Chapter 344: The Wool Comes from the Sheep's Back

In the last ten days of the fourth month of the twenty-sixth year of Qin Shi Huang, Zhuo Tie leaned on his hoe, stood by the muddy banks of the Wei River, and surveyed his new home.

Their new home lay east of Du Pavilion and west of Zhiyang, in the "land between Feng and Hao"—once the old capital of the Zhou dynasty. Abandoned after the disaster at Mount Li, it had long since lost its former city walls and palaces, its urban bustle and glory. Now only a dense growth of millet seedlings flourished unchecked, a place where foxes made their dens and jackals howled, with the occasional long cry of a wild pheasant ringing out.

This land was the northern edge of the "Shanglin Park," one of the Five Parks, and had never been developed, until over a decade ago, when Qin Shi Huang's grandmother, the Dowager Xia, chose this spot for her mausoleum.

Dowager Xia was not the primary consort, so she could not be buried together with King Xiaowen of Qin in the Shou Mausoleum west of Du Pavilion. She therefore chose a patch of wasteland between the Shou Mausoleum and the Zhiyang mausoleum of her son, King Zhuangxiang, leaving behind a final message: "To the east, I shall gaze upon my son; to the west, I shall gaze upon my husband. A hundred years hence, there shall be a town of ten thousand households beside me."

Qin Shi Huang clearly took the old dowager's last words to heart. Without needing to wait a hundred years, as the migrants arrived, a collection of crude dwellings had already been built here for them to live in. The area was strictly divided into li, lü, shi, and wu units; li heads, wu elders, and township elders were selected. A township bailiff was also dispatched to govern, registering everyone's household, name, and self-reported age.

Outside the settlement, palisade walls were slowly being rammed into place to prevent wild beasts from the park from attacking people and livestock. The forest and grasslands had been burned to ash by fire, probably so that once they were fully settled, they could clear and open up farmland.

Though their long journey was over, Zhuo Tie and the other migrants from Yan and Zhao still worried, because the spring planting season had already passed. It was too late to sow millet, and they were not permitted to go elsewhere to buy grain. Would the Qin officials and government support them for nothing until the autumn of next year?

There were over a thousand households settled east of Du alone. Around the entire Weinan Shanglin Park area, there were at least ten such migrant settlements. Tens of thousands of people would need over a million dan of grain to eat—no small sum—to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of migrants scattered across the forty counties of the Interior. Over the course of a year, they would need at least five million dan of grain.

That day, the black-robed, black-hatted Assistant Magistrate for Fields and Assistant Magistrate for Granaries summoned one person from each household and dispelled their anxieties.

"According to Qin law, adult males are issued one and a half dan of grain per month. Junior males under six chi five cun in height, and females, are issued one dan of grain per month. Children receive half a dan of grain."

Based on the household registers filed earlier, each family was to receive this month's rations on the first day of the fifth month. Zhuo Tie's family received a total of three dan of grain, enough to at least eat their fill.

But when the migrants received their grain and opened the hemp sacks to look, they were all dumbfounded.

It turned out that what had been distributed was not millet at all, but wheat!

"Superior Clerk, is there only wheat?"

Zhuo Tie himself did not mind so much, but his wife was in poor health and his son was young. If every meal was wheat rice, they would surely fall ill. He did not know that this was because the human body lacks the enzymes to digest wheat starch, and eating wheat rice can cause indigestion and other discomfort.

"From now until the fourth month of next year, your rations shall be wheat and nothing else!"

The Qin clerk swept his gaze over these eastern migrants who dared to be angry but not to speak, and a smile appeared on his face. "If you are unwilling to eat wheat rice, you may go to the watermill by the Wei River. For the price of thirty cash per dan, the wheat can be ground into flour. The Interior will also dispatch cooks to each settlement to teach the method of making wheat cakes!"

Wheat was slightly cheaper than millet, less than thirty cash per dan, yet they were being asked to spend the same amount just to grind it. Any clear-sighted person could see this was a fleecing.

An ordinary farmer would certainly begrudge the cost and would rather chew the hard-to-swallow wheat rice than pay this unjust sum.

But the eastern migrants had originally been wealthy households in their home regions. Before being relocated, they had converted all their family assets into gold, silver, cash, and silks. Money was not what they lacked; what they lacked was the pampered life they were accustomed to.

From Ba Bridge to Du County, they had been fortunate enough to eat several meals of a food called "nang cake," which was said to be made from wheat flour. Though everyone found it unfamiliar, it was still palatable, and that wealthy man Wang, who had shouted that he would rather die than eat wheat, had already become addicted, saying that wheat cakes tasted far better than millet or glutinous millet.

