Chapter 419: The Great King Will Spend Money

The Great King gave them no chance to object and moved on to the next agenda. Please, this guy normally doesn't let officials oppose him at court either; at most three bigwigs can squeeze in a few words, forcibly dragging the schedule back.

I have already surveyed this area; there are still scattered residents and a bit of farmland inside. Our first task for the royal farm is land requisition, moving them out with compensation. Governor Jiang will handle it, and Zhao Bao, you are responsible for paying the silver.

Jiang Yong was completely bewildered the whole time, so he asked, 'Your Majesty, when did you conduct the survey?'

Once the Great King declared the meeting over and everyone had left, he picked up the map and scrutinized it—his astonishment knew no bounds.

This map was countless times more detailed than the one previously stored in Anding Commandery, and it even marked precise length and width? He wished he could go out immediately to verify whether it was really that accurate.

That night the Great King went over to the residence again; as soon as he stepped into Brother Bai's shop, he kept shouting, 'I'm here, I'm here—I'm begging you for the land-reclamation farming materials you were supposed to find! Hurry up and let me take a look!'

Bai Yang poked his head out from behind the counter and threw a stack of printed paper at him. 'The printer's about to smoke from overuse! I wanted to buy this kind of book at a bookstore, but even in the big city it's hard to find—too niche. Where can you even find wasteland to develop these days? So I went online, dug up some knowledge on this topic, trimmed it down, and printed it out. I typed it once, found the font off, switched to clerical script, and retyped it. Take a look and see if it seems natural when you take it out.'

The Great King took it to look at; the landscape format suited him just fine.

'Good, very good!'

He flipped through it himself—turns out farming has been turned into a full-fledged discipline.

It covers preliminary assessment of environment, terrain, water sources, and climate; ecological protection planning; clearing wasteland; soil improvement; and later irrigation and drainage construction. The Great King was extremely pleased.

As for site selection and water-source climate evaluation, those aren't needed—he just goes wherever there's open land, picks crops based on the soil, and still has the planting manual Mengmeng gave him when sending the seeds. Coincidentally, their studies in You Prefecture are about finished, so promoting this on the newly acquired land will kill several birds with one stone.

As for water sources, it's even simpler—the Great King will just pay for it.

'We'll hand it over to the technical advisors first thing tomorrow morning for them to study, and we'll officially start work this afternoon!'

Bai Yang wondered, 'Technical staff… and them? So wealthy, huh? Where did you find these technical advisors that they still need to learn on the job?'

The Great King ticked off his fingers and said, 'I don't know if you've heard of the great aristocratic clans of old in your time? The four young masters who will serve as technical advisors for my farm come respectively from the Chen Commandery Xie clan and the Fanyang Lu clan.'

Wow! The Xie and Lu clans have really flown into ordinary households.

Bai Yang: '……How did these four poor souls offend you?' If the Great King's actions were placed in the heyday of those ancient aristocratic families, even if he ascended the throne he'd be dragged off his horse. But the Great King's martial prowess… is wasted. The aristocracy truly won't be able to rise again this time.

'Nonsense! I don't stick to conventions when lowering myself to employ talent; giving these poetry‑versifying weak scholars a practical skill to rely on is simply boundless merit!' The Great King sincerely thought so.

Forget Bai Yang's regret—if only the Great King could bring people over sometime, he'd love to go along and visit!

That scene is simply unimaginable.

If the Great King's daily deeds were written down and unearthed two thousand years later, they'd surely be denounced as wild history!

The five hundred cavalry sent from Changli also proved useful; the Great King had them run a lap along the map to mark the farm's boundaries, barring miscellaneous persons from entering.

The governor and Zhao Bao set off to busy themselves with relocating the scattered residents inside, and the Great King again summoned the four heaven‑chosen unlucky fellows to hand out production materials.

'I've taken a look—this field isn't difficult, but specialties differ, right? Since there's only one set of study materials, to save time you'll each learn different parts; of course, you'll copy a set for yourselves later, and I'll have it published as a book when I return to You Prefecture.'

Meanwhile, Xie Tu was admiring the grim faces of his elder and younger brothers when the Great King called out to him: 'Later, also open a column in the newspaper, each issue teaching a bit of scientific farming know‑how. You also need to look over this material and pick out the practical bits to publish.'

Xie Tu: '……Yes.'

Xie Shu frowned as he watched, his brows knotting together; the Great King grew displeased: 'Xie Shu, don't resist learning!'

Xie Tu strained to keep his composure—'Nobody gets the reasoning but you, so you might as well do your homework!'

Xie Shu now just wants to return to the day they set out for You Prefecture, to slap himself hard in the face—better yet, just ruin his looks and stay indoors! Why did he enthusiastically join the Great King's plan and even find it fun? He wishes to beat up his past self from last month.

'Your Highness, may the commoner apply to swap the content he's responsible for?'

His assigned part is called '【Sustainable Farmland Management】', basically a lecture on scientific fertilization and pest control.

It's both flavorful and terrifying, with smell and sight damage maxed out.

Who wants to learn to identify sixteen common pests?!

The Great King is easy to talk to: 'Then I won't interfere—you saw that these were handed out randomly according to where you were just standing; see if anyone's willing to swap with you.'

He looked hopefully toward his brother and the Lu brothers; the other three craned their necks for a glance, then all clutched their precious materials tightly.

'I think scientific clearing is fine—I love pulling weeds!'

'What crop selection and planting also suits me—I just love farming!'

'Me too, me too!'

Xie Shu: ……

The Great King grinned, 'Look—happiness is really this simple.'