General Qin

Li's mansion.

Li Si frowned and shook his head: "Oh, I really didn't think about this matter. I always thought about marrying the Marquis of Wugong to preserve my grandson's status, but I ignored the emperor's reaction to this."

Li Yu said indifferently: "I think the emperor has always favored the martial arts prince. Even if the prince is really allowed to marry his family, the emperor might be happy to see it happen."

"It is possible, but the emperor's heart is unpredictable and he cannot gamble randomly. This matter should not be touched lightly for the time being. We will see the situation in the future."

Li Si sighed quietly, with helplessness in his eyes.

With his wisdom, he wouldn't be so anxious, but Li Si had to be anxious.

He is sixty-four years old this year.

This age was considered an old man in ancient times. Even in the capital of Guizhou, he no longer had to do corvee service. It could be said that he had reached the end of his life. How much time would he have left to live in the future?

Li Si inevitably had to start making plans for his children and grandchildren. His two sons were ineffective, which made him anxious and careless about this matter.

Thinking of the words of Marquis Wugong relayed by the prince through Li Shu.

Li Si sighed: "Wugong Hou looks young, but he is actually a mature man who plans for the country. If such a person can become the father-in-law of my grandson, I, the Li family, will have no worries. Alas, I really want to marry him."

…

Ever since Zhao Tuo used the First Emperor as an excuse to decline the prince's proposal for the emperor's eldest grandson, there really was no follow-up to the matter.

Zhao Tuo was secretly proud.

In the Qin State, the First Emperor is indeed the most powerful, and if he uses his name, he can suppress anything.

Zhao Tuo was very satisfied with the performance of the First Emperor in the past six months.

Although the emperor still had the overall decision-making power on national affairs, he no longer took care of many trivial matters and left them all to the prince and the ministers of the court.

Zhao Tuo heard from Fusu that the emperor's daily workload now was less than two hours, which was a huge difference compared to the previous state of working from morning to night.

The workaholic is finally at peace!

Zhao Tuo didn't know what the First Emperor was doing when he wasn't working.

But judging from the favored status of Lu Sheng, Xu Shi and others, he is probably really obsessed with learning immortality.

Not to mention, Zhao Tuo discovered that Lu Sheng and Xu Shi were really geniuses at bragging.

They made great use of the system of cultivating immortals provided by Zhao Tuo, and came up with things like Shouyi, Cunshen, and Zuowang.

He also began to further fiddle with the theory of spiritual energy, hoping to combine it with ancient mythology to make this system of cultivating immortals more massive and solid, so that laymen would be shocked by it at a glance.

In the past six months, under the leadership of the First Emperor, the alchemists of the Immortal Cultivation Sect have become the guests of Xianyang nobles. Many officials and wealthy people in Xianyang have actually begun to join the army of Immortal Cultivation.

Zhao Tuo watched this with cold eyes and did not express any opinion.

He naturally knows that if things like religion and cultivation are spread too widely, it will have considerable side effects.

In this regard, he had already warned Lu Sheng that the method of cultivating immortality advocated by them should focus mainly on one's own cultivation and perception, without resorting to external objects, and even asked people to advocate a pure heart and few desires, and focus on enlightenment.

In this way, no matter how many people practice immortality, it will not cause a lot of waste of material resources.

Zhao Tuo wanted to use his cultivation to prevent the emperor from overhauling the palace and other wonders.

After some actual practice, this method works really well.

Ever since the First Emperor returned from his eastward tour, he had no intention of building a new palace. Judging from the current situation, the Epang Palace, which will be talked about by future generations, may not even have a foundation.

Nowadays, the only major project being carried out in Xianyang is the Imperial Mausoleum. This project will not be completed until the death of the emperor, so it can be ignored for the time being.

Looking at the whole world, the only major projects of the Qin State are the straight roads supervised by Meng Tian and the Chi Roads of various counties. They are basically in the final stage and will be completed within this year.