Now the Qin clerk had given them only two choices, so after a brief internal struggle, most people gritted their teeth and still hoisted their hemp sacks, heading for the watermill.

A folk rhyme also began to spread among the eastern migrants:

"Better a single bite of nang cake than a whole basket of wheat rice!"

In Heifu's home on Zhangtai Street, looking at the wheat-yellow, steaming nang cake placed on the plate before him, stuffed with a bit of meat filling, Qin Mohist Cheng Shang smelled the aroma and swallowed his saliva, yet still hesitated to reach for it.

He looked at Heifu, who was slowly eating a cake on the low table across from him, and sighed. "In earlier times, a Mohist was required to wear clothes of coarse cloth and eat a broth of goosefoot and bean leaves. Though the Qin Mohists do not go to such extremes, we still value simplicity and frugality. If Xiangli Ge saw me indulging in such luxury, he would probably say that the Qin Mohists have forgotten their roots, would he not?"

Heifu was slightly taken aback upon hearing the name "Xiangli Ge," then remembered: it was that Chu Mohist who had run alone to the Qin camp during the Chu conquest to persuade Li You to withdraw his troops.

Later, when Ruyin City fell, his three teachers all died in battle. Xiangli Ge used a hemp rope to pull a cart and carried their bodies away...

Since that day, the Qin Mohist Cheng Shang's convictions had suffered a tremendous blow. He was constantly doubting whether what the Qin Mohists were doing was right, and had nearly fallen into a depression.

When Heifu saw him again after arriving in Xianyang, Cheng Shang had already lost a great deal of weight, and his expression had grown even more bitter...

So Heifu put down the food in his hand and said, while wiping his hands:

"Now that Chu has been destroyed and the world is unified under Qin, the strong take all. The Chu Mohists, who specialized in helping weak states resist invasion, have completely lost their purpose."

"But this is precisely the time when the Qin Mohists are of great use. Why then does Brother Cheng spend his days in worry?"

Cheng Shang remained silent. The Qin Mohists primarily inherited Mozi's philosophy of "Conforming Upward." They believed that as long as multiple states existed in the world, war could never be eliminated. To achieve universal unity, political unification must first be realized; all voices must come from a single source, thereby eliminating war.

The Qin Mohists chose to assist the state of Qin in unifying the world. After a hundred years of arduous struggle, enduring much doubt from both within and outside their faction, they had finally achieved their original goal.

The Qin Mohists had also actively participated in the construction of the empire. In that debate between feudalism and commanderies, the Mohists had firmly stood on the side of commanderies. Qin Shi Huang had said: "Now the world has suffered together from unceasing warfare, all because of the existence of feudal lords and kings. Thanks to the ancestral temples, the world has just been settled, yet to re-establish states again would be to plant the seeds of war. To then seek peace and rest—would that not be difficult!" The Qin Mohists agreed wholeheartedly with these words.

But the new dynasty before their eyes was still far from the ideal state envisioned by the Qin Mohists. In particular, the emperor's recent series of policies filled Cheng Shang with deep concern, and he could not help but recall the prediction made years ago by the Chu Mohist Xiangli Ge.

"The King of Qin forcibly annexed the six states, carving up the world. The people of the world will surely not love one another. The strong will surely oppress the weak, the many will surely plunder the few, the rich will surely insult the poor, the noble will surely act arrogantly toward the lowly, and the cunning will surely deceive the foolish!"

Though the world was unified, the hatred of the six states' remnants toward Qin had not vanished. To stabilize his rule, Qin Shi Huang ordered 120,000 households to migrate into the Pass. In the eyes of the Mohists, this measure was somewhat crude.

"Over six hundred thousand people need food and clothing. If it is handled poorly, the consequences are unimaginable. His Majesty is too hasty."

Heifu did not see it that way. Qin could even supply rations for a 600,000-strong expeditionary army, let alone feed people in the rich Guanzhong region. The difficulty was merely how to save costs. He smiled and said:

"Is Brother Cheng not overthinking this? The eastern migrants have all moved into their new homes now, protected by city walls, with rations provided by the government. Though it is only winter wheat, I have heard that the eastern people have already taken a liking to wheat-based foods. The men are scrambling to go to the watermills to grind flour, while the women follow the government cooks to learn the methods of kneading dough, leavening, and baking cakes. There is even a folk rhyme: 'Better a single bite of nang cake than a whole basket of wheat rice'..."

