“Green mountains hidden, waters stretch far away; autumn ends but southern grasses have not withered. At the Twenty-Four Bridges on a moonlit night, where does the jade maiden teach the flute?” Standing at the ship’s bow, Han Qian softly recited poetry and said to his father Han Daoxun, “The dish I made at noon has a historical origin—it was modeled after this very line ‘Twenty-Four Bridges on a moonlit night’ by the previous dynasty’s poet Du Mu…”
“You hollowed out twenty-four small holes in a large piece of cured meat, stuffed them with tofu and steamed it, and called it Twenty-Four Bridges on a moonlit night?” Han Daoxun said with a laugh. “The artistic conception of this dish is beautiful indeed, but the taste—I found it rather ordinary!”
“Your son still lacks time to study it thoroughly,” Han Qian said, spreading his hands.
Twenty-Four Bridges on a moonlit night required using seasoned ham meat to hollow out and braise with tofu, infusing the essence of the ham’s flavor into the tender tofu—only then could the taste be considered exquisite. But in this era, fine quality ham wasn’t readily available, so Han Qian could only substitute with ordinary cured meat. The flavor was much inferior.
However, even though theoretically it wasn’t particularly difficult, no matter how idle Han Qian might be, he previously hadn’t had the leisure to perfect the curing method for ham.
“Master is truly picky. Young master’s culinary skills are far superior to my wife’s—I’d say they rival even the imperial chefs in the palace!” However, Han Laoshan deeply savored the memory of that noon meal, thinking the young master was truly capable of everything. Yet feeling both fortunate and apprehensive, he still worried somewhat that the young master might become absorbed in these clever tricks and trivial skills, making it difficult to achieve great undertakings.
After the Ministry of Personnel’s appointment came down, Han Daoxun still had to wait until after Emperor Tianyou’s audience before formally embarking on the journey to take up his post in Xuzhou. This was already mid-May.
Han Qian also requested leave from the Third Prince Yang Yuanpu to accompany him, leaving Lin Haizheng, Fan Dahei, and Chun Shisanniang in Jinling to handle the daily affairs of the manor and the Secret Bureau’s Left Division.
From Jinling to Xuzhou, one first traveled upriver along the Yangtze—over fifteen to sixteen hundred li by water route into Yuezhou’s Yueyang County territory—then through Chisha, Dongting and other lakes, entering the Yuan River and traveling upstream to finally reach Xuzhou. The entire journey totaled about twenty-six to twenty-seven hundred li.
The Jinling area lacked giant timber. Though official and private shipyards were numerous, the construction cost for sand-resistant sailing ships of around two thousand dan capacity was already considerable.
Though Xuzhou had high mountains and treacherous roads, the entire waterway to Jinling was navigable. Han Qian simply took out eight hundred thousand coins directly to purchase a used two-thousand-dan ship. He also brought aboard six newly recruited shipwrights from the Left Division to serve as crew, then set sail westward all the way. In four days they had already entered Chizhou territory.
This ship, plus renovating the warehouse, the cargo wharf, acquiring the Fragrant Pavilion rouge shop, and settlement rewards for the two hundred newly recruited personnel of the Left Division, consumed completely clean the one million coins temporarily allocated by the military headquarters plus Han Qian’s private savings accumulated over the past six months.
In the end, Han Qian still borrowed two hundred thousand coins in high-interest loans from Feng Yi and Kong Xirong, purchasing silk, paper, and inkstones in Jinling to load aboard the ship for sale in Xuzhou.
These past days, Han Laoshan’s old wife suffered severely from seasickness and was unable to manage miscellaneous duties. The cooking skills of the other household soldiers’ families were truly unbearable to witness. After eating two meals of food resembling pig slop, Han Qian could endure it no longer and could only personally take charge as head chef.
This wasn’t because the other household soldiers’ families were lazy and neglectful of duties. The reality was that in ordinary households of this era, meals used little salt and sparse oil—as long as things were cooked through, that was good enough. Where would there be so many refinements?
But with Han Qian as head chef, besides using superior green salt, he also used wine, pepper, and ginger to remove gamey odors, used bean paste for coloring, and honey, cane syrup, and black pepper for seasoning. In Han Qian’s view, these were only very ordinary techniques, but in Han Laoshan’s eyes, this truly rivaled the imperial chefs in the palace.
