Besides being born into the imperial clan, from the time Emperor Tianyou served as Military Governor of Huainan and led troops to conquer in all directions, almost all construction matters were Yang En’s responsibility. He could be said to be a founding meritorious minister whose contributions were no less than those of Prince Zhedong Li Yu and Shouzhou Military Governor Xu Mingzhen.
After the founding of the dynasty, Yang En had served as Minister of Works and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Liyang.
After the Battle of Runzhou, in order to plead with Emperor Tianyou to show mercy and spare the wife and children of Prince of Yue Dong Chang, with whom he had been on good terms in past years, he confronted Emperor Tianyou once.
Emperor Tianyou ultimately issued an edict to exterminate Dong Chang’s entire clan. Yang En immediately removed his official robe in court and wanted to hang up his boots and leave.
In the end, it was only after a group of old friends persuaded him that Yang En apologized to Emperor Tianyou. Afterward, he was removed from the position of Minister of Works, stripped of his title, and remained at the Palace Supply Bureau to oversee construction and other matters. However, at every grand court assembly, he would claim illness and not attend court. He was also the only person in the current dynasty who dared to shut Emperor Tianyou’s envoys outside his door and refuse to see them, and he resolutely refused to accept Emperor Tianyou’s subsequent re-ennoblement of him.
Yang En’s two sons had died in battle against Dong Chang’s Yuezhou Army on the Runzhou battlefield. After his wife died of illness, he didn’t remarry. He sent back to the palace several times the palace maids Emperor Tianyou had bestowed upon him. Ordinarily, he liked to ride a donkey and wander leisurely around the city, and he didn’t mind going to entertainment venues like Wanhong Tower to listen to the zither or such.
Han Qian truly hadn’t expected that Shen Yang would actually invite him over to help deliberate on the construction of the garrison military headquarters. No wonder even Guo Liang, with his arrogant face, who showed no respect toward Shen Yang, acted like a little lapdog in front of him!
To really speak of it, his father and Shen Yang were both junior figures before Yang En. Even the Crown Prince, Prince Xin, and the Third Imperial Prince Yang Yuanpu couldn’t be arrogant and rude when seeing Yang En.
Of course, Yang En being invited by Shen Yang to help didn’t mean he wanted to get involved in the succession struggle.
First, since Yang En didn’t even pay attention to Emperor Tianyou, others wouldn’t think he would get involved in the succession struggle. Furthermore, even if Yang En casually helped the Marquis of Linjiang’s side now, if the Crown Prince’s side gained power in the future, there was no way they could do anything to someone like Yang En.
Yang En could be carefree, but Han Qian and the others didn’t have that qualification. He also didn’t presumptuously speculate on how Yang En viewed the Third Imperial Prince Yang Yuanpu.
When Yang En asked him about the method of rebuilding the large lime kiln, he was vague in his answers, only saying that Shen Yang’s side was pressing urgently, and the manor didn’t have many people available, so they could only take the risk of attempting to build large kilns.
The first furnace of lime in the large kiln was still being fired, but in the eyes of an expert like Yang En, he could tell at a glance whether it would succeed. He even specifically instructed those several kiln-watching lime burners on how to judge the progress of lime firing by observing the ash-blue-white three colors, speculating that more charcoal needed to be added, and that a large kiln of this degree needed to smolder for three days and two nights to be sufficient.
With Yang En’s guidance, it saved Han Qian and the others much exploratory effort.
Han Daoxun was unwilling to get involved in succession matters. After observing the situation of the plague-stricken refugees along the way, he left Shen Yang, Yang En, Guo Liang, and the others to feast at the manor.
Vice Commander Guo Liang, however, claimed there were matters at the military camp and left first.
On the garrison military headquarters side, no matter how busy it was, it couldn’t possibly be busier than Shen Yang. Seeing Guo Liang’s eyes full of disdain when he left, Han Qian thought it was better that others had such misunderstandings about his father. Otherwise, if everyone guessed that the garrison military headquarters was actually promoted single-handedly by his father, there would probably be no way for him and his father to survive in this Jinling city.
