Chapter 354: Meng Tian

The garrison commander guarding the gate examined Meng Tian's tally left and right, found no issue, and let him inside, even calling over a minor clerk to guide the way.

"Escort this senior official to see the Assistant Director of the Privy Treasury!"

Meng Tian wore plain black clothes, neither a brown-eagle cap nor an official seal and ribbon at his waist, and went out with only two attendants, so bystanders could not discern his status.

From the moment he arrived at Hao Pool, Meng Tian had already passed three guard posts; watching the spear-wielding soldiers patrolling around the workshop, he stroked his beard and revealed a knowing smile.

"Heifu truly comes from a military background — this workshop is guarded with strict vigilance."

When he thought about it, if Heifu really could produce the things he had boasted of, it would be a great boon to the state and certainly could not be carelessly leaked.

However, judging by the style of the camp layout and sentry posts, it had a touch of General Wang Jian's manner; it seemed Heifu had learned quite a bit under him.

"General Wang Jian truly had a discerning eye," Meng Tian sighed.

By contrast, Meng Tian himself had also seen this bronze-skinned young man from Nan Commandery at Li You's side back then, yet had failed to recognize that this was a piece of black jade hidden within a stone...

Compared to four years ago during the first campaign against Chu, Meng Tian had grown much more weathered; being of a similar age to the First Emperor, a few strands of white had already appeared at his temples.

But compared to Li Xin, who in his shame and bitter indignation had gone completely white-haired at just over thirty and often vomited blood — what did this amount to?

That great defeat had nearly crushed the two of them: a loss of a hundred thousand troops, seven Colonels dead — it was a defeat the Qin army had not suffered since the Siege of Handan. Under any other sovereign, they would have been doomed beyond doubt!

But His Majesty was magnanimous and gave the two a chance to atone. After several years of bitter defense at Shang Commandery and Yanmen, Meng Tian assisted Wang Ben in destroying Dai, then followed him in attacking Qi; the merit of two state-annihilating campaigns brought both him and Li Xin back to the rank of Lesser Superior.

Even luckier than Li Xin, who was transferred to guard the frontier at Beidi Commandery, Meng Tian was actually recalled to Xianyang by the First Emperor! This was a sign of his reappointment. Returning from Qi, Meng Tian was so stirred that he traveled day and night without rest, rushing straight to the Forest Light Palace for an audience...

The position the First Emperor gave Meng Tian was Privy Treasury Junior Supervisor, a two-thousand-bushel rank. This was an important post: the "unified coinage, weights and measures, standardized axle widths, and unified script" to be implemented across the whole realm this year and next were all to be overseen by the Privy Treasury! If he handled it well, Meng Tian would be just one step away from the Nine Ministers!

Yet his very first assignment after taking office was actually to come inspect Hao Pool on the Emperor's behalf.

"Go and see for Us — how is the paper that Privy Treasury Rag Director spoke of coming along?"

In the Forest Light Palace, the Emperor, while reading the four seal-script and clerical-script essays submitted by Li Si, Zhao Gao, Hu Wujing, and Cheng Miao, still had this matter on his mind.

Although Heifu had been promised three months, recently there had been no shortage of censors impeaching Heifu for erratic conduct, and the Privy Treasury Director of Works, the Inner Assistant, and others had also poured out bitter complaints, saying that Heifu had used the bulk of the several hundred thousand cash the Privy Treasury gave him to buy rags and hemp scraps — truly incomprehensible.

And thus came Meng Tian's trip to Hao Pool.

The workshop was built along the shore of Hao Pool. Upon entering, the first thing Meng Tian saw were the small artificial embankments by the poolside, dividing the lakeshore waters into clear, shallow ponds. Half of these ponds soaked timber and tree bark, while the other half soaked hemp scraps, rags, hemp stalks, and the like.

Several hundred people gathered at the shore, using axes and hatchets to chop the swollen hemp scraps and rags into pieces, rinsing them in the water, then loading the washed shredded hemp and cloth onto oxcarts, which were sent along a straight road deeper into the workshop.

Meng Tian noticed that the entire workshop was long and narrow, built along the Hao River. Every few hundred paces in between lay a processing stage; each stage was clearly separated, with different artisans and convict laborers responsible for different areas.

"Did the Privy Treasury Assistant Director order you to build it this way?" Meng Tian marveled. He only knew Heifu had the talent of a Colonel, but had not realized he truly understood craftsmanship.

The minor clerk laughed. "The Privy Treasury Assistant Director just waves a palm-leaf fan and offers ideas everywhere. The actual planning relied on the Mohists and the artisans, and was then built by Master Zhang's orders."

"So he is a man who labors with his mind," Meng Tian understood.

When they arrived at a place giving off a faint, peculiar odor, the minor clerk pointed at the shredded hemp soaking again in stone ponds and said, "This is the lime-water soaking."

Common women often used plant-ash or wood-ash water to degum kudzu and hemp, so Meng Tian found it not at all strange.

The minor clerk then pointed ahead, over a hundred paces away, to a workshop where steam and cooking smoke rose. "That is the steaming and boiling area. The shredded hemp must first be boiled to pulp before it can be used."

Meng Tian observed everything carefully in silence along the way. He passed the steaming earthen stoves and boiling vats, arriving at the water-powered trip-hammer house full of pounding and thumping sounds. Here, the steamed and boiled shredded hemp was pounded by water-driven continuous trip-hammers; after hundreds or even thousands of hammer strikes, it became a viscous, paste-like substance...

