Chapter 14: The Last Crop of Vegetables

The person who arrived was none other than Li You. He walked quickly to the doorway and saluted, saying, "Prince, my father and General Meng Tian are on their way."

"Meng Tian is coming too?"

Li You placed his hands near the stove to warm them and said in a low voice, "General Meng Tian came in a hurry. My father returned from the palace last night and hasn't slept since; it is likely a very important matter."

Outside the study, Nuer was leading a group of women in preparing the day's meal.

Since winter began, there were fewer and fewer vegetables to eat, and the pickled radishes prepared in autumn had all been distributed to every household.

Fusu ignored Li You's words and instead asked toward the outside, "What are we eating today?"

Hearing the Prince's question, Tian An replied, "General Zhang Han cut a great deal of celery and brought it over. He said it is the last of the winter celery; after the snow, there will be no more green vegetables."

Fusu saw cart after cart piled high with celery like small hills being pulled past him, and said, "Very good, then we shall eat celery."

"I will go prepare it now."

Zhang Han's appetite was quite large on ordinary days; as long as it was edible, he could eat it.

While the house servants were eating celery, Zhang Han was also chewing on celery, one bite of raw celery followed by one bite of flatbread.

Having finished the last crop of vegetables for this winter, Guanzhong officially entered the season where nothing living remained on the ground.

After the meal, the women here put on thick clothing and began weaving linen, preparing clothes for the winter.

Nowadays, large armies were returning to Guanzhong one after another, and the spoils of war being sent over were increasing.

Just as Li You had said, Prime Minister Li Si arrived at this place with General Meng Tian and a troop of soldiers; this time, they also brought many implements.

The scene was somewhat chaotic and busy; soldiers coming and going pulled cart after cart of items into this small village.

Meng Tian explained, "Another troop of soldiers returned from Hangu Pass yesterday and brought these as well. Grand General Wang Jian entrusted someone to bring them, saying they were spoils of war to be presented to the Prince."

Fusu stood in the snow looking at these things; they had already been covered by a thick layer of snow.

These items could be classified as miscellaneous spoils; it was clear enough that Grand General Wang Jian was a very frugal man. Returning victorious, he had brought back everything he could, including these sundries—to be precise, these were just sundries.

One still had to pick through them piece by piece to see if they could be used.

Fusu looked through the carts of sundries brought by the army. These things were not intact; they were like piles of wood stacked together, and one could not tell what they were.

There were even some unknown pottery jars with peculiar styles. Nuer picked out a few small pottery pots; the carvings on the outside were very beautiful, likely items from the royal palace of Chu.

Li Si saw the Prince and the others busily picking through these sundries, selecting useful items, and the Prince even smiled happily.

It was rare to have the leisure to come here to visit the Prince... seeing this, Li Si also smiled, standing to the side and smiling the whole time.

Fusu pulled a piece of wood from a half-destroyed plow and said, "Teacher, are there many such sundries in the army?"

Li Si nodded and said, "There are quite a few. If the Prince needs them, I shall have more sent over."

"Good."

Li Si took a scroll of documents from his sleeve and said, "These are military documents. Grand General Meng Wu intends to send all two thousand prisoners from Shangyan Mountain to the Yan lands to build the Great Wall."

Upon hearing this, Fusu's movements paused.

Li Si seemed to see through the Prince's thoughts and added, "Meng Wu fell ill after this campaign against Chu and can no longer travel far. He is letting General Meng Tian make the trip to the Yan lands."

Fusu continued dismantling the various implements built from wood; some were even parts of large beds that had been taken apart, and others bore traces of having been scorched.

Fusu was like a waste recycler, very patiently sorting and organizing these things sent by the army.

Meng Tian was finally going to build the Great Wall, and he was to take these two thousand prisoners with him.

It was just like the stubborn insistence Great Qin had regarding the County System.

Building the northern Great Wall was the same.

Li Si beckoned behind him, and Meng Tian understood and stepped forward, saluting: "Prince."

At this moment, Meng Tian was wearing the armor unique to the Qin Army; one could hear the friction of the armor as he walked. He cupped his hands in a salute and said, "Prince, this subordinate has received the imperial decree to head to the Yan lands to build the Great Wall."

Grand General Meng Wu was elderly, and Grand General Wang Jian was also old. Great Qin had unified the Six States and had also destroyed the final state of Chu, but this war seemed to have drained Great Qin dry.

Grand General Meng Wu could no longer travel far, and Grand General Wang Jian had been slow to return; perhaps it was because he was too elderly to travel for long.

The future of Great Qin would still depend on the next generation.

Fusu patted his shoulder and said, "Take care on your journey."

Meng Tian saluted once more, then led his men to assemble the two thousand prisoners.

These prisoners were like a loan to Shangyan Mountain, and now they were being taken away by Meng Tian. After the Yan and Zhao lands were incorporated into Great Qin, the defense of the northern border was extremely important; they had no choice but to sacrifice the progress of excavating the Longshou Canal and send men to build the Great Wall.

Although he had expected this for some time, and Meng Tian had mentioned this matter before.

He had not seen him for nearly half a year, yet the moment they met, there was no time to say much before he had to rush to the north.

Fusu saw off Meng Tian and those two thousand prisoners.

Zhang Han gazed toward the north, as if seeing Meng Tian off; it was unclear whether his eyes held envy or sympathy.

After those prisoners left, Fusu felt that the space behind Zhang Han was empty; previously, one or two people would always follow behind him, waiting for orders at any time.

After composing his mood, Fusu had to face reality once again and began to calculate his private property.

His so-called private property was nothing more than three thousand house servants and several hundred qing of land.