Guo Liang left dissatisfied. Before noon, Feng Yi and Kong Xirong were also ordered back to the city by someone sent by the uneasy Feng Wenlan. At noon, only Han Qian accompanied Shen Yang, Yang En, and his father drinking wine in the small hall.
After all the food and wine were served and the idle people had withdrawn, Yang En suddenly raised a cup of wine and said: “When Wang Jixiong resigned as Prime Minister, he recommended Daoxun to enter the court, saying Daoxun had great talent. A few days ago when Daoxun remonstrated at court to expel the refugees, I was listening to music at Cuihua Tower. After hearing about this, I even cursed Wang Jixiong for being a senile fool with dog’s eyes. Now it seems I need to apologize to you, Daoxun! Please forgive this broken mouth of mine for speaking nonsense outside!”
Seeing his father so moved that tears even welled up in his old eyes, Han Qian’s scalp tingled. Some matters indeed couldn’t escape the keen eyes of perceptive people!
When Han Daoxun remonstrated to expel the refugees, the matter was taken over by the Marquis of Linjiang’s side. In the end, he failed to curry favor with the Crown Prince’s faction and instead fell into the bad reputation of flattering the Crown Prince, having a vicious heart, and wanting to harm the refugees.
Although the bad reputation was something Han Daoxun actively sought, several good friends who ordinarily had quite good reputations deliberately distanced themselves from him. Han Daoxun’s heart was not comfortable.
With Yang En offering this cup of wine, the excitement in Han Daoxun’s heart was really not hard to imagine.
After drinking several cups of wine, the three—Han Daoxun, Shen Yang, and Yang En—inevitably began to discuss the current situation. When Han Qian heard these three old angry youth all agree that the current dynasty’s chronic illness didn’t lie in the succession struggle, he was frightened and hurriedly changed the topic, saying: “Minister Yang rarely leaves the city. How the military garrison encampment and the great embankment should be built—Minister Shen mustn’t miss the opportunity to consult Minister Yang!”
Han Qian was afraid that after his father’s heart surged with the impulse of meeting kindred spirits at this moment, he would no longer be able to suppress it.
“There’s no hurry for this. I’m quite free now. When I have leisure, I’ll make a trip out of the city—it’s nothing. I still have several master craftsmen under me. Tomorrow I’ll transfer them over for your use.” Yang En, however, was in no hurry to discuss the construction methods of the garrison encampment and great embankment. His interest lay in another aspect. He asked: “Lime has uses in treating sores, removing wounds, and killing insects, but how can you be certain that lime can also deal with water parasite poison?”
Only then did Han Qian realize the biggest flaw was in the lime. It was just very unfortunate that if the manor side didn’t exert effort, Shen Yang’s side would temporarily find it difficult to mobilize large amounts of manpower to fire lime.
“This is the Plague Water Relief Memorial written by Brother Daoxun. Please have a look, Minister Yang.” Shen Yang took out a memorial from his sleeve and handed it to Yang En.
Han Qian wanted to find an iron hammer to severely smash himself. He hadn’t expected that not only did his old man let Shen Yang see the Plague Water Relief Memorial, but he had also directly handed the original document of the Plague Water Relief Memorial to Shen Yang!
If Shen Yang handed this original to Anning Palace, Han Qian thought that standing in Anning Palace’s position, after seeing this original, they would most likely send assassins to directly kill both him and his father.
“If Minister Yang doesn’t mind Han Qian talking too much, Han Qian will explain it to Minister Yang one by one.” Han Qian intercepted the Plague Water Relief Memorial halfway and said.
Without this original document, even if Anning Palace guessed that he and his father were secretly helping the Marquis of Linjiang, as long as they couldn’t confirm that the two of them were the masterminds behind this matter, the methods used against them might not be too extreme.
