Zhao Hanzhang was also there, enthusiastically leading a group of people to look at this jar of moldy steamed buns. Getting buns to mold in this cold weather was incredibly difficult.

As soon as she saw Fu Tinghan, she immediately waved happily. “Come quickly and look—it’s developed blue mold.”

Fu Tinghan came forward to look and said to Zhao Hanzhang, “Chen County is too far from Shangcai. I need to make some things, and sending messages back and forth wastes time, so I want to build a glass workshop here too.”

Zhao Hanzhang immediately nodded in agreement. “I’ll have people build it right away. We’ll select craftsmen from Shangcai, and once they arrive they can start work immediately.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “Make all the standard measuring cups. Include it in the standardization of weights and measures. Since we’re going to make medicine, we’ll inevitably need it for research in the future.”

Fu Tinghan nodded, reached out to take a pair of clean chopsticks, and after examining the moldy bun said, “We can extract it now. Give me this tent—I’ll handle it.”

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang immediately asked, “You’re still wounded. Won’t this be too tiring?”

“No,” Fu Tinghan said. “I’ll pay attention to rest.”

Zhao Hanzhang then rolled up her sleeves. “I’ll help you.”

Fu Tinghan naturally wouldn’t refuse. Both knew how to process this blue mold, but they couldn’t always be the ones handling such things in the future, so Zhao Hanzhang also had people fetch the military physician and his apprentices.

When Physician Cheng arrived and saw Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan sitting cross-legged on a mat, using wooden pieces to gently scrape off the blue mold, his mouth dropped open.

“…General, Young Master, are you serious? You really plan to use this to make medicine?”

Zhao Hanzhang quickly beckoned to him. “Come quickly, come quickly. This medicine is very important. Once we make it, at least half of our army’s soldiers will be able to survive in the future.”

Physician Cheng and his apprentices all looked at the moldy steamed buns in their hands. Just from these moldy buns?

Fu Tinghan said, “Go wash your hands. I’ll teach you how to operate shortly.”

He said, “I know the principle, but I’ve only done this twice many years ago. Now the equipment is different, so we might not succeed on the first try. But research shouldn’t fear failure—we can try multiple times.”

Zhao Hanzhang nodded.

They had done this once in their third year of junior high when participating in the city’s biology competition. Well, they practiced privately several times.

So…

Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t help looking at Fu Tinghan. He had only done it once privately before succeeding?

That was quite monstrous. She had done it three times before succeeding.

Zhao Hanzhang was the boss. Even though the military physician had doubts in his heart, he still led his apprentices to kneel at the side and learn from the two how to process this blue mold.

After scraping out the blue mold, there were still many steps. By the time Fu Tinghan finally succeeded in making penicillin, the items he had requested from the glass workshop and iron forge had also arrived together.

Measuring cups, various glass products convenient for making penicillin, and ten syringes. The hollow needles were forged by blacksmiths with great difficulty.

There were only ten syringes, but plenty of needles—they could be changed out.

However, with limited resources, Fu Tinghan could only temporarily ignore the issue of contagion, planning to sterilize and reuse the needles.

However, his wound had already scabbed over by now, and the scab was slowly falling off. He no longer needed this penicillin.

They had previously tested it on soldiers, but those soldiers had old wounds, and there were only five of them—too few. They were also taking other medicines simultaneously, making the experimental data unreliable.

Fu Tinghan could only go find Zhao Hanzhang and have her think of a solution.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang said without hesitation, “That’s easy—just let me go suppress some bandits.”

Fu Tinghan was stunned. “Chen County has bandits?”

“There are so many—basically every area has them,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “In this chaotic world, isn’t highway robbery, stealing, and killing quite normal?”

“So traveling merchants are rare. In places with many bandits, trade routes are even completely cut off. Even the biggest merchant houses are unwilling to take those roads.” Zhao Hanzhang said, “I’ve always wanted to clear out the bandits within Yuzhou and make the trade routes flow smoothly. Only then can we stimulate the economy.”

If she weren’t so limited in capability now, she’d also want to clear the main official roads outside Yuzhou.

After ending the war, Zhao Hanzhang led her people back to Chen County. Although she still preferred living in Xiping, northern Yuzhou had just experienced war, and barely one in ten of the people survived. If she moved the provincial seat to Xiping, it would rather seem like abandoning the north.

So she didn’t move.

After Fu Tinghan’s injury stabilized, Zhao Hanzhang convened a large meeting, mainly to distribute rewards based on merit.

After two attempts, she finally convinced her dear Uncle Ming to take up the post of Runan Commandery Governor.

She also replaced the county magistrate of Quyang County, keeping Zhao Kuan by her side.

She was very short of talent now. Due to this war with the Xiongnu, Yuzhou had lost many talented people. In the captured counties, the magistrates were either dead or had fled.

There were even commandery governors who had died in battle or fled.

Those who died, like Magistrate Zhang.

So all these places needed governors and magistrates assigned, not to mention the pile of officials under the governors and magistrates.

So Zhao Hanzhang issued another recruitment order. This time the examination location was set in Chen County.

Her talented people also needed safe official roads to travel! She couldn’t expect them to risk their lives to come for interviews—that would be too unreasonable.

Zhao Hanzhang didn’t plan to make things difficult for her future talents, so she decided to make things difficult for the bandits in various areas instead.

Some of these bandits were hiding in mountain forests, but the greater number gathered in villages, directly occupying villages as bandit lairs.

Of course, the remaining villagers in the villages automatically joined the bandit ranks.

Originally they had banded together to resist the raiding Xiongnu, or to resist grain requisitions imposed by the government. Later, when they were short of food and drink, they began robbing passersby.

But in this era, how many people were traveling outside?

Knowing there was war here, even birds avoided flying this way. So they began raiding nearby villages. Their numbers grew larger and larger until they could rob small walled fortresses.

However, they mostly just stole things and rarely killed people. Plus they had become bandits out of necessity for survival, so Zhao Hanzhang was much more lenient toward them.

Her large army arrived at the village entrance. Seeing the barricade lying across the road, Zhao Hanzhang lifted her chin, signaling Zhao Kuan to go forward and shout.

Zhao Kuan silently rode his horse forward. Even now he was still confused, not understanding why he couldn’t continue being a perfectly good county magistrate but had to stay on as a deputy general for Zhao Hanzhang.

Why was he a deputy general?

He was supposed to govern people, so how did he end up governing the army?

Zhao Kuan went forward and began shouting loudly to those inside. “The Provincial Governor has come to inspect and question. Won’t you come out to receive her…”

Hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang quickly stopped him. “The way you were a county magistrate showed no care for the people at all.”

She turned and called Zhao Erlang. “Erlang, you go.”

Zhao Erlang happily ran forward, put his hands on his hips, and shouted toward the inside. “You people inside, listen up! You’re already surrounded! The Provincial Administration has sent out a hundred thousand troops to surround you. If you know what’s good for you, come out and surrender quickly!”

Zhao Hanzhang nodded with satisfaction.

Zhao Kuan: …Where did this hundred thousand army come from? They clearly only brought two thousand people—five hundred cavalry and one thousand five hundred infantry. How did it become a hundred thousand?

—