Chapter 16 Qin 16
Spring came and autumn went, and the newly built smelting plant even used the mined coal as fuel, but Ying Ji still couldn't find the person he longed for, named Zheng.
There was no such child on the list of imperial clansmen in Xianyang, and he even secretly investigated all the illegitimate children of the imperial clansmen.
Sometimes he even wondered if some force was preventing him from discovering this person.
However, he hasn't had the energy to investigate this matter recently. The State of Wei has recently surrendered and become a vassal state of his Great Qin, and the King of Han has come to Qin to pay homage. He also needs to get up early to deal with the many complicated matters that have arisen.
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Ying Ji got up and left his bedchamber, heading towards the main hall where he held meetings and received guests. A line of attendants followed him cautiously, not daring to make a sound.
He passed by the garden...
Um?
Ying Ji turned back after taking only a few steps. Why were there four strange women sitting in the corridor next to his garden, admiring the flowers?
Ying Ji suddenly felt the world blur before his eyes, that familiar feeling...
He seemed to know who he had met, and he instructed a servant to go to the front and inform the ministers that breakfast had been served and that they should eat while they waited.
He waved everyone away and walked alone through the flower bushes toward the opposite corridor.
As he approached, he could clearly see the women's faces. Among them, the woman dressed in black looked most familiar; he had seen her in a dream before…
When he saw the other person again, those vague memories became clear in an instant, and he realized that this was the one who had told him that he was about to die.
I couldn't find out who she was before, but now that I've run into her again, maybe I can find out her identity.
Thinking this, Ying Ji paid even closer attention to the movements of the people not far ahead.
They seemed to be talking, but you could only hear a few words when you got closer and stood behind the flowers.
The youngest girl, dressed in bright clothes, spoke with a clear, cheerful laugh, but her words were chilling upon closer inspection: "Then, sister, please be gentle when you eat me, because I'm most afraid of pain."
The woman in green frowned and said, "Can't you be a little more dignified?"
The little girl pouted and retorted, "It's not like you won the fight!"
She completely ignored Zhao's unpleasant expression and continued to reopen old wounds: "It was only six or seven years ago, right? How could you forget, Sister Zhao?"
Han's smile was sweet and lovely, and her petite figure was especially endearing. However, her words were like sharp blades, stabbing people's hearts one after another.
"Should I help Sister Zhao recall?"
She pointed her small hand in the air, and golden light gathered, revealing a map of the former Shangdang County. She then drew a few more lines on it, and the city within it expanded continuously, with the still pedestrians on the streets beginning to move.
Ying Ji showed an expression of amazement. This was... Shangdang County. He vaguely remembered seeing a crude map before, with abstract lines. Compared to this three-dimensional map, it was immediately outdated.
Seeing the expressions of the remaining three people who seemed unfazed by this ability, he began to wonder, what kind of person could do such a thing? Could this ability be that of a god?
Such methods are nothing short of supernatural.
"When Qin attacked Shangdang, that fool King Han was afraid of fighting the Qin army, so he decided to give Shangdang County directly to Qin so that they wouldn't have to fight to the death. However, the governor of Shangdang County was unwilling, and even the person he had chosen to take over, Feng Ting, was unwilling."
"To be honest, I highly suspect that Feng Ting is a spy for your 'Zhao'. He was unwilling to hand over Shangdang to Qin, but instead led his men to hand over Shangdang to 'Zhao'. What difference does that make from ceding territory or not?"
"Hiss, and then what was it again, Sister Zhao, do you remember? You won?" Han blinked, as if she had forgotten the ending.
"You! Don't think I won't beat you up just because you're on 'Qin's' territory!"
Zhao suddenly stood up, staring at the other person with a gloomy face. The deaths of those Zhao people were a pain in her heart. Although not all the dead were Zhao people, there were also Han people from Shangdang at the time, but this was not something that could be brought up casually.
Han hid behind Qin, poked his head out, and taunted, "Then come and hit me!"
Zhao laughed angrily, rolling up his sleeves without any regard for his image: "Fine, come out here, if you're so capable, don't hide behind her!"
"Hehehe, only a fool would come out!"
“Take recently, for example, you came to Qin too…”
"Shut up!"
I'm going to say it!
Ying Jiquan overheard the two countries' childish behavior, but from these words, he could deduce... these people, no, these countries...
His brain was somewhat overloaded; how could such a strange thing happen in the world?
Before Han could continue speaking, Qin suddenly turned to the side and pulled out Guo, who was hiding behind her. Without even getting up, she remained sitting upright, lifting the petite little girl with ease.
She tore away her gentle facade, her eyes darkening as she stared at 'Han': "I want to hit you too..."
Han was taken aback for a moment, then said coquettishly, "Why? I didn't say anything..."
Qin looked at the simpleton in front of him and said coldly, "Is it possible that nearly this many of my children died back then?"
Han shut up. Even though Zhao was angry, she dared to provoke him because she knew this was Qin's territory, and things wouldn't get too ugly.
Unfortunately, she forgot one thing: in this era that resembles a battle royale, it's really hard to explain the grudges between countries.
"..." Han remained silent for a long time, not daring to struggle as Qin held him up, and then said, "It's also Zhou's fault for being so crazy, getting involved in this enfeoffment system..."
She stopped halfway through her sentence, saying that the feudal system led to constant strife and countless deaths and injuries, and that without it, they would not exist.
No matter what she says, she's wrong, sob sob sob.
Qin was quite annoyed by Han's half-crying appearance, so he casually put the country down.
