Chapter 10: The Prince's Struggles and Reflections

Li You's face was full of sincerity as he spoke.

Fusu then instructed, "With so many people, I fear Zhang Han cannot manage them all."

Li You added, "Prince, rest assured. My father has arranged for quite a few officials to oversee things, and the Minister of the Imperial Treasury has taken over ten men to reside on the edge of Shangshan."

Taking the roster handed over by Li You, Fusu saw the name of the Minister of the Imperial Treasury on it; this person was named Wang Bi.

So, the son of the Grand General Wang Jian was already one of the Nine Ministers of the imperial court, the Minister of the Imperial Treasury in charge of the Emperor's private property.

"Are you close with Wang Bi?"

Li You thought for a moment, then replied, "I am not acquainted with Wang Bi, though I do frequently associate with his son, Wang Li."

Fusu nodded thoughtfully and said, "I have troubled you, and I have troubled the teacher as well."

Li You bowed and took his leave. After departing Gaoquan Palace, he still thought to himself that the Prince was just as humble and wise as the rumors suggested.

With the help of the imperial court, Fusu returned to his state of having nothing to do, becoming once again the most leisurely person in all of Great Qin during this annoying and rainy autumn.

With nothing to do, Fusu walked through Xianyang Palace, strolling and admiring this Xianyang Palace at the same time.

Xianyang Palace was huge; if this imperial palace covering over ten thousand mu was a home, it was perhaps a bit too large.

Seeing the Prince walk to the boardwalk in the lake and sit down, Tian An added, "In those days, in order to contend for the world, the Six States built their palaces one larger than the next, and the various schools of thought would evaluate which state's palace was the largest and most beautiful."

The sky remained gloomy, looking as if it were about to rain again.

Fusu asked, "Xianyang Palace is the best."

Tian An nodded with a smile.

"The palaces of the Six States were all destroyed, so the only one left is the Qin palace, which is the largest."

Tian An explained, "In those days, the successive Qin kings of Great Qin wished to fulfill the great ambition of unifying the world, so they built Xianyang Palace to be very large. If one were to look back twenty years, the Xianyang Palace of that time also possessed a momentum that looked down upon the world; as early as one hundred years ago, the Xianyang Palace of Qin was already larger and more beautiful than those of the other six states."

Fusu stood up again, walked across the boardwalk, and listened to Tian An's rambling.

Once this old man's chatterbox was opened, there was a tendency for it to never stop; after he spoke too much, one would fear that this old man would become sad again and weep bitterly.

Tian An was the most elderly Attendant in this Xianyang Palace; he was a person from the era of Huayang Taihou.

Speaking of the events of those years, the old man knew them like the back of his hand.

Sometimes, Fusu even had to consult this old man.

Walking to the north side of Xianyang Palace, there were many women here busy tending to various garments, sweeping the ground, and tidying up miscellaneous items.

The women here saw a youth dressed in silk robes approaching; this youth looked to be fifteen or sixteen years old and still had some dark, soft fuzz on his face.

But when the palace maids saw the old Attendant in black robes standing beside this youth, they all lowered their heads and bowed.

There were countless beauties in Xianyang Palace; some of these beauties were offered by various states, and others were captured after the various states were defeated.

In short, the current Xianyang Palace was the wealthiest place in the world.

People, after all, always hope that their home is as large as possible; this dream has existed since ancient times.

And it is passed down through generations in human genes.

Fusu did not stop his pace, left this place, and hummed a folk song he had learned from the fields all the way back to Gaoquan Palace.

Small Seal Script characters are not difficult to write, but writing them well requires a solid foundation.

Fusu followed his teacher's calligraphy to write a few Small Seal Script characters, but he could not master the teacher's brushwork.

Afterward, feeling somewhat unconvinced, he wrote a simplified character on the side. After comparing them, he used a small knife to scrape the character off the Bamboo Slip.

Tian An stood to the side, and a realization dawned on him: so the Prince also had times when he was in a bad mood; he discovered that the Prince disliked writing.

Fusu set down the Bamboo Slip and lay on his side to pick up a scroll of the Classic of History to read.

In the spring, Shangyan Mountain was a wasteland; at that time, opening irrigation canals to water the wasteland was still his own affair.

Now, are the affairs under Shangyan Mountain still his own affair?

That was fast becoming a major affair of the state.

Now, he finally did not need to worry about the affairs over there, nor did he need to worry about whether those servants would go hungry, whether they had no place to live, or whether they had resolved their toilet or hygiene issues.

He had thought he could put this matter down in his heart and hand it over completely to the imperial court to handle; how good that would have been.