Li Si and Li You were arguing outside the house; it seemed some conflict had arisen between this father and son.

Fusu left this place, and only after walking far away did he feel a bit more at peace. He saw Tian An repairing a spinning wheel.

While he was repairing the spinning wheel, a group of women were watching.

Fusu stepped forward, took a look, and said, "Why not install a pedal at the bottom? That way, you wouldn't have to waste effort by using one hand to pull the thread."

Upon hearing this, the movement of Tian An's hands stopped.

Fusu then explained the principles of the spinning wheel.

Tian An nodded and said, "The Prince's words make sense; I shall try it."

Thus, Fusu had something to do when he was idle, standing to the side and watching Tian An modify the spinning wheel.

This old spinning wheel was also something captured by the Qin Army and sent here.

Seeing that it was not severely damaged, Tian An thought to repair it. While tapping away with a wooden mallet, he said, "Prince, this is a spinning wheel of the Chu people. Back then, Confucian Scholars from all over Qi and Lu went to the Chu people to have their clothes made; the Chu people's spinning wheels are the best spinning wheels."

Fusu leaned against the pine tree behind him and asked again, "What about now?"

"If what Prince says can truly be built, then this spinning wheel made by the Qin people will be the best in the world."

Fusu sighed with emotion, "If the Chu and the Confucian Scholars learn that the Qin have better weaving techniques, and if it steals their customers, they will surely curse the tyrannical Qin again."

Tian An smiled knowingly and said, "If Prince's household servants use weaving to earn some grain and money, then Prince's family estate can be considered stable."

Fusu smiled and said, "I am not short of money."

Tian An nodded, "The wine offered by General Wang Bi is worth tens of thousands of coins; Prince is indeed not short of money."

Under the current Qin Law, wine is very valuable.

In this era, money really does not count for much; grain is the most important thing, and agriculture is the foundation of the state.

Even the three thousand household servants on this land beneath my feet still have to carefully calculate for every grain.

The Commoners do not even know how much money is worth; they are still in the social stage of bartering.

Life under Shangyan Mountain is very simple, two meals a day.

Only the meal at noon is eaten hot, which gives it a bit of the warmth of human life.

In the evening, everyone just gnaws on dry rations; there is no open fire for roasting.

Now, two thousand prisoners have left here, and the pressure has suddenly lessened a lot, but the work of building the underground canal and vertical shafts can only rely on these three thousand household servants.

Fusu stood by the spinning wheel, watching the diligent household servants put the old items brought from the army into one storeroom after another; these things do not belong to the servants, and even their lives belong to Prince Fusu.

Tian An skillfully used a Tenon and Mortise to make a lever; Fusu looked suspiciously at the old man's technique being so proficient—was this old man a craftsman by trade?

He had never heard Tian An speak of his past; he only said he had been in Xianyang Palace for many, many years.

Under the old man's skillful hands and feet, a spinning wheel finally underwent a transformation.

Tian An sat down in front of the spinning wheel, holding the thread with one hand and supporting the other end of the thread with the other, then lifted his foot to step on the pedal, and the hemp thread switched sides.

The women all around exclaimed when they saw this scene, and their eyes were fixed on the spinning wheel, each one wanting to claim it for herself.

Whoever obtained this spinning wheel would be able to become the person who weaves the most cloth here.

After Fusu and Tian An left, the group of old women began to quarrel over the spinning wheel, even starting to fight, and some were even spitting at each other.

So you see, the Qin people are very simple; in order to realize their own value, they will stop at nothing.

Fusu was sitting in the carriage returning to the palace when he suddenly realized something and asked, "What are Teacher and Li You arguing about?"

Tian An replied, "Prime Minister hopes that Li You will continue to serve as a Commandant in the court, but he wants to resign from his official post."

Li You is only a Commandant in the court who delivers documents, which is probably helping to check the origin of documents, the content of documents, or where the documents need to be sent.

Teacher is still very earnest in teaching Li You, handing the best and most tempering positions to his son.

Of course, Li You is not the person in charge of these matters.

The person in charge of Shangyan Mountain is naturally me, this Prince, and the people supervising the construction of the canal are Wang Bi and Zhang Han.

It is the same as going to Hedong; Teacher can always place Li You on the front line but in a position where he does not have to take the blame if something goes wrong.

Fusu felt very sympathetic toward Teacher; a young man of this age is in a rebellious phase, and who wouldn't want to live more for themselves? Rebellion is inevitable.

After the heavy snow in Guanzhong stopped, there was a rare bit of sunshine.

The canal excavation work, which had been suspended for many days, finally started again; Prince's household servants tied hemp ropes around their bodies and jumped into the vertical shafts one after another, and then baskets of mud would be pulled up.

When the people in the vertical shafts climbed up again, they were covered in yellow earth from head to toe.

Li You did not want to go home; he truly lived together with Prince's household servants and even went down into the shafts to dig the canal with them.

After a day's work ended, Li You was thrown into the cold Luo River by Prince's household servants to have a good wash.

After the servants also washed the yellow mud off their bodies, they put on thick clothes and went home to the welcome of the children.

Li You walked onto the bank shivering, his teeth chattering, and put on a heavy cloak to keep up with the others.

Li You observed the people here, their expressions, their smiles, and felt that compared to the busy Xianyang, it felt more comfortable here.

Until Zhang Han blocked Li You's path.

"Prince has said that the household servants should be taught to read and write; I wonder if Commandant Li could teach them."

Li You smiled bitterly and said, "I can teach them to read and write, but after this, I will no longer be a Commandant in the army."

(End of this chapter)