After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times-Chapter 647 - 641: Hating Her

Zhao Hanzhang looked at him silently.

Zhao Hu felt a moment of guilt, but he quickly became confident, pointing at Fu Tinghan, whose clothes were half-wet, and said, "Look at how you’ve wronged the son-in-law! You have plenty of servants, so why let him go into the river to do such things?"

Zhao Hanzhang glanced at Fu Tinghan and then said, "This isn’t a reason for you, Seventh Ancestor, to undermine me. Do you think I don’t feel bad letting him go up mountains and down rivers? But I don’t have money. I have to go out and work the fields myself."

This is some kind of scoundrel’s speech?

Zhao Hu wanted to argue with her but suddenly caught another key point, looking at her in surprise and uncertainty, "You don’t have money?"

Zhao Hanzhang squinted, sensing something was off, and asked, "Should I have money?"

Zhao Hu’s face turned red with anger, "Zi Nian said you’re minting new money, you have money!"

His first thought was that he had been deceived!

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang immediately got into character and calmly said "oh": "That’s public money, not mine. I’m saying I personally don’t have money."

Zhao Hu looked at her half-believingly, "Really?"

Fu Tinghan washed his feet and, dragging his wooden sandals, said, "Let’s go inside to talk."

Otherwise, in a moment of impulse, it’s easy to fall into the ditch, which is too dangerous.

Zhao Hanzhang stepped aside to let them in.

Zhao Hu was pondering deeply, wondering if he could still turn back to Ru Nan at this point.

Thinking about the money he brought this time, Zhao Hu’s heart skipped a beat. Luoyang was in post-war reconstruction, and there wasn’t even a decent local product to buy in the city.

Returning with nothing would mean this trip was a waste of effort and travel expenses, which made his heart ache.

Thinking and thinking, Zhao Hu’s gaze naturally fell on this water mill, and the more he looked, the more tempted he became. So he left Zhao Hanzhang, who wanted to talk to him, and enthusiastically struck up a conversation with Fu Tinghan, "Tinghan, did you also build this water mill?"

Fu Tinghan exchanged a silent glance with Zhao Hanzhang and said, "I built it together with the craftsmen."

"Then isn’t it still your creation? Those craftsmen just listened to your orders!" Zhao Hu looked at him with glowing eyes, "Aren’t those workshops in Xiping all your ideas? Others might not know, but I certainly do!"

The more he looked at Fu Tinghan, the more he liked him. It’s a pity he’s not a craftsman but Zhao Hanzhang’s fiancé; otherwise, if he could hire him... well, perhaps cooperating could work.

Thinking about Zhao Hanzhang’s Treasure Workshop business, Zhao Hu was envious and jealous. Many of her ventures are one-of-a-kind, and others can’t even compete.

Oh, they also wouldn’t dare compete.

Zhao Hu looked warmly at Fu Tinghan and asked, "I just saw that the stone mill inside the room doesn’t need people to move it; it can move by itself. Is it because of that waterwheel?"

Although Zhao Hu didn’t understand the principle, he wasn’t foolish. He had just followed the lever outside and seemed to see a small waterwheel at the back of the room.

If such workshops could be built in Xiping, Ru Nan, or even anywhere in the Yu State where he owned land, how much could he earn in a day?

Grinding was one of the punishments, which shows how hard grinding is. Pestling rice and grinding wheat, and now adding bean grinding, after dehulling the beans into powder, the taste improves greatly.

The spread of delicious food is swift, but Zhao Hu could be sure that most people in the world were still eating grain, bean porridge, or even boiled rice with shells.

Is it because they don’t know these things taste better after being shelled?

No, but because eating this way is both more filling and convenient.

Pestling rice is still tolerable. Larger villages in the South have pestle rooms, requiring only a few wooden poles and a concave stone, or not even needing a stone, just a hole in the ground with dirt compacted and covered with oilcloth or burlap to use.

Some households have their own pestle mortars, like medicine mortars, to pound grain themselves. Occasionally, when really free, they’d spend time pounding grains to yield two to three meals.

Yet the North mainly cultivates wheat, but not every household has a stone mill, and sometimes even a village might not have one.

At Zhao’s Castle, Zhao Changyu once built two mills for the clan, one in the South and one in the North, with five millstones in each. When needed, people would go and grind at their own expense.

Even so, it’s still not enough, prompting some wealthy families to have their own millstones. For convenience for clan members and neighbors, millstones were placed in open spaces not far from the home entrance. When the main family didn’t need them, nearby inhabitants could borrow them.

Incidentally, after Zhao’s Castle gradually grew, Zhao Hanzhang donated millstones as well, following her grandfather’s lead by establishing a mill on each side, east and west, freely available for castle dwellers to use.

But it was still insufficient since permanent residents in the castle had reached eighty thousand, with a tendency to expand further.

Thus, Zhao Hu set up his own mill within Zhao’s Castle. His mill was of large scale, however, not providing millstones but rather offering direct milling services.

He bought several donkeys and dispatched some stout yet lazy slaves to the mill to lead the donkeys in milling wheat flour, bean flour, and such.

It was a modest profit.

But if water could be used to grind things and even pound rice, not only saving on buying and maintaining donkeys but also reducing several laborers?

The water doesn’t tire and flows day and night. His mill could operate around the clock, shift workers allowing two labors to rotate, one during the day and one at night, so he could earn money while lying flat?

Zhao Hu looked at Fu Tinghan gently and asked kindly, "Don’t know if you have skilled craftsmen under you, could you spare me one?"

"Rest assured, I definitely won’t open a mill in Luoyang; I’ll go open one in Xiping." And Shangcai, Xinxi, Ancheng...

Anywhere he owned land and houses with water, he’d open one.

Zhao Hanzhang lightly coughed to remind Zhao Hu, "Seventh Ancestor, this water mill is mine, and the craftsmen are mine too."

Zhao Hu: ...

He turned back and frowned at her, asking, "What about Fu Zhongshu? Does Tinghan only have Fu An with him?"

This was too much bullying, why is everything hers?

Zhao Hanzhang replied, "Now he is my Minister of the Ministry of Industry."

"Ministry of Industry? Never heard of it," Zhao Hu frowned even more, looking around and then quietly asked, "You can now appoint someone Chief of Staff? If he’s Chief of Staff, then what is your uncle-grandfather?"

Zhao Hanzhang said, "My uncle-grandfather is the head of the Secretarial Department! Seventh Ancestor, when you’re free, read more books. Stop constantly thinking about poaching people."

Zhao Hu wanted to speak, but Zhao Hanzhang abruptly intercepted, asking, "I saw just now several carts parked by the river; are those yours?"

Zhao Hu collected his expression, replied casually with a "Mm," and turned his head left and right, shifting the topic, "There’s nothing much to see anymore. How about we return to Luoyang? Does Zicheng know I’ve come to Luoyang? Should let him come to meet me..."

"That cattle cart has money, right?" Zhao Hanzhang stared at his face, saying, "I smelled the scent of money."

Zhao Hu: ...

Zhao Hu disliked Zhao Hanzhang immensely.