National Beauty

National Beauty

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Chapter 4 - Chapter 4

Liu Zhen had always felt that Qin Shi Huang's life could be summarized in one sentence: a tragic figure who did the right things at the wrong time.

Take a simple example. One of the Qin Dynasty's policies most well-known to later generations was "standardizing cart axle widths." This was not merely about unifying the standard for cart axles and ruts, but also about opening up new transportation routes across the country, including both waterways and land routes. Not to mention the famous Lingqu Canal, but from Yan and Qi in the east to Wu and Chu in the south, Emperor Ying Zheng had an imperial coastal highway built. He even set strict standards for it: the road had to be fifty paces wide, with a green pine planted every three zhang, and the entire road had to be compacted with iron hammers. In addition to this imperial highway, in the north, to defend against the Xiongnu, the Qin Dynasty also built another road, the Straight Road, which was eighteen hundred li long and cut through mountains and ridges.

The sheer scale of this engineering work would have been massive even during the height of the later Han and Tang dynasties, let alone during the Warring States period, which had just ended its long period of turmoil and had very low productivity. Just think about it, these two roads that spanned the entire country, how much manpower, material resources, and financial resources did they consume?

Qin Shi Huang's actions clearly showed a mentality of either not doing something at all, or doing it to the absolute best of his ability.

But it had to be said, the strategic foresight of Comrade Qin Shi Huang, the obsessive-compulsive, was something the monarchs of the other six states couldn't hope to match even on horseback.

Putting aside the military and civilian value of these waterways and land routes, over two thousand years ago, when the feudal lords of the various states were still immersed in being kings in their own lands, satisfied with the strength of their own single state, the monarch of the Qin Dynasty had already set his sights on the entire world. If the Qin State didn't win the world, who would?

You must know, that road the Qin Dynasty built to defend against the Xiongnu was still in use until the reign of Emperor Wu of Han!

But Liu Zhen could understand all this, and even view all the actions of Qin Shi Huang and the Qin Dynasty with an eye of amazement, purely because she was evaluating it from the perspective of more than two thousand years later. Among the common people of that time, it was a completely different matter.

For the nobles of the Six States, the unification by the Qin Dynasty annihilated all the interests that had originally belonged to them.

For the common people of the Six States, the Qin Dynasty changed the free and undisciplined nature of the previous Warring States era. Its laws were so detailed and its demands so strict that it was as if they had suddenly jumped from Earth to the moon—they were completely unable to adapt.

It was like a person eating. Originally, whether they grabbed with their hands, picked with chopsticks, or scooped with a spoon, nobody cared. But one day, someone suddenly demanded that he must use chopsticks, or else he would be scolded. Of course, he wouldn't be happy about it and would probably argue back. If the other person was holding a stick while he was unarmed, he might think of just enduring it and switching to chopsticks. But if the other person then said, not only must you use chopsticks, but you also can't make any noise while eating, or else you'll be killed, that person, unable to bear it any longer, would naturally think of rebelling.

Now, Liu Yuan and the others, as former subjects of the Han State, likewise had no good impression of this monarch.

The three of them were close, so it was fine to exchange opinions in private. Liu Yuan and Xu Zhongfang had served in the army, and An Zheng was even a government official, so they all had more insight than ordinary commoners. An Zheng sighed and said, "Back when the Six States had not yet been extinguished, the Qi State had the Jixia Academy, where a hundred schools of thought contended and no one was convicted for their words. But now, this act of burning books has occurred. Does this mean that from now on, only the Legalist school's voice will dominate the world?"

Xu Zhongfang drained his wine in one gulp. He was an unrefined man, so his feelings were naturally different from An Zheng's. "Back when Big Brother and I were garrisoning the border, there was a brother in the army who was originally from a great merchant family in the Chu State. Who knew that after the Lord of Qin extinguished Chu, he registered merchants with a merchant status, calling them unruly people. When we came back, that brother couldn't even return home. It was said that he would soon be reassigned to garrison the Great Wall. With the Lord of Qin's tyranny, it's not just one or two families that suffer! If Big Brother hadn't been clever and well-liked, and bribed a superior officer to feign a disability and escape, we probably would have gone with him!"

Liu Zhen leaned against her father's arms and, hearing this, asked, "Uncle, doesn't the court have a rule that you can retire after your term of service is complete?"

Xu Zhongfang laughed heartily. "There is, but you have to wait until you're fifty-six. I'm afraid by then your father and I would have gray hair and fallen teeth, and still wouldn't be able to come back to see you!"

Liu Zhen sighed inwardly. The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li was so magnificent, regarded as a miracle by later generations, but the people who participated in its construction certainly didn't think so. Who would want to be a thousand li from home, conscripted to work in such a place, and possibly never return?

