After the old illness of Xihou recurred, Jiang Gui examined Xihou and shook his head without expression, saying that Xihou's death is approaching, and asked Jung Yuming to prepare himself mentally.
The only son of the Western Marquis, Prince Sheng, became the Crown Prince of Wu as a matter of course after the Western Marquis succeeded to the throne. Since the Western Marquis fell ill in bed, Prince Sheng has been around day and night, ignoring anyone who comes to talk to him. Prince Sheng's brain is one-dimensional, and the expression on his face naturally does not know how to hide his fear and sadness that his father might die. He does not understand that the identity of their father and son has changed, and he still treats his father as a loving father and a dependant in his life.
Prince Sheng's every move at his father's bedside was seen by the nobles of Wu who came to visit him. They were touched by Xihou's deep reluctance to let go of his son, and Prince Sheng's extreme attachment to his father, and their natural and undisguised affectionate exchanges.
"Great King! You can recuperate at ease, the Kingdom of Wu is still waiting for the Great King to build it up." The Hussar General comforted Xi Hou with red eyes.
No amount of Ri Ji's bones being crushed by his great axe could replace the lives of over three hundred people in the Great General's Mansion, and the eight sons and daughters of the Great General Hussar and the two dozen grandchildren had all left him forever. The refurbished Great General's Mansion was left with only three lone masters. The father and son in front of the eyes of the appearance of mutual attachment, Hussar Great General is as if to see his future 100 years back to heaven, the two surviving grandchildren in front of the couch mourn the scene.
When he was young, General Hussar followed the King of Wu and his son in the battlefield, and although he had a wife and concubines, he didn't have much time to get together with them, and it was only when he was close to his early thirties that General Hussar had the time to reunite with his wife and concubines. His sons were born one after another from then on. By the time the General's sons were able to run around the country, all the grandchildren of the family of the same age as the General were born. Because he had children after he was older, he favored his children more than others. The annihilation of his family on the night of the King's City Rebellion caused the Great General Hussar so much heartache that he had frequent nightmares at night.
Xi Hou's reluctance to give up his son was deeply felt by the Hussar General, who understood Xi Hou's love for his son better than anyone else.
Xihou's withered hand gently patted the emotionally despondent old general in front of him, expressing silent comfort. After the king's capital was stabilized, Zheng Yuming sent craftsmen to repair the residence of the Hussar General, recovered the money and goods stolen by Dr. Jiang and his accomplices and returned them, chose two dozen attendants from the royal palace to take care of the Hussar General in his residence, and the forty to fifty servants who had survived the night of the great turmoil in the king's capital returned one after another. With 80 to 90 people living in the general's mansion, the popularity of the general was restored, only it was not as lively as before.
When the Western Marquis and the Hussar General were sighing relatively, Zheng Yuming came in holding up the report of the victory.
"Your Majesty! The Tang army surrendered to sign a compensation contract." Zheng Yuming finished his salute towards the Western Marquis and Prince Sheng, and he and the Hussar General greeted each other again, and the Hussar General returned the Duke's salute to Zheng Yuming.
In the royal court, the Hussar General's rank was the same as Zheng Yuming's Prime Minister, but he didn't have the same power in his hands as Zheng Yuming. The Hussar General could have performed the bow of a colleague, but Zheng Yuming was the real Duke Ming in his heart, and the Hussar General had always insisted on performing the courtier's salute to Zheng Yuming. With the Hussar General taking the lead, all the ministers of the Wu Royal Court followed suit.
"Read it to Lone." There was a smile on Marquis Xi's face. Prince Sheng saw a smile on his father's face and immediately followed with a silly grin.
Zheng Yuming reads out the contracts one by one and explains the purpose contained behind these four contracts.
"So that black fuel originated in the Tang Kingdom." Western Marquis nodded, the palace he was lying in had surprise construction of a warming wall to ensure that the temperature inside the palace was more than ten degrees. The heating fuel used for the warming wall was the coal smuggled from the Tang Kingdom.
"Apart from having coal, the place ceded by Tang is too barren, this is too cheap for that dim king, the Gongzi should ask Tang to cede the salt farms." The Hussar General hated the King of Tang very much, the King of Tang was the driving force behind the tragic disaster that happened to his family, if he didn't know well that Wu didn't have enough energy, the Hussar General hoped that the Wu army would annex Tang in one fell swoop.
Zheng Yuming didn't look at Tang's salt farm, "The seawater near Tang's salt farm is not concentrated enough, that place was not suitable for a salt farm in the first place, take that salt farm over, it's better for us to change the way we make salt in the coast of the East Sea to increase the production of salt."
"Change the way of salt production?" The Hussar General froze, after the Cusha Clan in the Yan Emperor's time pioneered the method of boiling salt with seawater, people have been using it until now, the whole of Great Qin has no second method of obtaining salt except for boiling seawater over fire to consume the water to get salt.
