After beating the grass to startle the snake and thwarting the hastily planned prison riot conspiracy orchestrated by the Four Surnames, Han Qian knew in his heart that their foundation in Xuzhou remained shallow—far too shallow.
At this time, they could not even claim to have achieved initial control over Qianyang County, while the principal officials of Langxi and Tanyang Counties had yet to come to Qianyang City to pay their respects to his father.
Currently, Xuzhou only maintained unbroken official correspondence through previously established agreements, merely preventing Ning’an Palace and the Crown Prince’s faction from directly pressuring them through the ministerial departments for the time being.
This inevitably meant that his father could barely maintain the operations of the provincial administration in Xuzhou, but whenever he wanted to accomplish anything, progress was impossible.
When an official document went out, it might be effective if it aligned with the interests of the great clans and powerful families; otherwise, it was just waste paper.
However, there were also advantages—namely, that when his father wanted to allow certain things in Xuzhou, the great clans and powerful families found it difficult to use official institutions to impose prohibitions.
For instance, refugees privately building dikes to reclaim silted land should by law be stopped by official intervention, but with Feng Changyu and his son Feng Jin too frightened to return to Qianyang City, the county administration was nearly paralyzed. When the provincial administration turned a blind eye, prohibition became impossible.
Even encouraging people to raise ducks could only be guided by circumstances rather than implemented through official documents.
Han Qian could not remain in Xuzhou for long, but there was too much to accomplish. Following rules and regulations was definitely not feasible, so he could only take an unconventional approach.
In the coming days in Xuzhou, besides creating disturbances at the various restaurants and taverns in Qianyang City, Han Qian focused on overseeing the trial weaving of canvas and tarpaulin—matters he could advance in Xuzhou in the short term.
On one hand, the contemporary textile handicraft industry and weaving techniques were relatively advanced, making it one of the few industries in the pre-industrial era, or agricultural society, that could develop on a large scale.
This provided the necessary conditions for mass production of canvas and tarpaulin.
Besides the fact that the wives and daughters of the household troops who came to Xuzhou with Han Qian were skilled in weaving and mostly engaged in this trade in Jinling to supplement household income, Xuzhou also had skilled weavers. Han Qian had Ji Xiyao recruit additional workers from among the families of jailers and low-ranking clerks in the provincial administration to join the newly established weaving workshop, which could also help his father strengthen stability among the jailers and provincial staff.
Thick and durable canvas and tarpaulin, besides being used for ship sails, had extremely wide applications in contemporary society. Even if the civilian market needed gradual development, military use alone accounted for enormous consumption.
For tarpaulin weaving, besides experimenting with different plain or twill weaves and single or multiple strand threading methods, they also had to test and compare cotton and hemp materials from different sources. Creating small samples was convenient—within ten-some days they wove twenty to thirty different samples.
Han Qian did not expect immediate success. At this time, he was merely selecting the best from among inferior options, first trial-producing sails for training exercises.
Since Xuzhou currently lacked ready-made large looms, ship sails were assembled from small pieces of tarpaulin. For the winds on the Yangtze River and inland waters, this would pose no problems in the short term.
The modification of the three warship-sailboats was also proceeding on schedule. Even without major alterations to the hulls, even with free use of craftsmen from the Provincial Works Academy and the ability to appropriate some materials stored by the provincial government, strengthening hull structural integrity, decks, covering gunwales with cured cowhide, installing parapets and arrow slots, and so on—expenses still flowed like water.
Without replacing the masts, even just doubling the width of the sail’s horizontal surface made operating the new-style sails considerably more complex than before.
With the three warship-sailboats as the core, the main purpose of establishing the Xuzhou Boat Guild was to use military force to intimidate river bandits and water pirates along the route.
The water warfare methods centered on warship-sailboats to combat river bandits and water pirates naturally differed greatly from the tactics Yang Qin and his men previously employed, which mainly used crow-stern boats to ambush civilian merchant vessels.
Han Qian was not omniscient and omnipotent. He lacked the energy to attend to all these matters, so Yang Qin could only lead his subordinates in continuous adaptation and new attempts.
Besides Gao Shao, Tian Cheng, and Zhao Wuji leading twenty Left Division scouts who continued to remain at Han Qian’s side, responsible for scouting, guard duty, reconnaissance, and intelligence gathering, the thirty Left Division scouts led by Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing were all assigned under Yang Qin’s command to first learn sailboat operation and water warfare on the broad river surface of the Yuan River north of Qianyang.
Nearly half of the Left Division scouts led by Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing were household troop children who had received over half a year of training from Han Qian, possessing extremely strong adaptation and learning abilities.
