After nightfall, candles were lit to illuminate the lobby of the official residence as brightly as day, and Han Qian asked Old Man Zhao to call the two slaves over.
These are two thin-faced men, both in their mid-twenties, wearing shabby Ge Yi, with the word "official slave" tattooed on their left and right cheeks in black, which is very eye-catching to show that they are special among the official slaves.
exist.
After all, ordinary official slaves were usually tattooed with words on their arms or necks, which would not be very eye-catching.
Under the guidance of Mr. Zhao, the two walked into the lobby and walked in lamely with evasive eyes.
Zhao Ting'er and Xi Rong accompanied Han Qian to study under the lamp in boredom, looking up at the two men curiously.
The two thin men glanced at the room, then carefully knelt down in front of the hall, lowered their heads and stared at the blue bricks in front of them. They didn't know why the new master summoned them to the big house.
Han Qian put down the book in his hand and stared at the two skinny men for a while. He waved to Old Man Zhao to wait outside the house, and then asked them aloud:
"It has been some years since King Dong Chang of Yue was exterminated. The Dong family decided to kill all men over the age of fourteen. How old were you two at that time?"
"The two of us are Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang, the concubines of Zhao Shuqi, the official of Yuezhou, and Chen Changli, the magistrate of Jihai County. Yuezhou was merged into Dachu. Although we are both sixteen years old, we have to be lenient by His Majesty.
If you have to survive, you will be sentenced to be an official slave. Please observe carefully." The thin man with a shallow scar on his face knelt down slightly and said.
"Are you Zhao Qi, who was known as a child prodigy in eastern Zhejiang when he was young?" Han Qian asked, staring at the man.
"Those are all distant events. Zhao Qi no longer remembers them. He only knows that Zhao Qi today is your lord's slave." said the thin man.
Han Qian smiled and asked: "Then the person behind you is Chen Changli's son Chen Jitang, who built the Simingshan weir to irrigate thousands of hectares of fertile land when he was in the Mingzhou Gongcao Army? Chen Changli once wrote "Weir"
"Book", I wonder if Mr. Chen has learned anything from family traditions?"
"I, I, have been an official slave since I was a child. I have long forgotten what family education is." Chen Jitang was weaker, speechless, and knelt behind Zhao Qi.
, stammered in reply to Han Qian’s words.
"Really?" Han Qian glanced at Chen Jitang doubtfully and said, "This farm is located at the intersection of rivers. The mud on the beach is as thin as millet porridge, and the reeds and grasses grow hard, making it difficult to grow crops. I originally thought that it would be possible to grow crops here.
Planting some barnyard rice and harvesting 50 to 60 kilograms of rice grain every year is a blessing. I didn’t expect to be able to cultivate 200 to 300 acres of good paddy fields. I took a circle in the afternoon and saw that the ditches in the farmland were intertwined and the silt was scooped out to form embankments.
Bamboo sticks and willow branches are inserted on the water side of the river embankment, presumably for draining water. There are two small canals that enter the river or are interlocked with stone gates to facilitate drainage during floods and to divert the water from the river during the flood season.
It is blocked from the village fields. The gate wall is embedded in the river embankment and has an archway, which narrows the river mouth a lot, which can speed up the flow of water and wash away sediment. I originally thought that people with such thoughts should go to Chen Gongsuo
I wrote the true biography of "The Book of Weirs", it seems that I have overthought it."
Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi lay on the ground, not daring to answer.
Han Qian picked up the book on the desk again and said to the thin man with scars on his face: "I saw in the roster that after Chen Jitang was demoted to an official slave, he married your sister Zhao E. But I saw it earlier.
After reading the actual records of the battles in Runzhou, I vaguely remember that when your father Zhao Shuqi died in the battle in Runzhou, it seems that your sister Zhao E was also in Runzhou at the time and suffered misfortune during the military rebellion..."
Hearing what Han Qian said, the scar-faced man Zhao Qi couldn't help but tremble in his hands and feet. He lay on the ground and said with a cry: "That must be because the Lord has misunderstood, or maybe there was an error in the record at that time. The wife Ji Tang married,
There is no doubt that she is indeed my servant’s young sister Zhao E, please let me know carefully.”
"Anything that happened clearly or not, or about Zhao E or Dong Yue'er, seems to me to be irrelevant. The Dong family has already passed away. If no one deliberately mentioned it, no one would think of Dong.
The existence of the clan and the so-called hatred between the country and the family will not make any waves. You two have not used this matter to redeem yourselves, and you can be regarded as sentimental and righteous people. It is impossible for me to exchange you for such a small reward.
.However, since you are all slaves in my Han family's house from now on, I naturally want to understand your situation clearly. There are words engraved on your faces. Don't think about running away overnight just because of fear, and continue to stay with peace of mind.
Just don’t be half-hearted when doing things in Zhuangzi, and I won’t treat you badly. I also understand that you, twelve households of servants and servants, live a very poor life. You and Chen Jitang had three sons who died in infancy, and now you finally have another son.
Giving birth requires careful care, don’t you think?”
"My lord, I have an insight. A servant should never serve your lord half-heartedly." Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang kowtowed and said.
"Old Guan Zhao, come in," Han Qian raised his voice to call Old Guan Zhao in, and ordered him, "In the future, if anything happens in the village, you will ask Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang to help you do it. Tomorrow, you will ask each family to come in first
In the big house, each person takes away three hundred kilograms of rice and flour, and ten kilograms of salt and oil. If there is an epidemic in each family, they must be treated in time without delay."
