Chapter 353: Collecting Rags!

In the seventh month of the twenty-sixth year of Qin Shi Huang, early in the month, the five Assistant Directors of the Privy Treasury gathered in their office and began discussing a string of bizarre recent events.

"That newly appointed Acting Assistant Director, Heifu…"

The Privy Treasury's Construction Assistant Director deliberately drew out his words, waiting until his colleagues had leaned in before continuing: "He sent someone to demand all the hemp scraps, rags, and offcuts from the Eastern Weaving Workshop!"

The Assistant Directors looked at one another in bewilderment. The Privy Treasury's Inner Assistant Director was the first to let out a baffled laugh. "What does he want with that rubbish?"

The Inner Assistant Director oversaw the palace's garments, treasures, delicacies, and rarities, spending his days handling lustrous pearl hairpins, jade-inlaid earrings, fine white silk robes, and embroidered brocade ornaments plundered from the Six Kingdoms. He did not even consider ordinary silk and hemp worth a glance, let alone hemp scraps, rags, and offcuts — in his eyes, they were utterly useless.

"Could he be planning to make patchwork robes?"

The Privy Treasury's Prison Assistant Director, who stood to one side, managed the convicts and had seen destitute bondservants with no clothes to wear stitch together every scrap of rag they could gather into garments they called "patchwork robes." In his hometown of Yong, there was even a custom: a child often plagued by illness and misfortune had to eat from a thousand households and wear a patchwork robe to ward off sickness, avert disaster, and reach adulthood safely.

Beyond that, they truly could not imagine what Heifu intended to do with a pile of rags.

The group harbored some resentment toward Heifu, who had been temporarily assigned to the Privy Treasury to oversee papermaking — especially the Construction Assistant Director. The bamboo slips and silk used by the court were all produced under his supervision. Even if His Majesty wanted something new made, he should have been put in charge. Yet His Majesty had let an outsider like Heifu start a whole separate operation. What was the meaning of that?

The Construction Assistant Director dared not question Qin Shi Huang's decision, so he directed his resentment at Heifu. Although he granted every request Heifu made, in his heart he secretly nursed a hope of watching Heifu make a fool of himself…

He sneered: "For over ten days now, aside from asking the Parks Assistant Director for trees to soak in water and scouring the city for rags, that Heifu has accomplished absolutely nothing. I'd like to see what he plans to present to the Privy Treasury Superintendent and His Majesty when the end of the ninth month arrives!"

…

On the seventh day of the seventh month, though autumn had already begun, the sun still blazed fiercely. According to Qin custom, this was the day for every household to sun their clothes, cloth, and bamboo slips.

The residence of Neishi Teng was no exception. His stepmother was often ill, so household affairs were managed by Ye Zijing. She had just ordered the servants to carry the cloth, silk, garments, and her father's heavy bamboo slips from the study out into the courtyard to sun, when she heard a long, drawn-out cry from outside the mansion gates…

"Collecting rags!"

The moment she heard that voice, Zijing knew it was the minor clerk working under Heifu.

This matter had already become a joke throughout Xianyang. Heifu, having become Acting Privy Treasury Assistant Director, did no proper work but instead sent men all over Xianyang City on a massive hunt for rags. It was utterly ridiculous.

"That man never acts without purpose. Years ago in Nan Commandery, when he proposed building public latrines everywhere and promoting composting on a large scale, he was laughed at plenty. But when the year-end audits came, the fact that yields per mu had doubled left everyone with nothing to say…"

Some thought it was luck, but over the years, whether through military merit or by seizing the moment, he had risen step by step from a minor clerk in Nan Commandery to a close minister of the Emperor, ranked among the lower ministers. Could a mediocre man have accomplished that?

So although this affair seemed utterly senseless on the surface, Ye Zijing could not help but feel curious. She wondered what ingenious idea Heifu had this time, and said to those beside her: "Nursemaid, do we have any rags or hemp scraps in the house?"

The Neishi's mansion was vast, housing over a hundred retainers, bondservants, maids, cooks, and craftsmen. It even had its own dedicated weaving workshop that bought top-quality cloth from outside to make clothing. Even ordinary maids wore silk garments and silk shoes; only the grooms and stable hands wore hemp.

But even the best tailor makes cutting errors, so the mansion actually had quite a lot of rags and offcuts. The Neishi's wife was extravagant and could not bear to see the household servants wearing patches, considering it a loss of face. So the rags and offcuts went unclaimed. The tailor could not bear to throw them away either, so they had piled up in the storeroom, amounting to several large baskets.

Zijing had two nursemaids and maids follow her and ordered bondservants to carry the rags and offcuts out of the mansion. She arrived just in time to see the black-robed minor clerk stop his ox-cart at the hamlet gate, explaining the price for rags to the peddler women and men who had come upon hearing the news…

The minor clerk said: "Rags, offcuts, and hemp scraps — one qian per jin."

"One qian!?"

A woman with a thorn-wood hairpin and coarse cloth skirt let out an exaggerated cry. Her smiling face instantly fell into displeasure:

"My family is no wealthy, noble household — just ordinary Gongshi and Shangzao rank. There's a saying in the hamlets: 'New for the eldest, old for the second, rags for the third and fourth.' It means a garment is worn in turn by four brothers, from eldest to youngest. Winter clothes are altered into summer ones, wide sleeves into sleeveless ones, large sizes taken in, patches added — worn from new to old, then from old to ragged, until it can be worn no more. Even then, it's cut up to line shoe soles or make padding…"

"So rags are still useful! You want to buy them for one qian a jin? I'd rather keep them as dishcloths!"

With that, she twisted her waist and made to leave.

