Zhao Hanzhang not only had Chang Ning’s office newly furnished, but also generously allocated him a house in the county town and assigned him a household of servants.

After all, she didn’t lack laborers right now.

Before Chang Ning even officially began work, he felt Zhao Hanzhang’s regard for him. When he formally engaged with county affairs, he felt it even more deeply, because Zhao Hanzhang truly held nothing back and told him about all county business.

Before he’d even had time to adjust to this new lord, he was directly shocked by the confidential information she threw at him.

Looking at the data in his hands, he asked with difficulty, “This is…?”

“These are the people we need to settle,” Zhao Hanzhang had someone hang up a simple map. It was called simple because it only roughly depicted block-shaped areas with labels.

This was something Fu Tinghan had drawn after rough calculations. The area numbers were also approximate estimates, but the wasteland and official field acreages were fairly accurate.

Zhao Hanzhang gestured for Chang Ning to look at the map. “We’ve decided to settle people throughout various parts of Xiping County and have them cultivate currently abandoned land and official fields.”

Chang Ning’s expression of shock slowly faded as he asked calmly, “But?”

Zhao Hanzhang looked at him approvingly and continued, “But there are no houses, we currently lack winter clothing, bedding and such, and right now is the time to plant winter wheat—we cannot miss the farming season.”

Chang Ning asked, “Where are they living now?”

“In the wilderness,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “They eat after working in the fields each day, then rest on the spot. They’re overseen by soldiers the military sent out and are fairly obedient.”

Chang Ning pondered. “Right now it’s late autumn. Though the weather has turned cool, it’s still manageable. Once the cold snap moves south and nights turn frigid, sleeping outdoors won’t work anymore.”

Zhao Hanzhang nodded emphatically and looked at him expectantly. “Does Master have any insights?”

“No insights,” Chang Ning said. “Same as my lady—have them build houses while plowing and planting.”

He directly vetoed Zhao Hanzhang’s decision to build brick houses, saying, “Build thatched cottages directly to give them shelter first.”

“But thatched cottages aren’t warm,” Zhao Hanzhang still wanted to accomplish everything in one step. “I’ve already had people build brick kilns—the first batch of bricks has been fired.”

“But my lady has taken in too many people. Building one brick house with the same labor requires about ten days, while building a thatched cottage only takes two days.” Chang Ning said, “My lady, there are gains and losses. The urgent matter is settling people first to stabilize hearts. Brick houses can begin next year, or even later.”

Fu Tinghan added, “They can be used as rewards later.”

Zhao Hanzhang was someone who listened to advice. Although overall it would consume more labor and time, building thatched cottages was indeed the better suggestion.

She nodded in agreement.

Next came the main event: designating settlement points within Xiping County’s territory, then dividing people into units and distributing them to each settlement point.

This was an enormous undertaking with endless trivial details. It wasn’t something that could be accomplished with a single order—otherwise, having conceived the method two days ago, why hadn’t Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan acted yet?

Because as a unit, there had to be a unit leader.

They also needed to prepare supplies for each settlement point, along with people to prepare supplies, people to allocate supplies, and people to transport supplies—all requiring individual arrangements.

Even to ensure their loyalty to Xiping County—no, to ensure their loyalty to Zhao Hanzhang—they needed to attend to ideological education work.

Not to mention various problems during the settlement process.

Issues like “I want to be in his unit” and “I don’t want to be in his unit” were far too numerous.

Frankly, Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan both dreaded trivial matters.

With Chang Ning’s arrival, Zhao Hanzhang very generously exposed her foundation to him while conveniently pushing all these trivial matters onto him in one go.

She would handle overall direction, make rounds at various places, discover problems, then resolve problems.

Fu Tinghan also preferred staying at the county office calculating rather than going below to be surrounded by people resolving disputes where the public had their reasons and the old woman had hers.

After Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan finished marking settlement points and used vermillion ink to emphasize several circles, she said, “Pay special attention to these settlement points. Send particularly loyal people there. As for the others, just mix them up and distribute randomly.”

Chang Ning stared at those settlement points. “These are…?”

“These are defensive positions,” Zhao Hanzhang didn’t explain further, only saying, “Controlling these points will prevent incidents like rampaging soldiers infiltrating undetected until they’re right on our doorstep.”

They could also secure their escape routes. If Xiping County became untenable in the future, they would at least have escape paths.

Chang Ning studied them for a while before raising the doubt in his heart. “My lady recruited so many people yet only retained twelve hundred soldiers?”

“Correct,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “These twelve hundred are elite troops. Once the county town stabilizes, I’ll only keep two hundred garrison troops in the city. The thousand will relocate outside the city to build a separate military camp for training.”

This way, she would always have a shortfall of eighteen hundred men, allowing her to recruit whenever she wanted. Of course, whether the recruited men appeared on the military roster would be her decision.

“Then these…” Chang Ning pointed at the settlement points and asked, “What are they?”

Zhao Hanzhang looked at Chang Ning with a half-smile. “Law-abiding citizens, tenant farmers, hired laborers—they might not even exist. They’re civilians during farming season, soldiers during wartime. In peacetime they only do basic training.”

Though Chang Ning had long known that powerful clans were ruthless, he hadn’t imagined they could be this ruthless. He had followed Magistrate Chai, and though Magistrate Chai also secretly acquired some fields and kept hidden households to work them, he never dared conceal such large numbers—especially since these people were mostly able-bodied men who could fully serve as soldiers.

Zhao Hanzhang knew Chang Ning wasn’t Ji Yuan—he hadn’t been exposed to such things before. So she softened her tone. “Master Chang, you needn’t deliberately distinguish them. To you, they’re simply Xiping County’s common people. You only need to shoulder some of their mundane affairs. As for everything else, Zhao Ju will handle it.”

Production was Master Chang’s responsibility; military training was Zhao Ju’s affair.

Chang Ning understood. He still felt somewhat puzzled. “But now my lady is already Xiping County’s magistrate. Though you lack the court’s official document, you’ve passed through the governor’s official channels. They’re all your subjects—why specifically conceal them?”

Zhao Hanzhang sighed. “Because the taxes are too heavy.”

A county magistrate sighing about heavy taxes—what more could Chang Ning say?

He fell silent for a moment before tacitly accepting this matter.

Seeing they had reached consensus, Zhao Hanzhang immediately smiled. “Then tomorrow let’s begin allocating people to the settlement points to build houses.”

Chang Ning agreed.

But houses couldn’t just be built on command. Because they needed to construct so many houses at once, there weren’t enough trees—they could only cut fresh timber. But felled wood still needed to dry.