In the valley halfway up the northern slope of Dragon Tooth Mountain, a row of bamboo houses was built directly over a mountain stream. Surrounded by lush green shade with the stream water flowing gurgling beneath the bamboo houses, there wasn’t half a trace of summer heat.
These past few days the weather along both banks of the Yuan River had suddenly grown hot. Regardless of how the situation in Si Province territory had suddenly grown tense, Han Qian still brought Zhao Ting’er and Xi Ren here to escape the heat.
Wenxin, who had just learned to toddle, ran happily along the stream bank. Several guards and maidservants watched without blinking, fearing the slightest accident might occur. Han Qian had been free during this period and was working on supplementing the “Mathematics” text.
Han Qian had long decided to compile mathematics and diagram interpretation texts that better conformed to elementary mathematical principles, based on traditional mathematics texts like the “Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art.” He then decided to derive disciplines of natural philosophy, empirical verification, and practical application from the foundation of the “Artisan Encyclopedia” compiled by Du Junyi and others, forming specialized disciplines for contemporary scholars and future generations to conduct more specialized and professional research and development.
These several projects sounded simple but were actually extraordinarily complex and vast in scope. Currently only Zhao Ting’er had the ability to assist Han Qian in completing them.
The “Elementary Mathematics” currently promoted to the county and village level in two-year elementary schools and taught as a specialized subject was compiled by Zhao Ting’er, but this was only the most basic content in elementary mathematics.
Guo Rong had long heard that the father and son Han Daoxun and Han Qian possessed the marvelous book “Artisan Encyclopedia,” but he only knew its name, never seeing its form.
When Han Qian recruited him at Guanyue Tower in Qianyang City, the only condition Guo Rong proposed was wanting to see the true face of the “Artisan Encyclopedia.”
On the road traveling with Han Qian to inspect Quyang, Guo Rong’s wish was satisfied when he saw the complete three volumes of the “Artisan Encyclopedia” currently compiled.
However, in the three-plus months by Han Qian’s side, Guo Rong only truly realized that the “Artisan Encyclopedia” was merely the surface. The true essence lay in the disciplines of calculation, diagram interpretation, natural philosophy, empirical verification, and practical application derived from the “Artisan Encyclopedia” and similar works.
The two-year elementary schools primarily taught basic knowledge like literacy and elementary mathematics.
Usually, proficiency in reading and writing one thousand characters plus basic four arithmetic operations and simple applications was sufficient to graduate with qualification.
Higher-level calculation, diagram interpretation, natural philosophy, empirical verification, and practical application disciplines were taught in combination with the actual instruction at the provincial medical hall, military officer school, and artisan master school.
All related affairs were unified under the provincial academy’s responsibility.
The compilation of teaching materials was always crude at first—not only inevitably containing errors and omissions, but also being very superficial.
Guo Rong assisted Han Qian in managing provincial academy affairs and was also responsible for revising and compiling teaching materials.
Guo Rong prided himself on his exceptional intelligence and remarkable learning, but in over three months, he had become mired in these seemingly superficial existing teaching materials, unable to straighten them out.
Currently, besides Han Qian, those who could teach were only a handful of people: Feng Liao, Zhao Ting’er, Du Qiniang, Ji Xiyao, Chen Jitang, Du Junyi, and a few others.
In other words, these few people, besides their respectively managed affairs, also had the duties of compiling teaching materials and teaching. However, everything currently could only be considered a quite crude prototype. The path to a complete system remained extremely distant and difficult.
Han Qian tossed the supplemented “Mathematics” manuscript aside, stood at the window stretching lazily to loosen his stiff and aching muscles and bones. He listened as Feng Liao entered with Gao Shao and Guo Rong to report in detail on the progress of Tan Yuliang’s group’s infiltration into Si Province to launch the uprising:
“After over a hundred prisoners escaped to Rock Eagle Peak, Master Tan persuaded Dong Tai, Zhang Guangdeng, and others to rise up together. They rested at Rock Eagle Peak for a night, then at dawn the next day headed south from Rock Eagle Peak to take Shili Stronghold located on the southeastern slope of Panlong Ridge with coordinated internal and external forces. After resting for a day and distributing the collected grain to the poor people of the village settlements, the next day before Si Province troops could encircle and suppress them, they crossed the Chen River and raided and seized Nanhuang Stronghold. They fought a genuine hard battle at Nanhuang Stronghold. Relying on Nanhuang Stronghold’s advantageous terrain, they repelled the first wave of Si Province troops’ attack, killed and wounded over a hundred Si Province soldiers, and beheaded Si Province military officers including Shi Shengjian. Their momentum was thus established. Afterward, according to plan, they dispatched people to infiltrate the various villages, valleys, and settlements on the eastern foothills of Panlong Ridge, calling on slaves and poor people to join them in rising up in rebellion. Prisoners like Dong Tai and Zhang Guangdeng were themselves escaped slaves or poor people from Si Province with considerable rallying power in their respective villages. In just three days, they gathered two thousand people at Nanhuang Stronghold. The momentum was so great that in this remote corner of Si Province, it could be said to be unprecedented in hundreds of years…”
Using Tan Yuliang and Zhao Zhixian to infiltrate Si Province and launch an uprising was meant to beat the grass to startle the snake, making the dukes and ministers in court wary as rats near porcelain and less aggressive toward Guangde Prefecture. But mobilizing slaves and poor people to rise up, with thousands or tens of thousands of deaths and injuries at every turn, meant the pressure Han Qian shouldered was not light.
