Chapter 78: Spreading Widely Through the World

The Lesser Treasury was one of the Qin State's key central institutions, managing revenues from mountains, seas, lakes, and marshes as well as government handicraft manufacturing. Within the Lesser Treasury, the "Craft Workshop" was responsible for directing the artisan officials in all of Qin's commanderies and counties, operating numerous workshops in Xianyang and across the regions with countless subordinate clerks.

Zhang Han at this time was just over twenty, so of course he could not possibly be one of the Nine Ministers. He was merely a minor clerk under the Director of the Craft Workshop, having been promoted to clerk as a "Guaranteed Son" through his forebears' meritorious service, though he only did small jobs like greeting and seeing off visitors.

His true interest, in fact, lay in the military and the battlefield. In his daily life, Zhang Han would often discuss with great enthusiasm the Qin–Yan war raging fiercely north of the Yi River with his colleagues. By now, the Yan upper capital, Ji City, had been besieged for two months by the veteran general Wang Jian with over a hundred thousand troops, and the Yan state's very survival hung by a thread. But the Qin army, stalled beneath the city walls in the dead of winter with supply lines stretched far, was running short on grain, and many soldiers had frozen or starved to death.

And ensuring timely resupply of provisions to the front was also one of the responsibilities of the Lesser Treasury and the Superintendent of Grain.

One day, Zhang Han was betting with a colleague on how much longer Yan could hold out when an urgent letter suddenly arrived from Nan Commandery, along with the wooden device on the relay cart, escorted by an ill-tempered messenger from Nan Commandery.

Zhang Han led the messenger into the Lesser Treasury's Craft Workshop. His rank and office were still too low for him to be allowed inside, so he waited outside. After a while, several convict laborers were summoned in. Another two hours or so passed, and then he heard exclamations and cries of admiration from the master artisans and craftsmen within...

Then someone came out again to call for him, telling him to make another trip to the office of the Superintendent of Grain and have them send over a few granary officials and agricultural officials.

Zhang Han sensed something unusual, but he asked no questions and silently did as he was told. He had no idea that, over the next several days, the core officials of the entire Lesser Treasury's Craft Workshop, the Superintendent of Grain, and the Xianyang Granary would be frantically debating the efficacy of that "treadle pestle."

As for the use of the "treadle pestle," after hearing the Nan Commandery messenger's explanation and having several convict laborers verify it on the spot, the Xianyang officials had no reason to doubt it. The device was not complicated; it was simply a wooden lever operated by foot, a technique already in widespread use in this era. People had simply followed ancient ways for so long that no one had thought to create a replacement for the mortar and pestle.

The moment they saw it, it was as if a thin veil had been lifted in the minds of the Craft Workshop's craftsmen, and they understood at once: So it can be done this way!

So the Craft Workshop craftsmen set to work immediately, copying it exactly. After hurrying for a few hours, they successfully replicated several identical treadle pestles. They then had people test them by hulling grain, and the results were nearly the same: a single treadle pestle could indeed nearly double the efficiency of grain hulling, and the person doing the work was not as tired either.

"This thing — any craftsman could make it at a glance, and the materials needed are simple. Compared to the rotary millstones that came from the Qi and Lu regions and have already been installed in the Xianyang palace, this is far easier to spread to all the commanderies and counties..."

That was what the master artisans of the Craft Workshop thought. Rotary millstones had already appeared in the Central Plains for some time, said to have been made over a hundred years ago by that craftsman of divine skill, Lu Ban, but they were not yet very widespread, used only in some wealthy households. After all, millstones were better suited to grinding food rather than removing husks, and at this moment, wheat had yet to replace millet as the northern staple, nor did northerners have the habit of eating flour-based foods.

"Whether north or south, whether millet, wheat, or rice, this device can be used for husking." The Agricultural Superintendent of the Superintendent of Grain also mused, stroking his chin.

"If our granary replaced mortars and pestles with this device, the daily supply of hulled grain for the hundred thousand-plus mouths in Xianyang would at least double. If the soldiers at the front had this, they wouldn't need to spend an hour or two each day hulling grain..." The granary clerk of the Xianyang Granary pondered thus.

At present, Qin was attacking Yan, its troops besieging Ji City. The greatest difficulty was not the fierce resistance of the Yan people, but the bitter cold of the northern weather and the supply of provisions. The King had issued orders repeatedly to dispatch more troops to the front to support the veteran general Wang Jian — not for combat, but to transport grain.

And much of the grain transported there was this year's new harvest. Before the soldiers could eat, they first had to hull it, a fact the frontline quartermasters had complained about many times. But the granary clerks in the Hengshan, Handan, and Hejian regions were helpless; their areas originally belonged to Zhao and were newly conquered territories where the situation was not yet stable. All able-bodied men had been forcibly conscripted to transport grain and besiege the city at the front, leaving only the old, the weak, women, and children. With the busy farming season imminent, where was the time to carefully hull the grain?

