Chapter 93: 091

"Clang—clang—clang—clang!!!"

"Heave-ho! Heave-ho! Heave-ho!"

Beneath Ox Ridge, the clang of hammers and the rhythm of work chants rose and fell in waves.

A dozen or so men were chiseling and dressing stone, then carrying it to the riverbank to stack. Once the rocky shoal on the opposite shore was leveled, the quarried stone would be loaded onto boats and ferried across.

These stonemasons were all semi-amateurs.

In a small town like this, where would so much professional work come from?

Normally they made their living by farming; working as stonemasons was purely a side job to earn extra cash.

Even as amateur stonemasons, they were relatively brawny and strong, not as easy to bully as ordinary tenant farmers.

For this reason, Old Master Huang had shown special mercy: as long as they went into the hills to quarry stone, each man would get ten wen a day in wages, plus one meal of dry rice and one meal of congee.

"Food's here, food's here!" the foreman shouted.

Mealtime was around ten in the morning and around four in the afternoon every day. Eating only two meals a day was the custom in remote villages — not like over in Yanshan, where they ate three.

The dozen-odd stonemasons sat down together, picked up their bowls, and instantly exploded.

A stonemason named Huang Shun roared, "Weren't we supposed to get meat every five days? Why is it nothing but pickled vegetables!"

The foreman sneered. "You're lucky to have dry rice. Wretched hides like you still want meat?"

After the ruckus at the inn last time, Huang Zunde had grown somewhat fearful. Not afraid that the tenant farmers would rebel, but afraid they would stir up trouble again — delaying Young Master Zhao's construction schedule and, worse, losing face in front of Young Master Zhao.

So, for the tenant farmers leveling the rocky shoal, each household only had to send one person to work; the rest of the family could go busy themselves with the spring plowing.

Meanwhile, the workers who went into the hills to quarry stone and fell timber not only enjoyed the same treatment as ordinary tenant farmers, but also got to eat meat once every five days.

On the very first day the order was issued, everyone did indeed see meat, though the portions were extremely meager.

Now it happened to be the sixth day — the day they were supposed to eat meat — yet there wasn't the slightest trace of oil or fat. They were actually being made to eat pickled vegetables!

Did Old Master Huang say they'd eat meat, and so they'd eat meat?

The household slaves in charge of logistics and provisions, the foremen in charge of supervision — wouldn't they seize the chance to line their own pockets?

Skimmed layer by layer, all that remained was pickled vegetables.

The stonemasons ate their coarse rice and gnawed on pickled vegetables, their faces filled with fury.

Quarrying stone in the hills is heavy labor. One dry meal, one watery meal, and only pickled vegetables to chew — how could that fill a man's belly? It meant working on an empty stomach every day.

What's more, they were all the able-bodied laborers of their families. Without them, the spring plowing would certainly be delayed.

"Uncle Yao, have you heard? That Master Zhao from out of town — the wages he's paying per day are way more than ten wen," one stonemason said in a low voice.

Uncle Yao was called Huang Yao. His generational seniority was high, but he himself was only in his twenties.

Huang Yao had seen something of the world. Every year he was sent to the county seat to escort grain — that is, to transport the village's land tax to the county yamen. One year, the County Magistrate had even kept him on to help repair the city wall for half a year.

In that half year, he earned barely any wages, yet his own father back home starved to death, and his mother, to save grain, chose to hang herself.

Huang Yao asked, "How much in wages did Master Zhao give?"

That stonemason said, "Master Zhao put up a thousand taels of silver. Eight hundred taels to buy the rocky shoal, with Old Master Huang responsible for leveling the riverbank. The other two hundred taels are all wages for the stonemasons and lumberjacks. The money for the stone and timber Master Zhao is buying is separate."

The stonemasons were instantly stunned. Master Zhao really was rich!

One stonemason said, "For us quarrying stone, and those cutting trees — just the wages alone come to two hundred taels?"

"Isn't that so?" the earlier stonemason said. "The wages Master Zhao set at the start were: stonemasons eighty wen a day, lumberjacks sixty wen a day, and those over at the rocky shoal fifty wen a day. And now look — we quarrymen get ten wen a day, the tree-cutters get five wen a day, and the men at the rocky shoal get no wages at all!"

