First were Youzhou and Jizhou. After Wang Jun and Liu Kun finished their battle and returned, both happily held grand banquets, celebrating with their subordinate generals and advisors the expansion of their territories.

Wang Jun celebrated for a full month. Every day there were songs, dances, and music in rotation. His main purpose was to take this opportunity to meet with officials from Youzhou and Qingzhou, displaying his brilliance, martial prowess, and strength to them and his advisors.

Only by making them acknowledge him could he take things further. It would be even better if in the future they were the ones to suggest he establish himself as king.

So even though it was the height of spring plowing season, he paid little attention to it.

Spring plowing, after all—peasants planted crops year after year. How could they not know what to plant and how to plant it? Even if they didn’t, there were still county officials. Why would he, a regional governor, need to worry about it?

Therefore, he did not concern himself with spring plowing matters. Even when officials reported that this year’s climate was abnormal, with snowfall since the start of winter being about thirty percent less than in previous years, and since the beginning of spring only one spring rain had fallen, he still did not think much of it and simply told officials to proceed according to established practice.

Proceeding according to established practice, officials could only have county magistrates in each county make drought prevention preparations.

Orders were issued. By the time county magistrates snapped out of Wang Jun’s celebration banquet and set aside their tasks of singing praises to begin preparing to organize drought resistance, it was already too late.

The farmers had already plowed the fields and sown wheat seeds. Wanting to switch to more drought-resistant crops like millet, beans, and sorghum was already too late. All they could do was organize manpower to dig wells and excavate irrigation channels…

But some places were poorly organized. In this area they expended massive amounts of manpower and material resources, which instead encroached on the labor and time for irrigating the fields. The common people complained bitterly.

After Youzhou went seventy consecutive days without rain, this resentment and fear of natural disaster erupted together. People in Youzhou began attacking county offices over water disputes.

The situation in Jizhou was not much better than in Youzhou.

Wang Jun celebrated for a month, missing the golden opportunity. Liu Kun was different—songs, dances, and music were standard operations for him. To him, every day was a banquet.

After conquering half of Jizhou, he had people construct channels for transmitting information, but was not urgent about it. He always did things in a casual and carefree manner, and did not press his subordinates.

Therefore, information transmission in Jizhou was extremely slow. Fortunately, once he received the news, he immediately began to address it.

After thinking it over, he also began having people dig wells and excavate irrigation channels to ensure farmland irrigation. But with information going back and forth, and Jizhou only recently recovered, officials had poor coordination. Local common people mostly obeyed the commands of local gentry rather than his orders.

Moreover, bandits ran rampant everywhere. Liu Kun had not dispatched anyone to deal with them at all. Thus, when he issued orders from Jinyang, the counties and commanderies of Jizhou each went their own way and did not follow his commands.

Local gentry and officials all felt that large-scale water conservancy projects at this time would waste manpower, so they only sent people to find places to dig wells.

There happened to be few people skilled at well-digging, and even fewer who could find water sources. Without effective organization, they likewise expended massive amounts of manpower yet still could not accomplish anything.

When they discovered that rainfall was scarce this year, wheat seeds had already been sown. When they were making a commotion digging wells everywhere, they missed the farming season for planting millet and beans…

Most of Youzhou, Jizhou, and Bingzhou planted spring wheat, because winters were too cold. These areas were not suitable for growing winter wheat.

Wheat was more drought-resistant than rice, but far less so than sorghum, millet, and beans.

Zhao Hanzhang remembered this major natural disaster from history and had begun preparing for it two years ago.

Every year there were tasks to dredge channels and construct water conservancy infrastructure. She organized several teams of well-digging experts, combining talented and unusual individuals skilled at finding water sources.

After taking Luoyang last year, she had Fu Tinghan, in his capacity as Minister of Works, widely recruit people who understood how to find water sources and read weather patterns. Among them were even down-and-out Daoist priests who knew feng shui.

