Chapter 469: A Central Plain on the Frontier

By mid‑August, after making a circuit of the three counties at the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains, Li Ling felt that he had truly broadened his horizons.

The "Great Production" campaign Heifu had launched not only put the five thousand garrisoned civilian laborers to work, but also mobilized every soldier. At the same time, he devised many interesting methods to spur the troops to open up wasteland and farm.

He turned the early‑spring land‑clearing and plowing into a competition in which the entire army and civilian population took part. One exceptionally skilled soldier set a record of clearing three mu in a single day during the first land‑clearing contest, earning a personal audience with Heifu, who bestowed on him a jug of wine of the sixth rank.

Over the course of the entire spring, their fifteen thousand people together opened up two hundred thousand mu of land. Added to the fifty thousand mu of overwintering wheat planted the previous year, they now possessed a vast expanse of arable land — just enough to distribute among the five thousand unmarried civilian laborers. Because the army had contributed so much labor, this year's harvest would be split, half to the civilian laborers and half to the army.

Besides land‑clearing, they also had to attend to side occupations. Since the northern frontier lacked women, when soldiers' clothes tore, they had to sew and mend them themselves. And because clothing supplies from the interior arrived late, they even had to learn to make simple shoes.

Guan Ying, a young silk‑cloth merchant from Suiyang City, wove ten pairs of cloth shoes in a single day. When Heifu heard of this, he also granted him an audience, intending to make Guan Ying a petty officer in charge of the soldiers' and civilian laborers' clothing.

To his surprise, Guan Ying blushed and said that since he had been kept on the frontier, he had no wish to pursue the same lowly trade he had practiced back home — he wanted to earn merit! Guan Ying recounted that over the past year he had learned to ride from the Dayuan Rong cavalry, and that his horsemanship was now quite good; he would rather give up his land and hoped to become a mounted attendant!

The silk‑cloth merchant's bold words naturally drew a burst of laughter from the soldiers, but seeing that he was completely serious, Heifu gave Guan Ying a chance and had him demonstrate his riding in public. It turned out to be rather impressive — he could already bring his horse to a halt, draw his bow on the spot, and shoot. Heifu thereupon made Guan Ying a model among the civilian laborers, allowing him to keep his land and hire someone to farm it for him, while he himself went to Hunhuai Fortress to start as an ordinary cavalry attendant.

Besides agriculture, there was also animal husbandry. Heifu had kept his promise: the Dayuan Rong were the first group of migrants to move here. At the height of summer, their entire tribe had left the crowded Dayuan region in Beidi and established pastures around the farming zones at the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains, serving as a guard force.

The five divisions of the Dayuan were settled separately in the three counties and two fortresses. The Rong women of their tribe also became the most eagerly courted targets of the local garrison‑farm soldiers and unmarried civilian laborers — most people felt some aversion to the Baiyang and Loufan Hu women whom the government planned to distribute the following year.

In short, after more than half a year of hard work, the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains, which had originally been desolate and uninhabited, teeming with wild wolves after the Xiongnu fled north, had by early autumn become a place of abundant grain and flocks of cattle and sheep. Apart from the difficulty of growing hemp in the north and the still‑insufficient wool clip, which meant they still had to rely on the interior, the entire army's food supply had become self‑sufficient.

On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the Garrison‑Farm Marquises of the three counties delivered their annual accounting ledgers to Heifu's desk, and Heifu showed them to Li Ling.

"In the summer, the overwintering wheat yielded one hundred thousand shi. In recent days, the eighty thousand mu of public millet fields in the three counties have yielded over three hundred thousand shi of millet!"

Li Ling could not help exclaiming in surprise, "So much! The yield per mu rivals that of Shu!"

Heifu, however, was not surprised. "The Xiongnu kept their herds here on the Helan Mountains for several generations. The dung of tens of thousands of cattle and sheep made the land extremely fertile, accumulating day after day. Now it has all been released in the Qin people's intensively cultivated garrison fields, so the first year's yield per mu rivals that of Shu!"

This bumper harvest meant that the soldiers and civilian laborers would have no food problem the following year. After deducting the army's rations and the warhorses' fodder, they could still store at least fifty thousand shi of grain in reserve…

"In this way, added to the grain shipped from the interior, we can accumulate over a hundred thousand shi…"

And this was not even counting the overwintering wheat that would soon be planted. Li Ling felt the pressure on his shoulders greatly ease. "In that case, the new settlers moving here next year will have no immediate worry about grain before the summer harvest."

Even taking environmental protection and sustainable development into account, the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains was enough to support a population of over a hundred thousand. Therefore, as early as the beginning of the year, the First Emperor in Xianyang had finalized the frontier migration plan for the coming year: thirty thousand households of Qin people from Guanzhong would be moved into the lands south of the bend and Beijia. Of these, twenty thousand households would go to Jiuyuan and Shuofang, and ten thousand households to Helan, where they would establish hamlets and small villages in places with lush water and grass around the various fortresses and walled cities.

Heifu, however, did not feel relaxed. At Prince Fusu's strenuous urging, these migrants were not compulsory relocated prisoners from east of the passes, but had been recruited from Guanzhong. Each household was granted fifty mu of land, exempted from taxes for three years, with the government responsible for building their houses, supplying the necessary farming tools and seeds, and also providing a physician and a shaman at every settlement, and so on.

