They had all been chasing after her for a long time, but she hadn't had the time before. Now that she was free, she figured she might as well do it.
After dinner, when the workers got off, Jiang Yuqing personally stood at the front gate with a purse, handing out wages to the workers. She also gave each child ten copper coins. At the end, she gave each of them two steamed buns to take with them.
This was the reward for their hard work today.
At the same time, she told them that if they wished, they could continue to come back tomorrow until the autumn harvest ended.
The children happily agreed and left the Jiang family manor with their elders.
The autumn harvest continued for over ten days.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Public Works made the windmill that Jiang Yuqing had asked for.
These people were truly intelligent, and their hands were very capable. The things they made were extremely useful.
Pour the dried rice into the windmill hopper, set the wind speed to level two, gently rock the crank handle, and the husked grain would blow out from the air outlet. This saved who knows how much effort compared to husking grain one bit at a time with a winnowing basket in the past.
Naturally, the laborers were filled with envy for such a good thing.
They heard that the imperial court would soon distribute the design drawings to the states, counties and towns. Anyone who wanted one just had to pay money to have a carpenter make it, and the laborers were instantly delighted.
During that half month of the autumn harvest, Heaven had been very gracious and there hadn't been a drop of rain. The weather had been sunny every day, and the rice had quickly dried. It was threshed, hulled, bagged and weighed.
The final tally was 2,316,000 catties, with an average yield of 772 catties per mu.
When the news was reported to the palace, the emperor smiled so broadly that the wrinkles on his face practically popped out.
With these more than 20 million catties of grain seed stock, plus what was harvested in Qingzhou and several nearby counties, nearly half of Da Xia would be able to plant this improved variety next year.
He could practically see the vast amounts of grain flying into his imperial granaries...
The emperor immediately waved his arm grandly and bestowed Jiang Yuqing with a pile of rewards, using her invention of new farming tools as justification. Li Deshun was sent once again to deliver the imperial edict.
The envy throughout the court simply could not be overstated.
Everything was going smoothly.
These past few days, the emperor walked with the wind at his back, striding lightly and briskly as if he were a young man, just short of humming a little tune.
When the boss was happy, the ministers' days went better, and when they returned home, their faces naturally glowed with smiles. Indirectly, this allowed the atmosphere of many households to become much more harmonious.
The northern regions turned cold in the tenth month, entering winter. Crops there only had one season per year. After the rice harvest, all the leftover straw would be burned into ash to fertilize the fields.
In this age, there was no talk about being environmentally friendly or not. Being able to eat your fill was the important thing.
After burning the ash, Jiang Yuqing had the manor steward purchase a batch of daikon radish seeds. These things only grew leaves and didn't enlarge their roots, so there was nothing to eat.
But they grew vigorously. Scattering them randomly in the fields, they would surely take. And they grew quickly too. They were usually planted by farmers to use as animal feed.
Letting them grow for two months until the heavy snow came in winter, piling thick layers of snow over them, by next year when it had all frozen rotten, then plowing it into the soil, it would become excellent fertilizer.
With the farm work taken care of, another weight was lifted from Jiang Yuqing's mind.
However, she had barely returned to the manor for a few days when she heard the steward report that the past couple days, some suspicious people had been lurking around the manor, presumably eyeing the grain seeds.
Although rare, apart from her household, the Duke of Protector's Mansion and the Pingyang Marquis Mansion also had a considerable amount of these grain seeds. There was no reason they should attract much attention.
Even so, the emperor had specially dispatched a squad of Imperial Guards to stand watch day and night.
But as the old saying goes, it wasn't thieves stealing that was scary, but thieves coveting.
Jiang Yuqing's eyes instantly darkened. That very evening, she disguised herself and left the city with Lu Yi.
Arriving at the manor, she secretly gathered the steward and the commander of the Imperial Guards stationed there and laid out a plan...to lure the snakes from their holes.
Two nights later, in the deep of night, the small guardhouse by the manor entrance suddenly erupted in raging flames. Then someone loudly shouted “Fire!” The manor residents were startled awake and rushed over with water buckets towards the fire.