When a person is troubled, they should read the books of that old man Zhuangzi.

Learn from that old man Zhuangzi's attitude toward life.

Looking at how that old man Zhuangzi lived a life of poverty and hardship, yet could still live out the attitude of "the joy of fish"—"You are not me, how do you know the joy of fish?"

Zhuangzi's attitude toward life is indeed worth contemplating; if one lived like a Zhuangzi, there would not be so many troubles.

Fusu read Zhuangzi in the hope that he could be like Zhuangzi, shake off all troubles, cast the hardships of those servants' lives to the back of his mind, forget all their joys and sorrows, and it would be best to even forget whether they lived or died.

Continue to be a carefree Prince of Qin.

Why worry about those things?

Are the beauties in the inner palace of Xianyang Palace not beautiful enough?

Is eating and drinking, forming cliques, and seeking private gain not delightful?

Even if he married Li Si's daughter and lived a bit more selfishly, threatening Li Si while inheriting this empire, would that not be good?

A night passed...

When Fusu opened his eyes, the sky was still gray; he had not slept well all night.

After a night of ideological struggle and a night of self-reflection, Fusu was ultimately defeated by that inexplicable sense of responsibility.

This was perhaps a kind of empathy and sense of responsibility that came with him when he transmigrated from later generations.

This kind of empathy had long been rooted in his way of thinking; coming from the toiling masses, he would ultimately have to walk together with them.

Only in this way could he be... at peace with himself.

In the final analysis, where did this empathy and sense of responsibility come from? It came from where I came from and what kind of land I grew up on.

Fusu truly loved this land very much; in both lifetimes, he loved it too much.

This emotion and empathy had already formed a barrier.

Even if one reads the Legalist classics three thousand times, and the works of the various schools of thought ten thousand times, one cannot break through such ideological armor.

That spirit is the most powerful weapon from the bottom of one's heart; no matter where one is, or who one is, one must always keep it in mind.

When the day was fully bright, Fusu, under the escort of Meng Tian, arrived at Shangyan Mountain once again.

Seeing that it was the Prince arriving in his carriage, Wang Bi hurriedly stepped forward to salute and said, "Prince."

Fusu stepped down from the carriage and saw this Minister of the Lesser Treasury who looked to be around forty years old.

Grand General Wang Jian is a Great General of Qin, and his son was originally a Great General as well, possessing significant Military Merit, and is even a Marquis of Great Qin.

However, at this moment he was wearing the court robes of a civil official; Wang Bi ranks among the Nine Ministers, which is likely the intention of the Prime Minister.

Fusu walked beside the newly paved straight road used for transporting supplies and asked, "Has Grand General Wang Jian not returned yet?"

Wang Bi respectfully replied, "My family has sent letters several times; my father will likely return to Guanzhong this winter."

Fusu looked into the distance and saw Li You, who was organizing the civil officials to arrange the manpower, as well as Zhang Han, who was resting one hand on the sword at his waist.

Zhang Han was supervising a group of servants digging earth.

Logically speaking, this land was bestowed by the Imperial Father, so it counts as the private property of me, a Prince of Qin.

Fusu inspected these servants and the prisoners brought by Li You; these people were all part of his private property.

One person is one mouth to feed; they must eat and drink.

The living conditions at the foot of Shangyan Mountain are very crude; in this rainy and windy autumn, one will fall ill if one does not live well.

Little did he know, managing people is a very tiring task; wanting people to live a little better is no easy feat.

Even in such a small place of his own, it is very difficult to govern the daily lives of three thousand people well.

Fusu also saw many prisoners who had only tied a piece of cloth around their waists.

It was already troublesome enough to manage three thousand servants; if these people were all equipped, that would be a great army.

But things have reached this point, so he could only bite the bullet and proceed.

Under Wang Bi's very puzzled gaze, Fusu simply took over all matters here and personally presided over the construction.

The food for three thousand people relied entirely on self-sufficiency; Fusu calculated and decided to have Wang Bi send the surplus grain to the army, while the rest would be his own.

Wang Bi watched as the many construction plans for the Prince's estate were written onto scroll after scroll of Bamboo Slip.

Every time a scroll was finished, Wang Bi would take a look; the Prince's Small Seal Script indeed appeared unrefined, but the content written was truly very interesting.

The Prince had actually arranged working hours for these people.

It is said that the Prince's teacher is the current Prime Minister Li Si, but after Wang Bi read the content written by the Prince, he saw that the Prince had arranged what every servant should do every hour very meticulously.

For example, every servant must wash up every morning, and they must supervise and check each other; if someone falls ill, it must be reported, otherwise, they will be punished together under the system of collective responsibility.