The minor clerk explained that this stage was called pulping. The viscous paper pulp was transported to dozens of large stone troughs at the rear and mixed with clear water. Some people dressed in short coarse clothes held square bamboo screens with smooth surfaces, gently lifting the paper pulp from the water.

Meng Tian stopped and watched for a while. He could tell their technique was still not very practiced; they often had to try many times before they could lift a paper film of even thickness and uniform distribution.

And among them, the fastest and most precise were actually a few old men with graying hair...

"Even elders have come to perform corvée labor?" Meng Tian frowned and looked at the clerk.

"The senior official misunderstands."

The minor clerk hurriedly explained, "This step is called sheet lifting, and it is the most critical. But there were not many artisans who could do it well. It was the Privy Treasury Assistant Director who came up with an idea: he hired a few old fishermen who make a living scooping fish with bamboo baskets on Hao Pool and the Wei River, and they actually lift the sheets steadily and superbly! The ten cash a day in wages is truly worth it!"

Meng Tian smiled wryly. Having seen the whole process, the rags and hemp scraps that the people of Xianyang had thought were collected because Heifu had gone mad were now being fed into the process step by step, and he grew increasingly eager to see the final product.

"Where is the Privy Treasury Assistant Director and the others?"

The workshop was very long. Meng Tian had walked for a quarter-hour and was nearly at the end, yet he had seen neither Heifu nor Zhang Han.

"Just up ahead."

The minor clerk pointed straight ahead and said, "The diviner calculated it according to the Day Book — today happens to be the day the first batch of paper finishes drying. All the senior officials are waiting there!"

Meng Tian saw it. After passing one stone trough soaking paper pulp after another, he beheld a pale yellow ocean...

The lifted paper films, still on their bamboo screens, were gathered together to dry under the blazing sun. Today was fine weather: the blue sky stretched wide open, and the autumn sun poured down unreservedly upon this high ground by the poolside. Hundreds and thousands of bamboo screens absorbed the heat of the bright sun, the moisture on them slowly evaporating and rising, leaving behind only a thin, dry sheet of paper...

Artisans carefully peeled off the sun-dried hemp paper, pressed it briefly with square stones, then stacked it together and delivered it to the table.

And Zhang Han, Cheng Mo, and even Zhang Cang and others were all crowded around the table at this moment. Heifu stood in the very center, holding a smooth pebble in his hand, burnishing the rough, wrinkled surface of the paper. Once the burnishing was done, he lightly brushed his hand over the paper; though the back was still rough, even with hemp scraps and cloth fibers visibly clinging to it, the front was at least somewhat smoother.

"It's done..."

After over a month of toil, there was finally a result. Heifu was overjoyed. He rubbed his hands together and was just about to test-write on this sheet of hemp paper when a minor clerk led a tall, middle-aged man with a thick beard under his chin, tiger-like eyes, and a swallow-like forehead before them.

"Privy Treasury Assistant Director, this is a clerk from the Privy Treasury, sent by order of the Privy Treasury Junior Supervisor to inspect."

Heifu took a look and felt the man was somewhat familiar, yet could not recall where he had seen him before. Zhang Han had already stepped forward several paces and bowed with clasped hands. "General Meng!"

"General Meng?" Heifu froze. The minor clerk was so startled he directly fell to his knees in prostration.

How many Generals Meng were there in this world? Heifu reacted at once — it was Meng Tian, whom he had glimpsed from afar a few times during the first campaign against Chu!

"Gentlemen, dispense with the formalities."

Meng Tian cupped his hands toward everyone. "Tian has just been appointed Privy Treasury Junior Supervisor and has come to inspect Hao Pool by His Majesty's command."

As he spoke, he also walked to the table, picked up the thin, light, pale-yellow hemp paper, and pinched it. It was indeed as light and smooth as silk cloth, and since it was made from rags and hemp scraps, he imagined the cost was not high either. He praised it: "Excellent! Privy Treasury Assistant Director, is this paper?"

"Exactly!"

Heifu answered with his mouth, but his mind was already calculating.

In terms of political lineage, he had been promoted by Li Si and his son. Because of the incident during the first Chu campaign where Meng Tian had Li You bring up the rear, the Li and Meng families were not on very good terms. By all rights, he should not get too close to the Meng clan.

But on the other hand, during the first Chu campaign, he had been a subordinate of Meng Tian; during the second Chu campaign, he had been in Meng Wu's army; when he came to Xianyang as Prefect of the Palace Gentlemen, Meng Yi happened to be General of the Palace Gentlemen; and now, transferred to the Privy Treasury, Meng Tian had actually become the Privy Treasury Junior Supervisor...

"I truly am fated to cross paths with the Meng family!"

Heifu grumbled inwardly, but felt that acting too cold and indifferent wouldn't be appropriate either — it was more proper to behave like a normal subordinate.

And so Heifu spoke in a stiff, formal manner: "This humble official, by His Majesty's command, makes paper here. Now that the paper has just taken shape, it should be tested with brush and ink."

He raised both hands and presented a writing brush.

"New writing slips must be paired with a new brush, and the same holds true for paper. We were just about to write with brushes crafted by the Junior Chief Architect in Shang Commandery and Yanmen. Since the General has graced us with his presence, this humble official dares to request that the Junior Chief Architect inscribe a test sample!"

(End of chapter)