Chapter 333
Chapter 333
Everything in Mobei gradually settled onto the right track.
While the Imperial Court and the Prince of Nanyang fought fiercely in the south, Mobei kept its head down and quietly grew stronger.
Although clashes with certain grassland tribes still occurred from time to time, they remained small in scale.
The stability here also drew people fleeing the war-torn regions northward.
Ji Yan’an turned no one away. As long as they were not guilty of heinous crimes, he arranged a place for them to settle.
In only two short years, many new villages had appeared in the region.
“Brother, is this where newcomers collect grain seeds?”
A group of refugees who had only recently settled here heard that Beizhen City was distributing grain seeds and seedlings. Each village sent several men to find out what was happening.
After asking for directions along the way, they finally reached the government distribution site.
“That’s right. You must be new here.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. In Beizhen City, I can’t promise you’ll eat like kings, but you definitely won’t go hungry.”
“The seed distribution site is just ahead. The seeds issued by the government grow better than our own and are less prone to disease.”
“Since you’ve only just arrived, your best choices are sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, and wheat. The first three produce large harvests and are easy to grow. The wheat issued by the government also yields more.
“In your first year, though, plant less wheat if your family doesn’t have enough land. Of course, the government doesn’t give out seeds for nothing. At harvest, you’ll have to hand over forty percent of your grain. Once your family saves enough money to buy your own seeds, you’ll only pay a twenty-percent grain tax.”
“Only twenty percent?!”
The newcomers could hardly believe the grain tax was so low.
“I-it’s really that little?”
In the south, the grain tax had risen to sixty percent, and officials accepted only wheat and rice.
After laboring themselves half to death for an entire year, they had to surrender all their rice and wheat. If that was not enough, they had to scrape together silver as well.
But here… this place seemed almost charitable!
The new refugees asked the question again and again. After receiving the same unbelievable answer each time, they wondered in a daze whether the nobles in the north were truly this benevolent.
“For all this, we have a little bodhisattva to thank.”
“A little bodhisattva?”
“That’s right. She found the two high-yield crops, potatoes and corn, and improved their seeds. Once their yields increased, she spread them everywhere so we could not only eat our fill, but every household could raise pigs. Come to think of it, I believe she also discovered that pigs grow better after being castrated. Sweet potato vines grow so vigorously that we never have to worry about running out of pig feed…”
The man began discussing pig raising with mounting excitement.
“My family raised three big, fat pigs last year. We took good care of them, and each grew to more than three hundred jin. They sold for over two taels of silver apiece.”
“If your family grows more sweet potatoes or potatoes than you can eat, you can sell them to the government. They turn them into starch noodles. Both kinds taste good, are convenient to cook, and don’t cost much. We’ve only been here two years, and we’ve already rebuilt our home as a spacious blue-brick house with a tiled roof.”
“Once we’ve saved a little money, we’ll send both our sons and daughters to school to learn to read.”
“What? Girls here go to school too?”
This time, the newcomers were so shocked that their mouths seemed wide enough to hold several eggs.
“Of course. Let me tell you, there are businesses here that hire only women: a textile workshop, a winery, a tea plantation, and some sort of women’s cosmetics business.”
“The textile workshop weaves cloth, but that isn’t all they do. I heard that women who can read and have nimble hands might be selected for special lessons in embroidery and clothes making. Ordinary workers there earn three taels of silver a month, while supervisors earn even more. But those positions require reading and writing.”
“I heard the winery recruits neat, presentable girls who care about cleanliness. The tea pickers are much the same, except they need to be meticulous. But all the highly paid supervisors have to know how to read, and they must be able to write too.”
The newcomers listened, dumbfounded.
The women in particular had eyes shining with excitement.
“I never imagined Mobei would be so different.”
“That’s right. I always heard nobles over there call Mobei a land of crude barbarians who couldn’t be civilized. They even said everyone here was a murderous demon.”
“Bah! If you ask me, they’re the wolves who devour people without spitting out the bones.”
By comparison, life in Mobei seemed incomparably better.
What they did not know was that life here had only improved in recent years. These enormous changes were quite new.
Whatever the case, the newcomers’ hearts burned with hope after hearing all this.
Once they received their seeds, they even found people waiting to teach them how each crop should be planted.
This won even greater goodwill from the common people.
*
“Ji Yan’an!”
A young girl’s clear voice rang out.
Moments later, a girl in a pale pink dress rushed energetically into the Ji Mansion.
A radiant smile lit her face, stars sparkled in her large eyes, and her ink-black hair traced a beautiful arc through the air.
Jiang Yunsui held up her skirt as she ran, yet even in her haste, she maintained the basic manners and bearing expected of her.
Clearly, Old Madam Ji’s instruction over the past few years had been quite successful.
The girl looked around and spotted a handsome, aloof young man in a moon-white robe beneath the peach tree.
His features were as finely drawn as a painting, but his gaze carried the cold, commanding authority of someone accustomed to power.
Yet those icy eyes softened slightly when they fell upon the girl who had burst in.
“Ji Yan’an, why didn’t you tell me you were back?”
Jiang Yunsui hurried to his side and tilted up her small face, looking at him with a hint of disgruntlement.
Now that she looked, the difference in their heights seemed to have grown even greater.
Unconvinced, she secretly measured the gap.
In fact, the young man saw every movement she made.
“That can’t be right. Did you put height-boosting insoles in your shoes?”
Otherwise, the difference could not possibly be so large!
She knew Ji Yan’an was growing, but she was a child too. She was growing as well!
At ten years old, Jiang Yunsui had shot up and was no longer as chubby as before. Although her face still held some childish roundness, it too had slimmed considerably.
Her skin was fair with a faint rosy tint.
In the sunlight, her fine skin resembled creamy white jade brushed with pale rouge.
She had grown taller and thinner.
Yet hers was not the frail slenderness of a willow swaying in the wind, but a healthy, graceful slimness.
She was Beizhen City’s cherished little darling.
The common people respected and adored her, and had even built a temple where they burned incense in her honor.
This was because of the high-yield grain seeds she had brought back and improved.
Even among the grassland tribes, many people revered her as a divine maiden.
She had made wool economically valuable, improved grass seed, and even found a lush-growing forage grass that cattle and sheep loved to eat.
This stabilized the herders’ income and ensured that they too had enough to eat.
Ordinary people wanted very little: full bellies and warm clothes.
Whoever gave them enough to eat and wear was the god they would worship in their hearts.