The Empress’s Gigolo

This river was called the Nineteen Streams because this particular river had nineteen meanders.

Besides the source, the narrowest part of this river was a few kilometers wide, while its widest part was a few hundred kilometers wide.

After a day of walking along the Nineteen Streams and heading west, everyone had finally arrived at their first destination. The canning factory, hydraulic forging workshop, blast furnace, new cement factory, and glass factory were all located here.

After all, the hydraulic power in this area was rich.

Besides, if one were to sail down the river for three days and walk toward the north for another four to five days, he or she would arrive at the Protectorate of the Northeast. If one were to head south for three days on foot, he or she would arrive at the Protectorate of the South. If one were to continue sailing along the river, he or she would eventually pass by the Chen Nation and enter the ocean.

Aside from having to be wary about all sorts of weird things in the water, this was an undoubtedly good location.

In the future, if there were to be another north to south stream, it would then lead to Lan City or even somewhere further up north. Heading south would then lead to the southern district. If that were to happen, then this location would become exceeding superb.

Furthermore, looking from the map, such a plan would be highly feasible.

That would only be possible if the extremely inaccurate map from Dayao could be trusted.

After about eight to ten years, this place could possibly transform into something like Pudong New District or at least something like Xiongan New District.

[Districts in modern China]

Before arriving at the canning factory, they could already see a bunch of people fishing along the river bank.

They had a very unique method of fishing.

A group of people were squatting by the river bank, and each one of them were tens of meters apart. After slashing their fingers, they dipped their arms into the water. They were also holding a pike with a barb in the other hand.

Every other moment, you could see someone stabbing the pike into the water at lightning speed. When they took out their pikes, there would be a huge fish on it that weighed over ten kilograms, struggling to break free.

It would subsequently be easier to handle from then on. They would first tear off a piece of flesh from that fish and place it into the water. After that, they would simply wait for their next catch with their pikes ready.

Along the way, Ren Baqian had at least witnessed over thousands of people doing that exact same thing. From time to time, crocodiles were flung out of the water with their mouths pierced by the pikes. There was an abundance of aquatic life in this river. With such a simple and crude method, one could at least catch up to a few hundred kilograms of fish in a day.

Once all of the large carnivorous fish in an area had been caught, the same species of fish would be replenished very quickly from other areas.

After god-knows how many years of accumulation, this river seemingly contained an infinite amount of aquatic life.

Ren Baqian and the empress stood by the river bank and watched for a while. Those two figures stood side by side while the others waited from afar.

“This place is a treasure trove,” Ren Baqian said as he pointed at the billow of water in front of him. It was a pity that Dayao had never properly utilized it.

Just this river alone was capable of producing food that could feed hundreds of thousands of people with ease.

The main reason for this was that the people of Dayao didn’t like to eat fish because of their bones. To the Dayao people who were used to biting huge chunks of meat, this was very troublesome to them.

However, if they were cooked using a pressure cooker and stored into tins, they would be a pretty good option for combat rations.

Once the production picked up, they could then be released for sale on the market.

“In the future, we can open up two more canals to create a direct passage from north to south. Regardless of whether it is to transport goods or to travel, it can save a lot of manpower and resources.” Ren Baqian shared his thoughts with the empress. As for the manpower required to dig the canals, the Yun Nation would definitely be supplying it.

At present, Ren Baqian was already planning to provide a few new jobs for the people of the Yun Nation.

These included road repair, digging canals, and mining.

“Let’s not talk about this first. From what I know, the training barracks has a lot of resentment toward you,” the empress said slowly as she looked at the river.

“Why?” Ren Baqian was puzzled. He hadn’t had much interactions with the training barracks.

“They have been eating fish for almost 2 months. They signed up for the army to eat meat, not fish…” The empress felt that it was a little funny. Over the last two recruitment cycles, there had been around 40,000 new recruits in the training camp. If they had to pick someone that they found most detestable, they would undoubtedly choose Ren Baqian.

Because of a suggestion he made, the recruits had been forced to eat fish for two months by now.

They would still be able to accept it if they were forced to eat fish occasionally, but they had been eating fish every single day, and it was obvious how much resentment they had. At present, discontent had been openly voiced at the training barracks.

Ren Baqian spread out his arms. There was nothing that could be done about it. Besides, Dayao wasn’t exactly that rich in rations currently, and it was already considered pretty good to have food to eat. The people in the north who were affected by the chaos of the war still had to rely on eating grass to survive.

