Farming to Defy My Fate 44

Chapter 44: Coal Found

When they were scattered throughout the village, it wasn’t apparent, but now that they were all gathered, Zhao An realized there were over a hundred children in the village.

Over a hundred children who had never been trained, plus those adults who had no desire to learn and were purely there to watch the excitement, the entire Liu ancestral hall predictably turned into a chaotic mess.

When Zhao An came to the blackboard, which had been temporarily painted with tung oil, some mischievous older children stood up and shouted, “Eldest Young Master Zhao, what are you going to teach us today?”

The parents standing at the back burst into laughter, though it was unclear what was so funny. Perhaps for them, any occasion that brought people together was a cause for laughter.

Zhao An could only raise the teaching stick in his hand and tap the blackboard. After everyone had quieted down, he said solemnly, “From now on, don’t call me Eldest Young Master Zhao. Call me Teacher. And when you ask a question, you must raise your hand. Only after I give you permission can you stand up and speak.”

“Do you understand?” Zhao An tried his best to appear authoritative, constantly emphasizing the importance of discipline to the students.

The people arranged to sit on the ground on the earthen dam outside the ancestral hall also became much more obedient after seeing his serious expression. It was just that their answers of “Understood” were always uneven.

Zhao An asked several more times. After their responses were all clear, he began the first lesson. “Today, I will only teach eight characters: Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Mountain, River, Lake, Sea.”

He wrote the eight Chinese characters on the blackboard with lime and then explained the meaning of each character and how to form words and sentences with them, writing everything on the blackboard.

After about half a shichen of explanation, he stopped. He once again raised his teaching stick and pointed to the eight characters at the top. “Read after me again: Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Mountain, River, Lake, Sea.”

After the nearly two hundred men, women, old, and young below had finished reading, he said, “Now, all students, write these eight characters three times on the ground in front of you. This morning’s class is over.”

The last part was like homework. Because when he had explained each character, he had already taught everyone the strokes and stroke order of these characters.

However, in his first class, Zhao An seemed to have learned the habit of teachers dragging out the lesson. After everyone had started writing, he added, “There’s also an arithmetic class taught by Qin Tong this afternoon. Anyone who wants to learn accounting, regardless of gender or age, can come. From now on, I will teach a language class every morning, and Qin Tong will teach math in the afternoon. Everyone, remember to come to class on time.”

Zhao An was only doing the most basic literacy education, so from the beginning, he didn’t teach the most common primer of this era, Heaven and Earth are dark and yellow, the universe is vast and desolate. Instead, he planned to first teach some of the simplest and most common words and phrases to arouse people’s interest in learning, then teach the names and writing of some grains, vegetables, and fruits, and then gradually increase to teaching some of the simplest quatrains, such as Sympathy for the Peasants and Quiet Night Thought. At that point, he would teach everyone to write short essays, such as My Big Yellow Dog and I Hammer My Father’s Shoulders. After learning like this for a winter, everyone should at least be able to write the most basic vernacular, and writing letters to each other should not be a problem.

Zhao An threw himself into the cause of education. Even though he only taught one class a day, he would prepare his lessons seriously. And the weather was getting colder and colder. When everyone was on the open dam, they no longer dared to sit directly on the ground. When Zhao An found that some people had brought wooden stools, some had brought rattan mats, and some had brought strange things like a huge turtle shell to class, he finally realized that the village should build a school that could at least shelter them from the wind and rain.

Coincidentally, his house had also been completed. It just needed to air out for a while before he could move in. It was a good time to have the villagers make another effort and build a school for the village. After the school was built, the people who had built the school could just start a new class, continuing to teach from the most basic language and math.

As Zhao An was tossing and turning in bed, thinking about these things, he was finally pressed down on the bed by Hu Sheng and given a hard spank on the bottom. “You’re being restless again. Can’t you just sleep properly?”

Zhao An felt a fiery pain on his bottom. He opened his mouth and bit Hu Sheng’s arm. “You’re too harsh. Be careful you don’t break it.”

Hu Sheng said, “Let me see if it’s broken.”

In the end, whether Zhao An showed it to Hu Sheng or not was unknown, because the two of them had covered themselves with the quilt, and no one could see.

Just as Zhao An thought that such happy and meaningful days would go on forever, the next morning, a man from Hu Sheng’s trading caravan suddenly ran back and told him that the caravan that had gone to the Nanyue Kingdom had gotten into a fight with the local garrison.

The reason was that the border commander, who had agreed with Li Dake to exchange ceramics and silk for sugar blocks, wanted to swallow their goods but was unwilling to give them the promised sugar blocks.

It turned out that this border commander couldn’t even control his own soldiers. In over a month, he hadn’t been able to gather enough trade goods, so he had chosen what he thought was the simpler option: murder and robbery.

Zhao An was very anxious upon hearing such news, but Hu Sheng asked calmly, “Did we win?”

The messenger wiped the sweat from his face and grinned. “We won. We’ve occupied that whole piece of land. Unfortunately, more than a hundred of our brothers died, and more than seventy were disabled.”

Hu Sheng nodded. “Tell Li Dake that if the dead have relatives, give them thirty liang of silver in compensation. For the disabled, give them twenty mu of land there so they have a place to settle down.”

Then he called for Ma Chuan and had him lead another thousand men to guard the place Li Dake had just conquered. Then he had them surrender to the king of Nanyue, promising to be the king’s mercenaries and help him defend the border.

Zhao An watched as Hu Sheng arranged everything in an orderly manner. At this moment, the powerful aura of looking down on everything that he exuded was truly sexy and charming.

