“First arrange for them to stay in the jail. In a couple of days, have them repair the city gate. There’s a lot of work to be done in the city.”

Fu Tinghan looked at them sympathetically, but for the safety of Zhao Hanzhang and himself, he still nodded. “Alright.”

With a wave of his hand, people came forward to drag the three men to the jail and lock them up.

Only then did Zhao Erlang find a gap to speak. He called out repeatedly, “Brother-in-law, brother-in-law!”

Fu Tinghan, seeing Zhao Erlang, couldn’t help but smile. He reached out to pat his head and asked Zhao Hanzhang, “Why did you bring him too?”

“Chengbo can’t control him. Teacher Ji will be very busy recently. My mother will only force him to study, and when he gets restless, he rides around wildly. So I just brought him along,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “Tomorrow, have him take his squad of soldiers to do work as well.”

As long as it wasn’t recognizing characters and reading books, Zhao Erlang felt that even breaking and carrying bricks would be joyful. So he grinned at Fu Tinghan.

Fu Tinghan gently beckoned to him. “Fine. Tomorrow I’ll have Ji Ping take you along. Come on, let’s go eat first. Are you hungry?”

Zhao Erlang quickly answered, “Hungry, hungry!”

Zhao Hanzhang asked, “Haven’t you eaten either?”

Fu Tinghan said, “No.”

He’d been busy and forgot.

The three of them went to eat.

Fu Tinghan sat cross-legged across from Zhao Hanzhang. Even after being here for half a year, he still wasn’t used to sitting cross-legged. He said, “We have simple stools and chairs now. Let’s promote them.”

Zhao Hanzhang smiled and nodded. “Good. You can have the craftsmen make a set according to your habits. Replace the furniture at home and in the county office too. When more people come later, we won’t need to do anything special—people will naturally learn and adopt them.”

“I’ve completed the population census these past two days. I’ve made rough classifications of craftsmen registry, commoner registry, and slave registry. You can take a look when you have time.”

Zhao Hanzhang was surprised. “With such a large workload, how did you manage it?”

“The clerks and officials from the old county office who are still alive—I called them all back. They’re all literate. Basically, I gave instructions and they followed orders to do the work,” Fu Tinghan said. “I just compiled the statistics. The lists and filing were done by them.”

Zhao Hanzhang exhaled in relief. “That’s good. I was worried you didn’t know how to rest and would exhaust yourself.”

Fu Tinghan smiled at her. “I won’t.”

Zhao Erlang ate his food while looking up at them. He felt something was odd.

Zhao Hanzhang met his gaze and indicated he should continue eating. “What are you looking at? Don’t you know not to speak while eating?”

Fu Tinghan almost coughed. He turned his head away to suppress his laughter. After a long while, he turned back, eyes full of mirth, to look at her. “Then should we…”

“We’ll eat while we talk,” Zhao Hanzhang gave him some meat and said to Zhao Erlang, “We adults are discussing matters, understand?”

Zhao Erlang nodded in confusion.

Only then did Zhao Hanzhang share her plans.

Fu Tinghan felt they should make a long-term plan. So after eating, once Zhao Erlang was sent away, the two shut themselves in the study to have a private conversation. “How large is your ideal safe zone?”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “My minimum goal is Runan Commandery. My maximum goal is to take all of Yuzhou.”

She continued, “Otherwise, it will be hard to survive in the coming chaos.”

“What’s your timeline?” Fu Tinghan asked. “All of Yuzhou—that goal is too ambitious. Have you thought of what excuse to use? Right now in Xiping we can still operate covertly, but once we expand to all of Yuzhou, there will be nowhere to hide.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “My plan is to take Runan Commandery within five years. If by then we still can’t leave this world, then we probably can’t leave at all. In the remaining time, we’ll take Yuzhou.”

“History has already changed somewhat, but the people haven’t changed. So I think history will still roughly follow the same course. Five years from now, many people across the land will proclaim themselves emperor. Our taking one Yuzhou won’t be very conspicuous.” Zhao Hanzhang wasn’t too worried about this point. “We can adjust our plans according to actual circumstances. Compared to Liu Yuan, Shi Lei, and others, we’re really too insignificant to mention.”

Fu Tinghan asked casually, “When will Liu Yuan proclaim himself emperor?”

“Next year, I suppose.”

Liu Yuan indicated otherwise. After retreating from Luoyang, he began preparing for his enthronement. His strategists also believed he could proclaim himself emperor.

After all, he was someone who had even attacked into Luoyang.

Wang Mi simply produced a favorable omen for him and brought a large contingent of troops to pledge allegiance.

Liu Yuan was overjoyed. He chose an auspicious day and announced to the world that he was enthroned as emperor. He took the reign title Yongfeng and moved the capital to Pingyang.

When the news spread, the world was in an uproar.

Naturally, the subjects of Dajin didn’t recognize him. Liu Yuan appeared not to care on the surface, but then turned around and assembled an army, ordering another attack on Luoyang and an advance toward the central plains of Yuzhou.

Zhao Hanzhang had been busy for several days and had rushed for a whole day, so she rarely slept in. The next day, the sun was high in the sky and she was still sound asleep.

When Zhao Ming received the news and rushed to the county office, he only saw Fu Tinghan presiding over the office, the papers covered with marks he’d never seen before. Meanwhile, Zhao Hanzhang was still lazing in bed.

Zhao Ming took a deep breath and walked forward. “Tinghan, have someone call Sanniang over.”

Fu Tinghan was still calculating his figures. Hearing this, he looked up blankly. After a while, the words reached his brain and he responded, “She’s too tired. Let her rest more. Uncle, if you have something to say, you might as well tell me.”

Zhao Ming looked down at the paper covered in dense symbols and couldn’t help letting the topic drift. “What is this?”

“The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.”

Zhao Ming heard but didn’t understand. “What’s the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture?”

“For any elliptic curve over the rational numbers, the order of vanishing of its L-function at 1 equals the rank of the Abelian group formed by the rational points on this curve.” Fu Tinghan paused before continuing, “One of two conjectures I’ve always wanted to prove.”

Zhao Ming looked at him silently, understanding even less. He had to pull the topic back. “Tell her to stop sleeping. Get up quickly. I have important matters to discuss with her.”

Zhao Ming paused, then said, “Liu Yuan has proclaimed himself emperor in the north.”

He glanced again at the densely written symbols on the desk, finding that he truly couldn’t recognize a single character. He asked, “Are you so idle? Didn’t you say Xiping County is in dire need of reconstruction?”

Fu Tinghan replied matter-of-factly, “The tasks have all been assigned. As long as there are no mistakes, we just need to check occasionally. If something goes wrong, they’ll come report.”

The data compilation he needed to do was complete. The remaining work he could do, but others were even more capable of doing it. Fu Tinghan felt he shouldn’t steal their jobs.

However, he still got up to call Zhao Hanzhang. Liu Yuan had actually proclaimed himself emperor—just last night they’d said he would proclaim himself emperor next year.

It seemed that compared to known history, this world’s progression had actually accelerated.

Fu Tinghan didn’t know if this was good or bad. He could only follow his own judgment.

Fu Tinghan knocked on the door. Ting He, who was doing needlework in the side room, immediately came out. “Master Fu.”

Fu Tinghan lowered his hand. “Uncle Ming has arrived. Wake up Hanzhang.”

Hearing this, Ting He immediately pushed open the door and urgently shook Zhao Hanzhang. “Sanniang, Sanniang, something big has happened. Master Ming is here.”

Being caught sleeping late by an elder was very improper and could damage one’s reputation.