After Feng Liao reported in detail, Han Qian inquired about many specific issues and had Feng Liao and Gao Shao continue maintaining constant attention to changes in the Si Province situation.
In Chen, Xu, Si, Ye, and the dependent provinces and counties of Qian Central, large and small wars had never ceased for hundreds of years. But the vast majority of these wars were primarily about powerful clan forces competing for power and territory, coercing settlement slaves and commoners to participate in battle.
Although slaves and commoners rising up and uniting to resist the oppression of powerful clan forces had also never ceased over hundreds of years, the scale was always extremely limited.
Truly influential commoner uprisings—or rather, those that made powerful clan forces fearful and left deep memories—numbered only a few over hundreds of years.
This was directly related to the relatively isolated terrain of the southwestern Hunan provinces and counties.
This wasn’t just that the provinces and counties had difficulty communicating with the outside world—even within the provinces and counties, transportation between valley settlements was extremely inconvenient. Commoners and slaves between different valley settlements had extremely little contact, making it very difficult to form conditions for joint uprisings.
Even the numerous barbarian settlements directly controlled by the Yang clan had extremely little contact between their slaves, basically all bound to the land they labored on for life.
That Tan Yuliang’s group could receive such a widespread response at Panlong Ridge was partly because the prisoners rescued from the jail came from various places in Si Province and had developed relatively close connections through trafficking illegal salt and imprisonment. It was also partly because Xu Province had done considerable preparatory work, secretly providing substantial support. Another factor was the large-scale employment of Si Province slaves to work in Xu Province—in just one year, this not only planted seeds of breaking their shackles in the hearts of the settlement slaves, but also promoted communication and integration among them…
“Now the momentum has been created, but among the two thousand people, only five or six hundred able-bodied men can actually fight. Although subsequently they can still summon more people, the Yang clan has also reacted quickly at this time, hastening to mobilize troops and dispatch generals to gather around Nanhuang Stronghold’s perimeter. For Tan Yuliang’s group to effectively organize these able-bodied men in such a short time is not an easy matter,” Gao Shao said with furrowed brows, not believing that because Tan Yuliang’s group had successfully taken the first step, the situation ahead wouldn’t have twists and turns.
Han Qian also nodded with considerable worry.
Although currently Dong Tai, Zhang Guangdeng, and others all pushed Tan Yuliang to be their leader and raised the banner of the Heavenly Balance Army, Tan Yuliang couldn’t arbitrarily decide all matters independently.
Besides the Tan family sons and nephews like Tan Xiuqun, Tan Qiu, Tan Lang, and Tan Wenlin, the mid-level military officers of the rebel army were mainly salt smuggling leaders with prestige in Si Province localities like Dong Tai, Zhang Guangdeng, Zhang Guangli, Dong Ping, and Dong Qing.
After all, the vast majority of rebel army soldiers had currently been rallied by them.
Diao the Half-blind and other Xu Province secret agents, as “river and lake friends” invited by Tan Yuliang to help, received a certain degree of respect within the rebel army. But they still found it very difficult to directly command soldiers who had extremely deep feelings of identity and belonging toward their village settlements. Currently they mainly assisted Tan Yuliang in military planning and reconnaissance intelligence.
This was vastly different from when Han Qian initially established the Chishan Army’s command structure and directly transferred and appointed people from Xu Province.
This also meant the rebel army would have difficulty overcoming the disadvantages of weapons and armor shortages and lack of soldier training in a short time. Currently they mainly relied on the soldiers’ blood courage and relatively high morale for support. But if Tan Yuliang’s group made the slightest misstep at this time, they could possibly suffer setbacks under the suppression of well-trained and well-equipped Si Province troops. Morale could suffer a devastating blow and the situation would take a sharp turn for the worse.
This was a scene Han Qian absolutely didn’t wish to see. Unfortunately, Xu Province couldn’t provide more direct support in a short time. For now, they could only observe the development of the situation.
“Yang Hu, on the orders of Si Province Inspector Yang Xingfeng, has just left Tiger Gorge Pass and is rushing to Chenzhong County requesting to see Your Lordship,” At this time, a fast horse galloped into the mountains along the tree-shaded path and dismounted before the mountain stream bamboo house to report.
Although the Yang clan wasn’t foolish enough to invite the wolf into the house and directly request Xu Province to send troops to help suppress the uprising at this time, since they hadn’t detected that everything was actually Xu Province’s doing, sending people to request other forms of assistance was also a matter of course.
Yang Hu was the second son of Si Province Inspector Yang Xingfeng. He concurrently held the position of Jinhe County Magistrate and, together with Tiger Gorge Pass commander Yang Shouyi, was responsible for Si Province’s eastern region.
Yang Hu personally rushing to Chenzhong County, Feng Liao guessed that Si Province Inspector Yang Xingfeng might have already personally rushed to Jinhe County to take command. He said to Han Qian, “Should I return to the county to deal with Yang Hu?”
“No,” Han Qian shook his head and said, “Bring Yang Hu directly into the mountains to see me.”
Yang Hu had first sent someone to Chenzhong County to report while he himself was still on the road to Chenzhong County city. Hearing Han Qian say this, Feng Liao sent someone directly to meet Yang Hu halfway and bring him into the mountains to see Han Qian.