The early morning Chang’an was tranquil and elegant, the entire city shrouded in a pale blue haze of smoke, like a shy maiden. The ward gates opened in succession, and people emerged from their homes in twos and threes to begin a new day.
The clanging sounds in Zhaoguo Ward had not ceased all night. Old Shuan wiped the sweat from his face, poured a bowl of cold tea from the teapot and tilted his neck back to gulp it down. The coarse tea assimilated by the cold made him shiver, and his drowsiness vanished in an instant. He fished out a piece of ginger from the teapot and put it in his mouth, chewing it delightedly. It wasn’t yet mealtime—his wife and children were still sleeping. They too had been exhausted last night.
Old Shuan looked at the charcoal piled in the corner. Each piece was walnut-sized, very uniform. This was the finest hardwood charcoal, famously long-burning, but just too expensive. If business weren’t really so good, he couldn’t afford to use such fine charcoal no matter what.
In the courtyard sat three of the newest style stoves—these were the fruits of his and his apprentice’s night of labor. Today someone would come to take them away. Each stove earned three hundred wen in labor fees, plus the cost of iron materials—a full five hundred wen! Making dozens of kitchen knives and door studs, working himself to death and exhaustion, he could only earn five hundred wen. Now one night’s work equaled a month’s previous income, and there was no worry about selling them.
He retrieved a sheet of writing paper from a concealed small box under the anvil. It was the good paper wealthy families used for writing letters and calling cards—thick and not easily damaged. On it, drawn with some kind of pen, were diagrams of the stove. There were views from above, from the side, from below, and even diagrams of the stove split open. It was covered with writing. Old Shuan couldn’t read, but now he could recite all the characters on it, not a single character wrong. This had been taught by the Yun family’s old lady, character by character.
He had worked iron all his life and had never seen such diagrams. Once you understood the diagrams, even a foolish blacksmith could forge the stoves. This was a family heirloom treasure—it could only be given to Shuanzhu. The other children would just get more money. Thinking of this, his chest felt warm. The Yun family people were kind! Back then, just out of consideration for orphans and widows who were also neighbors, he had helped a few times. He never expected the return to come so quickly and so powerfully. This was giving Old Shuan’s family a livelihood for several generations! Marquis Yun learned his skills following an old immortal—what kind of immortal was it again?
Holding the same thoughts as him was Sun Wang from the tin shop next door. He had never dreamed that iron sheets could be rolled out like rolling dough. Although they weren’t as durable as those hammered out, making iron sheets this way was too fast. You just poured molten iron into the hopper, two people pushed the windlass, and between the two iron rollers, iron sheets would gradually emerge. Trim the edges and you had a good iron sheet. Mount it on an iron cone and hammer it, roll it into a three-foot iron cylinder with one end slightly larger—it didn’t take much effort. Now the iron stoves of Zhaoguo Ward were sold all over Chang’an. These tin chimneys were indispensable, plus a huge tin kettle meant the whole family would always have hot water. So comfortable!
Yesterday the Yun family’s old lady said the residence wanted to find servants for the several young misses. His own daughter was almost ten years old—could she be sent into the residence as a maid? The Yun family people were amiable, and they were all women and children. He’d heard that Yun family servants ate three meals a day! The girl going in would be living in comfort. After a few years when she was older, relying on their old neighbor relationship, he could ask the old lady to match his daughter with a prosperous family. Moreover, the girl would be serving young misses in a marquis’s residence—after a few years of training, wouldn’t that be much better than being a wild maid in a small household?
Zhaoguo Ward had never been as full of vitality as it was now. Everyone had endless work. Marquis Yun of the Yun family said that insiders knowing was enough—don’t show off everywhere. Getting rich should be done quietly, don’t be the one who fires the gun. Although they didn’t understand what “firing the gun” meant, keeping quiet they certainly could do. The ward official personally guarded the entrance. Unrelated people were absolutely not permitted to enter. He also warned ward residents that if relatives came, they should talk at the entrance. If they needed lodging, arrange it at an inn—they couldn’t enter the ward.
All one hundred seventy-five households in the ward formed the most primitive factory assembly line. Blacksmiths forged stoves, riveters made chimneys, masons bought unwanted coal powder and mixed it with clay to make coal cakes. Honeycomb coal briquettes presented no difficulty to Yun Ye.
Madam Cheng, together with Aunt Yun, had been going in and out of various households these days. Very quickly they became close with the ladies and young misses of the inner residences, and conveniently promoted the coal stoves. This type of stove without smoke and fumes instantly spread throughout Great Tang’s Chang’an. No one wanted to use charcoal braziers anymore—beauties didn’t want their nostrils full of charcoal ash when they woke up in the morning.
Old gentlemen gathered around the stove to heat a pot of sour wine and roast a couple of flatbreads, smugly watching the heavy snow outside, occasionally citing the proverb about heavy snow portending a good harvest to fool their little grandsons. Housewives loved most the perpetually heated water on the stove—no longer worrying about washing clothes and cooking leaving their hands red and swollen from freezing. In any case, coal briquettes weren’t expensive either.