Although Yang Qin’s thirty-some men seemed to be water pirate elites, apart from having somewhat stronger physical fitness and more formidable individual combat skills, they actually fell far short compared to the household troop children like Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing.
Yang Qin even needed the assistance of Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing to learn how to manage his subordinates using proper military organization methods.
Water warfare methods were mentioned in the many military texts Han Daoxun brought to Xuzhou, but the accounts were quite brief, requiring comparison with the unconventional methods Yang Qin had mastered over the years for mutual supplementation. In these areas, Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing also demonstrated extremely strong adaptive abilities, placing tremendous pressure on Yang Qin’s shoulders, making him worry that one day Han Qian would simply have Guo Nu’er and Lin Zongjing directly replace him in command of the boat guild.
Although Yang Qin had agreed somewhat reluctantly to establish the Xuzhou Boat Guild, since he had agreed, he absolutely did not want to be replaced. No matter how exhausting it was each day supervising warship construction and training for water warfare, he made time to run to Hibiscus Garden to see Han Qian and report progress, demonstrating that everything remained under his control.
However, Yang Qin did not know that Han Qian was so troubled by money and provisions that he could neither eat nor sleep peacefully.
Powerful clans commonly maintained hundreds of servants at tremendous expense, while Han Qian needed to support elite troops. Though numbering fewer than one hundred, the expense was even greater.
Having just arrived in Xuzhou, he had collected nearly two million coins in ill-gotten gains, which seemed substantial, but after giving half to his father to support the operations of the provincial administration, the remainder went toward establishing the shipyard and weaving workshop, modifying the warship-sailboats, and additionally providing secret support to Feng Xuan and Gao Bao. This money was completely squandered in just over half a month.
Even though the anti-miasma wine proved quite effective, allowing Han Qian to extort an additional two to three hundred thousand coins, this could only provide support for another seven or eight days at most.
The settlement and reconstruction fees for supporting Yang Qin in rebuilding Yang Tan Water Stronghold in Qianyang would require at minimum over one million coins to start, not even considering whether Yang Tan Water Stronghold should extensively hire hands to reclaim silted land!
During this period, Han Qian even dreamed of people surrounding him demanding debts, so he simply ate meals without paying at restaurants in Qianyang City.
Even though Han Daoxun still found it difficult to comprehensively control the situation within Qianyang City, when Han Qian ate a few meals without paying in Qianyang City, the establishment owners still had to smile apologetically at him.
Nearly all the restaurants and taverns of any reputation inside and outside Qianyang City were properties of guest-registered prominent households, naturally full of complaints. Han Qian was thus fulfilling the promise he made to Ma Xun, the heir of the Tanzhou Military Commissioner, before entering Dongting Lake.
This time accompanying his father into Xuzhou, he came specifically to plunder the locality, tormenting both native-registered and guest-registered families without exception.
When Han Qian harassed restaurants, he specifically ordered duck dishes, particularly loving duck tongues, often requiring establishments to slaughter thirty to forty ducks just to prepare one dish for him.
Han Qian was also extraordinarily particular. If dissatisfied, he would drag the establishment’s head chef back to Hibiscus Garden for scolding. Han Qian even had word spread that whether it was a restaurant or an ordinary household in Qianyang City, anyone who could prepare duck in a way that satisfied his appetite would receive a reward of ten thousand coins.
Han Qian still occasionally gave out real rewards, truly displaying the extravagant manner of a second-generation wastrel in matters of food to the extreme.
The effect of Han Qian’s unconventional harassment was that the authentic methods for famous dishes like osmanthus duck, smoked duck, and roasted duck rapidly spread throughout Qianyang City and its environs.
Whether restaurants or ordinary households, the level of duck dish preparation improved dramatically, stimulating a sharp short-term increase in local duck consumption in Qianyang. In just over half a month, merchants already needed to purchase ducks and ducklings from outside to supplement local shortages.
However, all this was far from solving Han Qian’s financial difficulties.
His plan to lure refugees into flooding Xuzhou had not been leaked from Xue Ruogu, Li Tang, and Qin Wen, and there was no movement whatsoever from Tanzhou. But Han Qian could not casually find someone to spread word, as he needed to avoid this matter reaching the ears of the Four Surnames too early.
By early eighth month, seeing that Tanzhou still showed no movement while his pockets were truly down to just a few copper coins, he could only modify his plan. He approached the restaurant and tavern owners he had harassed, hinting that if establishment owners or introduced interested landlords paid him a sum of money, they could freely appropriate the wasteland and silted beaches outside the city for reclamation. As long as his old man remained in office, the provincial and county administrations would absolutely not intervene.