These people followed the well-digging teams everywhere searching for water sources and digging wells, completely regardless of gains and losses. All the money, grain, and travel expenses were provided by Zhao Hanzhang. She also gave them high monthly salaries and promised their children could attend schools and workshops to study and work in the future.

The treatment was extremely generous.

Last year, Zhao Hanzhang frequently sought out Xiahou Yan and Zhang Xie for conversations, inviting them to observe celestial phenomena at night. She also asked Zhao Zhongyu to consult the court’s Directorate of Astronomy officials. When she went to see Fu Zhi at the beginning of the year, she also inquired about celestial phenomena and questioned many old farmers. The answers she received all indicated that this year would likely bring drought.

Therefore, well before spring plowing, Zhao Hanzhang had written to remind Liu Kun, telling him to prepare more drought-resistant grain seeds and make early drought prevention preparations.

But at that time, Liu Kun was in Jinyang dealing with the pincer attack from Liu Cong and Wang Jun. Survival itself was a problem—how could he care about spring plowing several months later?

When the hostilities ended, Zhao Hanzhang wrote again to remind him and asked if he had prepared enough grain seeds. If not, she could provide some assistance.

Liu Kun readily accepted at the time. But the grain seeds he received, he distributed to the common people of Jinyang. Therefore, the most severely affected northern Jizhou had no preparation at all and naturally no material support.

The southern territories that Zu Ti had conquered were in somewhat better condition. First, they had two more spring rains than some northern areas. Second, Zu Ti halted military operations during spring plowing and organized the common people in an orderly fashion to dig wells and resist drought. Third, Zhao Hanzhang had also provided him with considerable drought-resistant grain seeds, and he personally supervised the people planting them all.

This year they reduced the acreage sown with spring wheat and increased the acreage of drought-resistant crops like beans, millet, and sorghum.

Shi Le, who had also ceased competing with Zu Ti for territory due to spring plowing, immediately purchased a batch of bean seeds after seeing their operations and had his subjects sow additional crops.

“Last winter was very cold, but it only snowed five times, two of which were very light and melted in a single night. Since the beginning of spring until now, there has been even less rain and snow water,” Shi Le said. “Zhao Hanzhang has many talented and unusual people under her command. She must have seen early on that there would be drought, which is why she had Zu Ti reduce wheat planting so early. We can’t dig up wheat that’s already been sown, but we can add bean planting. If the drought is truly this severe, we can still ensure a harvest.”

His subordinate officials agreed and also paid close attention to irrigation matters among the people.

Zu Ti happened to occupy their upstream territory. They thought he would cut off the water supply, but unexpectedly, not only did Zu Ti not actively cut off water, he even mediated water use disputes between upstream and downstream areas, persuading upstream common people to release water so downstream areas could also irrigate.

Officials reported this matter. Shi Le was deeply impressed and said somewhat enviously: “With such a person, Zhao Hanzhang has gained powerful wings.”

Shi Le had sent out two major generals, both defeated by Zu Ti. Naturally he could see that all the military equipment in Zu Ti’s army came from Zhao’s forces.

Zhao’s forces had excellent weapons. Most famously, their long spears and large sabers. Shi Le had started as a bandit, and in the early days his weapons basically came from plunder. Later Liu Yuan sent some, but they were also very ordinary.

Now he collected taxes himself and forged his own weapons, but his subordinates’ talents could not compare with Zhao Hanzhang’s, and the weapons they produced were far inferior to those of Zhao’s forces.

Zhao’s forces had been able to defeat the valiant and battle-tested forces of Shi Le and the Xiongnu several times partly due to Zhao Hanzhang’s command, and partly due to their weapons and equipment.

Therefore, when the front lines reported that Zu Ti’s army was almost entirely equipped with weapons produced by Zhao’s forces, he knew this was a pawn planted by Zhao Hanzhang.

Now, probably only the Jin court still did not know, right?

Shi Le sneered coldly, planning to tell the Jin Emperor and Gou Xi this “good news” during the summer solstice heaven worship ceremony. The scene would certainly be very interesting then.

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