Chapter 44 The Great Law of Time

After learning of Fusu's purpose, Lin Fengzhi carefully examined the bamboo slips Fusu handed her. She was surprised and couldn't help but wonder if the First Emperor truly intended to groom Fusu as his successor.

In official history, he did not decide to let Fusu succeed to the throne until the very end.

Regardless of whether Fusu succeeded to the throne, Ying Zheng ultimately chose his eldest son.

Fusu planned to pilot the planting of winter wheat in the heart of the Guanzhong Plain. In addition, he worked with agricultural officials sent by the Minister of Agriculture to learn as much as possible about the characteristics of winter wheat, and had several people compile the information into a booklet, which was prepared to be sent to the countryside by minor officials to read and explain it.

In addition, to encourage the common people to try planting winter wheat, they would be exempt from the poll tax the following year, and those with a good harvest would be granted an additional rank of nobility. In the event of a disaster and poor harvest, they would be allowed to use wheat fields to offset the corvée labor of that year.

He also plans to invite the three elders from Guanzhong to participate in the supervision, attempting to use their local knowledge to persuade farmers.

For officials, he incorporated the effectiveness of the promotion into the performance evaluation of county magistrates, and those who increased production were recorded as "the best," while punishment was almost non-existent.

Knowing that wheat porridge was hard to swallow, he planned to install more stone mills and water-powered millstones in Xianyang and along the Wei River.

Fusu came here specifically for the stone millstone and the water-powered millstone.

Stone millstones are not rare; they've been in the Xianyang Palace for a long time. What's rare is that Lin Fengzhi's stone millstone has been improved, grinding wheat faster and more finely. As for the water-powered millstone, it goes without saying that even the disciples of the Mohist school were astonished by it. One can only imagine how many people would come to see it when it's erected on the banks of the Wei River.

After reading his plan, Lin Fengzhi could only say that Fusu truly lived up to his reputation for "benevolence and virtue".

"Young Master's plan is already very complete, and I will not keep the methods for making stone millstones and water millstones to myself," Lin Fengzhi said. Benevolence is a good thing, but it is unknown how the promotion of winter wheat will ultimately go.

The First Emperor must have been eager to see how capable his eldest son was.

“I have some disciples who are farmers, and they have recently been researching winter wheat. They have created something that makes cultivation easier, which is an improved straight-shaft plow. If you need it, young master, you may take it or the plow with you.”

Lin Fengzhi was not interested in the test that the First Emperor had given to Fusu, but since the task of promoting winter wheat had been assigned to Fusu, in order to ensure that more people could eat well, Lin Fengzhi simply handed over Xu Chu and others to Fusu.

They have recently been reading through many classic texts, including the four chapters of "Shang Nong" in "Lüshi Chunqiu", "Guanzi", and "Mencius".

They did manage to summarize quite a few good things.

Because some people in Guanzhong also grow wheat, they even went to the homes of the people of Guizhou to learn about the precautions for growing wheat.

I visited several places and gained a lot.

She knew nothing about farming, but she remembered the other party's efforts. Now that Fusu was promoting winter wheat, why not take advantage of the situation?

Fusu bowed respectfully and said, "On behalf of all the people of the world, Fusu thanks the divine messenger."

Lin Fengzhi waved her hand, saying that she was not a producer of knowledge, but merely a conveyor of it.

The porters worked diligently, huffing and puffing as they unearthed these revolutionary products. While searching for their way home, they embraced the thought that since they were already here, they couldn't leave anytime soon, and gradually began to change the Qin Dynasty.

Xianyang is the place that has benefited the most rapidly and the most.

The textile workshop was established, and because of its considerable scale, it attracted women from Xianyang City and surrounding villages and towns to become textile workers.

In the official workshop, in addition to the oblique loom, the flower tower loom and the water-powered spinning wheel were also put into use one after another with the joint efforts of Chu Mo and Xiang Li Mo.

This also led to a series of changes.

The demand for raw silk, hemp, and dyes in Xianyang has surged, prompting many locals to decide to plant silkworms and ramie next year. Furthermore, the primary processing of silk reeling and hemp spinning is developing on a large scale and with specialization.

The ample and inexpensive supply of cloth also reduced the cost of clothing for the people.

Besides flowing into the market, the huge quantities of cloth were also made into uniforms, tents, and flags for the Qin army, improving the soldiers' warmth and basic equipment. Most directly, this boosted the morale of the Qin army.

