Zhao Hanzhang had led two hundred men out of the city, but when she returned, she brought back over a thousand people. Liang Hong rushed out when he heard the news. Seeing the people she’d brought back, he was dumbfounded. “This is…”
“Villagers from the Back Mountain Ravine area. County Administrator Liang, summon the village chiefs from the Back Mountain Ravine area—I need to see them. Also, find me the land deeds and household registrations for the Back Mountain Ravine.”
After discussing with Fu Tinghan, Zhao Hanzhang had decided to garrison troops in the Back Mountain Ravine.
The scouts Fu Tinghan had sent out had been very effective. They’d surveyed the terrain of that entire area, and Fu Tinghan had created maps for Zhao Hanzhang and could even use clay and sand to simulate the simple terrain for her.
It was a natural location suitable for garrisoning troops.
Fu Tinghan planted a small flag on an official road leading out from the Back Mountain Ravine. “See? Easy to defend but hard to attack, yet it occupies an important strategic position. As long as we build a road from here, it will connect Quyang, Suiping, Queshan, and Biyang.”
Zhao Hanzhang’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “From here, we can resist all invading enemies. By the same token, by holding this one point, we can also create a barrier for the three counties behind.”
She became excited. “Best of all, there’s a basin here with large tracts of farmland, so the military families can farm the land there.”
Fu Tinghan nodded. “I can calculate the number of troops to garrison based on the arable land area for you. But are you certain all this land is yours?”
Zhao Hanzhang said with a smile on her lips, “Of course. If I say it is, then it is.”
With a wave of her hand, Zhao Hanzhang directly cordoned off the entire Back Mountain Ravine area as military farmland. No one in the county office dared oppose her, and even within Runan Commandery, no officials opposed her now.
Unfortunately, the Guo and Ma families had gradually acquired some good farmland in this area over the past two years. Now that Zhao Hanzhang had directly cordoned off their land, because the amount wasn’t very large, they turned a blind eye and pretended not to know.
Old Master Guo had also been frightened by Zhao Hanzhang. She never showed favoritism, so after buying twelve hundred shi of grain from Old Master Ma, she then bought eight hundred shi of grain from Old Master Guo.
She used up all the money and goods confiscated from County Magistrate Hu completely, leaving only some hard-to-liquidate treasures.
Because of her forcefulness and shamelessness, plus her two teams of men who quickly arrived from Xiping, no one in Biyang County, from top to bottom, dared voice opposition to her, and the Guo and Ma families also had to temporarily avoid her sharp edge.
Since the Guo and Ma families were being sensible, Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t let them suffer losses.
She found the records of land deed changes and also summoned the sellers of the good farmland to inquire about the prices. After learning them, she very generously raised the price by ten percent and had the money for the land purchases sent to the Guo and Ma families.
The Guo and Ma families were speechless.
Were they people who lacked this little bit of money?
When they’d initially bought this good farmland, they’d pressed the prices down repeatedly. Even raising it by ten percent was still a very low price.
This small amount of money was negligible not only to Zhao Hanzhang but also to the Guo and Ma families—it was worth only a few meals.
Rather than dwelling on this money, they might as well leave it to make Zhao Hanzhang owe them a favor.
Unfortunately, Zhao Hanzhang appeared very fair and hadn’t given them this opportunity.
Having resolved the concerns about the military garrison, Zhao Hanzhang finally began selecting the people she would keep. She didn’t plan to keep many of the Back Mountain Ravine villagers in the Back Mountain Ravine for garrison duty.
Two-thirds of the troops would be transferred from Xiping, while Zhao Hanzhang would transfer the Back Mountain Ravine people back to Xiping.
“These people have family ties and are all familiar with each other. Keeping them together, even just as soldiers, does more harm than good, so they need to be separated,” Zhao Hanzhang said, pointing to Wei Dayi’s name. “Especially him—he was their leader before, so he needs to be separated even more.”
But Zhao Hanzhang didn’t intend to make Wei Dayi completely alone. She was very generous in letting him keep all his trusted subordinates and directly made him a Squad Leader. Nearly half of the men under his command were his former subordinates who had already obeyed his orders in the stronghold.
At this time, Zhao Hanzhang didn’t want to compete with her subordinate officers for control of the soldiers. In her view, as long as they were capable and followed her orders, that was enough.
As for whether the soldiers under them recognized her or recognized their Platoon Leaders, Squad Leaders, or Battalion Commanders, she didn’t care at all.
She was just that generous!
Even Wei Dayi thought she was very generous and couldn’t help saying to his trusted men, “I didn’t expect she’d still let us stay together. I thought she’d break us up and scatter us among the various armies.”
The young men were also very moved and said one after another, “See, Brother Feng was right—female Vice Administrators are more softhearted.”
Wei Dayi shook his head, then shook it halfway before sighing. “She’s more thorough and kinder than men, but I don’t know if this is good or bad.”
“How could it be bad?”
“That’s right, that’s right. Isn’t it good for us when those above are merciful?”
But Wei Dayi had more insight. Shaking his head, he said, “Although I haven’t studied, I’ve heard some capable scholars mention that to be a general and accomplish great things, one can’t be too merciful.”
He said, “Merciful people can’t command troops. At first, I thought following her would be good—she could kill County Magistrate Hu on sight, which shows she’s ruthless and decisive. Following her would definitely lead to better prospects.”
“But watching her these past days, she truly has compassion, and it’s not an act.” Wei Dayi’s brow furrowed. “I’m both happy and worried—happy to have followed a good master, worried that she won’t go far, and then we’ll be adrift again.”
“No… it won’t be like that, will it?”
Zhao Hanzhang stayed in Biyang County for a very long time. She didn’t spend much time handling county affairs—mainly it was training troops and preparing for the garrison.
Besides this, she dealt with affairs from the Vice Administrator’s office.
As she was active outside, Ji Yuan simply sent people to deliver documents to her every day, so Zhao Hanzhang had a constant stream of official documents.
Although she was physically in Biyang County, she basically understood everything happening at the Vice Administrator’s office. Ji Yuan not only sent her documents requiring her decisions but also attached letters roughly explaining the documents he’d already handled, so she could better understand the situation in each county of Runan Commandery.
So Runan Commandery now had a mobile office, with the Vice Administrator’s office moving around with Zhao Hanzhang.
Zhao Hanzhang stayed so long that by the time autumn harvest arrived, Wei Dayi and the others had been gradually sent back to Xiping, while large numbers of troops had been dispatched from Xiping, directly garrisoning in the Back Mountain Ravine.
After the troops moved in, the first thing they did was go into the fields to harvest beans. After finishing the beans, they had to harvest rice. The soldiers from Xiping quickly developed camaraderie with the former bandits and villagers from the Back Mountain Ravine, and on the surface, everything seemed very harmonious.
This was mainly thanks to Zhao Hanzhang’s enthusiasm for organizing various competitions and… matchmaking activities.
So the bachelor subordinate soldiers from Xiping threw themselves into the construction and training of Biyang County as if injected with chicken blood.
Wearing a straw hat and holding a sickle, Zhao Hanzhang straightened up to look at the golden rice, touched her lower back, and said, “This is really more tiring than practicing martial arts.”
A soldier came riding up on horseback, jumped off when he reached the field ridge, took the bundle from his back, ran down to the field ridge, and presented it to Zhao Hanzhang. “Young lady, there are urgent documents today.”
When Zhao Hanzhang heard this, she reached out to take them. The urgent documents had been placed on top. Ji Yuan, probably worried she wouldn’t notice, had even written the character for “urgent” on them.