HCT – Chapter 197 Raising Fish and Water Buffalo Milk

February arrived in the blink of an eye.

Last autumn’s rice harvest had been a great success. Throughout the winter, Zhu Xiang had been leading craftsmen through the villages around Guangling City to promote the use of stone mills and to share recipes, so that rice could be better utilized and popularized.

He also taught farmers how to compost with rice straw, and how to use rice bran to feed chickens and ducks.

Many more mulberry-fish ponds were built as well. With pond mud and straw compost as fertilizers, the seedlings sprouting in February already looked sturdier than those of the previous year.

Because the climate of the Yangtze River Delta was humid and warm, earthworms thrived even better here than in Xianyang. Zhu Xiang also promoted the practice of raising chickens and ducks with earthworms, as well as using them in composting.

The agricultural techniques Zhu Xiang introduced were unimaginable to people of this era.

Take something as simple as fish ponds, for example.

As early as the Pre-Qin period, the ancients had already dug ponds to raise carp. The Book of Songs (Shijing·Daya·Lingtai) says, “The king is at Ling Marsh, where the fish leap in abundance,” describing the scene of a fish pond.

But at that time, raising fish merely meant throwing them into a pond and leaving them to fend for themselves. Yields were very low. For nobles, carp were considered a rare delicacy. In fact, in Western Zhou rituals, gifting a carp was seen as a sign of special respect.

By the late Spring and Autumn period, Fan Li, known as Tao Zhugong, experimented with more refined methods of fish farming and wrote A Classic of Fish Culture.

Later, through developments recorded in Jia Sixie’s Essential Techniques for the Common People of the Northern Wei, Huang Xingzeng of the Ming Dynasty, and Ma Guohan’s Fish Farming Classic of the Qing Dynasty, people gradually mastered methods such as fry breeding and full-scale aquaculture.

During Emperor Wu of Han’s reign, fish farming began in lakes. By the Eastern Han, fish were being raised in rice paddies. In the Tang Dynasty, the taboo against eating carp led to the cultivation of the “Four Major Domestic Fish” still known today—black carp, grass carp, silver carp, and bighead carp. Both farming sites and the species being raised expanded over time.

Yet before the founding of modern China, freshwater aquaculture still depended on catching fry in the wild, so yields remained very low.

It was only after the founding of the PRC that Mr. Zhong Lin, in the face of foreign experts’ claims that “domestic fish cannot be bred artificially,” spent eight years developing the world’s first artificially bred fry of the Four Major Fish, ending the millennia-long reliance on fishing for fry.

Later, with the efforts of scientists like Liu Yun and others, freshwater fish finally became a common dish on the dinner table.

Although Zhu Xiang was just an agricultural expert, in the research of farming, animal husbandry, and aquaculture, there was much overlap. Thus, he knew at least the basic methods of fish farming—such as the techniques Zhong Lin had painstakingly worked out under ridicule, taking eight years to achieve.

The simple wish of those scientists—to let the people eat their fill and eat well—crossed two thousand years, and was now being passed on by Zhu Xiang to the people of the Yangtze Delta, which was still considered half a backwater.

Even though the techniques Zhu Xiang revealed were unimaginably advanced for the time, they did not stir much amazement, nor did scholars sing praises of this great achievement.

People of this era had no idea how significant such knowledge was, treating it as ordinary. Moreover, although the ruling class valued agriculture, most scholars and officials looked down on those who actually worked the land.

Perhaps in the future, when people ate fish, they too would take it for granted—because two thousand years earlier, their ancestors had already mastered artificial breeding of freshwater fish.

Thinking of this, Zhu Xiang felt a burst of joy, and much of his fatigue was lifted.

During the day, he shuttled between fields and ponds; at night, he lit candles and ground ink, writing down the techniques he had successfully put into practice.

Only when a method had been tested and proven would he dare record it—for farming, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries were all at the mercy of “Heaven.” A slight difference in climate or geography could turn a good technique into a disastrous one.

Zhu Xiang hoped that what he left behind were straightforward, reliable methods—so that even if in later generations no scholars studied agriculture firsthand, this book could still carry people into a new age and spare common folk from famine.

Crop cultivation and breeding were Zhu Xiang’s true specialty. As for fish farming and similar fields, he only had limited knowledge.

He could only rack his brains, piecing together what he had once seen, heard, or vaguely remembered, then spend long hours experimenting to confirm whether his memory was right or wrong.