Particularly the bean paste liquid—actually a simplified version of soy sauce—in this era was still mainly used for mixing cold dishes as a side condiment. Han Qian further filtered out the residue with gauze, then cooked it with cane syrup to use for braising fish and cooking meat. The color was beautiful, and the taste could be called absolutely fresh and delicious.
Han Laoshan worried that eating like this the whole journey would spoil everyone’s palate. After reaching Xuzhou and the young master began the return journey, they would no longer enjoy such delicacies. He specifically called his old wife to forcibly overcome her severe seasickness and, together with Qing Yun and two servant women, assist the young master and secretly learn these skills.
The sailing ship beneath Han Qian’s feet could carry two thousand dan of cargo—already considered a large ship in this era—but the actual vessel was only just over four zhang long and one zhang two chi wide.
Besides the cargo hold at the bottom, the cabin level had only eight extremely cramped compartments. Han Daoxun and his son Han Qian shared one room. Six crew members squeezed into one. The kitchen counted as one. The remaining five rooms were crammed with Fan Xicheng, Zhao Kuo, Han Laoshan and other household soldiers with their families—thirty-seven people total. Even Zhao Ting’er had to squeeze with Qing Yun and other female family members into one enclosed cabin. The conditions were extremely harsh.
Though it was now early summer and the weather wasn’t yet extremely hot, once they reached Ezhou, Yuezhou, and even entered Dongting Lake, it would be midsummer, and life would be even less comfortable.
The sailing ships built in this era had flat bottoms, square bows, and wide bodies. Their wave-breaking capability was very weak. Combined with the rigid sails woven from bamboo and reeds having small wind-catching surface area, even with favorable wind traveling upstream against the current, they could only cover about a hundred li per day.
After nightfall, without particularly bright stars and moon illuminating the river surface, they could only seek shallow banks to moor. Several crew members didn’t dare easily navigate at night.
After entering Chizhou territory, with gentle breezes from the southeast, the river waves were just right. One person managed the stern rudder, two watched the sail, and the ship moved slowly along the southern bank, quite stable.
The ship’s cabin was too cramped. Han Qian called the old shipwright Ji Fu, who had experience participating in building large river vessels, along with his son Ji Xiyao, to the bow to study together the construction methods for fast sailing ships.
“Young master, Ji Fu has never heard of this construction method. Navigating rivers with swift currents and deep water, I fear it wouldn’t be very stable…” Ji Fu said hesitantly.
Ji Fu didn’t believe that Han Qian, who hadn’t even grown a full mustache yet, could truly understand much about shipbuilding. But he had heard that during this recruitment to Qiuhu Mountain Villa, among the nearly two hundred people recruited together with him, four who didn’t follow orders were directly killed on Han Qian’s command and given the crime of cowardice before the enemy. Yet the garrison headquarters not only ignored this matter but even sold the four men’s wives into slavery. The shock Ji Fu received in his heart was extremely deep, and he knew this young tyrant wasn’t someone people like him could easily provoke.
At this moment Ji Fu dared not defy Han Qian, but he also feared that if he didn’t speak up now and later followed Han Qian’s methods to build a ship that capsized upon launching, he would bear even greater responsibility.
His heart struggled greatly as he spoke these words.
Han Qian looked up at Ji Fu, seeing his dark skin and face full of wrinkles like old tree roots. It was hard to imagine he was just past forty years old yet could look so aged.
On Han Qian’s list, Ji Fu, formerly a master craftsman at Chaozhou’s official shipyard, was one of several people he had specifically targeted. In the seventh year of Tianyou’s reign, when Chaozhou was breached by Liang Kingdom’s elite forces, though the city walls held, the official shipyard outside the city was burned by enemy soldiers, and Ji Fu fled south with his wife.
Afterward, Chaozhou never showed any intention of gathering craftsmen and rebuilding the shipyard. Ji Fu took his wife to find work at shipyards near Jinling. Later, because his wife and young child ate raw snails and crabs to satisfy hunger and contracted waterborne parasitic disease, the whole family was driven out by the shipyard. From then on they fell into being disaster refugees, until they were incorporated by the garrison headquarters.
Ji Fu’s life was filled with too many hardships. He was careful and cautious in everything, afraid of offending anyone. But his eldest son Ji Xiyao was just past twenty years old. Though lean, he was spirited and held great expectations for the future.
