12dz Chapter 350
Chapter 350
Yu Ningxuan nodded. "Rest assured, with the most cunning Zheng Feng leading the execution and the politically seasoned Lord Bao holding the fort, Second Brother and the others won't suffer any losses."Yu Ningxin chimed in, "These people are also quite scheming. They would rather pay extra silver to buy the rice along with the stalks."
Yue Fuguang laughed upon hearing this. "They're just afraid we might trick them with ordinary rice."
But this was actually for the best. When they discovered next year that the rice only grew tall but didn't produce any grain, they would only suspect their own farming methods and wouldn't doubt them.
After all, they could rack their brains and still never imagine that there existed crops in this world that could only be planted for one season and could not be kept for seeds.
Perhaps those who refused to believe it would fall for the same trick next year, allowing them to sell another batch of premium seeds at an exorbitant price!
Thinking of this, Yue Fuguang asked, "Since they are willing to pay more, don't hold back. As for the few people who showed their faces, once this job is done, transfer them back."
With goods being resold by their own people, as superiors, it was impossible not to notice or punish them, so these operatives had to become dead men.
"How are things coming along with the textile factory?" Yue Fuguang recalled that she had merely mentioned wanting to open a textile factory, handed over the money, the proposal, and the blueprints, and then completely washed her hands of it.
Seeing that the raw material, cotton, was already on its way, she finally remembered this matter.
"With Aunt and Aunt-in-law watching over it, everything has been going very smoothly. We've hired a full roster of female workers, all of whom are skilled weavers. Now we're just waiting for the cotton Second Brother is transporting to arrive, and then we'll start production."
As for Fuguang's suggestion to teach the female workers how to read, the sisters had discussed it and decided they would take turns teaching them first.
Once their grandmother helped find a suitable female teacher, they would finally be able to relax a bit.
Yue Fuguang nodded. The Great Yan textile industry would begin from here. If successful, she believed that within a few years, such factories would spring up everywhere.
Then their standards would become the industry standards, so it was crucial to set a good example.
"Please keep an eye on the female workers' compensation, sisters. Ensure that every copper coin we spend goes directly to the individuals, rather than lining someone else's pockets."
"Don't worry about that, little sister. With Fourth Aunt keeping watch, no one dares to play tricks right under her nose."
While the three sisters were discussing the textile factory, they hadn't expected that He Jin's release of the news about poison being maliciously mixed into the vegetables gifted by the commoners would provoke a massive reaction from all sides.
Not to mention the Emperor and the officials, Yue Fuguang was now not only the highly respected Junior Preceptor, but also a Prince with her own fiefdom.
On the second day of the Autumn Festival, Emperor Mingxi had issued an edict conferring the title of Prince upon Yue Fuguang, and her fiefdom conveniently connected to the Three Forks region.
Whether she was a Prince or not didn't matter to her, but Emperor Mingxi had allocated her a massive piece of land, and Yue Fuguang felt that she could expand her planting operations again next year!
Therefore, the poisoning of a Prince and Junior Preceptor sent shockwaves through both the court and the public.
Cai Xian, Wei Ping, and Feng Tang quickly sprang into action. The mastermind behind this had to be found. Whether it would result in the execution of nine generations or the extermination of three clans would depend entirely on the mood of those at the top.
The Great Yan court was shaken, and the reaction among the common folk was no less intense.
Rumors that wicked villains intended to use their hands to assassinate the Divine Maiden spread from the capital city of Shangjing to the surrounding villages and towns.
Even the most simple-minded commoners sensed that something was terribly wrong.
"Is there someone who doesn't want us poor folks to have enough to eat and live a good life?"
This question rapidly ignited the fury of the masses. Anyone who messed with their rations was asking for their lives.
A seed called vigilance quietly took root in the hearts of the people at this moment.
They suddenly developed far more wariness and defensiveness toward strangers.
Hadn't they heard the court officials say it? The ones who poisoned the Divine Maiden were those foreigners and the noble lords from the prominent families.
Because the Divine Maiden had brought forth good crops, it angered those people. So, for the sake of the Divine Maiden and even more for themselves, they could not let those who tried to use them succeed.
After the poisoning incident, Wei Ping and his team conducted extensive investigations. Thanks to tips from enthusiastic citizens, they finally tracked down two brothers who had disguised themselves as commoners.
These two had mingled with the crowd that day and delivered fish they had caught from the river to the Yu Manor.
Later, other commoners identified that these two brothers had also made inappropriate remarks on the day of the Autumn Festival, overtly and covertly expressing malice toward the Divine Maiden.
"So it was the work of the prominent families?"
"Yes, the prominent families have been backed into a corner by the Emperor with no way out. All their actions now are just deathbed struggles."
"The prominent families are deeply entangled with the royal court, and their relationships with various factions are complex and deeply rooted. Uprooting them won't be any easier than dealing with Sima Jing, a powerful regional official."
Yue Fuguang was not so optimistic. She didn't believe this incident would be enough to ensnare all the prominent families; there would still be plenty of back-and-forth struggles.
"That is why, even now, the Emperor has only made a move against the Cui and Bai families. The charges were already laid out for them.
"It's a pity that the Great Yan court's situation is currently stable. With your high-yield premium seeds sustaining everything, the populace is experiencing an unprecedented level of peace these past few years."
Otherwise, why not just start a peasant uprising or something, take the genealogies of the noble families, call roll one by one, and wipe them all out in one fell swoop? How easy would that be!
Yue Fuguang rolled her eyes upon hearing the system's words. How could she not know that this method was effective? After all, there were successful precedents.
Unfortunately, the current conditions in Great Yan did not allow for it, so she could only use the slow, grinding approach.
However, Yue Fuguang's eyes darted around. Hearing this guy's words, she knew the system must have secretly repaired the data of the drama-watching system behind her back.
Things went exactly as Yue Fuguang expected. Although Emperor Mingxi and his ministers all knew that the noble families were rotten to the core, completely eradicating them was indeed a long-term task that required careful planning and defeating them one by one.
Therefore, by the autumn of the seventh year of Yuankang, not to mention the minor noble families whose grave grass had already grown tall, only the three most influential major noble families of Great Yan—Zheng, Wang, and Kong—were left lingering on their last breath.
What? Those people bought seeds again this year?
Yue Fuguang was still lying on her exclusive lounge chair in the corridor of the Bright Moon Pavilion, just like that autumn day in the fifth year of Yuankang, watching the pears on the tree in the courtyard swaying in the autumn wind, not knowing when they would fall.
Yu Ningxuan, who was almost seventeen, had grown increasingly graceful and elegant over the past two years, and even the nearly sixteen-year-old Yu Ningxuan beside her had shed her frailty, gaining a refreshing and brisk vigor.
Only twelve-year-old Yue Fuguang seemed to have been left behind by time. Apart from growing a bit taller, she still retained a bit of childishness.
Fortunately, this was not her own body. As a mere tenant, she did not care much about how it developed.
Seeing Yue Fuguang's face practically screaming "Are they stupid?", Yu Ningxuan also laughed. She explained cheerfully, The rice they planted last spring grew very well, much taller and stronger than the seedlings from their own country. Unfortunately, it only grew tall and did not bear any rice ears.
So last autumn, they bought another large batch of rice seeds from us.