The summer grain from the farm was not sent to the palace, but there was only less than a hundred shi of japonica rice in the official residence. He was about to give out nearly half of the reward at once. Old Man Zhao was still feeling extremely hurt and looked at Han Qian with resentment.
Taking a glance at it, I thought to myself that if the young master really wants me to be the steward of this village, he must listen to his advice when it comes to money and food!
Han Qian waved to Old Man Zhao to lead Zhao Qi, and Chen Jitang retreated to rest. He read for a while and then went to bed.
At noon the next day, the Xuzhou Boat Gang's fleet sailed slowly from the south and docked at the pond northeast of Yandangji. Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, Xi Chang and others borrowed the boat plank to land ashore and stood in front of the pond embankment.
Han Qian is waiting.
The fleet unloaded part of the goods transported from Xuzhou into the warehouse of Taowu Jijunfu. However, they did not come with empty ships. Instead, they transported all the belongings that Han Qian could move out of Qiuhushan Villa.
.
In addition to a large collection of books, desks, furniture and other items, as well as four ships of coal cakes and green bricks that were not expensive at this time, there were also a number of pottery urns and steamers fixed with wooden frames.
The shapes of these pottery urns and steamers were quite strange. Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang, who were ordered to bring strong slaves to help unload the goods, felt very strange when they saw these urns, steamers and other objects, and could not figure out what use they had.
In addition to these items moved out from the Qiuhushan Villa, six families of soldiers and nearly 30 family members who lived in the courtyard also evacuated and moved into the Yandangji Manor Courtyard together.
Since the Han family will be clearly separated from Zuo Si in the future, these people are the family soldiers of the Han family. Except for those like Lin Haizheng who have formal official status, otherwise even if they want to serve Zuo Si, they will all serve Han Qian.
, can no longer be mixed among the ordinary engineers and scouts of Zuosi.
These six family soldiers were all a bit old, and they were more or less disabled in the first half of their lives and were unable to go to the battlefield again. However, Han Daoxun could not bear to abandon them, so he, Fan Xicheng, Zhao Kuo and the others still took them with him to support them.
Han Qian did not organize them into the military room or the inspection room before, but followed Fan Xicheng and Lin Haizheng in charge of the affairs of the craftsman's workshop.
After Lin Haizheng was transferred by Han Qian, they still stayed in the workshop and listened to the call of the leading craftsman Zheng Tong. For more than two years, although they may not have become master craftsmen of the level of Zheng Tong, Ji Fu, and Ji Xiyao,
However, they and more than a dozen of the soldiers' children who stayed in the craftsman's workshop for two years were also familiar with lime and green brick firing, coal mining, etc., and were better than ordinary craftsmen.
At present, Han Qian also plans to use them as full-time craftsmen of the Han family.
Others continued to unload the items brought from Qiuhushan Villa, especially the two ships of lime and nearly 100,000 small green bricks, which would take some time to be moved ashore.
Han Qian called Zhao Qi, Chen Jitang, Zhao Laoguan and others to his side and said: "I think there will be a fenced house between Zhuangyuan and Yandangji. When the time comes, the scale of Xuzhou Boat Gang will further expand, maybe it will also happen in Jinling."
There are three to five hundred people stranded, and we must be prepared for Jiang bandits to attack from Qiupukou. When you plan to build enclosed houses, you must take all these factors into consideration!"
Zhao Laoguan wanted to talk to the Han family craftsmen who had withdrawn from Qiuhu Mountain about this matter, but Han Qian asked him to discuss it with Zhao Qi and Chen Jitang.
Although the panic in Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi's hearts has not completely dissipated, they also know that they need to show their value in front of Han Qian.
Chen Jitang weighed the palm-long small green bricks and stammered: "Here, these two boats are small. The small green bricks seem to be many, but they can only build a courtyard with ten, fourteen or five rooms...
"
"Oh?" Han Qian took a look at Chen Jitang. He calculated with a pen and paper for a long time last night before he calculated that the batch of small green bricks he got for free from the craftsman's workshop this time, together with the courtyard wall, could build an eight-story building.
He sat down in the eight-bay yard. Unexpectedly, Chen Jitang followed him on board the ship, estimated the volume of the cabin with his naked eyes, and then weighed one or two small green bricks. The result he calculated in his mind was eight or nine times the same as what he had calculated with a pen and paper.
Never leave ten.
When Chen Jitang's father, Chen Changli, was working in Mingzhou, he presided over the construction of the Simingshan Weir. It may not have been very famous in the world, but this water conservancy project built with contemporary technology will still be able to irrigate tens of thousands of acres of fields thousands of years later.
, known as one of the four ancient water conservancy projects and famous throughout the world.
It is a pity that such a character was directly killed when Emperor Tianyou annexed Yuezhou.
From this point of view, although Chen Jitang was not very young when he was demoted to an official slave, he should have received the true inheritance from his father.
Four days ago, when Han Qian got the land deed and the deeds for the twelve households of slaves, he saw Chen Jitang's name and felt a little hopeful. Unexpectedly, he really found a treasure.
"I, I, may have made a mistake in my calculations, and my words were frivolous..." Seeing Han Qian's eyes looking at him brightly, and not knowing what he was thinking, Chen Jitang stammered and retreated.
"You are not wrong in your calculations. You will be in charge of this matter," Han Qian said to Mr. Zhao. "You will cooperate with him in whatever manpower and materials Chen Jitang needs. After looking at the land in the past two days, we will start construction. In addition,
, from now on, according to the money and food allocated to their family by the soldiers, no one else will deceive them."
Old Man Zhao didn't know what Chen Jitang and Zhao Qi were capable of, so that they could win the young master's attention. He muttered, "We all come from bitter backgrounds. Why should we bully each other?"