This meant that after autumn, Li Ling's main task would be to lead the soldiers and civilians in continuing to open up wasteland, to build at least ten thousand houses for those ten thousand migrant households, and when spring arrived, to work together with the migrants to open up five hundred thousand mu of land…

This was an extraordinarily arduous task. The colonization of the Helan Mountains had only just begun.

"The road stretches long and far, I shall search high and low…"

Having personally taken part in building the Helan colony, Heifu could not help murmuring this line in his heart. The Qin dynasty's first colony on the northern frontier truly resembled a newborn infant, utterly fragile. For it to truly grow to adulthood, it would indeed have to follow the cycle of a human life and wait ten or twenty years.

This was also the reason he needed Li Ling.

Heifu had Gong Ao spread out a map of the Helan colony and invited Li Ling to look at it.

"Agriculture Commandant, please observe: this place is surrounded by sand on three sides."

Just as in later ages, the colony was bordered by the Maowusu Desert to the east, the Tengger Desert to the west, and the Ulan Buh Desert to the north.

"The reason it can be so fertile and yet not be swallowed by shifting sands is, first, that the Helan Mountains block the dry, sandy north wind, and second, that it relies on the great river, which ceaselessly brings water!"

The moistening river made both banks of the eastern Helan foothills lush and green, with forests and grasslands stretching everywhere, along with many marshes.

"But even with this great river, the fields that can be opened up along the river and marshes amount to no more than a few hundred thousand mu. If we want still more, we must dig canals by hand…"

Heifu looked at Li Ling. "The ancients said, 'He who is good at governing a state must first eliminate the disasters of flood and drought.' He who is good at governing a state must place importance on waterworks. On this point, I understand nothing at all. But you, Agriculture Commandant — can you reproduce here the waterworks that the former Governor Li built in Shu? Can you turn this desolate wilderness, where jackals howl and foxes dwell, into a Central Plain on the frontier!"

Li Ling hurriedly replied, "Your subordinate spent ten days, accompanied by officials, traveling from Fuping in the south to Hunhuai Fortress in the north. I discovered that this great river carries an enormous volume of water, yet its current is gentle, winding and broad. Just as my grandfather tamed the Min River, if we devise a way to divert it slightly, we can split it into several channels and ditches to irrigate the fields. But this is not a matter that can be accomplished in a year or half a year, and at present we lack sufficient hands. We must wait for the new settlers to arrive before we can begin."

"Indeed, this matter cannot be rushed."

Heifu sighed. The severe shortage of labor on the frontier was a major problem. Even though he had already invited the Mohists to build a number of water‑powered mills and water‑powered pestles here, it still could not fill the gap.

He could only set a small goal for Li Ling. "I only hope that within two years the Agriculture Commandant can open the first canal. By the third year, the several counties of Helan must not only be self‑sufficient, but also produce a surplus of over a hundred thousand shi, enough to support a great army of tens of thousands marching beyond the frontier on campaign…"

A great cavalry army marching beyond the frontier to utterly strangle the Xiongnu — this was the policy Heifu had steadfastly maintained for over half a year. For this, he had frequently disagreed with Meng Tian, who held a defensive stance and proposed building a long wall to protect Shuofang and Helan entirely within it, so they could farm the garrison fields in peace.

"Even if we are to build it, it must wait until we have taken Modu's head!"

Heifu's attitude that Modu must be killed, and the sooner the better, was no longer a secret. Only the reason behind it was something he could not share with anyone. Everyone merely thought Modu was a ruthless and cruel wolf cub, but no one imagined he could stir up any great storm in the future.

Even Heifu's old comrade‑in‑arms Li Xin was utterly baffled by his obsession. After the Qin army established outposts and relay stations at Juyan Marsh, Li Xin inclined toward agreeing with Meng Tian's plan: defend in the north and attack in the west. First lull the Yuezhi into complacency, and once the merchants had scouted out the populations of the tribes along the Yuezhi route and persuaded the Wusun to the west to submit to Qin and join in sending troops, they would then launch a war of annihilation against the Yuezhi — even though the Yuezhi king was now so terrified of Qin that he had sent a hostage prince and opened his trade routes.

Heifu's worries were confirmed at the end of the eighth month. One day, while Heifu was discussing with Li Ling the plans for next year's settlements and farming zones, an urgent report from Qiang Hua, the Garrison‑Farm Marquis at Juyan Marsh, made the Beidi Commandant furrow his brow deeply.

"The Xiongnu have sent out troops." Heifu halted the discussion and tossed this news to the group.

"Ah?" Li Ling was somewhat startled. Had the Xiongnu not just suffered a heavy blow? Were they about to make a comeback so soon?

Gong Ao, Gan Chong, and the others, however, rubbed their fists and wiped their palms. "The Xiongnu truly have no memory. They barely escaped total annihilation, and now they come seeking death? We have been waiting for them!"

"Don't celebrate too soon."

Heifu shook his head and said helplessly:

"This is news from spring and summer that has only now been learned at Juyan Fortress and relayed to Helan. Moreover, the direction of the Xiongnu's advance is not south, but north!"

PS: Regarding Ningxia's waterworks during the Qin‑Han period, you may learn about the "Ningxia Ancient Yellow River Irrigation Area," which successfully applied for World Heritage Irrigation Structure status last year.

(End of chapter)