The corvée labor of artisan households was heavy. In the Song Dynasty, artisan households often fled with their entire families or committed suicide because they could not fulfill their labor obligations. In order to complete their tasks, local officials would often seize ordinary people to make up the numbers. Therefore, Adam Brooks's meaning was: during the busy farming season, everyone should do what they need to do, and when the slack season comes, we’ll see how Henry Clark arranges things. By then, the teacher will have become a true member of Chengjia'ao, and he will point out the next steps for the village’s development.

One solution is for Chengjia'ao to produce a scholar-gentry! That is, if Chengjia'ao has a learned person, others can be sheltered by him... And Adam Brooks thought that Henry Clark taking students to register their household was making preparations for Chengjia'ao’s future.

A misunderstanding, a pure misunderstanding.

At this moment, the one being misunderstood still didn’t know about the village’s decision. He was happily leading his students over the mountain ridge, arriving at a mountain stream. As he walked, he recalled the scene in the ancestral hall. After a long while, he seemed to realize something and muttered to himself, “Look, there are always so many helpless things in life, but as we walk through the world, we must learn: change what can be changed, accept what cannot be changed...

Well, since I can’t change it, then I’ll accept it—that’s life!”

Ethan Brooks had witnessed everything in the ancestral hall. He sensed Henry Clark’s displeasure, but he didn’t know why Henry Clark was so gloomy. Of course, even if he knew, he wouldn’t be able to understand, because the education he received had no concept of “intellectual property” or “private rights.”

Out of concern, Ethan Brooks kept observing Henry Clark along the way, carefully watching the changes in Henry Clark’s expression. Although Henry Clark’s muttering was quiet, every word reached his ears. These few maxims, refined by modern society, struck him like a great bell, leaving him utterly entranced.

“Teacher, then, what is ‘what can be changed,’ and what is ‘what cannot be changed’?” Ethan Brooks’s legs went weak, and he felt dizzy and lightheaded. He stopped in his tracks and, in a daze, pressed Henry Clark for an answer.

At this moment, it was noon. The group had reached the top of the slope, with the sound of the forest waves mixed with the faint sound of water—this scene would be remembered by Ethan Brooks for the rest of his life. At that time, Henry Clark stopped, looked up at the picturesque landscape, casually pointed, and said with flair, “Look—the unchangeable are the sun and moon; what can be changed are the seas, the fields, and people’s fortunes! And right now, we are changing our homeland!”

The sun and moon cannot be changed; everything else can be moved!

The children also stopped, gazing up at Henry Clark standing on the hilltop, utterly captivated by their teacher’s demeanor.

Yes, they were changing their homeland!

※※※

The mountain valley where Chengjia'ao is located lies east of Xishui and west of Bahe. Comparatively, it is a bit closer to Xishui—just one mountain ridge to the east. However, this mountain is five li up and five li down. Walking from the mountain path to the riverbank takes five hours in total.

In the past, the villagers had no concept of water transport; they preferred to climb over mountains to enter and leave the village. The reason for this habit was mainly that there were few people in the village and little demand for external transport. But as the village developed, the ability to transport goods outside gradually became a bottleneck for further growth.

Building roads in the mountains was a massive project. Given the productivity and financial means of the villagers at the time, constructing a mountain road to the nearby county seat was almost impossible.

Since they couldn’t build a road, then let’s build a boat—construct a simple mountain path to the riverbank, then build a simple dock. This was still doable. So, Henry Clark began to consider building a boat.

At this time, building a boat was an extremely complex task. The mortise and tenon structure between the planks was intricate; just calculating the joints was enough to drive a skilled carpenter mad. But Henry Clark, following the principle of simplicity wherever possible, skipped the mortise and tenon structure altogether and used long nails to connect the planks, minimizing the workload. Unintentionally, he ended up taking a path closest to modern methods.

The wooden boat was finished. It had already been tested three times, and this time Henry Clark planned to go farther, all the way to the nearby county seat. If this succeeded, the next step would be to mobilize the villagers to build a road, and the improvement in external transportation would surely change the face of the mountain area.

The wooden boat lay on the shore, and the children began happily pushing it into the water. They were excited by the beautiful future painted by Henry Clark, and their enthusiasm for work was high.

To be honest, this finished boat looked less like a “boat” and more like a big open wooden box.

Henry Clark was not a shipbuilding engineer. This was his first time building a boat, and after much effort, he only managed to make such an ugly shape.

Fortunately, Henry Clark came from the information age and still remembered a few key points about shipbuilding.

He remembered that building a boat required first making the keel, so a large tree was sawn down and trimmed into a 15-meter-long keel. Then thick wooden strips were installed on the keel as ribs, and planks were nailed between the ribs... This was the boat Henry Clark built!

He knew that if the seams between the planks were not tight, the boat would leak, so he made large tongue-and-groove joints between the planks, similar to the grooves on the edges of modern “composite wood flooring”...

He knew that to prevent the boat from warping, the planks needed to be thoroughly air-dried, so after charring the planks with fire, he left them in a shed by the river to dry for a whole year...

He knew that the stern had to be shaped like a fish tail for better steering, and that a rudder was needed to control the direction, so this boat became a big wooden box with a slightly pointed bow and a slightly narrow stern...