Feng Yi and Kong Xirong departed as night deepened.

Han Qian wanted to rest, but his mind was filled with matters, so he sat in the courtyard and called for Zhao Ting’er to bring tea.

Xi Ren, who had been sitting to the side listlessly reading an idle book, suddenly sprang up like a female leopard about to pounce and pin down prey.

Han Qian looked up to see a figure crouched on the courtyard wall—a petite face covered with black cloth, but those eyes deep as stars were unmistakably Yao Xishui’s. He set down his tea cup and gestured to the guards who had become alert in the outer courtyard not to interfere, then stood up and stretched lazily, asking:

“Miss Yao, are you truly so eager to see me alone?”

“Why did you submit a memorial requesting to keep my foster father in Xuzhou as Supervisory Commissioner?” Yao Xishui didn’t jump down from the wall but crouched there quietly like a nimble cat, asking.

“I need someone in Xuzhou who can draw out all the forces secretly opposing my father and me. Apart from Commissioner Zhang, there’s currently no other suitable candidate,” Han Qian said without concealment.

“You father and son have already become the local tyrants of Xuzhou—will you truly help Emperor Tianyou seize Tanzhou?” Even knowing the full plan of Han Daoxun and Han Qian, Yao Xishui still harbored doubts about Han Qian’s true intentions.

“Xuzhou was once the domain of the ancient Yelang Kingdom. Miss Yao, have you heard the expression ‘Yelang’s arrogance’?” Han Qian asked in return.

Han Qian meant he wouldn’t be so arrogantly self-important as to think that occupying Xuzhou gave him the audacity to oppose the court. Yao Xishui, however, wasn’t entirely convinced.

“If you want to send more agents into Xuzhou, I won’t necessarily forbid it, but I hope you can notify me beforehand. If something happens next and we accidentally injure your people, wouldn’t that be unfortunate?” Han Qian added.

Yao Xishui didn’t respond to this but vanished into the night like a cat…

……

……

The camp administration and land survey matters all fell under Han Qian’s jurisdiction. When Feng Yi and Kong Xirong woke early, they followed Feng Yi’s brother Feng Liao out the door and hurried to Furong Garden, where they saw Han Qian summoning Zhao Kuo, Han Laoshan, Tian Cheng, Gao Shao, and others to the eastern courtyard to give instructions.

Feng Liao wanted to withdraw with Feng Yi and Kong Xirong first, but Han Qian stopped them, saying: “Wait here for a moment.”

Feng Liao stood aside with Feng Yi and Kong Xirong, listening as Han Qian had matters to instruct Han Laoshan about:

“Although who ultimately serves as Supervisory Commissioner is decided by the court and not something we can determine, to avoid the hardship of traveling back and forth, having Commissioner Zhang remain in Qianyang City on standby is reasonable. The Prince’s mansion guards must still escort my father’s memorial to Jinling, and to prevent any miscreants from harming Commissioner Zhang, you should find a residence in the alley east of Furong Garden adjacent to here and have Commissioner Zhang and his people temporarily move in. The guards from Furong Garden will handle the security as well.”

“That’s no different from directly confining that eunuch Zhang Ping,” Feng Yi muttered quietly.

Feng Liao tugged at Feng Yi’s sleeve to make him watch his words—after all, they were now dependent on others. Though Han Qian treated them as friends, it was ultimately because the Han father and son hadn’t yet firmly established themselves in Xuzhou and the Feng clan still had some use.

They needed to understand this distinction clearly themselves.

After finishing his instructions, Han Qian let Han Laoshan leave first and called Feng Liao, Zhao Kuo, Tian Cheng, Gao Shao, and others into the inner room to sit.

Zhao Kuo and Gao Shao’s appointments as Revenue Councilor and Justice Councilor required waiting for the court’s official patents to come down before being formally appointed, but Han Qian clearly lacked the patience to wait another month or two.

Everything had to be pushed forward at maximum speed.

The current Provincial Justice Councilor was Feng Changyu’s eldest legitimate son, Feng Jin, who administered criminal prosecution, bandit suppression, and other matters—provincial prison affairs also fell under the Justice Councilor’s jurisdiction.

By having Gao Shao assume the position of Justice Councilor, Han Qian would handle not only criminal prosecution and bandit suppression but also consolidate into the Justice Bureau the surveillance of the Four Great Clans, immigrant households, Tanzhou infiltrators, and activities inside and outside Qianyang City.

Moreover, forcibly advancing the land survey would inevitably meet resistance. Han Qian couldn’t simply deploy elite camp forces for bloody suppression at every minor incident.

The land survey would begin with immigrants in Qianyang County, but as long as the major immigrant households didn’t organize armed resistance, Han Qian couldn’t dispatch elite camp forces for suppression. Most matters, even arrests, imprisonment, and interrogation, had to be handled by the Justice Bureau.

The Justice Bureau would bear extremely heavy duties, responsibilities, and even authority. Besides Feng Yi, Han Qian also assigned Guo Nu’er, Guo Que’er, and others for Gao Shao’s use.

The Revenue Bureau actually handling the land survey was mainly technical work requiring large numbers of technical clerks.

Many soldiers and officers of the Left Bureau had families remaining in Jinling. Han Qian could hardly expect them to charge into battle fearlessly, but as ordinary clerks, the elite scouts trained by the Left Bureau were all qualified—most Left Bureau members even mastered surveying and mapping techniques.

With Zhao Kuo and Feng Liao presiding over Revenue Bureau affairs, selecting twenty to thirty people from Feng clan bondservants and transferring seventy to eighty more from the Wuliu Creek construction site, the Revenue Bureau would have over a hundred capable lower-level clerks to handle the land survey.

