Chapter 148: A Merit That Endures for a Hundred Years Unmoved
In Zhang Qicheng’s view, whether one serves as an official or engages in any other livelihood in this world, it all boils down to the art of dealing with people.
The proposition of dealing with people is vast and difficult to explain fully in a short time, but handling one's relationship with the outside world is the most crucial part of it.
In reality, Zhang Qicheng had always pondered how to manage various relationships. Like a diligent spider, he was constantly busy sorting out different threads and webs, endlessly spinning new silk to connect with more relationships.
In the eyes of others, this fellow was a capable official, albeit somewhat greedy.
Yet, in this Great Yan Dynasty, was there any official who was not greedy?
It was merely that those victimized by Zhang Qicheng had channels to make their voices heard and stir up some commotion.
In truth, this fellow could be considered a rare voice of reason within the officialdom of the Great Yan. The only thing restricting him from making a massive sweep of power was perhaps the conscience deep within his heart, or rather, his bottom line!
He was unwilling to harm ordinary commoners, willing to go to great lengths for his mentor in times of crisis, and even when his junior sister chose a fellow apprentice over him, he was still willing to risk losing his official post to raise silver and help the young couple out of trouble.
This was a man of profound depth and calculation. He was neither naive nor childish, nor could he be called rigidly upright; he was simply unwilling to provoke powerful noble clans or his superiors.
Yet, precisely this kind of man understood the weight of gratitude toward his mentor and knew how to show compassion for the common people.
Even when he was lining his pockets with silver, he managed to do it with such a fresh and refined touch that, aside from the person being fleeced, no one else had anything bad to say about him...
Having nearly mastered all the complexities of human relationships in this world, even without an unexpected event like Su Shenchang dying at his post, Zhang Qicheng was bound to make his mark sooner or later!
A person like this was like an awl tucked into a leather bag—it would inevitably pierce through on its own.
Prince Qi was no fool either. As the banquet drew to a close, riding the wave of enthusiasm, he went with Zhang Qicheng to inspect the efficacy of this new type of mortar.
When a personal guard armed with an iron hammer hammered away frantically at a stone wall built of cement concrete, exhausting himself to the point of collapse, and that stone wall showed not a single crack, save for a few chips and some dust flying off, Prince Qi was utterly shocked!
Only then did Zhang Qicheng produce the official document from Dangyang County, showing Prince Qi how sturdy river embankments built with cement concrete proved to be in the face of floods. In the blink of an eye, the entire deal was sealed!
According to Prince Qi’s initial expectations, this so-called new mortar would be doing well if it merely matched the performance of traditional lime-sand-clay mortar. Perhaps the cost might be slightly lower, but it would ultimately remain the same old story.
After all, given his status as the emperor's own uncle, the business ventures Prince Qi usually engaged in followed pretty much this exact pattern.
Selling the same old stuff at a higher price, passing off inferior goods as superior ones, or sometimes selling nothing at all while other people bought thin air with solid gold and silver...
Making money, why, I know how to do that too!
However, after witnessing the sheer power of cement, Prince Qi was astonished to find that the newly appointed Prefect of Jiangling, Zhang Qicheng, seemed to be genuinely pulling him into a legitimate, serious business!
Even Prince Qi could tell with a glance that this cement was truly a remarkable good thing!
Long after the flood season had passed, whether for building houses or constructing city walls, it was an absolute peerless artifact!
"Your Highness, everyone is currently busy repairing the embankments, but that is merely an emergency measure," Zhang Qicheng said in the dead of night, his expression exceptionally sincere. "Yet a thing like an embankment cannot be rebuilt every single year, can it? It exhausts the people and drains the treasury!
To repair them when the flood season arrives and abandon them once it passes is nothing short of wasting the blood and sweat of the people. Looking at all this, Your Humble Servant feels it deeply in his heart and grieves in his soul!
Therefore, Your Humble Servant intends to overhaul the entire water system within Jiangling Prefecture during my tenure, and rebuild every single embankment using cement concrete!