After all, assassination was a method that, if used, could only be used on the most critical figures on the opposing side.
Therefore, this Plague Water Relief Memorial written in his father’s hand had to be destroyed no matter what.
Last time, the copy he had transcribed from memory to show Marquis of Xinchang Li Pu and the others had also been collected on the spot and destroyed afterward, precisely because he feared that once Anning Palace moved against the Marquis of Linjiang’s side, after seeing this physical evidence, he probably wouldn’t even have the chance to grovel and beg for mercy!
Seeing Han Qian directly intercept the Plague Water Relief Memorial, Yang En didn’t feel his action was too impolite, and hadn’t thought that Han Qian had moved through so many mental calculations. He said: “It would be even better for you father and son to explain it to me directly.” Saying this, Yang En looked toward Han Daoxun. He felt that since the Plague Water Relief Memorial was written by Han Daoxun, naturally Han Daoxun was more qualified to explain it to him.
“Qian’er has observed the water parasite plague quite deeply. Half the credit for this memorial belongs to Qian’er.” Han Daoxun, however, hoped more that Han Qian could gain the appreciation of Yang En and Shen Yang in the future.
“Oh!” Yang En looked at Han Qian with surprise and indicated for him to explain.
“…” Han Qian really didn’t want to say much, but at this moment he had to attract the attention of the three old angry youth to the discussion of specific and trivial technical details. He not only repeated the observations of the water parasite plague summarized in medical books of the previous dynasty, but even more clearly pointed out that the water parasite plague parasitized on shallow water snails. The various measures were mainly to control the source of the epidemic. Besides large-scale sprinkling of lime to exterminate the epidemic source, they also needed to build a great embankment to block off the lake water. Reclaimed fields could only grow dry land crops and must prohibit rice paddies. Ditches had to be dug new and old ones covered over…
“According to what you say, it’s indeed worth trying, but there are many low-lying areas on the lakeside. Even if we build embankments that won’t be invaded by lake water, during the rainy spring and summer seasons, there will be standing water everywhere. How can dry fields be cultivated then?” Yang En was too familiar with construction methods. He saw the crux at a glance and asked directly.
“Use the mounded field method to create dry land!” Han Qian said.
“Mounded field method?” Yang En found this term too unfamiliar and asked doubtfully.
“Dig the shallow ditches around a low-lying area into deep ponds. The pond mud can then be used to raise the low-lying area in the middle, resembling grass mounds,” Han Qian explained. “Deep ponds have difficulty harboring parasite poison. This can be verified from the fact that there hasn’t been much plague spreading in the city.”
“People in Haizhou use this method to create fields. I just didn’t know it was originally called the mounded field method. Hearing it now, it’s truly vivid,” Yang En said with a laugh to Han Daoxun. “Your young master is truly broadly learned and knowledgeable. If he could be tempered for a few years in the localities and enter the court in the future, like you, he will certainly become a pillar of the state!”
Yang En’s original intention was still unwilling for Han Daoxun and Han Qian to get involved in succession matters.
In his heart, Han Qian actually particularly hoped Yang En could seek out Emperor Tianyou and recommend his father to serve in the localities. Staying far from the troubles of Jinling.
And in the localities, even if his father wanted to implement new policies, he would only touch upon the local aristocratic families. At that time, Emperor Tianyou might even be willing in his heart to use some prefecture or county as a test and give strong support.
It was just that thinking of the awkward tension between Yang En and Emperor Tianyou these years, naturally there was temporarily no way to pursue this idea with Yang En.
However, Shen Yang, Han Daoxun, and Yang En were still successfully redirected by Han Qian to focus their attention on the discussion of specific technical details.
It was just that his father discussed with Shen Yang and Yang En for too long a time. Han Qian became anxious with gains and losses again, thinking that if these three old angry youth mixed together for too long and Anning Palace found out, they would also become suspicious.
Fortunately, when the sun slanted westward, Fan Xicheng came to report that the three new large lime kilns had been completed.