After those villagers in the north who had been affected by the chaos of the war returned home, they were only left with damaged land that was in complete shambles.

Raising livestock in the north was slightly subpar compared to the south. Very often, they would sell their green produce from their farms at the market in order to supplement for meat.

Now that the crops in the fields had been destroyed, their only option left was to rely on harvesting wild herbs and very minimal meat to barely fill their stomachs.

Even though they wouldn’t starve to death, it wouldn’t fill their stomachs either.

According to what the aboriginals would say, they were basically eating grass.

However, that was definitely much better than eating soil.

It would take at least another few months more for them to revert to what it was like before the war.

After that, a party of people arrived at the canning factory.

This so-called canning factory wasn’t that big. It only had a few big sheds and thousand over people.

The courtyard was filled with piled up firewood everywhere, as well as large amount of waste products from the fish.

From afar, a pillar of smoke could be seen rising from the canning factory. It was as if the fire was burning 24 hours a day to cook the fish that had been caught from the river. The cooked fish were then stuffed into glass jars that were as tall a people and had their openings covered with animal hide. They were then sent to the training barracks that was half a day away by road.

As they were approaching the factory, an extremely fishy stench assailed their nostrils.

A few hundred meters away from the high temperature cooking was the place where the waste products of the fish were discarded. There were many house fly-like insects in that area, and anyone walking past would startle them, causing a dark blanket to arise.

Looking at the situation made Ren Baqian have a face full of frowns.

Dirty, messy, poor! It made people sick.

How could anyone possibly eat something that was made like this?

“Is this how you all produce food for the recruits to eat?” Ren Baqian frowned as he questioned the person in charge of the canning factory who had come forward to welcome them.

That person looked at the empress, and then at Ren Baqian, before replying with a baffled look, “Yes!”

“Can you eat that?” Ren Baqian questioned again.

“I would eat this everyday!” That person still didn’t understand what Ren Baqian was driving at.

Looking at that person’s innocent face, Ren Baqian was so mad that he didn’t know what else to say.

“This is what goes into the mouth. It is something that one eats. Can’t it be prepared any cleaner? Let’s not expect it to be spotless, but it could at least be prepared a little cleaner right?” Ren Baqian was bitter and hateful.

“Sir, we will do as you wish,” that person responded at last even though he felt that Ren Baqian was making a big fuss over a minor issue.

People of this era had entirely different standards of hygiene when compared to modern people.

It was just like how “third brother” used his left hand to wipe his butt and his right hand to eat at the same time. This was something that people from most countries were unable to accept.

[“third brother”: a famous Hong Kong television series character]

After that, Ren Baqian and his party stayed here for three days and devised an entire hygienic system for them. Everyone who came in contact with the food had to first wash their hands. The waste products of the fish had to be disposed of daily to somewhere far away. Ren Baqian had also strongly requested for them to cover all of the sheds with vines weaved into curtains to prevent flies from entering.

Even though not all of Ren Baqian’s requests were met before he left, he made sure that he would come back to take a look next time.

After all, this was Dayao’s first ever food processing factory. It was a must to fix the hygiene regulations so that everything else in the future could follow suit.

After that, everyone went to the hydraulic forging workshop. There was a row of wooden water wheels by the river bank. As they spun, the bearings drove two large hammers that repeatedly hit against a metal plate at the bottom.

Even if they shouted at the top of their lungs, the loud noises of the workshop made it such that people in the vicinity could hardly hear anything clearly.

With a 15 kilogram hammer, a blacksmith could only work for an hour at best before he needed to rest. However, this thing here can operate for 12 hours while driving two 50 kilogram hammers to work nonstop. Just one set of these is equivalent to the effort of hundreds of people,” joyfully explained the official from the Ministry of Works who was in charge of the hydraulic forging workshop.

At this place, there were a total of six water wheels. In addition, there were still more water wheels in production.

To them, such hydraulic forging was a new invention, and its results were more than satisfactory.

The metal plates that got hammered everyday would become weapons in a short period of time. They could then equip the army and help Dayao win this war that had yet to end.

As for Ren Baqian, who had designed this hydraulic forging method, everyone from the Ministry of Works had great respect for him. Not only this hydraulic forging, there was also the solar powered furnace, cement factory, glass factory, etc. Such contributions made by Ren Baqian had allowed Dayao to surpass all other nations in all aspects for the first time ever.