Even the time for going to sleep was arranged, and there were people patrolling at night.

After reading, Wang Bi sighed.

Li You followed Wang Bi's footsteps, and once there was no one else around, he spoke up: "Why does Minister Wang sigh?"

Wang Bi said, "Chunyu Yue worried that the Prince would only listen to the Prime Minister's side of the story; now it seems the Prince is even more extreme than the Prime Minister."

Li You scratched the back of his head and asked in confusion, "Truly?"

Wang Bi's expression was quite grave as he nodded slowly.

Compared to the harshness of Qin law, the Prince's rules are more like military regulations, and the severity of these military regulations involves every aspect of life.

Even going to the latrine must be done in a designated place; it could not be more strict.

In fact, Li Si had never taught these things; Fusu just felt that when encountering difficulties, there are always more solutions than difficulties.

Looking across the entire Shangyan Mountain, the assets are actually not much—nothing more than three thousand people, five hundred qing of land, and those lands yet to be reclaimed.

Fusu was very satisfied with the rules he had established; if management is not strict, it is equivalent to not managing at all.

Zhang Han is a person who values rules very much, and he would very firmly execute his authority and the rules.

There were servants who were illiterate, so Zhang Han made them memorize, having them recite all these rules completely.

During this time, the sound of a whip came several times; it was likely that someone had recited incorrectly and was beaten by Zhang Han.

Although they were illiterate, they could still speak, and if they could speak, they could memorize.

Fusu could occasionally hear them reciting with their respective local accents.

In the autumn of Guanzhong, the autumn rain was intermittent; these days Fusu had been personally supervising the construction of the river canals.

Today the official road was very lively, with carriage after carriage covered in black cloth being sent to Xianyang City.

Covered under the black cloth were carriage after carriage of treasures, and even many silks and satins.

Vaguely visible were many logs and bricks, and even some jade artifacts.

The treasures and spoils of war had been sent first, and another batch of the Qin Army had returned to Guanzhong.

This meant that Grand General Wang Jian would also be returning soon.

Zhang Han saw the Prince beckon, so he stepped forward quickly and said, "Prince."

Fusu stared at the several large carts of clothing and asked, "Are these clothes confiscated from the battlefield?"

Zhang Han looked up and saw the carts piled high like small mountains with clothes; some of these clothes clearly had signs of tearing, the fabrics were tangled together, and there were even some bloodstains.

"Replying to the Prince, yes."

After a war, soldiers would sweep the battlefield and take away everything they could.

And in the eyes of the generals, in the face of the interests of Qin, people are productivity and need to be captured, while livestock are tools of production that need to be transported or redistributed on the spot.

The enemies who had already died were useless; aside from serving as fertilizer, their clothes also belonged to the Qin Army.

The Prince had only asked this, but today while eating, Zhang Han and Li You sat together eating flatbread and talked about the Prince's words from today.

Li You said, "The Prince only said that one sentence?"

Zhang Han said, "Only asked one sentence."

While eating, besides the few hundred men from the army, Wang Bi, Li You, and Zhang Han were the three sitting closest.

Wang Bi ate very earnestly and did not express any opinion.

Li You said, "My father says the Prince is extremely gifted; the Prince manages these three thousand people just like managing livestock."

Zhang Han sniffed and nodded incessantly, agreeing quite a bit, saying, "To deal with prisoners, one must use the harshest rules and also use whips to lash them."

The next day, after the morning Court Discussion concluded, Wang Bi had people pull three full carts of clothes and send them to Shangyan Mountain.

Zhang Han had people dig a pool, soak all these clothes in the pool, and then wash and dry them.

People in the nearby villages and counties were all very curious about what this newly constructed village at the foot of Shangyan Mountain was actually like.

The people in this village were dressed in rags, the houses they lived in were all piled up with mud and straw, and the people here did not even have a single decent piece of clothing to wear.

Especially during this autumn rainy season, the ground was muddy and most people were still barefoot.

At noon, by the canal of Shangyan Mountain, a strange sight appeared: a large group of men were washing clothes right by the canal; they washed clothes for the whole day, and by nightfall, the clothes were hung up one by one to dry.

Looking down from the mountain, these rows of drying clothes were very neat.

That night, a group of prisoners wanted to escape; Zhang Han personally chased them for several miles before catching them, and right by the canal being excavated, he beat them to death.

By the next day, Fusu learned the news and only then realized that he was still in this barbaric and simple era.

Thus, Fusu learned another principle, gained a new realization: having harsh rules also requires harsh execution.

(End of this chapter)