"You still say the King of Han is a fool? I don't think you're much better than him."
Zhao glanced at Han with disdain. Han had never been this stupid before; in recent years, they had become increasingly incomprehensible to the state.
It doesn't seem like he's faking madness...
Zhao thought of a terrifying possibility: could the reigning kings and nobles affect their intelligence?
The current King of Zhao is alright, but the next one is hard to say... I'm getting scared.
"Alright, alright, let's not talk about it anymore. It's a rare opportunity for us to come here..." Wei, dressed in a light gray, flowing robe and dressed very modestly, spoke in a gentle tone.
“Hehe, indeed,” Zhao said, ignoring Wei’s good intentions. “You came here to become her vassal state, you came with the King of Han to curry favor with her, it is indeed a rare occasion for you to come.”
Han said unhappily, "Then what's Sister Zhao doing here? She can't be planning to challenge Sister Qin, can she? I think you lost your last competition, Sister Zhao~"
Her implication was clear: we're all in this together, so why are you mocking me?
“Who’s like you? I’ll do it…” Zhao glanced at Qin, who was calmly looking into the distance as if she wasn’t even there, and said, “Of course, it’s to threaten her.”
'Qin': "..."
Wei: "...This joke isn't very funny..."
'Han': "...Heh, saving face at all costs leads to suffering."
Seeing that another chase was about to begin, Wei quickly changed the subject: "Shouldn't your king be attending court at this time? Why is he still here admiring flowers?"
Zhao casually speculated, "It's normal for people to slack off sometimes, maybe he's just being lazy."
Han: "Hmph, Qin Ji's diligence in governing is obvious to all, how could it be as you speculate?"
Most importantly, he's incredibly long-lived. Why couldn't her capable and talented predecessor, the King of Han, have lived longer? Instead, she's left behind someone like this…
“He can see!” Zhao’s eyes sharpened as he finished speaking, and with a light wave of his hand, a gust of wind swept the person in front of him.
Qin frowned, took control of the wind, and gently put the person down. He then ordered the flowers and plants in the garden to climb up the corridor to create a new seat for Ying Ji.
"Ji greets everyone." For some reason, he felt that everyone present was older than him, so he performed the junior's greeting.
Han stared at Ying Ji with some curiosity: "Oh, you're Qin Ji. We were just talking about you, did you hear us?"
"...I heard some of it, thank you all for your praise."
"I'm Han. Since I praised you, next time you should go and fight Zhao first, don't come and fight me, okay?" 'Han' blinked, looking innocent and cute.
Ying Ji reacted quickly, but was also somewhat dazed.
Suddenly, he saw four kingdoms 'holding a meeting' in his palace garden, one of whom told him not to attack her next time, but to attack another kingdom instead.
Although the guess was bizarre, the increasingly obvious sense of kinship made him first confirm that the person sitting in the center was 'Qin', the Great Qin that he had fought for all his life!
Ying Ji's eyes sparkled. Putting aside everything else and conspiracies for now, since the mere thought of the word "conspiracy" pained him—a subconscious feeling deep within his bloodline—how could he possibly use those two words to insult 'Qin'? If this couldn't prove...
Besides, he didn't think that a god or ghost with such abilities would need to go to such lengths to deceive him.
Han pouted in dissatisfaction: "Pay attention to me, stop just looking at Sister Qin. If you want to see her, we can set up a memorial tablet for her so you can see her every day."
Ying Ji finally turned his gaze to Han, who had spoken, and said apologetically, "It depends on the situation at the time, and it's not something I can decide alone."
'Zhao': ?
Zhao: "Han, are you alright? Why are you discussing this with the King of Qin?"
She felt like a normal person had accidentally wandered into a mental illness conference. Was the country and its people all sick?
Oh, this King of Qin is crazy. What kind of answer is that? After saying that, he continued to look at Qin with a childlike gaze. What, does he want Qin to praise him? How old is he?
Zhao found Ying Ji disagreeable and deeply felt that despite his advanced age, he was not as mature as Ying Zheng.
Ah, King of Qin.
A note from the author:
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Wars back then were incredibly brutal. Surrender didn't guarantee freedom of life; in fact, most states killed each other's prisoners. If I remember correctly, it was only after Lü Buwei came to power in the Qin Dynasty that a new policy was implemented prohibiting the killing of prisoners. It was better to be unified; continued division meant endless wars.
For example, on the south side of the Yanxiadu site in Yi County, Hebei Province, there are fourteen earthen mounds. In 1996, due to erosion from the elements, the outer mound of one of them crumbled, revealing human heads inside. These earthen mounds are actually "jingguan" (a type of mound of heads).
Later, a small-scale excavation revealed over 2,000 human skulls in each mound, all heads without torsos, dating back to before the Battle of Changping. Comparison with historical records suggests these "jingguan" (skulls of skulls) were the heads of Qi prisoners brought back by the Yan army after the rebellion of Zi Zhi or the campaign against Qi by Yue Yi. This indicates that this practice of calculating merit by taking enemy heads on a large scale was not unique to Qin, but was common in other states as well.
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Coal was actually discovered during the Warring States period, but it wasn't used for iron smelting because the corresponding technology was inadequate and the methods were incorrect. Explaining this is complicated, but you can search for it if you're interested. I won't post the information here. In general, the furnace was tailor-made for coal. If it was used correctly, coal had advantages in terms of cost and reducing the amount of trees cut down. Later, coking was a major technological advancement.
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