"It is to build salt fields on the seashore to sun-dry salt, which can increase the production by more than ten times." Zheng Yuming was not prepared to use seawater beach tanning to make salt, although seawater spread tanning was more labor-saving and high-yielding than fire boiling to make salt, and did not waste firewood, this method had a long production cycle, low yield, and lower benefits. It was not the best way to make salt. Zheng Yuming is ready to send people to the East China Sea to explore the coast, find the underground brine to open wells to extract brine salt, this method is the twenty-first century salt farms of the wells and beaches of salt type of sea salt production.
Brine from seawater, generated in the sea retreat stage of the sea invasion period, is through evaporation and concentration, aggregation and land and sea change buried formation. Underground brine is distributed in the coastal plane coastal area, forming a large mining belt around the coast, characterized by the universality of distribution.
If the brine in the East China Sea is shallow, you can drill an ordinary well, and if it is deep, you can drill a Zhuozhong well.
"Can be increased by more than ten times?" Not only the Hussar General sucked in a cold breath, lying on the bed of the West Marquis face also moved, salt production on a dozen times, on behalf of the treasury income on a dozen times more.
Zheng Yuming thought about it and felt that the multiplier he said was still a bit conservative.
"Yuming stayed behind to accompany Lone for dinner tonight." The Western Marquis didn't have the spirit to talk anymore, he had to sleep for a while before he could do so, but he had a lot to discuss with Zheng Yuming and wanted to wait until he woke up from his sleep to talk to Zheng Yuming again, so he left a message before he passed out.
"Here!" Zheng Yuming and the Hussar General, seeing the Western Marquis' eyes closed, hurriedly excused themselves and exited.
"My lord, now that the country has been pacified, those feudal lords' fiefs that were killed by Ripple Ji, are they picking heirs from their side branches to inherit?" The threshold of the Hussar General's residence was fast recently almost trampled off, Ripple Ji had killed many families and feudal lords in order for her son to sit on the throne, and these people were often exterminated. The exterminated nobles all had fiefs, close relatives were killed by Ripple Ji in one fell swoop, and are now vindicated without a direct heir. The side branches of the nobles were very excited about the fiefs of their distant relatives and wanted to get the right to inherit, and they were looking for ways to move around in each of the royal courts, and the Hussar General's residence was the place where they were most active.
"This matter has to be decided by the Great King." Zheng Yuming frowned, he wouldn't find another owner for those ownerless fiefs.
Not only would the fiefs of these dead masters no longer be enfeoffed, but he would also deprive many living feudal lords of their fiefs, such as Jiang Dafu, the remaining member of the Rippling Ji, and his cohorts, the concubine brothers of the King of Wu.
The bloody back and forth turnover of the regime made Wu die and abolish half of the feudal lords, and later the land directly controlled by the court of the King of Wu reached more than three-fourths of the total area of the country.
Hussar General thought that Zheng Yuming is not willing to make decisions without authorization, on this matter immediately no longer mentioned. In his heart, he did not want to help those who have connections to the nobles, but was too annoyed to get out of the way to Zheng Yuming in front of the mouth to find out. Generally there is no direct heir of the feudal lord, whether the fiefdom is inherited by the side branch depends on the mood of the king.
"Wei Wenzai still refuses to leave the coffin of the Ulsan King." Zheng Yuming had asked the Hussar General to relieve Wei Shen.
Wei Shen was appointed by the Western Marquis as the royal court's Wen Zai, but Wei Shen was not interested at all, he waited in front of Duke Guang's casket the whole day to prepare for Duke Guang's casket's grand burial. The day after tomorrow is the day when Duke Guang's coffin will be buried in the royal tomb, and on that day, Jiang Daifu and Xi Sima and other remnants of Yi Ji will be executed before Duke Guang's burial.
"Don't try to persuade him in the future." Zheng Yuming's eyes were lowered. Wei Shen was blaming himself as much as he was, blaming himself for being chagrined that he hadn't uncovered Ri Ji's plot earlier, so that he had given Ri Ji the opportunity to poison Gong Zi Guang.
"General Chu should have returned from his squad by now." Seeing that the atmosphere was low, the Hussar General changed the topic to bring up something that Zheng Yuming was happy about.
"En, Zhou Cheng led 5,000 soldiers to take over the land compensated by the Tang Kingdom, General Chu and the two Secretaries of State led the army back to the capital, and should arrive in another day or two." Mentioning out of Chaohui, Zheng Yuming's face unconsciously took on a pleasant color.
"Zhou Cheng..." The Hussar General had wanted to say that Zhou Cheng was just a slave, too low in status to be qualified to become a General at the border. However, the victory of the civil war in Wu was only achieved thanks to the bravery of these slave soldiers, without the existence of slave soldiers, the kingdom would not have been pacified so quickly. Thinking of this, the Hussar General shrunk his tongue.