At this time, a short figure suddenly emerged from behind the granary warehouse. He rapidly gathered bundles of kindling and piled them against the base of the wall, then splashed oil all over.
Just as he grinned wickedly and took out a lighter intending to ignite it, a person suddenly dropped down from the roof and kicked him more than ten meters away. He smashed against the blue stone enclosing wall and was knocked unconscious.
This person was Lu Yi.
Lu Yi picked up the dropped lighter and waved his hand behind him. “Tie him up!” The Imperial Guards who had been lying in wait for some time immediately rushed up and bound the man.
In the open ground by the manor entrance, torch light now shone brightly. Jiang Yuqing sat in the master seat, gripping her golden sword. Her little face was taut.
Though small in stature making the chair seem oversized for her, the posture still had to be maintaned.
Soon, two tightly bound bandits were thrown before her, one after another.
“Speak! Who sent you here!”
The two bandits snorted contemptuously, completely disregarding her.
Jiang Yuqing was unperturbed. She calmly said, “Since you dared to come commit crimes at my manor, you must have looked into my background.
I am a doctor, and a doctor can save people, but can also kill people. What’s more, I have the ability to make people wish they were dead!”
As she spoke, she rapped her knuckles lightly on the armrest a few times. Though gentle in force, each knock seemed to land heavily in the bandits’ hearts. On this night that was merely a bit cool, it sounded exceptionally sinister.
Seeing that the bandits remained unmoved, Jiang Yuqing knew that without some ruthlessness, it would be hard to frighten them.
Her eyes glittered as a plan came to mind. “Why don't I think of some ways for you to experience.
In the Miao Territory in the southwest, there is a kind of Gu called the Heart-devouring Insect. As the name implies, this Gu feeds on human hearts.
It has a pair of sharp piercing mouthparts and a pair of powerful serrated front limbs. Once it touches the skin of someone stained with blood, it will immediately bite through the skin and bore into his blood vessels, riding the blood flow straight to the heart.
It does not immediately kill its host. Rather, it bites through the heart bit by bit, then eats it piece by piece until the last scrap of flesh is gone before the host dies. Prior to that, the victim suffers unimaginable agony.”
As she spoke, she took out an object from her sleeve and laid it on her palm.
That object was only the length of a finger joint. Jet black all over, with a distinctly menacing pair of saw-toothed pincers at the front that glimmered ominously in the firelight.
The people around sucked in a breath, collectively taking a step back. They thought, damn, she actually has something like this!
In the future, they absolutely could not offend the doctor. She was too damn scary.
Even Lu Yi was given a fright. If he hadn't known that his young martial sister had no such thing, he might have made a move already.
Seeing this, the two bandits turned deathly pale. Instinctively wanting to retreat, but with their current restraints, they couldn't even flee if they tried.
Not only that, Jiang Yuqing shot Lu Yi a meaningful look. Lu Yi understood. He drew the blade of an Imperial Guard beside him and lightly swung it across the face of the shaved-eyebrow bandit, leaving an immediate bloody gash.
Jiang Yuqing held the bug in her hand and slowly walked over, waving her hands over the wound, her voice like a she-devil. “Look, my darling is excited. Why don't I just put it on your face, and you tell me... does it sizzle like roast meat when the oil burns on human skin?”
Before she even finished speaking, Jiang Yuqing smelled a stench of ammonia. This guy had pissed himself from fear. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she backed away.
Shaved-Eyebrow shakily shouted, “Don’t, don't put the bug on me! I'll speak, I'll tell everything!”
The other one was obviously made of sterner stuff than Shaved-Eyebrow. Although also afraid, he still angrily yelled for Shaved-Eyebrow to stop. “Old Four, don't be so spineless! Don't say anything!”
Jiang Yuqing glared coldly. “Go grab that oil jug. Set him on fire. He wanted to burn the grain, so let him experience being burned alive!”
Calling over evilly, she licked her lips. “I've roasted chicken and roasted pig before, but have never burned a man. It'll be interesting to hear whether burning oil on human skin pops and sizzles like roast meat.”
At this point, it wasn't just the two bandits, even the people around were badly frightened. They thought to themselves that the young mistress was far too terrifying. When they got home, they definitely needed to tell their families not to ever offend her.
