After nightfall, large candles were lit, illuminating the official residence’s great hall as bright as day. Han Qian had Old Zhao summon two servants over.
They were two gaunt-faced men, both around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, wearing tattered hemp clothing. Their left and right cheeks were both branded with the black characters “official slave,” quite prominently, marking them as special existences even among official slaves.
After all, ordinary official slaves who received branding punishment were generally only marked on their arms or necks—not so conspicuously.
Led by Old Zhao, the two men entered the great hall with evasive eyes and shuffling steps.
Zhao Ting’er and Xi Ren, bored as they kept Han Qian company while he read under the lamplight, looked up curiously to examine the two men.
The two gaunt men’s eyes swept once around the room before they carefully knelt in the hall, lowering their heads to stare at the blue bricks before them, wondering why their new master had specifically summoned them to the main house.
Han Qian set down the book in his hands and stared at the two gaunt men for a while. He waved his hand, having Old Zhao wait outside, then spoke to question them:
“It’s been some years since King Yue Dong Chang was destroyed. The Dong clan was sentenced back then—all males fourteen and older were to be executed. How old were you two at the time?”
“We two are the illegitimate sons of Yuezhou Judicial Commissioner Zhao Shuqi and Jihai County Magistrate Chen Changli—Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang. When Yuezhou was incorporated into Great Chu, though we were both already sixteen, we received His Majesty’s mercy and our lowly lives were spared. We were sentenced as official slaves. Please investigate clearly, my lord.” The gaunt man with a faint scar on his face knelt forward slightly and said.
“You are the Zhao Qi who had a reputation as a child prodigy in eastern Zhejiang in your youth?” Han Qian stared at this man and asked.
“Those are distant matters. Zhao Qi no longer remembers. He only knows that today’s Zhao Qi is my lord’s slave,” the gaunt man said.
Han Qian smiled and asked again, “Then the person behind you must be Chen Jitang, the son of Chen Changli who, during his tenure as Military Personnel Adjutant in Mingzhou, built the Siming Mountain Weir to irrigate a thousand qing of good farmland? Chen Changli authored the ‘Weir Treatise’—I wonder if Young Master Chen received his family’s transmitted learning?”
“I, I, from ch-childhood have, have, have been an official slave. What f-family learning is, I’ve long, long forgotten comp-completely clean,” Chen Jitang said. His body was somewhat more frail. He stammered inarticulately, kneeling behind Zhao Qi and stuttering in response to Han Qian’s words.
“Is that so?” Han Qian looked at Chen Jitang with some skepticism and said, “This estate is located where river and lake meet. The marsh mud is as thin as rice porridge—good for growing reeds, difficult for growing crops. I originally thought this place could grow some barnyard millet, and if it yielded fifty to sixty shi of grain annually, we’d be thanking heaven. I didn’t expect over two to three hundred mu of excellent paddy fields could be reclaimed. When I circled around this afternoon, I saw irrigation ditches crisscrossing the estate fields, dredged mud forming embankments, bamboo poles and willow branches inserted on the water-facing side of the river banks—I suppose for draining water. Two small canal entrances into the river or lake both have stone sluice gates, facilitating drainage during floods while keeping river and lake water outside the estate fields during flood season. The sluice walls are also embedded in the river embankments with arched passages built in, narrowing the river mouth considerably to accelerate water flow and flush away silt accumulation. I originally thought whoever had such ingenuity must have truly inherited Chen’s ‘Weir Treatise.’ It seems I was overthinking.”
Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi prostrated on the ground, not daring to respond.
Han Qian picked up the ledger from the table again and said to the gaunt, scarred man, “I see the roster states that after Chen Jitang was demoted to official slave, he married your younger sister Zhao E. But I previously read the actual records of the various battles at Runzhou and vaguely recall that when your father Zhao Shuqi died in battle at Runzhou, your sister Zhao E also seemed to be in Runzhou at the time and also met with misfortune during the military chaos…”
Hearing Han Qian say this, the scarred man Zhao Qi’s hands and feet trembled uncontrollably. Prostrating on the ground with a sobbing voice, he said, “My lord must have seen incorrectly, or perhaps the records at the time were mistaken. The wife Jitang married is definitely this slave’s younger sister Zhao E without a doubt. Please investigate clearly, my lord.”
“What’s this about investigating clearly, or what Zhao E or Dong Yue’er—in my view, these are all insignificant matters. The Dong clan has long been like passing clouds. If no one deliberately mentions it, no one would think of the Dong clan’s existence. So-called national and family vengeance cannot stir up any waves. You two haven’t used this matter to redeem yourselves—you can be considered people of feeling and righteousness. I also couldn’t possibly use you to exchange for that bit of reward money. However, since you’ll all be servants in my Han household from now on, I naturally need to understand your situations clearly. Your faces are already marked, so don’t think about fleeing overnight out of fear. Just stay at the estate peacefully and work. Don’t be half-hearted, and I won’t treat you poorly. I also understand that you twelve households of official slaves have lived very impoverished lives. You and Chen Jitang have previously had three sons who all died young. Now you’ve finally had another child—you must take careful care. Isn’t that right?”
“My lord’s insight is clear. This slave serves my lord and absolutely dares not be half-hearted,” Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang kowtowed and said.
“Old Zhao, come in.” Han Qian raised his voice to call Old Zhao inside and instructed him, “From now on, whatever matters arise at the estate, have Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang help you handle them. Tomorrow, have each household come to the main house and take away three hundred jin of rice and flour, plus ten jin of salt and oil. If any household has illness or plague, they must also be treated promptly without delay.”
