The Fifth Ba was long used to his grandson’s endless stream of new ideas. Just now, while testing the plow in the field, he had been watching out of the corner of his eye, but was not overly surprised. After examining it up and down, he said unhurriedly, “It’s a good thing, it certainly saves labor and is suitable for small-scale farming, but…”

He asked his grandson a question.

“Henry, tell me, is labor more expensive, or is iron more expensive?”

“Of course… iron is more expensive.”

Henry Benson was left speechless, realizing he had been a bit hasty.

The gentry hated two of the new dynasty’s policies the most. One was the royal land privatization order, which curbed their appetite for acquiring more land and slaves.

The second was the Five Equalizations and Six Controls, which harmed not only small self-farming peasants, but also landlords and powerful families. Not to mention salt and wine—just iron alone meant the source of production tools was monopolized.

From mining to smelting to selling, iron was all handled by the government. Naturally, prices were set by officials, and they were exorbitant. This was essentially the “scissors gap” of handicraft industry, a kind of hidden heavy tax. The new dynasty thus achieved “sufficient national revenue without extra taxes,” supporting foreign wars, but the gentry hated it bitterly.

No wonder, during the Han dynasty, the virtuous and learned repeatedly petitioned to abolish the salt and iron monopoly. This was truly the common hope of both landlords and commoners. Although for the lower classes, it was just a matter of whether the government or the gentry were the ones “harvesting the leeks.”

If you were a diehard Liu or Wang clan member, you could denounce this as the greed and shortsightedness of the landlord class, disregarding national interests. But as the foolish grandson of a landlord family…

Henry Benson patted his own backside, then his head, and laughed wryly.

“That saying is really true.”

The powerful families of Guandong, far from the emperor, could still ignore the law, but the The Benson Family clan, located in Guanzhong, dared not defy it too much. To mine and smelt iron themselves? Not only did small families lack the resources, but if they even managed to build a furnace, the government would soon confiscate everything, and the whole family would be sent as convicts to develop the frontier.

Now, if you wanted to make a new plow, you definitely couldn’t get freshly smelted iron. You could only buy finished iron tools from the county iron office, then melt them down and recast them at home. This roundabout process naturally increased the cost.

This matter could only be set aside for now. Fortunately, Robert Benson was by no means stubbornly conservative; he just wanted his grandson to better understand the hardships of the world and not act on every whim.

He agreed with Henry Benson to first have the craftsmen and slaves make some curved shafts out of hardwood. If the straight-shaft plows at home broke, they wouldn’t repair them, but would melt down the iron to make plow blades for the curved shafts, gradually updating and replacing them. No need to try to do everything at once.

Henry Benson nodded, but another worry arose in his mind.

“If iron is so hard to get, how will we make and stockpile weapons in the future?”

……

By mid-August, all the autumn plowing in John Benson was finished, and it was time for sowing.

As a southerner who grew up eating rice, Henry Benson really didn’t know much about wheat, let alone how to make leavened cakes and such.

Moreover, the county was located in the heart of Guanzhong, which had already undergone two agricultural revolutions led by Zhao Guo and Fan Shengzhi in the Former Han. Intensive farming techniques were already highly advanced. Methods like alternate field and district field systems were used in turn, composting and rotting manure were common, and there was little room for Henry Benson to offer advice.

He even saw Robert Benson wave his hand and have people bring out the “seeder” from the warehouse to use on their fifty qing of land. This thing, called the “three-legged lou cart,” was invented by the agricultural official Zhao Guo during Emperor Wu’s reign. It still required oxen to pull in front, with a person behind guiding the cart and scattering wheat seeds into the hopper. In a single day, it could sow a qing of land, and the distribution was very even, with no waste.

Henry Benson only suggested “intercropping wheat and beans,” a basic bit of knowledge for anyone who had studied junior high biology. This was one of his “open source” ideas, which might slightly increase yield per mu the following year.

“Too slow, still too slow.” Henry Benson knew that whether it was the curved-shaft plow or intercropping beans and wheat, the increase in yield wouldn’t be immediate. It would be quicker to simply raise the rent and collect an extra three to five hundred shi.

Besides, crops had their own growth cycles, and you had to wait until the next year to harvest. How many more years did he have to prepare?

Thinking this way, Henry Benson actually felt amused. He seemed to know the fastest way to gather grain and iron.

“All the truly lucrative methods are written in the criminal code!”

In his previous life, of course, he had to be a law-abiding citizen. But in the new dynasty, these damned laws and restrictions actually made Henry Benson feel the urge to break the law.

It wasn’t until after sowing, when it came time to divert water, that Henry Benson found another use for himself.

John Benson was right next to the Chengguo Canal. Water was drawn from the sluice into the ditches, then distributed to each field. He saw that most farmers used shadoofs and waterwheels, which were very inefficient. Even the The Benson Family family’s own fifty qing of land used a device similar to a dragon bone waterwheel, which still required manual labor to operate.

This year, it was too late, but maybe before next spring’s plowing, he could make some tube-wheel irrigation devices. But for that, he’d have to hire a skilled carpenter from the county. Henry Benson had plenty of ideas, but his hands-on skills were lacking.

One day, while Henry Benson was leading people along the canal looking for a suitable spot to set up a waterwheel, his attendant George Benson came running over, panting.

“Young master, something’s wrong, something’s wrong!”

“What is it?”

“F-fighting over water!”