She remembered climbing the Great Wall before. The wall at that time was not the Qin Great Wall but one repaired by later dynasties. Then she heard a tourist next to her say that if he could travel back to the Qin Dynasty to see the Great Wall of that time, he would be willing, even if it meant being a soldier or laborer who built it.

Now Liu Zhen felt that person was just talking idly without a care in the world. She never had such feelings before, but now, as Liu Yuan's daughter, she absolutely did not want her own father to become a cog in the machine that built a great miracle.

It wasn't that the Qin Dynasty wasn't advanced; it was that it was too advanced. Emperor Ying Zheng was simply too ambitious, wanting to accomplish in one go what should have taken hundreds of years. Was that possible? Just like the eating analogy from before, everyone was already struggling to keep up with his pace and was being repeatedly oppressed. When it became unbearable, there was no need to bear it any longer. Once he died and the great mountain above their heads was gone, rebels of all kinds would naturally surge like a storm.

But for now, the common people felt they could still endure it, so they just grumbled in private and let it be.

The three men chatted for a while longer, about nothing more than how the former King of Han was and how the current Lord of Qin was. In truth, when the Seven Warring States coexisted, the lives of the common people were not necessarily that good. It was just that their current feelings were worse, so everyone began to miss the old days.

Liu Zhen listened for a while and became a little drowsy, but she still mustered her spirits and asked, "Uncle An, could you lend me a scroll?"

An Zheng was surprised. "What do you want a book for?"

Liu Yuan answered for her, "This little girl wants to learn to read."

An Zheng smiled. "Big Brother doesn't like to read. Ah Zhen is quite different from you."

Liu Yuan laughed heartily. "She takes after her grandfather, not me!"

An Zheng then asked Liu Zhen, "Ah Zhen, why do you want to learn to read?"

Liu Zhen said, "Big Brother can go to the village school, but I can't. I'm very envious. Can you help me, Uncle?"

An Zheng smiled again. "I went to your house when I was young. Your grandfather has a large collection of books there. Why don't you borrow from your grandfather instead of me? Besides, even if you have a book, with no one to teach you, do you know how to read it?"

Speaking of this, Liu Zhen wanted to sigh. Actually, she had no other reason for borrowing a book than to learn to read. It had to be said, she hadn't transmigrated to a good era. The Song typeface wasn't even popular yet; people commonly used the Great Seal Script, which in Liu Zhen's eyes looked like a heavenly script.

Two years ago, Li Si invented the Small Seal Script, which began to replace the Great Seal Script and become the common script for official documents. However, because it was slow to write, the Clerical Script was used as a supplement. Even so, many classics were still written in the Great Seal Script. To understand them, one first had to learn to recognize the characters.

The Clerical Script was already gradually approaching the prototype of later traditional characters, so at least she could recognize most of it; what she needed to practice was writing it. The Great Seal Script and Small Seal Script were much more difficult. Looking at them for too long was like watching a group of little people dancing on bamboo slips, making one's head spin. But as long as Liu Zhen didn't want to be illiterate, she had to obediently learn to read. What she should be grateful for was that her environment at least provided her with this opportunity. If she had been born into an even poorer peasant family, she might have truly remained illiterate for her entire life.

To be honest, since coming here, apart from having a tiny bit more memory than others and gaining a reputation for being precocious, she really had nothing to boast about. She didn't know how to build the Great Wall, let alone rally a crowd to rebel with a slogan like Chen Sheng and Wu Guang. And now, she even had to learn to read from scratch.

"I can ask Father and Big Brother, and I can also ask you, Uncle. You'll teach me, right, Uncle?" Liu Zhen beamed, her face a picture of pure innocence, leaving the question of why she didn't borrow books from her grandfather's house for her father to answer.

An Zheng knew that Liu Yuan's relationship with his father was not harmonious and realized he had asked the wrong question. He smiled, "Of course. As long as you ask, Uncle will teach."

He then said to Liu Yuan, "Big Brother, Ah Zhen is as clever as ice and snow. It's a pity she's a girl. If she were a boy, she would surely have great achievements in the future."

Liu Yuan stroked his daughter's braids, feeling a bit of fatherly pride. "Ah Zhen has been different from other children since she was little."

Next, the adults' conversation shifted to this year's harvest. Liu Yuan had no land, but both Xu Zhongfang's and An Zheng's families had small, meager fields. After the autumn harvest, they would occasionally help out the Liu family. Although it wasn't much, for the Liu family, it was truly like sending charcoal in snowy weather.

An Zheng held a post in the county, and though he was only a minor official in charge of a warehouse, it was already very impressive to the average commoner. But he didn't look down on Liu Yuan's family circumstances at all and still addressed him as a brother. Liu Zhen felt deeply that her father had truly made two good friends.