The watermill was also a novelty, an idea Heifu had proposed to Interior Minister Teng. The wheat-growers of Guanzhong already had animal-powered rotary stone mills, and the linked water-powered pestles of Nan Commandery were already a very mature technology. By combining the two and replacing the rice-pounding pestles with flour-grinding millstones, a watermill could be made.

So starting from the previous month, craftsmen invited by the Interior from Nan Commandery, working with the Qin Mohists, had successively built dozens of watermills along the Wei, Feng, and Ba rivers at the various migrant settlements.

The people of Guanzhong, seeing for the first time a machine that could operate on its own without human or animal power, were amazed. But after watching the excitement, none of the local old Qin people stepped into a watermill to grind flour.

The stubbornness of dietary habits runs extremely deep. Take Heifu himself, for example: eating a wheat cake once in a while was fine, but he could not stomach it meal after meal. He still preferred the rice that had accompanied him for decades in both his past and present lives. Southerners even have a saying: "You can eat your fill of mantou, but it doesn't count as a proper meal."

So the Guanzhong locals also preferred to eat the millet and glutinous millet they produced themselves, unwilling to touch the fragrant-smelling wheat cakes. Only the eastern migrants, having no other choice, were forced to eat cakes...

"The spread of wheat and wheaten foods in the north shall begin with these hundreds of thousands of eastern migrants. First, let them grow accustomed to eating wheat cakes. Then, in the seventh or eighth month, have everyone plant wheat in their fields. This will create a virtuous cycle, gradually expanding the sown area of winter wheat in Guanzhong."

Wheat yields more than millet, so its replacement is only a matter of time. But historically, this process began in the Han dynasty and was not largely complete until the Tang and Song, with wheat remaining a coarse grain in the north for a thousand years.

Heifu also consoled Cheng Shang: "Using the Feng and Wei rivers to power mills and grindstones, turning five wheels, each mill can grind three hundred hu of wheat per day. For achieving this, Brother Cheng and the Qin Mohists deserve no small credit!"

But the Mohist savior complex flared up again. Cheng Shang hesitantly said that he thought the grinding fee charged by the watermills was too expensive, that it was violently seizing the people's wealth for food and clothing, robbing the people of their resources...

"Since it requires neither human nor animal power anyway, why not let the common people use it for free?"

The Mohists were too idealistic. Heifu did not know whether to laugh or cry. "Building the mills cost a great deal of money, silk, and labor. The clerks guarding the mills also need salaries. If the mills cannot turn a profit, the government will have no incentive to maintain them, and I fear they would soon fall into disuse."

What Cheng Shang did not know was that this idea had been proposed by Heifu to Interior Minister Teng.

Charging thirty cash per dan for grinding flour was equivalent to selling millions of dan of wheat to the wealthy eastern households. When the annual audit came next year, Interior Minister Teng would not only have stabilized the price of millet in Guanzhong but also recouped the cost of the wheat through the mills. Such conspicuous political achievement would surely earn the emperor's praise...

It could also be considered a dividend Heifu was giving to Interior Minister Teng.

"This is what's called 'the wool comes from the sheep's back.' The wealthy eastern households aren't short of money anyway," he thought to himself.

But then again, the Qin government calculated even the travel rations for minor clerks with extreme precision, not letting you eat a single extra meal. How could it possibly support hundreds of thousands of people for a year for nothing? As far as Heifu knew, before these hundreds of thousands of migrants planted wheat in the autumn, there was still a major construction project awaiting them.

This was also the purpose of Cheng Shang's visit to Heifu. With a pained expression, he said: "The Qin Mohists once made a proposal to His Majesty, saying that after King Wu of Zhou defeated Zhou, he halted military affairs and cultivated civil virtues, releasing the war horses on the southern slope of Mount Hua. Now, though the world is settled, the weapons of war across the land are countless. We should collect all the weapons in the world and bring them into the Pass, forging swords into plowshares..."

This was Qin Mo's original intent, but the First Emperor is a man who likes to make his own decisions. When the edict was proclaimed the day before yesterday, the Mohists discovered that their proposal had gone astray.

The Emperor gathered all weapons under heaven and amassed them in Xianyang, yet he was unwilling to have them cast into farming tools. Instead, he issued an order — to use this mountain of blades from the six vanquished states to accomplish a feat comparable to Yu the Great casting the Nine Cauldrons...

"Melt down the blades and arrowheads, and cast them into twelve metal men!"

PS: Two more chapters coming tonight.

(End of chapter)