Chapter 41: Mid-Autumn Festival
Fortunately, a remote place like Changxi County had countless mountains, unlike the vast plains of the central region where it was not even easy for ordinary people to chop some firewood, let alone go into the mountains to gather and hunt.
With Feng Shaoping mediating, and County Magistrate Feng being a very willing listener, plus the incident at Wangjia Village serving as a wake-up call, he didn’t want the people under his jurisdiction to fall into chaos.
So, on the tenth day of the eighth month, Changxi County organized a team of over a thousand people to go into the mountains to hunt, gather, and fish. Because there were too many people, they scared away not only the predators but also some small animals, so their hunting results in the first two days were not ideal. However, after a day in the mountains, someone discovered a chestnut forest. Everyone, disregarding the danger of being pricked by the chestnuts, climbed the trees to pick them. The harvest made many people feel extremely satisfied.
Unfortunately, there were too many of them. The seemingly vast chestnut forest was almost depleted after a day of picking.
The people of Zhaojia Village didn’t want to be special, so like the other villages, they also sent fifty people to participate in this hunting and gathering activity.
On the third day, five people returned to Zhaojia Village with large baskets of chestnuts and a few wild rabbits. Then, five more people were sent to catch up with the main group in the mountains.
Zhao An also received a dozen or so jin of fresh chestnuts. That night, he peeled them and made a meal of braised chicken with chestnuts, which was soft, glutinous, sweet, and fragrant. Everyone in the family loved it. Then he spent money to buy twenty jin from the villagers and sent them to his own kiln, so that his hired workers could also have a taste of braised chicken with chestnuts, albeit with more chestnuts than chicken.
The four children who had been caught, although they worked at the village’s kiln, ate with the kiln workers under Zhao An’s command. This noon, the four of them also got a bowl of chestnuts. Although there was no chicken, they still ate with great relish, mixing the rice with the sauce. In fact, they rarely got to eat dry rice at home. After staying in Zhaojia Village for seven or eight days, their scrawny, ghost-like faces had also filled out a bit.
But during their lunch break, they became dejected again. “We’re eating and drinking well here, but we don’t know what’s going on at home.”
“Didn’t they say that the county magistrate has organized people to go into the mountains to hunt? We probably won’t starve to death this year,” they could only comfort themselves like this in the end.
And they didn’t have much time to think. Besides a break for lunch, they had to dig earth and make mud blanks from morning to night. When they returned to the shed where they slept at night, they would just fall asleep immediately.
Zhao An also felt that if they only relied on the mountain goods, wild chickens, wild rabbits, and miscellaneous fish gathered from the mountains, they might be able to get through this spring with difficulty, but what about the seeds for next year’s grain?
It wasn’t that Zhao An wanted to be a busybody. It was just that he hadn’t dared to go to the city recently. Besides the four children who had come to the village to steal, there were many more children who were being pulled out by their parents and sold like livestock with straw markers on them.
The customary place for selling people was in the first alley after entering the city. Every time Zhao An passed by, his heart pounded with fear. Recently, the shower and drainage pipes fired from the kiln had started to make money for him. After he had some spare cash, he had someone find some people in the nearby villages with a decent reputation but who were in financial difficulty for various reasons, and had them come to his kiln to work. This way, perhaps a few families’ children would not be sold. But the number of people his kiln could employ was ultimately limited, so he hadn’t been to the city recently. If there was business to be done, he would have Qin Tong handle it.
Even so, Zhao An still tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep. He always felt that there should be other ways he could help some people. Finally, Zhao An sat up in bed. Why hadn’t he thought of infrastructure projects? At the beginning of the great cataclysm, the base had organized all the ordinary people to build city walls and repair houses, and then distributed grain to them every day. That was how they had gotten through the most difficult phase.
Unfortunately, he was still very young at that time and was not required to participate in the wall-building activities. Instead, he continued to receive compulsory education while working in the base’s fields in the afternoon.
With his sudden start, Hu Sheng naturally couldn’t continue sleeping. He also sat up and hugged him. “What have you thought of now?”
Zhao An answered honestly, “I thought of providing grain and hiring those who have no stored grain to repair the roads. The official road in the county is full of potholes and needs a good repair. Also, the road to the prefectural city needs to be widened. The number of horse caravans coming to Changxi County might increase next year, and the shops in the county can also make more money.”
Hu Sheng touched the sweat on Zhao An’s forehead and complained, “Look how hot you are.” He then helped him wipe his sweat. “Aren’t these all matters for the officials to worry about? Why are you, a country bumpkin, worrying so much?”
But Zhao An turned and bit Hu Sheng’s shoulder. “If you don’t care, why did you recruit so many rogue soldiers? Was it just to have them form a horse caravan to sell goods for you in Ü-Tsang and Nanyue?”
“Yes,” Hu Sheng said, kissing his cheek. “Don’t I have to support my family?”