According to precedents from the previous dynasty and the court’s adherence to old systems, if no one came forward to intervene within three years and the reclaimed wasteland had become mature fields, the provincial and county administrations would tacitly acknowledge the established fact and confirm it when updating land registers.
The world’s attachment to land was too intense and profound. Moreover, with the Prefectural Governor’s son personally acting as middleman, even leaving behind personally handwritten promissory notes in loan form, how could people not be tempted?
Previously, native-registered great clans worried that reclaiming silted land would allow guest-registered forces to expand in Xuzhou. The provincial and county administrations also prohibited private households from encroaching on these wastelands and silted areas that could be used to expand official fields and position-based lands, so guest-registered prominent households all reclaimed wasteland beaches on small scales, furtively.
However, during summer and autumn when rainwater swelled, without large-scale dike and embankment construction, merely small-scale furtive reclamation of beach wastelands made it difficult to preserve new fields.
In recent years, the scale of privately owned fields possessed by guest-registered families had actually not expanded much.
Currently, with native-registered great clan forces almost all frightened out of Qianyang City and the provincial and county administrations in chaos, some people, particularly prominent households near bay beach areas, were already tempted, thinking of furtively making something happen in this regard.
To say nothing else, furtively moving boundary ridges outward and expanding field boundaries, secretly converting small-acre fields into large-acre fields—a moderately prosperous household could furtively add three to five acres without neighbors being able to detect it.
The effects of dispatching scouts to various locations to spread gold mine rumors upon just arriving in Xuzhou were also gradually becoming apparent.
Ships coming to Qianyang City might discharge three to five passengers daily, or perhaps eight to ten, without being too obvious. But Qianyang City had only about a thousand households. Counting the official post station, there were only three relatively low-grade inns mainly offering dormitory-style accommodation. For such a small city to gain nearly two hundred outsiders over half a month was sufficiently noticeable.
Han Qian also deliberately had people guide these individuals toward two abandoned gold mines within Xuzhou’s territory.
Although these two gold mines had been abandoned over eighty years ago, it was mainly due to mountain collapses.
They were not reopened afterward also because the two gold mines had already been worked for two to three hundred years. Production before the collapses had already become very low—for official operations, income could not offset expenses—but this did not mean gold sand was completely exhausted.
However, being gold mines that had undergone nearly a hundred years of weathering, nearby streams and low-lying areas would also have deposited some gold sand.
Though the gold sand streams and rivers still lacked value for large-scale organized gold panning or mining operations, with hundreds or thousands of people flooding in, there would always be some who gained something, some who profited.
As long as some people profited—without regard to the overall ratio of invested manpower to output—under the windfall effect, this would inevitably attract more people swarming over.
If worst came to worst, Han Qian considered whether to furtively scatter some gold sand every few days to boost the morale of these gold panners.
However, thinking of this as yet another extra expense made Han Qian’s heart ache terribly.
Nevertheless, the windfall effect was absolutely necessary to lure people over on a large scale.
When these people’s minds gradually cleared, some would return home, but those who could be attracted by the windfall effect were mostly people without fields or occupations. Even without a gold mine, as long as Xuzhou let them see hope of settling down, most would remain, providing abundant labor for reclaiming silted land, mineral development, and various workshops…
Han Qian was not worried about how many contemporary people could see through his calculations.
This strategy, derived from later-era enclosure movements and the sheep-driving-people phenomenon, had mechanisms playing a dominant role behind it that differed greatly from refugee tides formed by past warfare and famine. Even if his father knew his plan, he was currently more worried that the influx of large numbers of refugees would turn Xuzhou’s situation into an unmanageable mess.
In truth, as long as they were human, they would inevitably actively seek a way forward.
The situation formed in Xuzhou’s early period, along with the inherent conditions of sparse population and abundant natural resources, would favor these people with extremely strong survival abilities putting down roots.
The only problem was Han Qian’s fear that Tanzhou would not take the bait. If one day they suddenly sealed off the entrance from downstream on the Yuan River, preventing passage via the Yuan River and valley corridors along both banks, expecting tens of thousands of gold panners to cross hundreds of miles of mountains to enter Xuzhou in a short time would be far too difficult.
Han Qian approached restaurant and tavern owners, extensively conducting private sales of wasteland reclamation rights. Urgently collecting money was one aspect, but more importantly, he wanted restaurant and tavern owners, mostly from guest-registered prominent households who were not only closer to Tanzhou but inevitably included informants arranged by Tanzhou…
Han Qian could only use this method to forcibly stuff the bait into Tanzhou’s mouth.