If Your Humble Servant is fortunate enough to succeed, this will be a merit that endures for a century. Whoever dares to obstruct Your Humble Servant in this matter will be my mortal enemy unto death!
Moreover, the city walls of Jiangling City must also be repaired. With something as wonderful as cement available, it would break my heart if the city walls didn't get to use it!
Your Highness, do you understand Your Humble Servant's meaning?"
Prince Qi blinked, calculating silently in his heart before finally saying uncertainly, "Well, Lord Zhang, your three-year term in office might not quite be enough time!"
"To serve as an official for a term is to bring blessings to the region. As long as the repairs to the embankments and city walls show some results during my tenure, Your Humble Servant will voluntarily submit a memorial to His Majesty requesting to stay right here in Jiangling City. I shall not leave until everything that can be repaired has been repaired... Your Highness, I am a civil official. Both reputation and silver are desperately needed by me, but when necessary, reputation matters far more than silver!"
Guided step by step and led deeper into the logic by Zhang Qicheng, everything he said now appeared to Prince Qi as words spoken straight from the heart!
Never had he imagined that there could be a civil official in this world who was so utterly sincere toward him!
They were both officials, and both served as Prefect of Jiangling. Look at how Lord Zhang conducted himself! Compared to Lord Zhang, that dog of a scoundrel Su Shenchang was simply a bastard!
It served that bastard right to die at the hands of an assassin! He died well, he died wonderfully, he died to perfection!
The very thought that he had been reprimanded by his own nephew of an emperor because of Su Shenchang’s death made Prince Qi detest that dead ghost even more!
And by contrast, it made Zhang Qicheng appear all the more kind and endearing!
Never had he expected that this Lord Zhang, who had a less-than-stellar reputation in official circles, actually possessed the grand ambition of rebuilding every single embankment within the borders of Jiangling Prefecture!
Was this even a Prefect of Jiangling? This bloody fellow was a living Buddha of Jiangling!
From now on, Lord Zhang would be his dearest friend and closest confidant. Anyone in Jiangling Prefecture who dared to speak ill of Lord Zhang would be making an enemy of Prince Qi himself!
And just like that, the cement business was settled.
Once Prince Qi was willing to board the vessel, how subsequent events would unfold was no longer something he—this paternal uncle of the reigning emperor—could dictate alone.
Zhang Qicheng had a thoroughly well-thought-out plan in place, having meticulously pondered every single link in the chain beforehand.
Although the Ningwu Army was just like every other garrison force in the realm—living off ghost soldiers on the payroll and embezzling military rations, with everyone looking like a bunch of beggars—they nevertheless held official military establishment status!
Ever since Prince Qi became the Regional Commander of the Ningwu Army, he had seized quite a bit of land under the flimsy and clumsy pretext of expanding military camps.
Naturally, fertile land was out of reach, but useless barren land was plentiful.
Zhang Qicheng had long since set his sights on a particular location and discussed with Prince Qi building the cement plant directly on that barren land adjacent to the foot of the mountains.
As for craftsmen... since the men of the Ningwu Army had nothing better to do anyway, they would be put straight to work, and anyone laboring in the cement plant would receive extra wages.
Blinded by the mountains of gold and silver painted by Zhang Qicheng, Prince Qi unusually did not care about such petty gains as wages, and even took the initiative to suggest secretly recruiting a batch of refugees to enroll them into the Ningwu Army so they would at least have a proper official status...
With the formula provided by Zhao Hengyi, building the cement plant was not difficult. The Jiangling Cement Plant went into production rapidly on a substantial scale, providing vital guarantees for the entire Jiangling Prefecture's efforts to combat floods.
Only then did Prince Qi finally wake up to reality: this Zhao Hengyi had long enjoyed a reputation for talent and had also become famous by blatantly flattering Imperial Concubine Chen... He and Zhang Qicheng were cut from the same cloth!
No wonder, no wonder! How else could a business as lucrative as a cement plant have fallen squarely into Zhang Qicheng's hands?
Yet shortly afterward, numerous other cement plants began springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, leaving Prince Qi somewhat bewildered: Where on earth did you fellows get the formula for cement?!