“Ai~” Zhao An sighed and lay back on the bed. “I’m just the pot calling the kettle black. When we can’t stay in the Xu Kingdom in the future, you can’t abandon me and run away alone.”
Call him a saint or a hypocrite, he could kill without batting an eye or his hands trembling, but he couldn’t watch so many people be separated from their flesh and blood, or even starve to death, right in front of him.
And he clearly had improved seeds and a way to help these people. To play dumb again, he couldn’t even pass his own conscience.
Hu Sheng felt the restless atmosphere around Zhao An disappear. He ignored the hot weather, held him tightly, and patted his back softly. “Sleep. No matter what happens in the future, I will definitely take you with me.”
And Hu Sheng also knew that Zhao An’s worries were not unfounded. Some of the friends he had made in the capital when he was young had already sent news that the imperial city had sent people to investigate Zhao Nanyu’s disappearance.
He believed that with that small number of people, and in an unfamiliar place, they shouldn’t be able to find out in a short time that he had taken several thousand people on a detour through Jiaozhou and then back to Daqing Mountain. And with several forces stirring in the imperial city, these people probably wouldn’t stay in the southwest for too long.
But there was always a “what if.” If something happened, he was afraid that the only way out would be to leave with Zhao An.
Even with such a huge matter on his mind, Hu Sheng appeared very calm, because he had been dancing on the edge of a knife since he was twelve. He had honed a life-saving skill that was almost instinctive. The current situation was not enough to make him lose his composure.
Things indeed turned out as Hu Sheng had predicted. Because he had sent more than thirty people to the southwest to investigate the death of Zhao Nanyu and the disappearance of most of the rogue soldiers, the number of people protecting Li Xiuye had been greatly reduced. He had been assassinated three times in just a few days.
The most dangerous time was at the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet on the fifteenth of the eighth month. When the palace maid playing Chang’e descended from the air during her dance, she suddenly fired two arrows at Li Xiuye with a crossbow hidden in her wide sleeves. Even though Li Xiuye dodged quickly enough, one arrow still pinned his robe. The arrowhead was coated with a deadly poison that killed on contact, emitting a faint blue light.
Although Li Xiuye was not injured, he had lost a lot of face by falling from the dragon throne to avoid the arrows. While ordering a strict investigation, Li Xiuye still had to secretly order the Shadow Guards to quickly withdraw and protect his own safety. As for the investigation, it naturally had to be postponed. It was better to let the officials below follow the proper procedures.
On the same Mid-Autumn Festival day, most of the people in Changxi County were very happy, because most families had found some food in the mountains. At least they didn’t have to worry about starving before the New Year.
And the magistrate was benevolent, willing to provide grain to hire people to repair the county’s official road and the road to the prefectural city. Although they wouldn’t be paid wages, the able-bodied laborers of each household had a place to eat. They also heard that the kiln in Zhaojia Village was buying firewood and charcoal, so the remaining old people and women could also go into the mountains to chop some firewood to sell.
However, what they didn’t know was that both the grain provided by the government and the money used by Zhaojia Village to buy firewood mostly came from Zhao An’s pocket. And to get County Magistrate Feng to agree to have the road repaired, Zhao An had also promised to give him a ten percent share of the profits after his drainage pipes were sold in the prefectural city.
Doing good deeds in this era was not so easy. A small misstep could be seen as having ulterior motives and trying to win people’s hearts. So, in order to expand his business, open up the market, and reduce transportation costs, being willing to hire people to repair the road became a legitimate reason.
In this way, the more than one thousand liang of silver that the kiln had recently earned for him was all spent.
Zhao An bit into the flaky pastry mooncake he had made, looked at the bright moon in the sky, and felt a mixture of sadness and joy. He took another sip of the newly brewed wine and finally couldn’t help but complain to Hu Sheng, “Why do you think I’ve spent so much money?”
Hu Sheng also looked at the beauty under the round moon. “For peace of mind. You’ve been sleeping very quickly these past few nights.” He raised his hand and hooked a strand of Zhao An’s hair. “But the atmosphere is so good tonight. You’re not going to leave me to sleep alone again, are you?”
“Haven’t we been sleeping together all this time?” Zhao An pretended not to know and glared at Hu Sheng, then took another sip of wine. “Maybe I’m just someone who can’t hold onto wealth. When I’m old, if I still haven’t saved any money, don’t you dare despise me for being poor.”
Hu Sheng quickly pulled him over and kissed him. “I won’t. My men have returned. They brought back more than ten thousand jin of block sugar. After they re-boil this cane sugar into granulated sugar and sell it, all the money will be for you to spend.”
“You’re so generous. But I have nothing to repay you with~” If Zhao An’s tone hadn’t been so flirtatious, the atmosphere wouldn’t have been so improper.
Hu Sheng was indeed very quick on the uptake. He picked him up and walked towards the house. “Then you can repay me with your body.”