Perhaps it was because Zhao Tuo crippled the Huns in the Northern Expedition and Li Xin also defeated the Donghu. Without the threat of enemies in the north, no one mentioned the construction of the Great Wall in the past two years. This major project that had worried Zhao Tuo before was aborted and would not consume a lot of people's power during this period.

As for the war, after the First Emperor's idea of ​​getting involved in poison was dissuaded by the Manchu ministers, he did not announce a new goal for the conquest.

Now that the battles between Yuezhi and Haidong have subsided, the two expeditionary armies are on their way back. Those Qin soldiers who went on expeditions far away from home will return to their hometowns and relatives.

"Cultivation of immortals can destroy the country, but if you use it well, it can also benefit the country!"

Zhao Tuo was very pleased.

In the next few months, he, the young man, also worked hard to contribute to the prosperity of the empire.

The first thing to do is to promote advanced iron smelting technology across the country. At the very least, the agricultural tools in each county must be updated. When spring plowing next year, high-quality iron farm tools will definitely improve production efficiency, which is a major event that will benefit the world.

The second thing is that Zhao Tuo ordered his craftsmen to improve the textile machine technology, and selected high-quality Qiang sheep from the Qiang region of Longxi, and ordered them to be raised and sheared to make woolen clothes.

The reason is that Qin State has conquered the grasslands outside the Great Wall, as well as Liaodong, Haidong and other cold places.

The Qin army who stayed behind suffered terribly from the severe cold climate in the area, and people often died of illness due to cold. Zhao Tuo naturally had to consider this and came up with woolen clothes, which could help the soldiers in the border counties solve the problem of keeping out the cold.

"It's better to get the cotton as soon as possible. It's time to persuade the emperor to send a caravan to the Western Regions for trade and exploration."

Zhao Tuo remembered that China’s cotton was introduced from the Western Regions in the north and Shendu in the south.

The body poison was too far away, and Zhao Tuo didn't want to mess with it. The Western Region was more cost-effective, and this place was also on Great Qin's future attack plan.

Regarding Zhao Tuo's letter to send a caravan to explore the Western Regions, the First Emperor agreed on the spot and the matter was implemented smoothly.

In addition to the promotion of metal smelting and the transformation of textile technology, the third thing Zhao Tuo did this year was to conduct research on high-quality sugar cane collected from the Chu region and successfully produce brown sugar.

The reason is that his son has grown up and is at the age where he loves snacks.

Then Zhao Tuo discovered that there was a shortage of snacks these days, and the only desserts he could eat were malt candies and honey, so he naturally thought of pressing sugar.

"Brown sugar is a luxury product in this era. I remember reading novels in my previous life, and there were people who made fortunes from it."

Zhao Tuo watched his son happily licking the brown candy in his hand in his mansion.

He thought in his mind that this thing could be of great use.

The princes and nobles of Liuguo City held a large amount of wealth in their hands. The First Emperor had imposed taxes once or twice before. They did not dare to resist, but they complained privately.

Zhao Tuo felt that there was no need to use force to suppress everything. Sometimes sugar-coated bullets were more effective.

Wouldn't it be better to use some means to corrupt the nobles of the six countries and willingly hand over their money?

This brown sugar is a pioneer.

In addition to the nobles of the Six Nations, the caravans that are about to set off for the Western Regions can also use these small and expensive luxury goods to explore the way, exchange for good things from the people of the Western Regions, and even places further west such as Dawan and Anxi, and open Come via a wide trade route.

"It may be called the Silk Candy Road in the future!"

Thinking of this, the smile on Zhao Tuo's face became even brighter, feeling that the whole world was slowly being transformed by him.

With such a fulfilling work life, time flies to the second year.

Thirty years of Qin Shihuang passed like this.

This year, nothing major happened in the world.

There were no new wars or new major projects. All counties and counties in the Qin State shifted their focus to agricultural production.

With the completion of the straight road and the Chi Road, Guizhou Province, which had been oppressed by corvee and military service for several years, finally took a good breath.

Suddenly I remembered that Zhao Tuo's eldest daughter and Fusu's eldest son haven't been named yet. Do you have any good names to recommend?

What's the name of Fusu's son? What a headache.