The matter that couldn't be accomplished at her grandfather's house was now perfectly resolved. Liu Zhen was very satisfied. As her mind relaxed, and since she had woken up early that morning, she soon grew sleepy again and didn't even know when she drifted off.

Children sleep a lot, and this nap lasted straight through to the evening. Liu Zhen rubbed her eyes and sat up, discovering that it was already dark outside. The bed was hard and uncomfortable, but after five years of sleeping on it, she was long used to it.

To save money, no oil lamp was lit in the room. She stretched, her eyes gradually adjusting to the dim light. Aided by the moonlight shining in from outside, she saw a small bowl of pig ears on the floor beside her. She was stunned at first, but quickly realized what it was. Her heart filled with a touching warmth; she knew her father had seen that she hadn't eaten earlier and had specially saved it for her.

But pig ears were so salty, and eating just that wouldn't fill her up. Liu Zhen walked out of the small hut and headed to the kitchen. Sure enough, she found some cold bean congee in the large pot.

She started a fire with firewood, intending to heat up the congee.

The bean congee had been sitting for a long time, so after the fire started, it still needed some time to heat through completely. Liu Zhen squatted there, adding firewood into the stove opening while lost in thought.

She had been here for five years. Her perspective was limited by this small, isolated place. Although she knew she was in the Qin Dynasty, the poor but stable life had numbed her mind, making Liu Zhen feel that this stability could last forever.

But today, the words of her father and two uncles had given her a considerable shock.

This was not a peaceful era. Even though everyone was obedient under Qin Shi Huang's high-pressure rule, and the remnants of the Six States had quieted down after failed assassinations were met with frenzied retaliation, Liu Zhen knew very well that all of this was just a facade.

The moment Qin Shi Huang died, the world would immediately boil over like this pot of bean congee.

Liu Zhen didn't remember which year Qin Shi Huang died, but she vaguely knew it wasn't too long after the burning of the books and burying of the scholars. That meant that in a few years, the world would fall into chaos, heroes would rise from all corners, and the peaceful days would be no more.

Regardless of whether the history of this world would change, and whether Liu Bang would be the one to secure the throne in the end, it was the common people who would ultimately suffer.

Would their family be affected by this? As a precaution, should she try to persuade her father to move the family deep into the mountains now?

Liu Zhen quickly shook her head, rejecting this unreliable idea.

Although their family currently had no fields to cultivate, her father had just gotten a job, a job that had been hard to come by. How could they possibly leave? And how would they listen to the words of a five-year-old child?

In a chaotic world, powerless commoners like them were truly like blades of grass, without the slightest autonomy.

The more Liu Zhen thought about it, the more worried she became, almost burning the bean congee. She quickly put out the fire and ladled the congee out.

Having not tasted meat for nearly half a month, the pig ears, which should have tasted incomparably fragrant and sweet, now felt a bit tasteless in her mouth.

"I saw you, secretly hiding here to eat meat." A couple of chuckles came from the doorway as Liu Nan popped his head in.

Liu Zhen generously pushed the bowl toward him. "Want some?"

"I've already had my afternoon meal. Father must have saved this for you. Father is so good to you." Although Liu Nan was envious, he wasn't jealous. He was also very fond of his sensible little sister, who was four years younger than him.

"There's not much to eat at home. I'm tired of eating bean rice every day. Big Brother, can you help me pick the apricot blossom buds behind the house tomorrow? I'll make you something delicious, okay?" Liu Zhen said with a grin.

Liu Nan pouted. "Apricot blossoms are bitter. How good can they be, no matter how you cook them? I'm not eating that. I'll take you to catch fish and pick apricots tomorrow, you want to go?"

Liu Zhen's eyes lit up, and she answered almost immediately, "Yes!"

Then she hesitated. "The apricots now are still very sour, aren't they?"

Liu Nan said, "You don't understand. Our family's apricot tree is a domestic one, of course it hasn't borne fruit yet. It just rained a few days ago, and some of the wild apricots are really sweet now. And the fish! That little river I went to last time has so many fish in it!"

He spoke with a smack of his lips, and the listener was already drooling.

Braised fish, steamed fish, sweet and sour fish, fish balls, fish fillet congee.

At this moment, Liu Zhen was left with only one expression: (-﹃-)

All her worries about the state of the world were now thrown to the nine heavens. The thought of the fragrant fish she was about to eat instantly made her feel that even if the First Emperor dropped dead tomorrow and the Qin Dynasty collapsed, it had nothing to do with her.

...She had truly become a foodie.


Sleepy
Sleepy

Translations during sleepless nights. I can sleep when I'm dead! ...Please let me sleep. Happy readers keep me awake, and lots of love and a huge thank you for supporting my hobby!

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