Another stonemason said, "I heard someone say too that Master Zhao didn't press for a deadline. He advised Old Master Huang to start work after the spring plowing was done."

"Then why is Old Master Huang in such a rush?"

"In a rush to get his hands on the silver. This warehouse hasn't even begun construction, and Master Zhao already put up a thousand taels. The remaining money — wouldn't it be several thousand taels more?"

"That dog-fucked Huang the Skinner!"

"This Master Zhao is truly a good man. I heard that when those tenant farmers got beaten and injured, he went that very night to deliver money and make amends. He's from out of town — how would he dare bully us locals? It's all Old Master Huang doing evil!"

"Ai, don't talk about it anymore. This is all fate. We were born with wretched lives!"

"……"

Before they had even finished eating, the foreman started hurrying them again. The men could only hastily shovel the food into their mouths.

In the afternoon, a stone suddenly tumbled down. One stonemason could not dodge in time, and his shinbone was crushed.

For a quarry, this was a very common workplace injury.

The foreman, unflustered, merely told Huang Yao to carry the injured man to the riverbank and wait for the boat to come and take him home.

The rest of the stonemasons continued working.

While waiting for the boat, Huang Yao asked, "Li Si is hurt. How will his medical expenses be handled?"

The foreman shot back, "He got himself hurt, so he pays his own medical expenses. What's that got to do with Old Master Huang?"

Huang Yao said no more, only clenched his fists tight.

……

The inn.

Huang Zunde's very form of address had changed. He demanded angrily, "Brother Zhao, why did you go in the middle of the night to make amends, and spout nonsense about having set wages?"

Zhao Han looked utterly bewildered. "What wages? This young master never mentioned any wages."

"Then did you or did you not go to the tenant farmers in the middle of the night to make amends?" Huang Zunde asked.

"I did," Zhao Han explained. "I'm an outsider. I still have to do business in Huang Family Town in the future — I can't afford to offend all those tenant farmers. My late father often said, in business, harmony brings wealth. If you beat people and injure them, what harmony is left? Once the warehouse is built in the future, if the locals stir up trouble every few days, how is my Zhao family supposed to conduct business?"

Huang Zunde reluctantly accepted this, then said with pained vehemence, "You were foolish. What is there to fear from a few wretched hides? If they dare make trouble, just beat them!"

Zhao Han gave a cold laugh. "You, Old Master Huang, can of course dare to beat them. But I'm an outsider — how would I dare? If I deeply offend the local commoners, and they burn my warehouse down in the middle of the night, I probably wouldn't even be able to cry about it — I might not even be able to find out who did it."

Huang Zunde had no rebuttal.

Zhao Han went on, "Brother Huang, you've never traveled far from home to do business. You don't know how difficult it is out there. Why do you think I gave you so much silver? Wasn't it precisely to build good relations with the local gentry? Do you really take me for a fat-headed fool squandering the family fortune?"

"Brother Zhao jests. I haven't cheated you out of any silver — where's this talk of a fat-headed fool coming from?" Huang Zunde said, somewhat embarrassed, and accepted this explanation.

Zhao Han went on, "My Zhao clan also had a warehouse in Quanzhou. Just because we offended some local thugs there, goods worth tens of thousands of taels were burned to ashes in one fire."

Huang Zunde winced just hearing it — tens of thousands of taels' worth of goods, gone in flames.

Zhao Han sighed. "Brother Huang, you beat people by day, and your humble brother here delivers silver by night. Do you think this is easy for me? In the dead of night, wouldn't I rather be in bed holding a maidservant?"

Huang Zunde asked, puzzled, "You really never brought up wages?"

"Why would I bring up wages? Am I that bored?" Zhao Han said glumly.

Huang Zunde took his leave. Something felt off, but he could not figure out what.

Even if Zhao Han were secretly stirring up the tenant farmers, there would have to be some scheme behind it.

But Zhao Han had already handed over a thousand taels of silver — what could he possibly gain by stirring up the tenants? There was no profit in it!

Turning it over and over in his mind, Huang Zunde still chose to believe him, because Zhao Han had no reason to bring up wages at all.