Sure enough, you never know how much an injury hurts until it's on your own body.
The bandit who was clamoring for his companions to have more backbone watched with his own eyes as kerosene was splashed onto himself. Startled by the pungent smell, he even peed himself.
Bawling and begging for mercy, he cried, "I confess, I confess everything, don't light the fire, don't light it!"
What followed became much easier to handle. The two bandits decisively gave a clear and thorough confession.
The mastermind behind this was actually Tong Fuqiu's daughter, Tong Xiuzhen.
After her mother was executed, the Tong family also moved from their former luxurious mansion to a cramped little house south of the city.
Ever since her father was demoted, he had not been able to recover, and spent every day drowning his sorrows in alcohol.
Seeing this, several aunts successively took the family's money and possessions and fled. Even the servants were all sold off.
She immediately went from a pampered young miss who enjoyed gold and jade, fine clothes and food, to a commoner even more destitute than those she once looked down on, plus she had to care for a pig-like stupid younger brother.
If not for some jewelry she still had on hand, she likely could not even afford meals.
She blamed all of this misfortune on Jiang Yuqing.
But Jiang Yuqing's status was prestigious, and she was always accompanied by maids and servants when she went out. On top of that, her sect also provided her with ample protection, so Tong Xiuzhen was never able to find an opportunity to act against her.
It wasn't until a while ago when Tong Xiuzhen heard that there had been an exceptionally abundant rice harvest on Jiang Yuqing's estate, and all of this grain was to be used as seed for future crops. A crazy idea then emerged in her mind.
The Jiang family's rise depended on these high-yield varieties, and this batch of seeds had also earned Jiang Yuqing an imperial reward.
If these seeds were destroyed, even if Jiang Yuqing avoided imprisonment, she would surely lose imperial favor. Let's see how arrogantly she acts then!
With new hatred piled on old resentment, she sought out these two hoodlums.
These two hoodlums had received minor favors from the Tong family in the past, so after hearing Tong Xiuzhen's tearful tales of woe, their judgement lapsed and they took on this perilous task.
After listening to the whole story, everyone present was stunned.
Just to vent private vengeance, she would burn so much grain seed, destroying the hopes and even lives of so many common people. At worst, she could shake the foundations of the nation - how dare she?!
This woman must be insane!
With a mother who would sink someone over a trifle at the front, and a brother who was flipping little girls' skirts at his young age behind, and now a daughter who would burn grain seeds...
How can this Tong family keep producing such extremists? This is truly horrifying. Everyone felt uneasy.
After the two bandits were taken away and detained, Lu Yi sidled up to Jiang Yuqing and asked, "How come I never knew there were such centipedes in the Miao Territory?"
Jiang Yuqing tossed the bug in her hand onto the ground and stomped it dead. After brushing off her hands calmly, she said, "Because I just made up that name!"
"???"
Jiang Yuqing pointed at the ground by the estate chief's feet, "Look, there's another one there!"
Everyone followed the direction she was pointing and indeed discovered by the estate chief's feet another bug identical to the one from before, but clearly much larger.
The estate chief was also given a fright, and quickly retreated a couple steps. After carefully observing it with a torch, he skeptically said, "How does this look so much like a dog tick?"
Jiang Yuqing smiled and said, "That's because it is a dog tick, scientific name Heigougou. It bites the shoots and roots of fruits and vegetables, it's a pest. We can still see them at this time of year, but once it gets colder they'll burrow into the soil."
The estate chief suddenly understood, "So you were just trying to scare those two?" He should have known, such a cute and gentle young miss could not be so vicious. It turns out it was all for show!
Jiang Yuqing shrugged with the look of a singleton, "As it turns out, the effect was not bad!"
"Then what about the kerosene? We don't have any kerosene in our estate!" another guardsman asked.
Lu Yi said, "It was all water!"
The man clearly did not believe it, "How could water smell so strongly?"
The lead guardsman glared at his subordinate, "Using the water they brought in those buckets, how could it not smell? Get out, if not for me you'd be too stupid to be a soldier!"
