At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 442: The Wild Western Regions and Changing the World

On October 15th, the 15th year of the Great Han calendar, in Baishuli, Ji Country, Western Regions.

The north wind blows away all the grass, and snow falls in August. Even in this warm period, the Western Regions are already covered with snow.

Jia Sheng was digging with a shovel and a small kerosene lamp on his head. Behind him were a dozen young men, who were either digging tunnels with shovels or transporting soil to the rear with bamboo baskets filled with soil. A dozen feet later, there was a vertical shaft with a simple lifting device on it. After the basket was hung up, the people on the shaft immediately scooped up the soil, and then transported it aside and dumped it in a wilderness.

"Mr. Qiang, didn't we say we were going to dig a canal? Why are we digging a hole now?"

Jia Sheng said: "This is a canal designed by the agricultural master that is suitable for our Western Region. The Western Region is too dry. Most of the canals dug on the ground are evaporated by the sun. Only by digging underground canals can we retain most of the water. The methods designed by the agricultural master for the monarch cannot be wrong."

"It's just right to dig a canal in the cave. We can avoid the severe cold and use the free time in winter to work. After we dig this canal, my Baishuli will have at least 10,000 acres of grassland. With this additional grassland, we don't have to fight with Huyangli for grassland when grazing."

The sturdy man beside Jia Sheng laughed when he heard this and said, "Mr. Qiang, although you are as wise as a prophet, your fighting skills are too weak. But it doesn't matter. We will protect you from now on."

The others also tried to hold back their laughter when they heard this.

Jia Sheng said angrily: "You just know how to fight and kill, and you don't even consider whether it is cost-effective or not. Just for a few acres of pasture, it is worth the bloodshed and death."

Next to Baishuli is Huyangli, which is also a new village built by Ji State. Qiangfu, Fuzi, and Youjiao are also from Guanzhong. When they first came here, they were in tears when they met each other. Jia Sheng and his friends have a good relationship with Qiangfu Wanlang in Baiyangli, and several Guanzhong fellows often treat them to meals and drinks.

But conflicts in reality soon cooled their relationship. Although both villages had fields, their main industry was still pastoralism, and the sheep were mobile, so it was common for your sheep to cross the border and eat my grass, and my sheep to cross the border and eat your grass.

The conflict between the two villages over the ownership of a grassland on the border became increasingly serious, and finally led to a fierce conflict between the two villages.

Tielang from Baishuli led hundreds of young and strong men, and got rakes, forks and other farm tools to fight with the villagers from Huyangli. The villagers from both sides fought until their heads were bleeding.

Finally, under the auspices of the Hami County Magistrate, a boundary was drawn in front of all the villagers in the two villages, and they were strictly prohibited from grazing across the boundary.

Because of this incident, Jia Sheng was given a minor offense by the Hami County Magistrate. Even so, Jia Sheng felt fortunate, because before they became Qiangfu, they were told by the Prime Minister's Office of Ji State when they were being trained that the people of the Western Regions were wild and untamed, and often lost their lives over trivial matters.

The Ji State changed its nomadic life to settled grazing, but their nomadic habits could not be changed overnight. Conflicts often occurred between different villages. At that time, such villages would ride on horses according to the customs of the Western Regions, take up sabers and hack and kill, causing a large number of casualties.

But Ji Bu could not tolerate such things. There were not many people in the Western Regions. If they continued to fight each other like this, how many people would be left in Ji State? So Ji Bu formulated a tough ban on knives. Anyone who used a knife to kill without the consent of Ji State would be regarded as a horse thief and would be directly imprisoned for 3 to 10 years.

After the ban on knives was issued, there were tens of thousands of prisoners in the first three years of Ji State, and more than a dozen villages were forcibly relocated by Ji Bu. With such tough measures, people in Ji State no longer dared to kill people when there were conflicts in the villages, and they dared not bring knives or guns, and at most they could only bring some farm tools to fight.

That's why Jia Sheng felt fortunate that in the conflict involving hundreds of people, no one died and only a dozen villagers suffered minor injuries.

"Of course it's worth it. If the sheep eat a few acres less grass today, they may starve to death in the winter. If the sheep die, our tribe will have no food, and more people will die."

The young man's words were recognized by everyone present.

Only Jia Sheng was speechless. Starving was a very long time ago, and he had only heard of people starving to death in books.

Realizing that Jia Sheng didn't understand what they were saying, the young man said with envy, "You live in Chang'an, which is like a kingdom of God, with endless food. Naturally, you don't know that in the Western Regions, people are willing to kill for food."

