Chapter 131: Is There Any Point In Poor Bastards Living?
Zhang Min lay in bed for ten days, and E Ji conspired with Zhang Min in the room for ten days. What exactly the two of them conspired about, even Yun Ce couldn’t find out.
On the second day, when Yun Ce went to check Zhang Min’s injuries, even when he pressed and touched her, E Ji showed no reaction.
By the sixth day, when Yun Ce wanted to touch again, E Ji was very unwilling.
On the ninth day, Zhang Min lay naked on the bed with a proud look on her face. E Ji messily covered Yun Ce’s eyes with her hands, not allowing him to look around.
On the tenth day, Yun Ce simply didn’t go.
More than ten thousand people suddenly arrived at Yun Family Manor. Naturally, it couldn’t accommodate them all, so Feng An and the others led the slaves to build many semi-cave-style residences at the foot of Dragon Mountain.
The reason for building such simple residences was that in another month, they would leave Lantian County and head north.
The personnel census and screening were still ongoing, with more detailed classifications continuing as well. Meanwhile, Liang Kun used the fields of Yun Clan Manor as a model, gradually teaching these slaves how to use farming tools, how to use livestock, and how to use livestock in conjunction with farming tools.
Things like seed selection and breeding were not taught by Feng An and the others; they wanted to wait until these slaves felt more attached to the Yun Clan before addressing them.
Thanks to Doggy’s very detailed 《primary labor management measures》, the large number of slaves in Yun Family Manor behaved in an orderly manner. Although there were many people, there were rarely fights in the camp.
1 Even the cleanliness of the camp was beyond what ordinary farms could compare to.
1 The slaves remembered clearly that the manor lord had once said that when they had no clothes to wear and no food to eat, people lived like wild beasts back then, so it was only natural not to pay attention to such things.
1 Now with new clothes to wear and plenty of grain, this is how people should look. Since they were all people now, they had to follow the rules, keep their living places clean, keep themselves clean, and keep their children clean too. Once they went north to start reclaiming land, no one would call them slaves anymore.
1 They weren’t called slaves, but they were still slaves.
1 But just those two words not being said already made the slaves very happy. As for whether they could be freed from slavery, they didn’t dare to think about it yet.
1 On the day Zhang Min fully recovered, Wu Tong came to Yun Clan Manor as a guest. When he saw Zhang Min, he just glanced at her casually and said to Yun Ce, “For the northward reclamation, Wu is willing to follow behind Brother Yun’s coattails.”
1 Yun Ce smiled and said, “Naturally, the more people, the better.”
1 Wu Tong looked at Yun Ce and said, “With the name of Panxing Tower, I have requested ten thousand slaves from the Great Han Court and plan to reclaim land north of the Great Wall and south of Iron Enclosure Pass.”
1 Yun Ce nodded and handed Wu Tong the agricultural records compiled by Feng An, saying, “I don’t know if these will help with the Grand Tutor’s reclamation efforts.”
1 Wu Tong added, “The various farming tools that Brother Yun had court craftsmen make, I also had my own office make a set for me. Given Brother Yun’s righteousness, you surely won’t take offense.”
2 Yun Ce cupped his hands and said, “Naturally. The Yun Family must first be a family beneficial to the Great Han Court, and also one beneficial to the Great Han People. Farming tools are key to whether agriculture can prosper. With the Grand Tutor’s great talent, you will surely accomplish great deeds that the Yun Family cannot.”
2 Wu Tong sighed deeply upon hearing this and said, “Brother Yun is selfless toward the court and toward the Great Han commoners. Do you truly seek nothing in return?”
2 Yun Ce frowned and said, “I come from the wilderness and deeply resent the endless slaves of the Great Han. Has the Great Han’s population grown so large that people can be killed or abandoned at will?
2 I see Chang’an’s prosperity: a single bead on a building roof can save ten thousand slaves, a pearl hairpin in a beauty’s hair can save thousands of lives, and even one horse carriage of the Grand Tutor can ensure food and clothing for thousands of slaves for a year. So I ask the Grand Tutor: is it unwillingness, or inability?”
2 Wu Tong was stunned by Yun Ce’s question. Truth be told, he had never considered this issue.
2 Before he could answer, Yun Ce continued, “Nine out of ten slaves come from the lower class, nearly one out of ten from the middle class, and only a negligible fraction from the upper class. Does that mean the lower class is crude and prone to crime, while the upper class is refined and crime-free? Is that the reasoning, Grand Tutor?”
2 Yun Ce thought that Wu Tong, as the Crown Prince’s Grand Tutor, would agree with this view. Unexpectedly, Wu Tong shook his head and said, “Not so. The upper class is even more prone to crime, but with their wealth, most substitute fines for punishment.”
2 Yun Ce smiled and said, “The Grand Tutor truly has keen insight. Then, allow me to ask: if this continues, with the lower class disappearing and the upper class growing, will it then be the middle class’s turn to suffer?”
2 Wu Tong smiled and said, “The upper, middle, and lower classes are not eternally fixed. When the lower class disappears, the middle becomes the lower, and among the upper, some families will naturally become middle class.