Zheng and Chu had not yet rewarded the meritorious generals, and Zhou Cheng's status was still that of a slave and domestic servant of Zheng and Chu, only serving as a commander in the army according to the rank set by Chu Chao Hui himself, with no political status at all in the royal court. In the eyes of the ministers of the royal court, Zhou Cheng was like Chu Chao Hui's housekeeper, managing that army instead of Chu Chao Hui.
Zheng Yuming understood the meaning of the words that the hussar general did not say, but he pretended not to hear them. The slave status of Zhou Cheng's group of valley slave officers was a problem that Zheng Yuming had to solve.
That night, the Western Marquis drank some ginseng to refresh himself, and when he felt refreshed he summoned Zheng Yuming before him.
Zheng Yuming and Prince Sheng together into the inner hall, Prince Sheng follow the orders of the Western Marquis accompanied Zheng Yuming in the outer hall with the evening meal. Prince sheng original appetite is very good, after the Western Marquis body is not good, Prince sheng so sad that do not want to eat, the original round body has lost a lot of weight, the skin on the face has become loose.
As soon as Prince Sheng entered the inner hall, he went next to Western Marquis and snuggled up next to his father without moving.
Xi Hou stroked his son's hair and raised his eyes to look directly at Zheng Yuming, "Zheng Yuming, you must remember our agreement." Xi Hou did not address Zheng Yuming as Gongzi Ming this time.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty, as long as there is Yuming's breath, he will keep the Crown Prince safe."
Seok-ho believed in Jung Yoo-myung's character, and everything Jung Yoo-myung did in Ulsan was praised by the people, and the kindness of the Ulsan army in treating the captives emphasized Jung Yoo-myung's good qualities.
"Sheng'er, in the future, listen to Ming's words, Ming's meaning is my father's meaning, got it?" Xihou discreetly confided in his son, his address to Zheng Yuming changed back.
"Well, Sheng'er understands, Ming is like father." Prince Sheng nodded foolishly.
"..." Black lines appeared on Xihou's forehead again, but he patted his son's head without correcting Prince Sheng's erroneous statement, wishing that Zheng Yuming would look at his son's innocence and keep him happy and safe all the time.
The Western Marquis suddenly recalled the words of the Witch Doctor of the Fiefdom before his death, saying that his son's blessing was the first in Great Qin, and now it seemed as if the Witch Doctor's words had been stamped correctly step by step.
"Ming, lone three years ago has been for sheng child betrothed, is the fiefdom a Tian surname small nobleman's eldest daughter, Tian's gentle and skillful, was ready to finish the marriage at the end of this year, now it seems to be too late." Western Marquis said here, paused for a moment, Zheng Yuming quickly nodded his head and promised that after Western Marquis' hundred years, he would help Western Marquis to organize a wedding for Crown Prince Sheng.
"If Tian gives birth to a first-born son, she should not take a concubine for the crown prince in the future, having a first-born son is enough." Western Marquis continued to deliver.
"Yes!" Zheng Yuming agreed, the Western Marquis himself was a concubine son and suffered a lot of coldness, the bloody battle for the throne between the first and concubine dukes of Wu intensified the idea that the Western Marquis did not want his son to have a naji. He did not have a concubine himself, but only two wives. After his first wife died in childbirth, he married Sheng's mother.
Xi Hou's unwillingness to naji was influenced by his childhood life, where the commoner son and the first son were treated very differently in terms of status and treatment because of their status. Xi Hou did not want to have such a difference between his sons.
"If there's anything difficult to do, let's do it for all of you while Lone has a breath of fresh air." The Western Marquis placed Jung Yuming's hand and his son's hand together.
"My Lord..."
Zheng Yuming suddenly felt that Xihou's eyes are a bit like X-ray rays, can penetrate the hearts of the people, he is a few things must be false Xihou's hand can be implemented.
Author's comment: Zhuozhuzhu is a kind of deep well with a small mouth. When drilling a well, a "one-type" drill is used to pound the rock by impact, and water is injected into the well or utilized from the groundwater, and the rock debris and water are drawn out by a bamboo tube. The diameter of a Zhuozhu well is only the size of a bowl, and the wall of the well is not easy to collapse. Ancient people also removed the nodes of large bamboo, jointed the head and tail, wrapped hemp rope around the outside, coated with putty, and lowered it into the well as a casing to prevent the well wall from collapsing and fresh water from soaking in. Take brine, bamboo as a fine brine drawer, inserted into the casing, the bottom of the tube to cook the skin for the opening and closing valves, a tube can draw brine several buckets, wells erected on a large wooden frame, with a windlass, car pan to extract brine.
The appearance of Zhuozhu wells marked the maturity of the drilling process of deep wells in ancient China. Since then, the depth of salt wells has been increasing. In 1835, the world's first deep well of more than 1,000 meters was drilled in Zigong Salt District, Sichuan Province.