Jia Sheng said: "Don't worry, as long as we are here, you will never go hungry in the future."

After Jia Sheng and his two companions arrived in the Western Regions, they were arranged to stay in Aries by Tian Shu, the Prime Minister of Ji State. One of them was a hermit, one was a teacher of education, and the other was a wandering guard.

Although it is a township, Baiyangli is actually a township composed of several small tribes in the Western Regions, with a total population of more than 800 people.

Baiyangli is more than 100 miles away from the capital of Ji State, close to the main road of the Silk Road. The villagers make a living by farming and grazing and providing logistics for the Silk Road caravans.

Although the people in the Western Regions also had the habit of farming, this land was too chaotic, with many small countries and constant wars. For thousands of years, there had been no strong civilization to dominate this land and establish a stable order.

This also means that farming on this land is extremely unsafe, as it is prone to invasions by surrounding nomadic tribes. Nomadism is relatively safer, so the farming skills in the Western Regions are one level lower than those in the Central Plains and are still in the primitive stage of slash-and-burn agriculture. Only large Western Region countries like Dayuan, Chechi, and Jukang can barely have large tracts of farmland in the core areas under their rule.

It was not until Ji Bu led the Han princes to take root in the Western Regions, ruled half of it, and established a relatively stable order that the number of fields in this area began to surge.

Baiyangli is the new farming village. Under the leadership of Jia Sheng, Baiyangli has opened up tens of thousands of acres of land. This autumn, they harvested 8000 dan of wheat. For Jia Sheng and his team, this is a big reduction in production, but for the villagers of Baiyangli, this is an unprecedented bumper harvest. Eight thousand dan of wheat is enough for them to eat for a year if they eat it sparingly. At least they don't have to worry about starving to death this winter.

The bumper harvest in Baiyangli brought great prestige to the three of them. When Jia Sheng talked about digging a karez, even though the villagers in Baiyangli did not understand, they still supported his action.

Jia Sheng and his team dug until the evening before they got out of the karez, packed up their tools and returned to Baishuli.

In the white tree, Wanyu was wearing a white mask and carrying a huge bow-like thing on his back, fluffing cotton with a clanging sound. The snow-white cotton was constantly being fluffed up, and the women and children around him were looking at Wanyu with admiration.

Cotton is considered a native crop in the Western Regions, but the locals' crude handicrafts still haven't produced cotton cloth. The earliest cotton cloth was made by the Sindhu people. In the past two years, the cotton production of the Han Dynasty has continued to soar. Cotton cloth has begun to enter the homes of ordinary people. Even with the opening of the Silk Road, it has begun to be dumped in the Western Regions. The nobles and kings of the Western Regions like to use the cotton cloth of the Han Dynasty. After the cotton was completely fluffy, Wan Yu asked people to start pressing the thread and put on the quilt cover, and a set of fluffy and warm cotton cloth was made.

Wan Yu said: "Send the quilts to Tielang's house. Everyone go back to eat first, and come back tomorrow morning. We will try to make five quilts."

"Yes!" The women and children around left with a smile.

Wan Yu sighed when he saw the women and children leaving, "Why should I leave the academy and come to the Western Regions?"

What Wan Yu regretted most now was coming to the Western Regions, which simply made him fall from heaven to hell. Chang'an City was the beacon of civilization in this era, and the Western Regions were the frontiers of civilization. The poorest counties in the Han Dynasty were better than here. At least in the Han Dynasty, money could buy goods, but in the Western Regions, most of the money was useless, or it could not buy what you wanted even if you had money.

In the Han Dynasty, a quilt can be purchased for only a few hundred dollars, and if you buy a lot, they can even provide door-to-door delivery services. But here in the Western Regions, only nobles can afford it, and ordinary people cannot buy quilts at all.

When Wan Yu and the other two arrived at Baishuli, they had never imagined that there would be such a barren place. The food, clothing, housing and transportation items that were very common in the Han Dynasty were either not available here or were too expensive for them to afford.

Wan Yu and his two companions had once been to Hami County, intending to buy some supplies for the winter. However, a set of cotton-padded clothes cost 4000 coins, and a set of quilts cost 3000 coins. This frightened the three of them and they only dared to buy some tools. Then they searched the Encyclopedia of Han Dynasty for methods of making cotton into cotton cloth, cotton-padded clothes and quilts.

