dognovel Chapter 223 Magistrate Yang: No matter how hard life is, we can't let our wives suffer.
Chapter 223 Magistrate Yang: No matter how hard life is, we can't let our wives suffer.
The famous decadent writer Mr. Du Deji once said: Happiness is always found in comparison.
While Magistrate Yang was dozing off in a recliner under the shade of a tree, Emperor Zhu Chongba was pondering what to teach in the schools and how to manage the Ministry of Rites' servants.
After all, Old Zhu did give them salaries.
While Magistrate Yang was enjoying fried cicada nymphs as a snack and sipping on a small bowl of rice balls, Emperor Zhu Chongba was reviewing the first edition of textbooks produced by the Ministry of Rites, and was doing so with Zhu Biao, the Vice Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, as well as Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen, and others.
While Magistrate Yang lay in bed, lost in thought, wondering whether to eat poached chicken or stir-fried chicken tomorrow, and whether to eat noodles or dumplings, Emperor Zhu Chongba, along with Zhu Biao, Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen, and others, were slurping down noodles, celebrating that their textbook review work, which had been going on for several days, was finally seeing a glimmer of hope.
In comparison, Magistrate Yang lived a much happier life.
If one had to pinpoint any area where happiness is lacking, it would be that Magistrate Yang is still single, having been in this world for almost a year and a half without finding a wife.
I wonder when that old man will finally marry Jin'er and Yu'er off to us?
Magistrate Yang lay on a recliner under the shade of a tree, his mind filled with images of Jin'er's shy face and Yu'er's sly face.
Speaking of which, I am so handsome, and Jin'er and Yu'er are so beautiful. How good-looking will their children be?
Tsk tsk, I dare not even think about it. If I had a son, wouldn't he charm a whole bunch of girls? If I had a daughter, wouldn't she charm a whole bunch of boys?
Otherwise, it's better to have a son. Having a daughter makes it easier for a blond guy to take a liking to her.
That doesn't seem right either; how can a son be as well-behaved as a daughter?
But as he pondered this, Magistrate Yang's thoughts inevitably began to veer off course once again.
In rural areas, there is a tradition of building a house before a son gets married. This matter has nothing to do with Magistrate Yang, since he lived in the backyard of the county government office and didn't need to consider buying or building a house.
However, Magistrate Yang suddenly became very dissatisfied with the toilet in the backyard of the county government office.
The toilet in the backyard of the county government office was located in the southeast corner of the courtyard. It was a squat toilet built in a small shed. There was a wall behind the pit, and behind the wall was the latrine, which was connected to the pigsty. It was a typical dry toilet.
A typical characteristic of this type of dry toilet is that it smells terrible in the summer, and you have to face buzzing flies as soon as you enter the toilet. In the winter, although you don't have to face flies and the smell is much lighter than in the summer, your exposed bottom is really cold.
Magistrate Yang Shaofeng felt that as a grown man, he didn't care, but he was about to get married, and he was going to marry two wives at once. It was time to renovate this dilapidated dry toilet.
There are also houses.
If I'm alone, it's not so bad if the room is a bit cold; I can just add a few more blankets. But what if I get married? Am I supposed to make my wife add a few more blankets like me?
No, I can't let my wives suffer, especially since they are both so beautiful.
The houses in the backyard of the county government office need to be renovated, and the toilets also need to be renovated.
Hmm, we should get the flush toilet out first, and then install the toilet seat directly in the house. This thing doesn't seem to require much technology.
It seems like a monkey-style solar water heater made by painting a tin bucket black could also be considered. After all, this thing doesn't seem to require much technology. What's currently lacking is an iron smelting workshop. As long as the old Deng school of craftsmen are in place, it seems like it can be made anytime.
A heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed) should also be installed. If necessary, a heated wall can also be built. After all, there are two or three thousand people in Ningyang County, and surely a few of them will know about this stuff.
No, if we're going to install flush toilets, can't we dig a big pit far outside the city and connect it with pipes so that night soil can be flushed directly into this big pit to collect fertilizer?
That's not right either. Since the pipelines can be directly connected to the county government, why not connect the entire county so that the people can also completely say goodbye to drought?
Damn it, every household in the city has a dry toilet, which is most obviously manifested in the stench that comes in the summer. If the stench bothers Jin'er and Yu'er, won't I be the one to feel sorry for them in the end?
But then, Magistrate Yang's thoughts changed once again—since the decision to build a sewer system had already been made, why not do a thorough overhaul of the entire county?
Magistrate Yang Shaofeng's thoughts were getting more and more off track. Finally, he couldn't hold back any longer, rolled off his recliner, and shouted to Lame Five, who was not far away, "Brother Lame Five, let's go back to the county office!"
After returning to the county government office, Magistrate Yang once again immersed himself in his study, taking out paper and starting to write and draw.
The city walls surrounding Ningyang County are no longer needed; they will all be demolished.
The original streets should be dug up where necessary, and then pipes should be laid directly afterward. The necessary pipes can be fired at the brick kiln. In any case, the pipes must be thick enough, and they should be made according to the Qingdao sewer standards.
He had only painted a few strokes when Magistrate Yang stopped.
Brick kilns...do not have the capability to produce sewage pipes.
It wasn't that the technology couldn't be there, but rather that there simply weren't enough people available for Magistrate Yang to command.
Thinking about the shortage of manpower, Magistrate Yang couldn't help but spit out a hateful "Pah!"
Zhu Chongba, that old bastard, is really useless, and Xu Da is no better. I've been asking them for prisoners for a whole year, but they still haven't sent many people to Ningyang County.
By the beginning of July in the second year of Hongwu, Zhu Chongba had sent a total of 5,000 scholars and several hundred relatives of gentry to Ningyang County. These people were already struggling to make ends meet just to repair roads, so how could they possibly spare manpower to fire kilns?
The more he thought about it, the more upset he became. So Magistrate Yang put down his pen, got up, walked to the bookshelf, and began to look through the various data of Ningyang County.
Including the people who have migrated from other nearby counties, Ningyang County now has about 600 households. If each household can store 1,000 jin of grain at the time of wheat harvest, Ningyang County has about 600,000 jin of wheat stored. If we also include the harvest of soybeans, sorghum, and millet, the amount of grain stored in Ningyang County is about 1 million jin.
If we calculate based on each person consuming 800 jin of grain per year, then over one million jin of grain would be enough to feed... more than 1,200 people?
Having calculated all the data, Magistrate Yang put it all back on the bookshelf and sat down in his chair.
A million catties of grain is only enough to feed about a thousand people. Even if the prisoners who have been exiled can eat worse, a million catties of grain can only feed about three thousand people at most. Unless the imperial court can allocate grain specifically for prisoners like it did for the five thousand scholars, Ningyang County really cannot support the consumption of a large number of prisoners.