Successfully cooperating with Shangcai County and taking a crucial step toward future great endeavors, Zhao Hanzhang happily returned to Xiping.
Upon returning to Xiping, Zhao Hanzhang went to find Zhao Kuan.
So many talented people couldn’t all be confined to Xiping—that would be too wasteful.
Now that Zhao Yunying and her sister had entered the school, many girls in the Zhao clan were becoming restless, begging their families to also let them attend school.
So Zhao Hanzhang wanted to send several of the more steady and capable members like Zhao Kuan to Shangcai. Of course, she couldn’t say “send,” because up to now, she and the Zhao clan were in a cooperative relationship.
Zhao Kuan and the others weren’t under her direct management, so at this moment, she was merely persuading.
Zhao Kuan was very surprised. “Go to Shangcai?”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded.
Zhao Kuan was puzzled. “What can we do in Shangcai?”
“Do everything I’m doing now in Xiping,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “Elder Brother Kuan has also said that civil administration is all trivial matters. But that’s still just theory on paper. I want to let elder brothers truly experience what civil administration means, and how a county magistrate should act to be worthy of being called a parental official.”
Zhao Kuan’s mouth hung half-open. After a long while, he asked with difficulty, “You… you want to replace County Magistrate Chai?”
Zhao Hanzhang replied, “…Elder Brother Kuan is thinking too much. Am I that kind of person?”
She continued, “Right now Shangcai and Xiping are brother counties. County Magistrate Chai and I are brothers! Oh no, brother and sister!”
Zhao Kuan looked at her with a face full of doubt. In the end, he didn’t know whether he believed her or not. After pondering for a long while, he didn’t give an immediate answer. “I need to think about it.”
Zhao Hanzhang said, “Think it over. I’ll give you two days. If you’re unwilling, that’s fine too—I’ll find someone else.”
She sighed, “Xiping also needs elder brother very much. Xiahou Ren’s drawings and documents still need you, and the school can’t do without you either…”
The scales in Zhao Kuan’s heart tilted toward Shangcai County.
It wasn’t that he disliked these two jobs in Xiping County, but an eighteen or nineteen-year-old youth who had done one job for a long time would naturally want to try a different one.
Though he said he needed to consider it, Zhao Kuan didn’t think alone. Instead, he went directly to find Zhao Cheng and told him about it.
Zhao Cheng was stunned for a moment, then asked, “Have you ever thought about taking office as an official in the future?”
Zhao Kuan clasped his hands respectfully. “Yes, I want to accomplish something meritorious.”
He continued, “I don’t seek to be like Great-uncle, holding one of the Three Excellencies positions, being enfeoffed as a marquis or appointed as a minister, but I should at least leave something behind in this world and build a career.”
Zhao Cheng nodded. “Then go.”
He said, “Since you’ve decided to take office, then start from the ground up in a down-to-earth manner. Don’t learn from those like Wang Yan in court who occupy official positions yet look down on practical affairs.”
Zhao Cheng’s face darkened. “If you ever do such things that harm the country, not only I, but the Zhao clan will absolutely not tolerate you.”
Zhao Kuan solemnly agreed.
Zhao Cheng then sighed, “Listen more to Hanzhang. Although your Third Sister has a glib tongue with few honest words, when it comes to practical civil administration, I don’t see many people in court who can match her.”
Zhao Kuan agreed to everything.
After receiving Zhao Cheng’s approval, Zhao Kuan thought about it and still went to find Zhao Ming.
Zhao Ming agreed without hesitation. “Do your best. Don’t disappoint the many years of instruction from your Uncle Cheng.”
Zhao Kuan couldn’t help asking this actual helmsman of the family, “Aren’t you worried that Sanniang is making too many enemies outside, Uncle Ming?”
Zhao Ming sighed, “Do you think her target is Shangcai?”
Zhao Kuan was puzzled. “Isn’t it?”
Zhao Ming shook his head. “Although County Magistrate Chai of Shangcai isn’t very clever and is soft-eared, swaying left and right like grass on a wall without any backbone, he has two merits.”
Even being like this, there were still merits?
“One is that he still has compassion for the people.” Zhao Ming continued, “He’d rather risk rebellion in the county office by taking all the officials’ salaries to buy grain seeds. He’s not bad, just not clever.”
Zhao Kuan automatically translated what Zhao Ming really meant in his heart—stupid!
“The other is that he’s willing to listen to advice,” Zhao Ming smiled. “This is also being soft-eared. As such, whatever kind of person is beside him, that’s what kind of person he’ll become.”
So when Changning was by his side, although Shangcai was struggling, it passed many years peacefully.
And now with Ji Yuan beside him, one could easily imagine that in the future, Shangcai County would be one of Zhao Hanzhang’s supporting arms, following only her commands.
“So why would Hanzhang replace the obedient and compassionate County Magistrate Chai with you, a clan brother who has little management experience and isn’t very obedient?”
Zhao Kuan was dumbfounded, staring wide-eyed. After a long time, he asked, “Then… then what am I going to Shangcai to do?”
Zhao Ming turned the chess piece in his hand, suddenly placing a white piece in the slightly southern center between two adjacent black pieces.
Zhao Kuan looked—the piece wasn’t placed on a point, but was crookedly placed on the edge of a square, not as if placed incorrectly. That position was…
His gaze moved back and forth between the two black pieces. When it fell on the white piece again, Zhao Kuan’s eyes widened instantly, murmuring, “Quyang…”
Zhao Ming heard his whisper, his lips curving slightly upward. “When you go to Shangcai, work hard and apply yourself. You lack experience, so listen more to Ji Yuan’s advice.”
“He’s a great strategist who can both traverse the court with your Great-uncle and live quietly in the countryside with Hanzhang. Whether in knowledge or breadth of mind, he far surpasses you.”
Zhao Kuan seriously agreed.
Only then did Zhao Ming wave his hand. “Go. Say goodbye to your parents. Keep the chess matter to yourself—don’t spread it before things are accomplished.”
Zhao Kuan agreed and respectfully withdrew.
But he was very puzzled. Quyang was an upper-level county. How exactly would Zhao Hanzhang obtain the position of Quyang county magistrate for him?
She herself was only a county magistrate, right?
Oh, and an officially unacknowledged one at that, having only received private recognition from the Yuzhou Inspector.
Since Zhao Kuan agreed, several clan brothers who usually mixed with him looked at this and also followed along.
So Zhao Hanzhang packaged them all up and sent them to the Shangcai estate, having them work under Ji Yuan’s direction.
Zhao Hanzhang provided the money. County Magistrate Chai proactively contacted grain merchants and some major gentry he knew, buying quite a lot of grain from them.
When the first batch arrived in Shangcai, the county that had been as still as dead water suddenly came alive. Village chiefs went down to the villages to notify everyone that each household should bring grain bags to the county office to receive this spring’s relief grain and distributed grain seeds.
The relief grain wasn’t very much, but there was at least something. If eaten sparingly, combined with what they had stored at home, it could last about ten days or so.
Before they had even properly arranged the grain, the county office suddenly posted a corvée notice. But this time the corvée wasn’t unpaid as before—it was paid labor.
They heard it was work-for-relief, based on voluntary principles. Those who went to build irrigation channels and clear wasteland would be paid daily, and with that money, they could buy grain from the county office at low prices.
Though called low prices, they were really only two or three coins less than grain shops.
But even these two or three coins meant a lot to them.
—