Yun Ye was somewhat depressed. Looking at the coal smoke drifting above the Yun residence, staining the sky after the heavy snow in a messy dark color, his mood was uneasy. He didn’t know if environmental protection experts from later generations would use him as a negative example.
The little girls sat on the huge heated brick bed in their brother’s room playing games, making a complete mess of the lambskin mattress that Aunt had just spread out. Little Ya wore a monkey mask on her face, holding a feather duster, chasing and attacking Little Xi who was playing a rat spirit. Little Bei reluctantly wore a pig snout, strongly demanding to exchange the Universe Ring with Little Dong.
Daya was the most well-behaved, her small hands holding needle and thread, learning to sew clothes with Sister Yiniang. Brother’s clothes were all tight-fitting, not the loose robes with wide sleeves—they weren’t warm and moreover used too much fabric. Making two of those kinds of clothes was enough for Yun Ye to make three outfits. Can’t understand it—clearly material goods weren’t abundant to the point of excess, so why not use their brains and use less fabric? The Yun family no longer wrapped loincloth, the Cheng family no longer used that thing either. Probably the Old Niu family and the Crown Prince’s place no longer used that thing either. This proved that ancient people’s ability to accept new things was also very strong.
Zhaoguo Ward was just a pilot project Yun Ye had set up on a whim, conveniently earning some money for his family to spend. Those neighbors were just earning some labor wages. Originally he planned to give each person thirty wen per day in labor fees. This already made Yun Ye feel his heart could be burned as charcoal. The old neighbors wouldn’t have it. Yun Ye thought they felt it was too little and planned to add another ten wen, but unexpectedly the neighbors thought the Yun family was performing charity and their self-respect couldn’t bear it. They said if wages exceeded twenty wen, they would rather go beg than eat food given in contempt.
Giving more wages still required an apology? Marquis Yun angrily flicked his sleeve and left. The ward residents were victorious—cheers all around. A coal stove production line could support one hundred seventy-five households, with over six hundred people employed, not even counting those who opened their own shops as blacksmiths, riveters, and coppersmiths.
Simple living created simple employment. These citizens whose ancestors had grown up in Chang’an City, as the earliest proletariat in the city, did the most laborious work yet received no proper respect. They had no land—the new land distribution system enacted in early Tang had uniquely forgotten them. The terrible household craftsman system, the horrifying discrimination against merchants. Not allowed to work, not allowed to do business, and unable to farm. They could only exist in a form of dependency. This was why although Sun Wang’s family didn’t lack food for his daughter, he persistently pushed to get his daughter into the Yun residence.
Li Er’s head of imperial guards was a great fellow, surnamed Liu, given name Xian. He was so forthright he had Yun Ye call him Liu’er. His background was unknown, his experiences unknown—even more mysterious than Yun Ye. On his day off, carrying half a pig’s head, he charged excitedly into the Yun residence, supposedly to thoroughly discuss the mysterious topic of why Han people could be bled without dying while barbarians would die from blood drawing.
Yun Ye really didn’t want to discuss blood drawing. He himself was only half-baked—how could he be a teacher to others, especially this butcher-like doctor?
Liu’er claimed to be extremely interested in medicine. Back in his battlefield days, he had studied human bodies quite a bit. He once used a saber to carefully split open a person and studied him for three days before the person died. He was very curious what the white gooey brain matter inside the skull was for. The heart was full of tubes large and small—how could it make a person remember so many things? Where exactly were a person’s thoughts? Having finished asking, he exerted force with both hands and forcibly tore open half the pig’s head—one half for each person as drinking snacks.
Without a doubt, these hands had touched brain matter, had also grabbed hearts, and now were grabbing a pig’s head? Yun Ye forcibly suppressed his vomiting and imperceptibly changed the topic. This old man wasn’t a pervert—how could he discuss human brains while using chopsticks to pick at pig brains to eat? He explained in detail what psychological terror was, giving a small example: You tie a person to a post so he can’t see his own hand. You make a cut on his wrist—don’t cut through—but tell him you’ve severed his blood vessel and his blood is constantly flowing. In one hour it will all drain out. Beside him place a wooden bucket with a small hole opened in it letting water drip into a copper basin, and tell him this is the sound of his blood dripping into the basin. When the water in the bucket runs out, this person will certainly die. In reality he has not the slightest wound on his entire body. This is psychological terror—he himself killed himself.
Liu’er felt he could come out of retirement now. He had already inherited part of the sage’s learning. Now he would return and write it down to pass on to his descendants, to leave a good name for eternity.
Watching him leave, Yun Ye smiled and returned to the rear hall to continue playing with his younger sisters. He just didn’t know that when he was about to go to sleep, Liu’er was reporting to Li Er.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, what Marquis Lantian said was not the slightest bit inaccurate. All three criminals indeed died, without a single wound anywhere on their bodies.”