With summer harvest complete, every family was preparing summer taxes, and Zhao Hanzhang finally welcomed the harvest—tax collection!

As the county magistrate of Xiping County, Zhao Hanzhang worked on the front lines. She personally went to the countryside to inspect the tax collection situation.

With her present, this year’s measurement of Xiping County’s tax grain was very standard. The common people were so happy it was like New Year.

She not only oversaw the summer tax collection but also inspected the summer planting situation to ensure the autumn harvest.

After a winter, everyone already knew that beans could also be made into many delicious foods. Everyone had developed more expectations and affection for growing soybeans. Plus, the county office now purchased soybeans at fixed prices, slightly higher than before. Even if not for eating, people were more enthusiastic for the sake of profit.

Thus beans, which had always been planted then largely neglected, received some care. Weeding, catching insects—although they were still small green seedlings, they looked better than previous years, with good germination rates.

One benefit of intensive cultivation was that the per capita land area would decrease while production increased. The same amount of land could feed more people.

While Xiping County was collecting taxes, Shangcai County was naturally doing the same.

After Zhao Hanzhang finished collecting all of Xiping County’s summer taxes, she made a trip to Shangcai.

By coincidence, orders from above urging all counties to submit grain taxes also arrived. Because of the ongoing war, this year’s summer taxes had increased again.

Magistrate Chai was still troubled about the taxes to be submitted this year. As soon as Zhao Hanzhang arrived, he immediately divided the collected summer taxes into three parts.

One portion to submit upward, one portion to keep for county office expenses, and another portion to return to her.

“Return to you?” Magistrate Chai was extremely surprised.

“Yes, at the beginning of the year, Shangcai County borrowed so much grain and copper cash from Xiping County. Shouldn’t it be repaid?” She said, “Although our two counties are now brothers, precisely because we’re brothers, we should settle accounts clearly.”

Magistrate Chai said, “But this way, the taxes submitted to the court will be far insufficient. They were already barely enough…”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “Magistrate Chai, don’t worry. I’ll have Ji Yuan write a memorial. You can copy it and send it to the provincial office. The governor will understand us.”

Magistrate Chai frowned, somewhat anxious. “Sanniang, how should we account for that one-third of grain taxes you’re taking?”

Zhao Hanzhang smiled. “Don’t worry. Ji Yuan will handle it well. Not only does the court have no time to send people down to investigate now, but even if they came, we could manage it.”

Magistrate Chai was still quite afraid. This was his first time withholding taxes as high as two-thirds. You should know that in previous years, even when he secretly held back some, it was only a tiny bit.

To ease his mind, Zhao Hanzhang indicated that her Xiping County was withholding even more taxes.

She said, “With continuous warfare and natural disasters, our county offices must save some things too. Otherwise, if accidents happen in the future, who can rescue us?”

Magistrate Chai was still hesitating. Zhao Hanzhang said, “These things are taken from the people and used for the people. As the parental official of Shangcai County, isn’t it proper for you to work for the people under your rule?”

Magistrate Chai became thoughtful.

In the end, Ji Yuan still ghostwrote memorials for both of them. That’s right—writing one memorial is writing, and writing two memorials is also writing.

Since both were complaints of hardship anyway, he had experience with the second one and could write faster.

So Zhao Hanzhang had him write her memorial too, then she copied it.

The reply memorials from Xiping County and Shangcai County were slowly sent to Chen County.

Not far from Chen County, fighting was ongoing, so Chen County had received an influx of large numbers of refugees.

There was no choice—though they fought mostly in the wilderness, Prince Donghai wanted to kill Gou Xi and seize Yanzhou, while Gou Xi wanted to repel Prince Donghai and go to Luoyang to receive the Emperor. Thus, attacking cities and seizing territory was inevitable.

Once warfare began, those directly facing death weren’t just the soldiers on the battlefield but also the common people in the cities being attacked and territories seized.

Especially coinciding with summer harvest, their fighting destroyed large amounts of farmland. Much wheat not yet harvested was ruined. Moreover, when soldiers lacked grain, they would directly take up knives to forcibly harvest wheat.

Areas affected by the fighting instantly produced large numbers of refugees.

They had no choice but to pack up and flee their homes—first, to avoid the warfare, and second, to escape summer taxes.

Yuzhou was right by Yanzhou and also beside Luoyang, so most refugees chose to flee to Yuzhou.

Governor He couldn’t close the city gates and refuse refugees entry. He could only disperse the influx of refugees as much as possible, sending them to various counties below.

At the same time, Chen County sheltering so many refugees required large amounts of wealth and grain. Combined with the collection tasks handed down by the court, Governor He directly transferred them to the counties below. The county magistrates or prefects then assigned them to the counties below them.

So the tasks distributed to Shangcai County and Xiping County were heavy, especially Shangcai County.

Not only was it a large county, but last year many counties in Runan Commandery suffered from warfare—only it was unaffected. Therefore, the task assigned to it was the heaviest.

Magistrate Chai also knew this, which was why he was very afraid of refusing the summer tax demands from above while also secretly keeping so much summer grain.

But as he copied the memorial written by Ji Yuan, the more he copied, the more he felt Ji Yuan made sense. Last year their Shangcai County had also been very difficult. Several people had frozen or starved to death this past winter.

If not for Zhao Hanzhang’s help in early spring, forming a brotherhood alliance with Xiping County, how could they possibly have collected so much summer tax?

At that time, he had written to the provincial office every few days asking for help, hoping they could allocate some money and grain so the common people could endure until March.

By then, wild vegetables outside would be abundant. Even eating wild vegetables, they wouldn’t be too hungry, right?

But the provincial office delayed in replying. When they finally replied once, they just said the provincial treasury was empty and told him to find solutions locally.

Zhao Hanzhang and Ji Yuan were right—he needed to keep some things for the county office. In the future, if something like this happened again and the provincial office didn’t provide relief, he wouldn’t be left without any recourse.

Zhao Hanzhang was also copying her memorial. She copied quite quickly. After copying and checking once to confirm there were no typos, she set it aside to be sent to Chen County.

The next day, she took people to watch the grain enter storage.

Most of Xiping County’s grain went into the granary, with the rest sent to the military camp.

She finally didn’t need to rely on buying grain to support her troops.

She now had quite a few soldiers. Openly, she had just over a thousand, but the retainers she had dispersed among various settlement points were also soldiers. They farmed normally but also trained, so their grain production couldn’t yet be self-sufficient.

Moreover, she still needed to shelter more refugees and open more wasteland, so she urgently needed grain.

As for the one-third of grain taxes picked from Shangcai, Zhao Hanzhang didn’t bring it back to Xiping but left it in Shangcai.

She said to Ji Yuan, “This was taken from Shangcai County, so let it be used in Shangcai County.”

Ji Yuan was very satisfied with this. “My lady shows great benevolence.”

Zhao Hanzhang thought so too, so she smiled proudly.