“He’s still too hasty, wanting to use Gou Xi in one stroke to repel the Prince of Donghai, but forgot that without the Prince of Donghai, there’s now Gou Xi instead.”

Zhao Hanzhang’s judgment came not only from relevant historical records but also from her understanding of Gou Xi.

Last time when Gou Chun attempted to assassinate her, Gou Xi’s handling made her realize he was no longer the impartial and strict Gou Xi of old.

People all change, especially after grasping power.

Throughout history, how many people lost themselves in the desire for power and authority? Not to mention distant examples—just speaking of these heroes and ambitious men of the Wei-Jin period, how many ultimately indulged in sensual pleasures and extravagance?

Even Gou Xi and Liu Kun, whom she had always admired, couldn’t escape.

While Zhao Hanzhang wrote to Fu Tinghan, she privately warned herself that in the future, she must not learn from them, must not forget her original intention—to come from the masses and go to the masses.

Zhao Hanzhang sealed the letter, then picked out some of the information on the desk to throw into the brazier to burn. Some she put into a box and locked away.

After finishing everything, she rotated her neck and walked out of the tent. Not far away, people were digging foundations.

Zhao Hanzhang strolled over. The people in the pit all saluted her, calling out loudly, “Your Excellency is out for a walk again?”

These past days they’d been working here and had grown accustomed to Zhao Hanzhang occasionally coming out for a walk. Supposedly, she read too many documents and came out to relax, incidentally letting her eyes rest.

But they felt this was just Zhao Hanzhang’s excuse—she was mostly coming out to visit them, just too shy to say so directly. Everyone was very considerate in not exposing this.

Look, she was crouching by the pit asking questions again. “It’s cold today. Tonight will probably have frost. Are your sleeping quarters all prepared?”

“Following your instructions, we’ve built grass shelters. Everyone squeezes together, and at night it’s warm. Forget frost—even if it snows, we’re not afraid.”

“Right, right, we’re not afraid.”

“Counting the days, our area should have snow too, but why hasn’t it snowed this year?”

“Though it hasn’t snowed, the weather is still this cold. Last night while sleeping, I later felt chilly and was actually frozen awake. Looking outside, the sky was pitch black without any light. I don’t even know what time it was.”

Zhao Hanzhang listened quietly, thinking to herself. She knew this era happened to be during a little ice age, with all kinds of natural disasters occurring frequently—not just in the Central Plains but also on the grasslands, which suffered tremendous losses.

The nomadic tribes’ large-scale attacks on the Central Plains also had this reason. When cold waves came, most of the cattle and sheep on the grasslands died. Combined with the nomadic tribes’ characteristics, they moved south to plunder the Han people.

Zhao Hanzhang sighed in her heart but showed a smile on her face. She laughed with them, saying, “When it gets cold, prepare more thatch. Do you know where to find thatch? I’ll go with you to cut some.”

She said with a smile, “Just right—my tent also needs some thatch added.”

Everyone was somewhat surprised and incredulous, hurrying to ask, “Your Excellency also uses thatch for warmth?”

Zhao Hanzhang nodded with a smile. “Laying thatch on beds is quite good.”

With this, everyone felt much closer to Zhao Hanzhang. They all laughed and said, “Yes, yes, laying thatch on beds is very soft and comfortable. Your Excellency, if you’re short, I’ll cut some for you later.”

Zhao Hanzhang didn’t refuse. She looked at the foundation they’d dug and nodded with satisfaction. “You should be able to finish digging today.”

“Yes, tomorrow we can drive wooden stakes. It’s just that bricks aren’t readily available yet, but waiting a bit longer, they’ll be here too.”

Zhao Hanzhang pointed to this area and asked, “If timber and stone materials can all be supplied, how long would it take you to finish building this area?”

Several people discussed it. “At least fifty days, right?”

“It won’t take that long, will it? We have so many people.”

“About the same. We spent two days just on the foundation, and time can’t be too short. Plus bricks and such need to be fired, and clay bricks need to dry…”

Zhao Hanzhang listened to their discussion, extracting the answers she wanted from it. She smiled and said, “If you can finish within fifty days, everyone won’t miss spring plowing.”

Hearing about spring plowing, everyone pricked up their ears and asked in succession, “Your Excellency, County Magistrate Chen said you’re going to distribute land and seeds to us—is this true?”

Actually, everyone didn’t lack land. Now people were dying everywhere, so there was land everywhere. Looking at those fields grown over with wild grass showed their owners weren’t around. Anyone could claim them.

But with land, the difficulty was having no seeds!

They couldn’t plant fields out of thin air.

Zhao Hanzhang nodded with a smile. “Right, I’ll provide the grain seeds. What do you all want to plant?”

“Wheat, right? Too bad winter’s passed, but spring works too. We can plant spring wheat.”

“Right, plant some spring wheat. Next year if luck’s good and there’s no warfare, after harvesting spring wheat, we can still plant beans.”

Zhao Hanzhang asked, “Why not continue planting winter wheat? I see most areas around here plant winter wheat.”

“We’ll naturally plant it then, but on different land,” a slightly older middle-aged man said. “The land’s strength is limited. With little fertilizer, after planting one season of wheat, it needs to rest a season. At most, we plant some beans to nourish the land, so it won’t become barren.”

Another youth said, “Anyway, there’s plenty of land now. If this plot isn’t suitable for wheat, just switch to another one. This way we can plant both spring and winter wheat.”

“Where there’s lots of water, we can plant rice. Your Excellency, I’m good at growing rice. Will you provide rice seeds?”

Zhao Hanzhang affirmed, “Naturally I’ll provide them. I also love eating white rice.”

“White rice…” Everyone imagined it hazily. “I vaguely remember its taste. Don’t say—it really is delicious.”

Zhao Hanzhang sighed. “Unfortunately, my abilities are limited. I can only give you coarse grain buns and rough grain porridge.”

Everyone hurried to say, “Your Excellency is already very good. There aren’t many officials like you in this world.”

“Not ‘not many’—I’ve never seen any.”

Zhao Hanzhang loved hearing them praise her. Hearing this, she smiled broadly while repeatedly warning herself in her heart that in the future, she mustn’t do wrong things just to hear these good words.

Indeed, people all have base instincts.

The Emperor also liked others praising him. Hearing Fu Zhi say Zhao Hanzhang greatly admired him—not only did she rescue Fu Zhi’s twenty thousand troops, she also insisted Fu Zhi bring soldiers back to Luoyang to protect him.

So when Fu Zhi proposed formally appointing Zhao Hanzhang as Yuzhou Provincial Governor, he hesitated briefly before agreeing.

However, this official document was still withheld. Though the Prince of Donghai wasn’t in the capital, his people were.

Now that Zhao Hanzhang and the Prince of Donghai were fighting fiercely, his people naturally wouldn’t let this imperial edict leave.

After the Emperor and Fu Zhi finally used these twenty thousand troops to barely stabilize the capital and replace quite a few officials, the Prince of Donghai returned to court with his army.

Even Fu Zhi couldn’t help lamenting that Heaven didn’t stand on the Emperor’s side.

If only the Prince of Donghai had returned a few days later, they could have arranged to cut off his rear support.