If those three commanderies could be equipped with treadle pestles, wouldn't that mean more grain could be hulled with fewer people in less time and sent to the front? If the front lines were also equipped with treadle pestles, then the generals would no longer have to worry about the problem of feeding the troops.

And so, after discussion, the chief officials of the Lesser Treasury's Craft Workshop and the Superintendent of Grain's Xianyang Granary submitted a joint document to the Chancellor's Office and the Censor's Office, calling the treadle pestle a "weapon vital to army and state" and recommending that the device be immediately dispatched to all commanderies and counties, with orders for local authorities to replicate and spread its use.

This recommendation was ultimately presented before the King, who then ordered the various ministers to hold a court discussion.

At this point, a slight note of discord emerged. A Superintendent of Convict Labor, responsible for managing penal laborers, worriedly opined that if the treadle pestle were to be widely adopted, then "pounding," the most severe punishment for female offenders, would be greatly lessened — and might even exist in name only...

This question was widely debated among the ministers. In the end, it was Li Si, who had only recently been promoted to Commandant of Justice, who provided an answer that left everyone with nothing to say.

"Lord Shang said: 'When punishments are used to eliminate punishments, the state is well-ordered; when punishments breed more punishments, the state falls into chaos.' The purpose of punishment is not to penalize people, but to make the common people understand that certain things must not be done. The moment there is even a hint of such an act, it should be rooted out with heavy punishment, so that the entire nation understands what should not be done and what may be done. In the end, because no one violates the corresponding statutes, the heavy punishments can forever remain on the shelf, unused. This is what is meant by using punishments to eliminate punishments — this is the ideal of us Legalists..."

"Now, since the treadle pestle can make grain hulling twice as effective with half the effort, for our Qin State, it is as if our soldiers' blades have become twice as sharp and their armor twice as thick. Our state has always held achievement as the highest principle and should unhesitatingly promote this. How can we now, for fear of lightening the punishment of convict women, give up eating for fear of choking?"

The Commandant of Justice was indeed the Commandant of Justice — worthy of being a foremost disciple of Xunzi. His words left the court with nothing to say, and so the King also approved the matter, writing on the edict: "Approved"!

The Lesser Treasury and the Superintendent of Grain were given full authority over this matter. The officials all said that if this device could be spread nationwide, then in this year's evaluation of commandery artisans, Nan Commandery would take first place. And within Nan Commandery's internal evaluations, Anlu County would also be the undisputed first, and the Anlu County Artisan Section and Granary Section could both be awarded thirty days of labor credit.

However, up to this point, the court from top to bottom still had no intention of richly rewarding the inventor. This was because Qin's rewards for craftsmen and merchants were indeed far stingier than those for soldiers and officials.

"Among a hundred men who farm and fight, if there is one man of craft and skill, all hundred will grow lax in farming and war..." In Qin, the population ratio of craftsmen to farmers was roughly one to a hundred.

Qin had always held that if the people saw that those who served the ruler through empty talk and persuasion could gain honor and high status, that merchants could grow wealthy, and that handicraft workers could support their families by their trade — if the people saw that the occupations of these three types of men were comfortable and profitable, they would surely flee from farming and warfare...

To seek advantage and avoid harm is the constant nature of man.

Therefore, for outstanding craftsmen, it was enough for the commandery and county artisans to give rewards. A one-step promotion in rank and ten thousand coins — wouldn't that make some village craftsman overjoyed? To expect the King and the court to publicly and vigorously commend him? Wouldn't that throw Qin's laws and institutions into chaos!

At most, the name of the craftsman "Yuan" who made this device appeared multiple times in the wooden documents of the Lesser Treasury, enough for the young clerk Zhang Han to remember him. But Zhang Han had no idea that behind Yuan, there was also a minor village chief named Heifu...

And so, at the end of the first month, when the treadle pestle was named the "Anlu Pestle" and was about to spread widely throughout Qin, its inventor Heifu knew nothing of these matters.

At this very moment, he was standing barefoot in his own field, locked in a heated argument with his eldest brother Zhong over what crops to plant this year...

"Eldest Brother, on my two hundred mu of land, I can set aside a hundred and fifty mu for millet and rice, and the rest can be planted with beans."

Heifu pointed at a large stretch of newly plowed land and complained to Zhong, "But you have to leave me ten mu to plant what I want!"

As he spoke, Heifu pointed toward the ridge of the field, where a bundle of plants with thick roots and stalks, resembling bamboo but not quite, lay...

PS: "The people are devoted to their superiors and will die for their orders because they engage in farming from dawn to dusk. The people become unusable when they see that wandering scholars serving the ruler through speech and discourse can gain honor for themselves, that merchants can enrich their families, and that crafts and skills are enough to make a living. When the people see the ease and profit of these three pursuits, they will surely flee from farming." — The Book of Lord Shang, "Farming and War, Chapter Three"

(End of chapter)