In the Western Regions, cotton is not valuable. There is even a lot of wild cotton in the wild, which can be picked at will in autumn. What is valuable is the process of turning cotton into cotton cloth, cotton clothes and quilts. However, in the Western Regions, there is a lack of both craftsmen and machinery. Only a small number of textile factories in the capital of Ji State can produce some cotton cloth, but the price is much higher than that of the Han Dynasty, and ordinary people can't afford it.

Wanyu and his family wanted a set of clothes and quilts for the winter, so they had to build a cotton workshop from scratch.

Jia Sheng was from a family of craftsmen. When he was a child, he saw his father helping others build textile machines, and he even helped himself. He had some experience, so Jia Sheng returned to his old job, asked someone to cut wood, and made a cotton press, a spinning machine, and a loom according to the pictures in the Han Encyclopedia. Then he led the villagers in Baishuli to finally weave rough cotton cloth. It took more than a month for the three of them to make a full set of cotton clothes, cotton hats, cotton shoes, and cotton quilts.

This incident caused a sensation in the entire Baishuli. They had been wearing sheepskin coats in the winter for so many years, and this was the first time they saw things like quilts and cotton-padded clothes.

Everyone couldn't help but touch the cotton coats on the three people and were extremely envious.

Jia Sheng and his two friends were not content to eat alone, so they announced that they would provide a set of quilts for every household in the village, and if they had the time and conditions, they would also provide a three-piece cotton-padded jacket. Thus, the entire Baishuli launched an active mass production campaign this winter.

All the women and children in the village became part of the textile industry. They actively carried out production, hoping to realize the dream of every household having a quilt and everyone having clothes to wear as soon as possible.

At this time, Wan Yu was a little thankful. When they first came to the Western Regions, they didn't know what to bring, so they just took all their pocket money. Wan Yu hesitated for a moment and decided to bring his favorite Han Encyclopedia as well.

This set of Han Encyclopedia really saved their lives. It recorded everything from astronomy, geography, military affairs, medicine, equipment and machinery. It was easy to understand, with pictures and text, for fear that they would not understand it.

When they first came to Baishu Village, their prestige was not high. The local villagers were not very happy to see that three young boys had become their leaders, and they ignored them for the first month.

As a result, one day, a villager got dysentery and everyone was at a loss as to what to do. Wan Yu flipped through the encyclopedia and found a method for treating dysentery in the medical section.

They made some clay ash for disinfection according to the method recorded above and asked the villagers to eat it, and they got better immediately.

The villagers looked at the three people differently. In the Western Regions, doctors were even rarer than noble tribal leaders. Each one was extremely precious.

After the three of them showed their abilities, they quickly gained recognition from the villagers.

Then the villagers in Baishuli discovered that their three leaders knew everything just like the prophets in mythology.

If the village's horse-drawn cart breaks down, they know how to repair it. They can also build magical objects like windmills to grind wheat, build brick kilns, burn bricks, and make pottery. It seems that there is nothing in the world that they don't know.

They also discovered that their leader had a heavenly book. Even if there was something they didn't understand, as long as they looked in the book, they would quickly find a solution.

This brought a mysterious power to their three leaders, making their prestige even higher.

In the evening, Jia Sheng and two other people had lunch at the township office, which was both their office and their daily place.

Jia Sheng asked, "Is there any caravan willing to use our oil lamps?"

Wan Yu shook his head and said, "Without the caravan, you'd better give up the idea of ​​selling oil lamps. In this area of ​​the Western Regions, the poor can't afford oil lamps, and the nobles prefer candles and dragon candles."

When Jia Sheng and his two companions were digging the karez, they found a small oil field. They reported this as a merit to the Prime Minister's Office of the Ji Kingdom, but the Prime Minister's Office disagreed because someone had already dug it and extracted fierce fire oil, which was considered one of the weapons used by the Western Region countries. But other than that, this thing was useless. Although it could be burned, it was smoky and could not be used to keep warm. It had military uses, but the amount was not large.

Jia Sheng was bored, so he studied kerosene for a while. Finally, he extracted it and found that it could be used as an oil lamp. So he made a batch of kerosene lamps, allowing the entire Baishuli to sleep an hour later at night and have a nightlife.

It was a pity that his kerosene lamps were not taken seriously by the Ji State. Just as Wan Yu said, although the officials of the Ji State could not afford dragon candles, they could afford candles. They did not want to use ugly things like kerosene lamps.

Jia Sheng could only pin his hopes on the caravan, but the caravan itself had no use for it. If he sold it to the Han Dynasty, the cost would be higher than that of candles, which was not cost-effective at all. The result was predictable. Jia Sheng's invention could only provide illumination within a ten-mile radius of Baishuli.

(End of this chapter)