The enormous success of the official textile workshops brought huge tax revenues to the national treasury.

The First Emperor once again turned his attention to the Mohists. The flower-shaped loom and the water-powered spinning wheel brought tangible and almost revolutionary wealth to the Qin Dynasty, and Ying Zheng began to reassess the value of Mohist technology.

In his view, as long as it can enhance national strength, why not do it?

The Qin Dynasty's tax revenue mainly came from three sources: first, land rent and poll tax, the latter being the so-called head tax; second, corvée labor, a hidden tax where some people would pay exemption fees to avoid corvée labor; and third, the monopoly on salt and iron, where the government controlled mines and salt wells and sold them to the common people at high prices.

The textile workshops, which had only been in operation for a few months, accounted for three percent of the total tax revenue.

Besides the official textile workshops, the impact of blast furnace iron smelting also greatly pleased the First Emperor.

The shift in iron smelting methods has enabled the efficient and large-scale production of high-quality steel, leading to a significant drop in the price of ironware. This has allowed for the wider application of ironware in agriculture, increasing the efficiency of deep plowing and land reclamation. The Qin Dynasty's policy of abolishing the well-field system has been implemented more quickly, and many commoners are considering reclaiming even more wasteland next year.

More importantly, blast furnace ironmaking absorbed the unemployed population from the original military industry.

Before unification, the Qin Dynasty's military industries, such as weapons manufacturing and chariot manufacturing, were booming due to prolonged warfare, absorbing a large workforce. After unification, however, the battlefield was almost entirely limited to the northern Xiongnu, leading to the closure of numerous ironworks and the unemployment of over a million artisans and soldiers.

Unemployed veterans stranded in Xianyang have become a destabilizing factor.

Both the government and the public need a war or a new industry to deal with this group of people.

In the original timeline, the Baiyue Wars arose as a result. At the same time, the First Emperor also invested a lot of money in infrastructure construction, such as building the Great Wall, in an attempt to absorb population through engineering projects.

However, these actions did not alleviate the root of the problem; instead, they exacerbated the conflict with the people and became one of the reasons for Qin's rapid demise.

Fortunately, the industry shift was timely, and no serious consequences resulted.

The large-scale presence of female workers made the economic contributions of some women outside the home more visible and important. They received certain compensation, which also led to a certain improvement in their social status.

Ahe, who works at the textile workshop, is one such woman who was influenced by this.

Ahe's embroidery skills are excellent; her embroidery can fetch a good price in Shiting, Xianyang.

Therefore, she was conscripted into the official residence.

In fact, during the Qin Dynasty, both men and women were required to serve in the military every year once they reached the age of fifteen, although the specific areas of service differed.

Men's service mainly consisted of military service, city building, tomb construction, and the transport of provisions and supplies. Although women were exempt from battlefield duties and heavy physical labor, they were still required to engage in weaving and were conscripted during busy farming seasons. Each household was required to pay a certain amount of cloth tax annually, which was usually done by women.

If a husband is convicted of a crime and sentenced to build a mausoleum, his wife and daughters will be assigned to work as rice pounders and rice selectors.

Ahe's husband wasn't so reckless as to commit a crime. But he beat her, and later, she reported his behavior to the authorities. Her husband was sentenced to have his hair and beard shaved and to perform hard labor.

"If the husband is guilty, the wife can report him." Once the government convicts the husband, the marriage is automatically dissolved, which can be considered one of the benefits of Qin law.

Because of her divorce, Ahe is paying attention to this kind of thing.

She had heard that many women who denounced their husbands did not divorce them because if they did, the land and houses would belong to the husband's family, making it difficult for them to survive independently. Even if they could take their dowry with them, ordinary people would only have clothes and jewelry.

Fortunately, she was skilled at embroidery and could support herself and her child. Even with heavy taxes, she still earned enough to survive.

The requisition of textile workshops this time also surprised Ahe.

In the past, government levies usually only provided some food and clothing as compensation. Of course, it wasn't limited to that; after completing the government levy, the compensation could be deducted from the cloth tax payable.

Ah He was surprised that the government was so generous this time, and even gave him the full amount of wages.

After asking her neighbor's wife to take care of her child, she went to Guanfang.

The neatly arranged looms in the official workshop also greatly impressed Ahe.