The Privy Treasury clerk did not know whether to laugh or cry. He pulled out the abacus Zhang Cang had taught them and, on the spot, worked out the sums for this shrewish Xianyang woman: "One large coarse hemp robe uses eighteen jin of hemp, worth sixty qian. One medium coarse hemp robe uses fourteen jin of hemp, worth forty-six qian. One small coarse hemp robe uses eleven jin of hemp, worth thirty-six qian."

"Calculated this way, one jin of good hemp cloth is only worth a little over three qian. Now we're offering one qian per jin for tattered hemp rags and offcuts. That's like trading three unwearable rags for one new garment. How is that a loss?"

The shrewish woman thought it over carefully. The clerk's words seemed to hold some logic. Hemp cloth was rough; cut and sewn into undergarments, it chafed the chest painfully. Rather than making do, she might as well trade the rags for money to buy new cloth. So she brought out the few jin of rags she had found at home, had the clerk weigh them, and headed home beaming, clutching a few wen of banliang coins.

Looking at the clerk's cart, it was already loaded with quite a lot of rags and offcuts.

He actually did not quite understand what the Privy Treasury Assistant Director wanted these for either, but those were his orders, and since both the Neishi and the Prefect of Xianyang had approved it, he could only steel himself and do the job.

Within the vast city of Xianyang, there were quite a few similar minor clerks with ox-carts. Accompanied by the tinkling of ox-bells, the bondservants leading the oxen raised their voices, and the cry of "Collecting rags, offcuts, and hemp scraps!" echoed through the hamlets…

By the time dusk approached, the ox-carts collecting rags were mostly returning fully laden. They converged near the Wei Bridge with horse-drawn carts sent from the Privy Treasury and headed together toward Hao Pool.

…

By late in the seventh month, looking at the piles of rags and offcuts heaped like small hills beside Hao Pool, Cheng Shang, Zhang Han, and the others clicked their tongues in amazement, but Heifu was not surprised at all.

As the imperial capital, Xianyang already had one hundred fifty thousand households. Recently, another one hundred twenty thousand households had been relocated into the Pass, half of them settled in the outskirts of Xianyang. What did over two hundred thousand households mean? Even if each household contributed just half a jin of rags, that would still be a full hundred thousand jin!

Not to mention the large quantities of offcuts sent over by the Privy Treasury. Since the raw materials were all in place, Heifu planned to produce hemp paper first in the eighth month. Once the craftsmen were familiar with the process, they would start making bark paper in the ninth month.

The plan was on track, and Heifu was in a good mood — until Zhang Cang, who had been staying in Xianyang doing the accounts, also hurried to the workshop and gleefully informed Heifu that he had earned a new nickname.

Zhang Cang's chubby face was full of mischievous mirth. He cupped his plump hands and bowed toward Heifu: "Congratulations, congratulations! Weren't you complaining before, Heifu, that you were only an Acting Privy Treasury Assistant Director with no clearly defined authority? Well, not anymore — the entire city of Xianyang now calls you the 'Privy Treasury Rag Assistant Director'!"

Zhang Han could not hold back and turned his face away to laugh, while Cheng Shang protested on Heifu's behalf.

"Making paper from rags wastes no resources, burdens no people, and creates new benefits. This is an act of frugality that profits both the state and the people, yet the common folk misunderstand it. I truly feel indignant for the Assistant Director!"

Their Mohist school valued "frugality" above all. Take clothing, for example — they did not demand that everyone wear coarse brown robes like a Mohist. As long as winter clothes of dark silk were warm, and summer clothes of fine kudzu cloth were light and cool, that was sufficient.

The Qin of the past had indeed been like that. Even Duke Xiao of Qin and King Hui of Qin had worn hemp robes to court, extremely frugal and close to the people. This was precisely why generation after generation of Mohists had been deeply drawn to Qin and chosen to put down roots here.

But now it was different. After the Six Kingdoms fell, their wealth, silk, and cloth all flowed into Qin. The Emperor's palaces were filled with lustrous pearl hairpins, jade-inlaid earrings, fine white silk robes, and embroidered brocade ornaments, discarded without much regret. With the Emperor leading the way, a culture of arrogance and extravagance had already taken root in Xianyang. Even the maids in officials' households all wore silk shoes and fine adornments…

The Mohists felt pained, feeling only that this was no longer the simple, frugal Qin they had once known.

In such an environment, Heifu's ability to go against the tide, turning waste into treasure and reusing the rags and offcuts that the palaces discarded like weeds, was something Cheng Shang deeply admired. He decided to inform Master Tang, Tang Duo, and the other Qin Mohists of what was happening here, so that all Mohists would come to assist Heifu. This must succeed!

Heifu thanked Cheng Shang for his goodwill. He was not the least bit dejected. Compared to the various nicknames he had earned before, what was this?

"Rag Assistant Director it is, then."

He smiled faintly, picked up the long knife used for cutting hemp cloth, and took the lead, striding toward the hemp scraps and rags that had been soaking in the pool for a long time.

"Let them mock and curse as they please, but this achievement, which will benefit generations to come, must be done by me!"

…

By early in the eighth month, with the raw materials fully stocked, the papermaking workshop officially began operations. Hao Pool grew bustling and drew the attention of many in Xianyang.

Meng Tian, the Junior Chief Architect, who had just returned from Qi, even came to Hao Pool in person to see just what the "Privy Treasury Rag Assistant Director" was up to…

PS: The "Statutes on Gold and Cloth" states: "One large coarse robe uses eighteen jin of hemp, worth sixty qian; one medium coarse robe uses fourteen jin of hemp, worth forty-six qian; one small coarse robe uses eleven jin of hemp, worth thirty-six qian." Thus, in the Qin period, the price of one jin of hemp was approximately 3.3 qian.

(End of chapter)