Whenever he did this, Zhu Xiang couldn’t help sighing: “How hateful it is to find books scarce when you most need them.”

Even though he had such an extraordinary “cheat,” the limits of one man’s strength were tangible. The things he wanted to do always far outnumbered the things he could do.

Because of his role in defending the city, Zhu Xiang’s standing among the scholars of Guangling had risen greatly.

But immediately afterward, he plunged even more obsessively into fields and fish ponds, returning each day covered in dirt, mud, and grime, with no trace of dignity or bearing—making the scholars increasingly uncomfortable, and reminding them of his commoner background.

It was not unheard of for nobles to farm with their own hands. But someone like Zhu Xiang, who spent every day dealing with maggots, sludge, weeds, and even manure, was truly beyond what they could stomach.

Those scholars who had wanted to befriend Zhu Xiang, or even serve as his retainers, gradually backed away.

When Zhu Xiang heard that many scholars and wanderers in Guangling City admired him, he had wondered how he would politely refuse them if they came to attach themselves to him.

Though he was close friends with Xia Tong, Zhu Xiang was well aware that his influence had already grown too large—high-ranking officials and generals alike were his allies. He needed to keep a low profile. Taking on retainers was out of the question.

So when those people withdrew on their own, Zhu Xiang let out a sigh of relief—though his heart also held a trace of bitterness.

Not only now—even in his previous life, agricultural professors who spent their days in the fields were never held in high regard.

Perhaps when they produced results, some might praise them. But those who saw them trudging through the mud would still wrinkle their noses in disdain.

With that thought, Zhu Xiang’s bitterness faded.

If even two thousand years later things were like this, then being regarded as an oddball in this age was only natural—nothing to feel wronged about.

Compiling agricultural texts was not something Zhu Xiang did alone. Even though Xu Ming had left him and taken up a teaching post at the academy in Xianyang, many of Zhu Xiang’s former farming disciples still followed him.

Like him, they combined practice with writing, recording their own insights, and with his guidance, chose their own fields of study. Some specialized in seeds, some in fertilizers, some in fish farming, some in raising better silkworms… while others switched entirely from agriculture to hydraulics, or to the development of farming tools.

Zhu Xiang encouraged them to write down their findings, and he personally paid to have them block-printed and distributed to literate scholars. Farmers at that time were illiterate, so the spread of books depended on these scholars. That was why scholars were so important in the Warring States period, and why society at large looked down on ignorant peasants.

In Guangling City, Zhu Xiang also established an academy, hoping to cultivate more readers. But, as everywhere else, those who could attend were from wealthy families—mostly nobles or downfallen scholars. Even if Zhu Xiang subsidized tuition, farm families couldn’t afford to spare a laborer to study full-time.

He wondered whether in ten, twenty… a hundred years, there would finally be a true commoner who studied and entered government service.

After much thought, Zhu Xiang began helping villages set up ancestral halls and other self-governing organizations in the countryside—like basic rural communes, where tools like stone mills and oxen could be shared. He encouraged wealthy households to run private schools, and supported peasant children with the will to study.

In later times, such clan organizations would give rise to the corrupt gentry class. But here and now, producing a class of small-to-medium landowners might actually be a sign of progress. At least, that was what Zhu Xiang told himself.

For much of what he did, he had no certainty of the outcome. Only history’s judgment could tell.  But in any case, it couldn’t turn out worse than the collapse of Qin under the Second Emperor.

Ying Zheng, seeing his uncle’s tireless efforts while being criticized by scholars, was indignant.  He remembered how in Xianyang, Confucians had mocked his uncle too.

The mainstream thought then, as Mencius said, was: “Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their bodies are governed. The governed feed others; the governors are fed by others.”

Meanwhile, the Agrarian school’s call for rulers and ministers to farm alongside the people was seen as subverting order and destabilizing the world.

Zhu Xiang’s own judgment was that the Agrarian philosophy was a simple form of “common prosperity”—a wish too idealistic to fully realize. But just like the Confucian dream of a Great Unity, it was precisely because such ideals were unattainable that they were called aspirations. As long as they harmed no one, what was wrong with holding onto dreams and practicing one’s ideals?

Ying Zheng used to just listen in silence. But now, stirred by anger, he jotted something down in his little notebook: when he became emperor, he would decree that the emperor and his ministers must personally plow the fields during the spring planting season, making it one of Qin’s most important state rituals.