In just one spacious weaving room, hundreds of looms were arranged like an army formation. The roar of foot pedals lifting the heddles and the shuttle flying swiftly through the silk threads were quite overwhelming for Ahe, who was used to weaving alone.

As she worked there for a while, she gradually discovered that the women working in the official workshops were a diverse group. In addition to women from respectable families like herself who had been conscripted, there were also concubines and women from the former noble families of the six kingdoms.

The official in charge of their weaving workshop was a woman named Xiaoshui. She controlled everything, from whether the weavers' cloth was up to standard and whether their embroidery could be presented to their superiors, to the weavers' attendance, performance evaluations, and the distribution of their wages.

She was young and serious, and literate; she was one of the few female officials in the officialdom.

For some reason, Ahe was a little afraid of her.

As soon as Ahe entered the weaving room and sat down, Xiaoshui poked her head out of the window and called to her, "Ahe, come out for a moment."

All eyes immediately turned to Ahe, who shrank back, feeling a sense of fear.

Was the embroidery pattern she made yesterday not good? Or did she make some mistake without realizing it?

Ah He stood nervously in front of the female official Xiao Shui.

“I see that you have a four-year-old daughter listed in your family register, is that right?”

Ahe frowned, a hint of worry in her eyes: "Yes."

Fu Ji was not only a household registration, but also an arrest warrant issued by the state when conscripting labor and taxes. After Shang Yang's reforms, everyone was meticulously recorded in the state's books.

“For the past three months, you have performed exceptionally well each month, with exquisite embroidery. In order to allow outstanding weavers like you to focus on weaving, the government has decided that children under the age of twelve can be sent to the school under the government. Your daughter can also go there. After your shift, you can take her home.”

Ah He was overjoyed. Although she could trouble her neighbor, her family had recently been planting winter wheat in order to avoid paying taxes next year, following the advice of Prince Fusu. So she decided to avoid troubling her neighbor if possible.

My aunt also has to work.

Every time Ahe went to pick up her daughter from school, she would bring something to her aunt's house. After a while, she couldn't stand it anymore, and her aunt couldn't take it either.

Ahe hesitated for a moment, then asked softly, "How much does a classroom cost?"

Xiao Shui said, "It won't cost any money. As long as you're in the textile workshop, your children won't have to spend any money."

This measure was something Xiao Shui learned from Lin Fengzhi. She persuaded her superior, Feng Yin, the Assistant Prefect of the Imperial Secretariat, with both emotional appeal and logical reasoning.

Feng Yin owed Lin Fengzhi a great favor, and remembering that Lin Fengzhi had done the same thing in the Keluo tribe's territory, he simply didn't stop Xiao Shui's suggestion and presented it to the First Emperor step by step.

As for the First Emperor, seeing the profits made from the textile workshops, blast furnaces, gunpowder, salt production, and so on, he agreed. Not only that, other workshops followed the example of the textile workshops, establishing schools to address the problem of workers needing to care for their children.

Throughout the day, Ahe was full of energy and exceeded her daily task targets.

Although she was tired, she was happy.

She specially bought several meat-filled buns to take home. She often smelled their aroma while working, but had never been able to bring herself to buy them. She heard that these buns were made from wheat, and it was amazing that wheat porridge could be so fragrant and soft.

When she went to pick up her daughter, she gave one to her neighbor: "Auntie, many high-ranking officials and nobles eat these buns. I heard that even His Majesty likes them. If your wheat crop this year is really as the agricultural official said, and it grows well in April or May next year, you will definitely be able to sell it for a good price."

"Oh, Ah He, you're so generous. These buns cost four coins each. You're too kind." The neighbor aunt took the buns and thanked her sincerely, "Thank you for your kind words. It's snowing soon, and my husband was worried that the wheat seedlings in the field weren't covered properly, so he went to check on them."

"Next year, after my family harvests wheat, I'll grind it into flour at the stone mill at the street corner and send you a bag to try. It'll be delicious for making noodles and cold skin noodles."

The government installed stone mills in every street and alley, so families with surplus wheat could grind it into flour there. If they found it too tiring, they could also find water-powered millstones by the Wei River, but those cost two coins.

My aunt's family has already planted all their wheat, and they have no surplus grain or money left to try anything new.

Ahe smiled and agreed, then told her aunt about the school.

Overwhelmed with emotion, the aunt wiped away her tears and kept saying, "Ahe, you've made it through. That's wonderful."

"Yes, life is so good now. Auntie, we've all made it through."