Fu Tinghan calculated for them the time and manpower required from felling trees to constructing houses. After reviewing it, Changning immediately ordered people to first halt their current work and enter the forest to cut down trees. Only after each team had prepared the timber needed for house construction would he allow them to begin clearing wasteland and planting crops.
This meant the refugees would still have to sleep exposed in the wilderness at night.
Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan went down to the countryside for an inspection. Seeing the sun about to set, they knew they couldn’t make it back to the county seat that night, so they simply found the nearest settlement site and stopped.
The team leader responsible for this group saw Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan and immediately trotted over to greet them. “Miss, Young Master.”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded. Smelling the fragrance of food, she asked, “What are we eating tonight?”
The team leader grinned widely. “Steamed buns!”
Mixed grain steamed buns, gray in color, but still relatively soft. Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan went to queue up and each received two buns, then got a bowl of vegetable soup.
Zhao Hanzhang found a patch of grass to sit on, even saving a good spot for Fu Tinghan, then asked a young man beside her who was eating with his head down, “Is this amount enough to eat?”
The young man looked up at Zhao Hanzhang. Not recognizing her, but recognizing Fu Tinghan who was walking over, he immediately stood up and called out somewhat nervously, “Master Fu!”
Fu Tinghan nodded, considering that a greeting, and introduced Zhao Hanzhang. “This is Miss, our County Magistrate.”
The young man’s eyes widened. He very much wanted to put down his bowl and buns to bow to Zhao Hanzhang, but was reluctant to place them on the ground.
Zhao Hanzhang waved her hand unconcernedly. “No need for formalities, come sit and chat together.”
The young man didn’t dare sit anymore and only squatted nervously to one side.
Zhao Hanzhang asked, “Is this food enough to eat?”
Two buns with one bowl of vegetable soup was naturally not enough for a young able-bodied man to eat, but the young man considered this treatment very good already, so he nodded. “It’s enough.”
Zhao Hanzhang finished two steamed buns and drank half a bowl of soup, still feeling hungry, not even half full. She’d be a fool to believe him.
Fu Tinghan glanced at her and handed her one of his.
Zhao Hanzhang pushed it back. “You eat it, you eat your fill.”
Fu Tinghan looked at her with a smile and stuffed the bun into her hand. “Eat quickly. If we encounter wild beasts tonight, I’ll be counting on you for protection.”
Zhao Hanzhang broke it open, only taking half, stuffing the other half back into his hand. While breaking off small pieces to eat, she said, “It would be great if wild beasts came—we could have an extra meal.”
With over two hundred people here, they weren’t afraid of wild beasts.
However, mentioning wild beasts, Zhao Hanzhang still turned to ask the young man, “Do you encounter wild beasts when sleeping outdoors?”
“No,” the young man said. “At night we can hear wolves howling, but we keep fires burning at night, and with so many people, they don’t dare come close.”
He felt somewhat uncomfortable but didn’t dare just walk away. Looking back at his companions, he replied quietly, “Occasionally we catch a rabbit or wild chicken in the mountains.”
Zhao Hanzhang said, “That must be a very happy thing.”
Seeing that Zhao Hanzhang didn’t oppose their hunting, the young man breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed somewhat. “We can’t always catch them, just occasionally.”
After eating, the sky hadn’t yet darkened, so everyone dispersed to cut thatch grass, chop firewood, and gather kindling.
Zhao Hanzhang saw quite a lot of firewood piled around—both dry and currently drying—so she pointed and asked, “Is this firewood prepared for winter?”
“Yes,” the team leader said. “Chief Clerk Chang said the newly built thatch houses won’t be very warm, so he wants us to prepare more firewood. He also wants us to make charcoal ourselves and store it for winter, but we don’t know how to make charcoal, so we’re only stockpiling firewood.”
“Making charcoal…” Fu Tinghan wrinkled his nose. “I do know how to do it, but the air pollution is quite severe.”
The team leader became excited upon hearing this, looking at Fu Tinghan with gleaming eyes.
Zhao Hanzhang said, “First let’s keep them from freezing to death. However, the charcoal kilns should be built far from where people live. This season mostly has north and west winds, so have them build the kiln openings in the southeast direction, avoiding the wind.”
The smell of burning charcoal wasn’t pleasant, and breathing too much of it would make people sick.
Fu Tinghan nodded. “Then I’ll draw out the charcoal kiln design later. I only know the principles though—the actual operation will require them to experiment bit by bit themselves.”
The team leader happily agreed. He knew Master Fu—he was博学多识 broadly learned and knowledgeable, having read an enormous number of books. There were already rumors in the army that there was probably nothing in this world he didn’t know about.
It’s just that everything he learned came from books; he’d never personally worked with his hands.
So anything he produced required people to figure out themselves through hands-on experimentation.
But this was already very impressive. Think about it—just by reading books he knew how to make glass, how to make bricks and stones, and had even heard he knew papermaking…
So now their greatest wish was to work hard to earn merit and money, so that in the future they could also let their children go study.
They didn’t expect them to be as capable as Master Fu—having even a third of his ability would be enough!
Although their children didn’t yet exist, it was good to plan ahead.
Zhao Hanzhang saw them busy, so she pulled Fu Tinghan along into the forest as well, wanting to see if they could hunt a rabbit or something for a midnight snack.
As a result, probably because there were too many people living outside the forest, and recently quite a few animals had been caught, they wandered around in a circle and saw nothing at all.
Zhao Hanzhang felt very regretful. Just as she was about to go down the mountain, she noticed a gap nearby from which one could overlook the area below, clearly seeing this large expanse of fields.
Zhao Hanzhang walked forward and looked down.
Fu Tinghan stepped forward. “This location is excellent. If it were wartime, we could even build a watchtower here.”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded, pointing below. “This settlement site is well chosen. Look, from here to that village isn’t very far. Once the settlement village is built, the two villages can have regular contact.”
As the sky darkened, fires began to be lit below. Twenty people huddled around one large fire pit, lighting eleven fire pits, with the one in the very center reserved for Zhao Hanzhang and her group.
The soldiers used tree leaves as a base layer, then spread a layer of thatch grass, covering themselves with two more layers of thatch grass, and could safely pass the night.
To build thatch houses, they had been harvesting thatch grass right after dinner these past days. The nearby areas had all been cut, and they’d already begun going up the mountain and to the other side of the mountain to cut more.
After the dragged-back thatch grass dried in the sun, everyone would casually weave it during rest periods and toss it aside—later when building houses, they could use it immediately.
Zhao Hanzhang was very interested in their camping methods and also joined them in spreading thatch grass before lying down.
At first lying down felt fine, but moments later she felt cold air rising from the ground.
Fu Tinghan also felt it. Although a layer of tree leaves and a layer of thatch grass had been laid underneath, they still couldn’t block the cold air.
He immediately stood up, pulled Zhao Hanzhang up, took his cloak and spread it on the thatch grass, then let her lie down.
Zhao Hanzhang felt Professor Fu’s body was even weaker than hers, so she wanted to give him half the space.
Fu Tinghan glanced at the team leader and others who were sneaking looks over, and refused. “I’m not cold, you sleep quickly.”
How could Zhao Hanzhang possibly sleep? She said to Fu Tinghan, “Changning wants me to use willow catkins and reed down to fill bedding. Using all cotton wadding is expensive and we don’t have that much. But Master Ji just sent me a letter saying he observed the heavens at night, and this year’s winter might be very cold—it could possibly have snow and frost disasters like last year in Yingchuan.”