latest batch of experimental seeds are still in the greenhouse and are expected to be harvested in April or May. However, according to this subordinate’s observation, this new Chinese cabbage will definitely be high-yield!”
As they spoke, everyone entered the square and looked closely at the drying vermicelli. Yan Shiyi said proudly: “You haven’t eaten this yet, have you! It’s delicious in hot pot. It’s also good in stewed mutton soup. I’ll treat you tonight!”
Whether in hot pot or stewed mutton, that was how the wealthy ate. Cheng Yu said softly: “Even ordinary people who can’t afford meat can make it extremely delicious by stewing it with pickled vegetables. It’s easy to prepare and easy to cook, just needs to be boiled for fifteen minutes in boiling water.
It’s already one of the essential ingredients carried by peddlers. For long journeys, rice noodles are convenient and last long.”
Jinsui thought about dehydrated vegetables and hot pot base, paired with rice noodles. Our border city could launch a nationwide instant food, the ‘Border City Brand’ Instant Rice Noodles!
Suddenly, Xie Maolin ran to the front and knelt on one knee before Gu Changxiao: “Your Highness, your subordinate has a request.”
Gu Changxiao quickly helped him up: “General Xie, please speak freely. There’s no need for such a grand gesture.”
Xie Maolin’s eyes were red. He was too excited because he now believed Cheng Yu wasn’t lying. Only when there was an abundance of grain that couldn’t be consumed would it be used for secondary food products.
Along the way, he had seen too many greenhouses and vast fields of rapeseed and wheat covered in a layer of snow, completely different from the desolate Northwest borderlands. He was now completely convinced that the border city’s grain supply was extremely abundant.
“Your subordinate requests that Your Highness give some potato and sweet potato seeds to the Northwest borderlands, so that the brothers there can also eat their fill!”
Gu Changxiao quickly said: “Don’t worry, Maolin. In the future, this King will ensure that all the people in the world eat their fill! These fine breeds will naturally be planted in every prefecture city of Great Xia.”
Jinsui whispered to Cheng Yu: “Didn’t those gentry come to ask for the fine breeds?”
Cheng Yu sneered: “They don’t believe it! They’ve always thought this subordinate was bragging.”
Jinsui chuckled: “That’s good too. We can plant them for a few more years, and our exclusive rice noodle business can last a few more years.”
It’s not that the gentry are stupid, because the types of crops planted in many fields are regulated by the Imperial Court. Normal farmland can only grow a limited number of crops, and planting cash crops would result in a fine.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes had not been reported to the Imperial Court. The border city could plant them freely because it was the Fiefdom of the Li King, and the land had been reclaimed for three years without taxes.
The gentry, however, dared not take this risk. What if the harvest wasn’t as good as wheat? They had never seen these things before, and they were planted in greenhouses. What if the Li King was just tricking them? The Li King used to like to play tricks.
Jinsui estimated that by spring, when they were planted in ordinary fields and witnessed by passing merchants and commoners from planting in spring to autumn harvest, they would then believe these were high-yield good products.
At this moment, Cheng Yu glanced at Yan Shiyi and said softly: “Only the Yan family bought a lot for seeds.”
Jinsui nodded. It was understandable. Yan Jiu was so smart! Although Yan Shiyi wasn’t smart, he was bold and adaptable. Even if it was just to eat their own rice noodles, he would plant some sweet potatoes and potatoes.
Directly opposite the square where the vermicelli was drying, there was a fenced-off grassland. Many herdsmen were waiting anxiously on their horses, and next to the grassland was a workshop emitting thick smoke and a sweet smell.
The entrance of the workshop and the adjacent grassland were lined with people, most of them herdsmen, and the other half were clearly merchants from out of town.
Hei Hu sniffed: “It smells so good! What workshop is this?”
Yan Shiyi answered on his behalf: “This is a sugar workshop! Look at those Tartars, they love sugar like their lives depend on it. Some of their tribes don’t have gold and silver, so they bring sheep to exchange for sugar.”
Hei Hu reminded him: “The ones who oppose us are called Tartars. The ones who are friends with us should be called foreign races.”
Jinsui remembered that the sugar workshop she had approved was indeed in this area, but the location she chose was very small! Without sugarcane, and relying only on sugar beets to make sugar, such a large workshop wasn’t necessary.
But this workshop was now ten times the size of the location she had chosen!
Cheng Yu cleared her doubts: “Border city sugar is very popular, especially the method of making white sugar that Leader Ji taught. In Chang’an, one tael of rock sugar is worth one tael of gold. Our border city’s white sugar is finer and sweeter than rock sugar.
This subordinate took the liberty to expand the workshop and produce white sugar in large quantities.”
After speaking, he looked at Yan Shiyi again: “Eleventh Young Master bought the cooperation rights for the sugar workshop at the highest price. The expansion of the workshop was funded by the Yan family.”