2 Doesn’t Brother Yun think this kind of change is precisely what steadily improves the lives of us Great Han people?”
3 Hearing Wu Tong’s explanation, Yun Ce thought it made a lot of sense: as long as all the poor wretches were demoted to slaves, the Great Han would gradually become wealthy.
3 As for those poor wretches, it would be best if they died.
3 Zhang Min had said that Wu Tong was already a rare kind and benevolent official in the Great Han Dynasty. Yet even this so-called kind and benevolent official was like this.
3 Yun Ce felt that if this world continued like this, there was no need for it.
3 Wu Tong had wanted to continue discussing politics with Yun Ce to probe his views, but unexpectedly, after the intense questioning, Yun Ce stopped speaking.
3 He only left Zhang Min to have lunch with Wu Tong, while he himself went to the inner residence to calculate with E Ji how much money the family still had and how many supplies it could buy in Chang’an to take north of the Great Wall.
3 Once there, Yun Ce had no intention of returning in the short term. If he had to come back, he should bring different changes to Chang’an; otherwise, a meaningless return would have no value.
3 Wu Tong took a bite of braised pork and said in surprise to Zhang Min, “I have eaten meat for many years, but only now do I realize the wonder of it.”
3 Zhang Min served Wu Tong more dishes and said, “It’s not just this pork; brother should also taste a bowl of mutton.”
3 Wu Tong readily tried it and ate a bowl of mutton. Putting down his chopsticks, he said, “Neglecting the body to indulge the tongue.”
4 Zhang Min brought a stack of grass cakes and placed them in front of Wu Tong, saying, “Chang’an people consider eating grain for fodder a disgrace. What does the Grand Tutor think of grain for fodder?”
4 Wu Tong took a bite of the freshly baked grass cake and sighed, “The world doesn’t know how to eat grain for fodder, so they think it vulgar.”
4 Zhang Min said, “Yun Ce often says that the Great Han’s land is no worse than a blessed land. It’s because people don’t know how to manage it that it has come to this.”
4 Wu Tong continued chewing the fragrant and crispy grass cake, taking in every word Zhang Min said. From this, he inferred that the ancestral land was probably not as prosperous as the Great Han.
4 Reaching this conclusion made Wu Tong’s mood very pleasant.
4 The Emperor was a fool, and the Crown Prince now was also a fool—or rather, among the imperial family, only the High Priest was smart. The rest weren’t worth sincere treatment, one by one.
4 The imperial authority was weakening day by day under the father and son’s mismanagement, yet they were oblivious. Perhaps only when the butcher’s knife fell on their heads again would they reflect.
4 Killing the Emperor was not unacceptable in the Great Han. King Huo had killed three emperors in six hundred years. Now, for six hundred years, emperors had all died of old age, which was very inappropriate and didn’t fit the Great Han’s national conditions.
4 Yun Ce only cared about slaves; he didn’t understand that the Great Han had its own national conditions. A lower class person becoming a slave wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Lower class could become slaves, middle class could become lower class, upper class could become middle class—and thus, the three classes remained, but with enhanced strength, making the Great Han even stronger.
4 Eliminating the weak and keeping the strong was why the Great Han had prospered for twelve hundred years. Yun Ce didn’t understand the Great Han’s national conditions, so he sympathized with those eliminated weaklings.
5 In Wu Tong’s view, slaves were just tools; when their lifespan was up, they should die.
5 Yun Ce strolled to the slave camp, looking at the children cheering and running around in the camp, and the slaves whose faces were starting to show smiles. He felt these people were really great—one by one working hard to become stronger, one by one striving to stay alive. For a person, that was enough.
5 Unfortunately, here, diligence only proved you were a good tool, and kindness only proved you were easy to bully. To get the good things you wanted, and happiness, you had to have money, power, or strength.
5 Until now, Yun Ce finally understood one thing: the reason he liked E Ji, liked her to the bone, was just one reason.
5 She was the only truly kind person he had met on this Great Han land.
5 The others, including Zhang Min, Feng An, and Liang Kun, had purposeful and limited kindness. Only the silly E Ji was squandering her golden kindness.
5 “Damn it, no wonder I don’t fit in with this world!”
5 Yun Ce muttered, grabbed a chubby-cheeked and very clean little child, and roughly ruffled his round head. Seeing the child about to cry, he let him go.
5 Feng An returned from outside with a huge convoy. This was grain specially purchased for Yun Clan Manor, mostly grain for fodder, with the rest being beans the size of ping-pong balls. But the beans from Chuyun Prefecture were yellowish, while Chang’an’s beans were white as jade.
5 “Damn, even beans have a hierarchy.”
6 Feng An smiled and said, “Chang’an’s grain for fodder, even the lower class won’t eat, so it’s cheap to buy. As for the beans Young Master likes, only these white jade beans have some market in Chang’an.”
6 Yun Ce rubbed two beans in his hand, looked up at the sky that was about to turn overcast again, and puzzledly asked Feng An, “Have you heard of drought or flood?”
6 Feng An shook his head. “The Great Han Homeland has shehuo blessings, no such disasters. As for Chang’an, with ancestral fire presiding, favorable weather is the bare minimum.”
6 Yun Ce looked bitterly at the sky, feeling that this world was really unfair.