It had to be the tenants, resentful over the spring planting delays, with someone deliberately spreading rumors out of spite!

After returning home, Huang Zunde immediately sent more household slaves to act as overseers. Even during meals, the workers were forbidden to sit together — they had to eat spaced at least three paces apart.

This silver was more than Huang Zunde could swallow alone.

The land acquisition involved three great households, all branches of the Huang lineage that had split off. The hundred-plus household slaves mobilized that day had been pooled by all three families; Huang Zunde himself could only muster sixty-odd.

In Master Huang's household, counting the maidservants and the old cooking woman, the number of household slaves barely exceeded a hundred.

……

The eighth day of work on the riverbank.

Resentment and fury had reached a breaking point. With private conversation forbidden on the worksite, the atmosphere could be described as "exchanging glances on the road."

Moreover, the treatment of the workers at the rocky shoal had grown even worse.

More overseers had been added, and more people were skimming off shares. The daily gruel provided was as thin as clear water. The workers could not eat their fill, and when they returned home at night, they still had to cook their own meals just to supplement.

Boom!

A tenant farmer carrying crushed stone suddenly collapsed in a faint.

"Passed out again?" the foreman said, frowning.

Another overseer remarked, "Probably shirking."

The foreman was amused. "Shirking my ass. You eat that little every day and do heavy labor nonstop — you'd pass out too."

The overseers all laughed, hoping a few more would drop dead from exhaustion.

These tenant farmers were all the able-bodied laborers of their households. Once they worked themselves to death on this site, their families would certainly be unable to pay the rent this year.

The overseers were all Master Huang's trusted men. They could urge their master to seize the tenancies and reassign the land to their own families to farm. The whole town had only so much land; the more tenants died, the more farmland would open up.

The tenant who had collapsed from exhaustion was carried to the side and left lying there for a while.

The moment he came to and was about to drink some water, an overseer lashed him with a whip. "Still shirking! Get back to work!"

They meant to beat him, meant to hound him — working him to death was the best outcome.

One of the paddy fields this man tenant-farmed had a fairly good harvest. If they worked him to death, he would be certain to fall behind on rent this year. Then, with a little urging at the right moment, his tenancy would surely be seized next year.

In a harsh environment, when one of your own kind dies, you can tear the flesh and share the feast!

The laborers all stopped their work and glared furiously at the overseers, yet none dared rise up in revolt.

"What are you looking at? Asking for a beating!" the foreman bellowed.

The pent-up rage was forcibly suppressed once more, and everyone could only bury their heads and keep working.

Suddenly, Zhao Han came strolling toward the worksite with Xiaohong and Xiaocui, followed by two inn attendants behind him.

The foreman hurried over to greet him, bobbing his head and bowing low. "Young Master Zhao, what brings you here?"

Zhao Han smiled. "I came to check on the progress."

The foreman thumped his chest. "Young Master Zhao, rest assured, I guarantee they'll work fast. Anyone who dares disobey, I'll flog him half to death!"

The overseers all chimed in their agreement.

Zhao Han raised his voice and urged them, "We're all neighbors from the same countryside — we see each other every day, whether we like it or not. Better not to beat people. I'm a businessman; I believe in amiability bringing wealth. If you beat people senseless, where's the amiability in that? Everyone will end up hating me."

Many of the tenant farmers nearby heard this and felt that Master Zhao was a reasonable man; it was their own town's Master Huang who was truly rotten.

Zhao Han had the two inn attendants set down the wooden buckets they had carried over and shouted loudly, "Fellow villagers, come over here! You've been working hard. I've prepared a little tea as a small token of appreciation for all of you."

The foreman dared not interfere and hurriedly flattered him, "Young Master Zhao is truly benevolent." Then he turned and roared at the crowd, "Get over here and drink your tea, now!"

The tenant farmers gathered around, fetching bowls and waiting to drink.

With a warm, genial smile, Zhao Han asked with concern, "How has everyone been getting along? Don't worry — you're working for me, and I guarantee I won't let you be shortchanged."

The crowd looked at one another.

Suddenly, one tenant farmer dropped to his knees and wept bitterly. "Master Zhao, save us!"

(End of chapter)