After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times

Chapter 1269: Chapter 1236: New Year’s Celebration

In the evening, it was a palace banquet. Zhao Hanzhang organized it frugally, but it included meat and vegetables to ensure everyone was full, and the taste was quite good. Most importantly, the wine she offered was excellent, truly satisfying for those who love wine.

It was sponsored by Zhao Hu out of friendship.

Because the wine-making equipment was modified with the help of Fu Tinghan, and since he was happy about being titled Marquis this year, he was very generous.

At the banquet, Zhao Hu was particularly flamboyant, inviting everyone on the spot to his house on the fifth day for a plum-viewing party. Regardless of who comes, they need not carry a post.

The banquet, initially not planned, was reorganized, and since Zhao Cheng returned and stayed until after the Lantern Festival before leaving, Zhao Hu felt his house had threefold joy this year (aside from Zhao Cheng’s resignation), so the reorganized banquet was to be even bigger and more luxurious.

Today at noon, various businesses and helpers received the news and were excitedly sharing it with their families, "Seventh Grandfather of the Zhao Family is generous, adding 200 more pounds of fish. I’ll visit the village tomorrow to see if we can get this deal; we’ll be able to earn two strings of coins by year’s end."

The wife was surprised, "So much?"

"I’ll find a way to get you in as a helper, just to wash vegetables and dishes in the kitchen, you’ll earn fifty cents a day, and I heard the banquet will last three days, totaling one hundred fifty cents."

The wife hesitated, "But that’s a noble place. What if I offend someone..."

"You’ll be working in the kitchen, you won’t encounter any nobles. The servants in the front are all trained maids and valets from the house," the businessman said. "In the past, even in the kitchen, I wouldn’t dare let you go, but now it’s different. General Zhao loves the people, and no one in the Zhao Family dares to act arrogantly. Last time, a Zhao Family young master rode a horse recklessly in the street, scaring someone into falling and injuring a leg. The complaint reached General Zhao, who not only whipped the scoundrel himself but also ordered compensation for the street’s stall owners. The injured person immediately received ten strings of coins."

Since then, no aristocrat dares ride recklessly in the streets.

Moreover, when slaves in noble families were unjustly killed and the cases reported to Zhao Hanzhang, she also dealt with them sternly. The atmosphere in Luoyang became clear, and relations between commoners and nobles improved significantly.

So the businessman dared to send his wife to work as a helper to quickly earn money.

Many shared the same plan, especially those chefs and attendants in restaurants; they were hired by the Zhao Family long ago.

Now the expanded banquet required more staff, so naturally they thought of their relatives and friends first.

Thus, on New Year’s Eve, everyone ate New Year’s Eve dinner while staying awake, dreaming of the money they would earn in a few days and being quite happy.

By the Yellow River, workers and soldiers who finished work early and prepared for New Year’s Eve dinner were also very happy.

Today being New Year’s Eve, they worked only until noon. After noon, the entire camp began preparing New Year’s Eve dinner together.

Fu Tinghan had someone prepare abundant meat and vegetables well in advance for the New Year, opening several bags of grain and using locally sourced wheat, which they husked and milled into flour. Mixing in thirty percent bean flour, they rolled it into skins for dumplings.

Meat and flour were divided among teams, each team having a hundred people, and each having their cooks. Thus, although the camp was large and crowded, it remained orderly and well-managed.

Two strong women lifted a large pot onto a stone stove, stepped on a stool, and once the pot heated, poured in two big spoons of soybean oil, then added meat slices...

With a sizzle, the aroma of meat spread with the sound. Shouzhu, rushing past after taking the first bath, couldn’t help but come over, tiptoe to see into the pot, and seeing the bottom full of meat slices, couldn’t help but swallow saliva, "So much meat to eat tonight?"

"Shoo, shoo, don’t drool in the pot. There’s still some time until dinner; if you have time, gather some firewood for the New Year’s bonfire tonight."

"Sister-in-law Feng, I’m just looking, not getting close. Smelling this fragrance, I feel I could live ten more years, and there’s no firewood nearby left to collect; we’ve already gathered it all."

"Don’t call me Sister-in-law Feng, call me Sister Feng; call wrongly again, and I’ll hit you with a shovel."

"Yes, yes, Sister Feng."

As people returned from bathing, smelling the aroma, they crowded around to watch, happily complaining, "The lord is really picky, making us bathe; can’t skip it. I haven’t bathed in half a year; entering this time, almost couldn’t get out."

"The lord does it for our good, bringing coal from far away for us to have hot baths, digging bathing pools, building shacks for us to bathe. It’s been a comfortable bath since I was eight."

"Me too, when the lord forced us to bathe, I feared catching cold, thinking how to bathe in such cold weather, yet it turns out so comfortable."

A camp of over ten thousand, with ten bathhouses, and the other side as well.

And along the Yellow River going upstream and downstream, there were twelve more such camps. Fu Tinghan planned early, requiring strict adherence in each camp, whether workers or military, measuring by the first camp.

What’s in the first camp is in all others, and he eats together with the workers.

Fu Tinghan had a separate tent here, not just his living space, but also his workplace, where meetings were held.

A simple bookshelf was set up in the tent, which Fu Tinghan himself nailed together from wooden boards he found in the camp, not out of frugality, but because they had so many materials, drawings, etc., and if not organized, the tent, though not large, would be filled just with piles of these things.

Three boxes aligned in the corner of the tent were full of Yellow River observation data and various materials from years of managing the Yellow River.

Fu Tinghan stood by the table holding his waist, staring for a long time, asked Fu An, "Has the Fifth Camp sent today’s temperature?"

Fu An replied, "Not yet."

Fu Tinghan didn’t say anything more.

Fu An urged, "You should rest today, it’s New Year’s, celebrate well first."

Fu Tinghan said, "Aren’t I waiting to celebrate right now? Go check how the mess-halls in the camps are doing, serve lunch by 3:00 PM, tell them not to be late."

Finishing before dark, everyone can chat, sing, dance, and in the evening gather around the bonfire, symbolically wait for the New Year before dispersing.

Fu An saw his master didn’t feel bored at all, shook his head and went to supervise.

Not long after Fu An left, a soldier came reporting, "Reporting, Chief of Staff, the temperature from the Fifth Camp has arrived."

Fu Tinghan immediately took the recorded paper, opened it, saw the temperature, and frowned; this year the temperatures along the middle and lower Yellow River were high, resulting only in thin floating ice so far.

Good for clearing clogged waterways now, yet...

Compared to past years’ temperatures, something seems unsettling.

Hanzhang said there’ll be continuous rain next year; is this the sign?

The weather started being abnormal now.