Perhaps the shipbuilding skills learned from his elders since childhood were no longer very proficient now, but his water skills were excellent. He knew some basic martial arts, had also learned from his elders how to operate large sailing ships, and more rare still, had studied with a teacher at the shipyard for several years in his youth.
Han Qian smiled faintly. He didn’t explain much to Ji Fu, only asking Ji Xiyao to draw out picture by picture the traditional sailing ship structure his father described.
Han Qian currently didn’t know what structure a truly fast sailing ship should have to be reasonable. The method he could currently use was only to explore and adjust based on traditional sailing ship structures.
This journey to Xuzhou, if smooth, would still require a month’s time. With nothing else to do anyway, Han Qian had to pull his father Han Daoxun into doing something—otherwise, wouldn’t the man grow sick from idleness?
Great Chu differed from the Liang and Jin kingdoms—its cavalry and infantry were relatively weak, but its naval forces stood uniquely apart.
Han Daoxun had read extensively and served in Chuzhou’s military for many years. He had studied the construction methods of various contemporary warships. Now pulled by Han Qian to deliberate on fast sailing ship structure, he also had considerable insights.
Of course, having served in court and provincial positions for many years and now being transferred as Regional Inspector of Xuzhou, in the eyes of people like Ji Fu, Han Daoxun was the one who was truly remarkable.
The most remarkable figures Ji Fu had seen back then at Chaozhou’s official shipyard were people like the Chaozhou Regional Inspector and Chaozhou Garrison Commander. Back then he could only see them from afar, never having the opportunity to step forward and speak a word.
It was also seeing Han Daoxun take such great interest in researching sailing ship structure that Ji Fu dared interject and offer a few opinions of his own.
Han Qian was quite helpless about this. It made him understand that building reputation wasn’t a simple matter, though in his heart he was clearer than his father that the contemporary sailing ship hulls had flat bottoms—besides pursuing stability, the main reason was to facilitate mooring on shallow banks at any time.
However, Han Qian was thinking that in the future, to establish stable contact between Xuzhou and Jinling through waterways, speed was the primary consideration. Large cargo-capacity sailing ships would necessarily require specially equipped cargo wharves.
If moored on shallow banks, having people manually carry bulk goods to the river embankment—the inefficiency was imaginable.
Besides the hull bottom and bow shape needing to be more conducive to breaking waves, the contemporary sails were mainly woven from bamboo and reeds. Besides being inconvenient to raise and lower and unable to catch wind well and easily damaged, the greatest inconvenience was their heavy weight, making it difficult to enlarge the sail surface. This also directly limited the wind-catching area and thus limited ship speed.
Regardless of how high the cost, Han Qian thought that in the future they should also try using coarse cotton yarn or directly using hemp thread to weave thick cloth specifically for ship sails.
With contemporary craftsman technology, achieving these things wasn’t particularly difficult.
However, shipbuilding in this era was a systematic engineering project much more complex than building lime kilns or brick kilns.
First, timber needed long-term storage and air-drying in cellars. Only when the wood’s properties stabilized and it wouldn’t deform when soaked in water could it be used for shipbuilding. This step alone required a considerable preparation period, not to mention new ship prototyping.
Han Qian thought that even if the entire process went smoothly, it might still take three to four years to build the first fast sailing ship he envisioned.
Even if the historical trajectory didn’t change, Emperor Tianyou would also die of illness at the beginning of the seventeenth year of Tianyou’s reign. Han Qian didn’t know to what degree the situation would descend into chaos by then.
A shipyard requiring enormous time to establish—Han Qian wouldn’t consider building it in Jinling at all. He thought if the shipyard had just been prepared to the point of being able to build ships and Jinling underwent earth-shaking upheaval, who would he cry to?
Han Qian was thinking of placing this matter in Xuzhou, having his father organize personnel to push it forward.
This way, when his father first arrived in Xuzhou with several urgent and complex matters to handle, he wouldn’t rush to implement new policies and offend local strongmen.
Toward evening, they saw a sandbar overgrown with desolate grass lying across the river’s center.
With spring floods swelling the waters, this section of river was nearly ten li wide. Looking south, they could see Zhenjiang Gate northwest of Chizhou City. From afar they saw a fast boat rowing swiftly from below Chizhou City. As it approached, a military officer stood at the bow and called out loudly toward them: “Is the vessel ahead Third Master’s ship traveling to take up his post in Xuzhou?”