The estate’s summer grain hadn’t been sent to the palace, but the official residence only stored less than a hundred shi of polished rice. Taking out nearly half at once to reward them made Old Zhao’s heart ache terribly. He looked at Han Qian resentfully, thinking that if young master really wanted him to manage this estate, he should at least listen to his advice about money and grain matters!
Han Qian waved his hand, having Old Zhao lead Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang to withdraw and rest. He read for a while longer before also washing up and going to sleep.
The next day at noon, the Xuzhou Shipping Association’s fleet slowly approached from the south and moored in the pond northeast of Yandang Point. Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, Xi Chang, and others used gangplanks to come ashore and pay their respects to Han Qian, who stood waiting on the pond embankment.
The fleet unloaded part of the cargo transported from Xuzhou into the large warehouses of Taowu Gathering military office, but they hadn’t come with empty ships. Rather, they had transported over everything Han Qian could move out from the Qiuhu Mountain villa.
Besides large quantities of books, desks, furniture, and such, and four ships carrying coal briquettes and blue bricks that weren’t yet worth much at this time, there was also a batch of ceramic urns and steaming pots fixed in wooden frames.
These ceramic urns and steaming pots had quite strange shapes. Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang, ordered to lead able-bodied slaves to help unload cargo, felt very puzzled seeing these urns and vessels, unable to figure out their purpose.
Besides these items moved from the Qiuhu Mountain villa, there were also six households of household troops and their families—nearly thirty people in total—who had been residing at the villa. They were withdrawn and now relocated together to the Yandang Point estate compound.
Since the Han family needed to clearly separate public from private matters with the Left Office from now on, these people were the Han family’s household troop retainers. Except for those like Lin Haizheng who had official positions, even if they were to serve the Left Office, they should all attend Han Qian personally and couldn’t be mixed in among the Left Office’s ordinary craftsmen and scouts.
These six household troop retainers were all somewhat aged, and their earlier lives had left them more or less disabled, unable to return to the battlefield. But Han Daoxun couldn’t bear to abandon them and, together with Fan Xicheng and Zhao Kuo, still kept them by his side to support them.
Han Qian previously hadn’t enrolled them in the Military Affairs Section or Intelligence Section. Rather, they had followed Fan Xicheng and Lin Haizheng in managing workshop affairs.
After Lin Haizheng was transferred by Han Qian, they remained at the workshop under the direction of head craftsman Zheng Tong. Over two-plus years, though they might not have become master craftsmen on the level of Zheng Tong, Ji Fu, or Ji Xiyao, they and the dozen-plus household troop sons who had studied at the workshop for two years were all thoroughly familiar with lime and blue brick firing, coal mining, and so on—stronger than ordinary craftsmen by a notch.
Currently, Han Qian also planned to use them as the Han family’s dedicated craftsmen.
Others continued unloading items transported from the Qiuhu Mountain villa from the ships. Particularly the two ships of lime and nearly one hundred thousand small blue bricks all needed to be moved ashore, which required some time.
Han Qian called Zhao Qi, Chen Jitang, Old Zhao, and the others to his side and said, “I want to build a walled compound between the estate compound and Yandang Point. When the Xuzhou Shipping Association’s scale expands further, there might be three to five hundred people staying in Jinling. We also need to guard against river bandits attacking from the Qiupu mouth. When you plan the walled compound construction, you must thoroughly consider all these factors!”
Old Zhao thought about discussing this matter with those few Han family craftsmen withdrawn from Qiuhu Mountain, but Han Qian indicated he should consult with Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang instead.
Though the alarm in Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi’s hearts hadn’t completely dissipated, they also knew they needed to demonstrate their value before Han Qian.
Chen Jitang weighed a palm-sized small blue brick and stuttered, “These, these two ships of sm-small blue bricks seem like a lot, but can only b-build a compound with four-fourteen or fifteen rooms…”
“Oh?” Han Qian looked Chen Jitang over. Just last night, he had calculated with paper and brush for quite a while before determining that this batch of small blue bricks he’d taken from the workshop could build a compound with eight main rooms and eight reverse rooms, including courtyard walls. He hadn’t expected that Chen Jitang, following him onto the ship and visually estimating the hold’s volume, then weighing one or two small blue bricks and mentally calculating, would arrive at a result that matched his paper-and-brush calculations to within ten percent.
Chen Jitang’s father, Chen Changli, during his tenure in Mingzhou, oversaw construction of the Siming Mountain Weir. Though this hydraulic engineering project built with contemporary technology might not be very famous in this era, this structure would still irrigate over one hundred thousand mu of fields a thousand years later, renowned throughout the world as one of the four great ancient hydraulic works.
Most regrettably, when Emperor Tianyou annexed Yuezhou, this exceptional person was directly executed.
From this perspective, though Chen Jitang was young when demoted to official slave, he should have already received his father’s true teachings.
Four days ago, when Han Qian received the land deed and indentures for the twelve servant households, seeing Chen Jitang’s name, his heart had held some anticipation. He hadn’t expected to truly find a treasure.
“I, I, p-perhaps calculated wr-wrongly, spoke care-carelessly…” Seeing Han Qian’s penetrating gaze examining him, not knowing what he was planning, Chen Jitang stutteringly backtracked.
“You calculated correctly. This matter will be overseen by you.” Han Qian said to Old Zhao, “Whatever manpower and materials Chen Jitang needs, you’ll cooperate with him. Survey the land these next two days, then begin construction. Also, from now on, allocate money and grain to these two households according to household troop standards. The others must not bully them.”
Old Zhao didn’t know what abilities Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi possessed to earn young master’s special regard. He muttered, “Everyone comes from hardship—what’s this about bullying or not bullying.”