After Ma Chuan had left with his men, Hu Sheng held Zhao An. “Most of the several thousand people in the stronghold now are Ma Chuan’s father’s former subordinates. I’m also testing him by sending him out this time. So I’m taking some men to follow him to the Nanyue Kingdom.”

Zhao An was no longer a child. He couldn’t possibly say he wanted to go with Hu Sheng. He bit his lip and said in as calm a tone as possible, “Go on. The house is also finished. I’ll wait for you at home.”

Although he said that, Zhao An held onto Hu Sheng tightly. Hearing his pounding heartbeat and feeling his body gradually change, his own body also began to change. All their emotions were mixed in the cries and the sweat that soaked the bed.

That day, Zhao An skipped class. Seeing that he hadn’t come down from the mountain for a long time, Qin Tong had no choice but to run to the classroom and say to the students, “Teacher Zhao is not feeling well today. He’s asked me to teach today’s language class. First, let’s read this poem, Ascending the Yellow Crane Tower, together. The white sun sets behind the mountains, the Yellow River flows into the sea…”

The day after Hu Sheng left, Zhao An moved down from the mountain and into his new house. It was a two-story brick and tile building. There was no cement slab in the middle, but a floor made of logs the thickness of a bowl, with a layer of flat wooden boards nailed on top. The top floor even had a ceiling made of mulberry paper. The four walls were all plastered with white lime, and there were large double-door windows. It was already very presentable to live in, at least much brighter than the original courtyard.

On top of the added floor, the courtyard had also been doubled in size. Besides the original small courtyard paved with green bricks, a small garden had also been dug out. But instead of flowers, Zhao An planned to use it as a secret experimental field in the future.

Living in the original small house had always felt oppressive and cramped. Now, having moved into a large house, with his lover not by his side, he only felt empty and lonely.

Fortunately, he still had to teach the villagers to read every day; otherwise, he would have developed a psychological illness. This day, as he was reading an outstanding essay by a student, I Catch Worms for the Little Chicks at Home, he heard the clattering of horse hooves.

He immediately put down the hemp paper in his hand and walked out of the newly built classroom, wanting to see if Hu Sheng had returned. But he knew in his heart that it was probably still early. Hu Sheng had only been gone for a little over ten days. Even if he rushed back from the Nanyue Kingdom without stopping, it would still take over a month.

But even if he hadn’t returned himself, it was not impossible that he would send a few letters back on the way.

However, he was a little disappointed after he rushed out, because he recognized the rider as Zhang Wei, the leader of the dozen or so people Hu Sheng had sent out to find coal last time.

If he had known about the coal before Hu Sheng left, he would have been overjoyed. But now, his mood was calm. Just like eight days ago, when the sweet potatoes on the mountain were finally dug up. The sweet potato vines he had improved had been planted three times, totaling forty mu of land, and had yielded nearly seventy thousand jin of sweet potatoes, filling six entire warehouses, but it hadn’t made him happy.

Reason told him that he shouldn’t be so sentimental, but he couldn’t control his brain. He would always think of Hu Sheng. Fortunately, his reason had not completely gone offline. He knew that he still had many things to do.

Zhao An first arranged for Zhang Wei, who had rushed back, to eat, and only then did he go to see the coal sample he had brought all the way from Qianzhou, a black rock with fine, shiny specks.

He confirmed that it was really coal and had someone first grind it into powder with a roller, then mix it with mud to make coal briquettes. Then he lit a stove and placed it in the classroom for people to warm themselves.

But Zhang Wei, who had brought the coal back, saw him light the coal briquettes and was about to put them in the classroom where many children were sitting. He immediately shouted in alarm, “This thing is poisonous when it burns! It will poison people to death!”

As he shouted, he rushed into the classroom, carried the stove to the square outside, and then bared his teeth at Zhao An, who had followed him out. “Young Master Zhao, didn’t you say you were going to use this stone to fire the kiln? Why are you using it for a fire now? We’re not short of firewood here. We really can’t use this deadly thing.”

It was precisely because they knew in advance that Zhao An was buying this black stone to fire the kiln that Zhang Wei and his men hadn’t paid attention when the locals said that burning this black stone would kill people. They hadn’t expected that after it was transported back, Zhao An would directly use this thing for a fire.

Zhao An could only explain to him, “Burning coal can indeed be poisonous, but it’s not because of the coal, but because of the coal smoke. Even burning firewood produces smoke. As long as you pay attention to ventilation, there is no danger of poisoning. Look at our classroom. It only has half a wall. There’s no need to worry about coal smoke poisoning.”

Zhao An didn’t want to build the classroom so simply, but the villagers all felt that just using bricks to build a few pillars and then putting up a simple thatched roof would be enough for a classroom. After all, it wasn’t a proper school, and the teachers, besides Zhao An, also included the servant Qin Tong.

In the end, the compromise was to build half a wall, with a wooden frame for the roof on top, which was both light-transmitting and material-saving.

Hearing Zhao An’s explanation, Zhang Wei was still skeptical, until they did an experiment and put the coal stove in the chicken coop.

After a class, they opened the chicken coop and saw that all the little chicks were huddling near the coal stove for warmth. The next day, the chicks were still alive and kicking. Only then did Zhang Wei believe what Zhao An had said.

And he went up the mountain and took ten more people to Qianzhou, planning to buy more coal to bring back for the brothers who were still suffering from the cold on the mountain.

Zhao An also began to take action. That afternoon, he contacted Feng Shaoping, introduced him to the horse caravan that supplied quartz to the two kilns in the city, and also bought borax from the silver shop.

When a large amount of coal was transported, they could start firing glass.