The land survey was one thing, but besides collecting this year’s field taxes according to the new law, those who had concealed land and households during last year’s autumn grain collection would all have to pay supplementary levies based on the newly measured acreage.

“Supplementary levies on autumn grain?” Feng Liao said hesitantly. “Won’t this provoke chaos?”

Having long served in administrative posts in Yuezhou’s prefectures and counties, Feng Liao was quite familiar with practical affairs. He suspected the Han father and son were pushing tax reform so aggressively due to urgent need of money and grain, but he also worried this approach would make their foundation in Xuzhou even more precarious.

Besides alerting their enemies, with only twenty-five thousand shi of grain remaining in the storehouses at Wuliu Creek, Longya City, and Qianyang City, without levying supplementary taxes on last year’s field taxes and corvée, they couldn’t last until May, much less wait for this year’s field taxes to sustain them.

“Without bloodshed, how can my father and I possibly establish ourselves firmly in Xuzhou?” Han Qian waved away Feng Liao’s doubts and simply told him to cooperate with Zhao Kuo.

Hearing these words, Feng Liao felt a chill in his heart and said no more, departing with Gao Shao, Zhao Kuo, and others to immediately take over the relevant authority at the provincial offices and advance the land survey.

The military forces previously controlled in Xuzhou had been organized into the Prison Camp, Provincial Camp, and Naval Camp. Currently reorganized as First, Second, and Third Battalions—merely changing names—Tian Cheng, Xi Chang, Yang Qin, Lin Zongjing, Zhao Qi, and others would formally assume posts as Battalion Commanders, Vice Commanders, and other military positions. Lin Haizheng would serve as Works Councilor, with Chen Jitang, Du Yijun, Zheng Tong, and others serving as Master Craftsmen. The Artisan Household Battalion, Works and Supply Battalion, and even the Wufeng Mountain Plantation, along with all manufacturing, military farming, and craft production affairs, would all be consolidated under the Works Bureau.

Thus, of the provincial six bureaus, apart from Personnel, Census, and affairs like medical services, postal stations, education, and markets, the most critical Works Bureau, Justice Bureau, Revenue Bureau, and Military Bureau were all under Han Qian’s direct control.

……

……

For a long time, the provincial government had never determined exactly how many fields and households actually existed in Xuzhou. The claim that Xuzhou had a combined total of twelve thousand native and immigrant households, ninety-seven thousand people, and three hundred ten thousand mu of grain fields was data verified during the Wuzong period of the previous dynasty—already over seventy years ago.

During these seventy-plus years, besides Xuzhou’s own population growth, frequent warfare in Tanxiang had also driven large numbers of refugees in, while Xuzhou itself had experienced several internal rebellions.

Fields had been newly cultivated and also abandoned after floods and military disasters. The actual acreage at this time inevitably differed vastly from seventy years ago.

The land survey was forcibly pushed forward in the area surrounding Qianyang City starting in late February.

This was also the region under Han Daoxun and Han Qian’s strongest control. They had already conducted preliminary surveys of nearby fields earlier. With the Revenue Bureau deploying over two hundred people in total to measure fields, progress was fastest. By mid-March, the lands owned by immigrants around Qianyang City had been clearly measured.

Excluding the nearly thirty thousand mu of grain fields newly cultivated at Wufeng Mountain Plantation and the previously registered taxable fields of one hundred seven thousand mu, the survey uncovered concealed fields reaching one hundred forty-three thousand mu.

As the area with the highest concentration of immigrants in Xuzhou, Qianyang County already had thirty-three thousand people before Han Daoxun and Han Qian took charge of Xuzhou—fully fifty percent more than the consistently reported figure of twenty-two thousand.

In Tanyang and Langxi Counties, having long been under absolute control of native tribal households, fewer immigrants had settled there in recent years. But the two counties combined should still have twenty thousand people, with cultivated acreage no lower than one hundred fifty thousand mu—still double the previously compiled figures.

This didn’t even include newly cultivated fields in the northern section from the central Zhongfang Mountains to Longya Mountain.

Once the immigrant-owned acreage in Qianyang County was surveyed, the next step was to levy supplementary taxes on last year’s autumn grain.

The supplementary levies involved virtually all the major immigrant households in Qianyang County, which wouldn’t be easy.

In early March, Han Daoxun issued an order to recruit bailiffs and reserve soldiers for the Xuzhou camp from among all the refugees who had fled to Qianyang.

Any able-bodied men with families who had fled to Xuzhou could enlist. Besides receiving a monthly stipend of four hundred cash, they would be granted ten mu of household grain fields, one mu of residential land, and two mu of mulberry-hemp land for their dependents.

The Wufeng Mountain Plantation had already cultivated nearly thirty thousand mu of grain fields northwest of Qianyang City, primarily employing refugee men with families to farm them.

By issuing recruitment orders with such favorable policies, the provincial government essentially converted the refugee men recruited by the plantation over the past year directly into new households of Qianyang County.

Since they were all plantation laborers whose circumstances were relatively well understood, no additional screening was needed, and recruitment could be completed within just a few days.

By late March, the Xuzhou Army had rapidly expanded to twenty-five hundred men, and the provincial bailiff force had also expanded to three hundred.

After several major households resisting collection were arrested and imprisoned, supplementary collection in Qianyang County progressed quickly. By early April, the provincial government had collected supplementary and penalty levies of over sixteen thousand shi of millet from Qianyang County, plus over three thousand strings of cash in taxes.

Adding the Wufeng Mountain Plantation’s net yield of over six thousand shi of wheat after expenses, this would roughly allow Xuzhou’s fiscal crisis to be postponed until the end of June.