He would also commission a hundred men to write his uncle’s biography, praising him for personally laboring and guiding agriculture as saintly behavior, and erect merit steles to him on sacred mountains like Mount Tai and Mount Kuaiji.

After recording all this, Ying Zheng proudly patted his chest, as if claiming credit before even doing it.

Zhu Xiang was caught between tears and laughter. He knew that his nephew meant what he said and would truly follow through one day, but—did he really need to boast about it before the deed was even done? What kind of First Emperor was he raising? Was he raising him crooked?

“Good, uncle is very happy. Before Zheng’er returns to Xianyang, uncle will make you a pastry you’ve never eaten before as thanks.” Zhu Xiang stroked his nephew’s head, coaxing him like a child.

But instead of joy, Ying Zheng was outraged: “What?! Uncle, you’ve been hiding pastries from me all this time? That’s too cruel!”

Zhu Xiang: “……” He pinched his nephew’s handsome little cheek, speechless, and went off to the kitchen to make the dessert.

Ying Zheng clasped his hands behind his back, trailing after Zhu Xiang the whole way, grumbling that his uncle had secretly enjoyed delicacies without sharing. Such an unkind uncle!

At the same time, Jiao Yun—who had performed outstandingly on the battlefield—was being persuaded by Li Mu in the kitchen to rejoin the army, though he had already laid down his armor to return to cooking. When they saw Zhu Xiang bringing Ying Zheng in, the two immediately stopped their tug-of-war, rolled up their sleeves, and helped prepare food.

“What are you making?”

“See that basket of stone flower seaweed? I’m going to boil it down into gel to make milk pudding for Zheng’er.”

“Teacher, Mister Jiao, you hear this? Isn’t uncle awful? He’s never made me milk pudding before! I didn’t even know such a dessert existed!”

“Uh…”

Ying Zheng continued whining pitifully, looking truly wronged.

Zhu Xiang pinched his lips together like a duck’s beak: “Shut up, go fetch me a bucket of buffalo milk.”

Li Mu had captured some buffalo from Nanyue, wanting Zhu Xiang to compare them with the cattle of the Central Plains. Buffalo milk, being richer in fat, was perfect for making milk pudding.

Milk pudding was essentially what later ages would call pudding. Besides that, buffalo milk could be used for ginger milk curd and double-skin milk. Seeing how aggrieved Ying Zheng was, Zhu Xiang decided to make all of them for him.

When Ying Zheng finally ate with a beaming face, Zhu Xiang realized the absurdity: What grievance? Wasn’t it perfectly normal that he just invented a new dish? How was that “hiding it on purpose”?

Once again, he was thoroughly manipulated by his nephew. Sigh.

“Uncle, I’m going to Xianyang with Auntie. Take care of yourself!” Ying Zheng, content and satisfied, boarded the large ship back. He waved at Zhu Xiang without a trace of reluctance, eager to have the boat set off at once.

Zhu Xiang had prepared a large chest of dried snacks for him, assorted preserved fruits for Xue Ji, and handed Ying Zheng his newly written book to have it printed in Xianyang.

Seeing his nephew’s eager “I’m off on a grand voyage” expression, he sighed: “Once you’re in Xianyang, don’t be naughty. Listen to your aunt. Xue Ji, take care on the journey.”

“I know, I know! When have I ever been naughty?” Ying Zheng answered impatiently.

Xue Ji gave a slight nod to Zhu Xiang: “Husband, take care.”

The ship pulled away from the dock.

Zhu Xiang watched the sail recede, reluctant and heavy-hearted. He said to Li Mu with a wry smile: “For so many years, Zheng’er has always lived by my side. Now that he’s suddenly leaving, I feel at a loss. And yet, Zheng’er looks like he can’t wait to sprout wings and fly away—it’s infuriating.”

Li Mu replied: “Is that so? I rather think you’re often the one leaving him behind and running off everywhere.”

He started counting: going to Changping to meet the King of Qin, or to Guangling to defend the city—that was understandable, forced by circumstance. But when Zhu Xiang brought Zheng’er to Shu, he had left the boy alone in Chengdu while he himself went off to Qianzhong Commandery.

Abandoning him at the governor’s residence to work while running around on his own—Zhu Xiang had done that more than once.

Zhu Xiang: “……”

Sometimes, Li Mu really knew how to get under his skin!