Even women who travel through time can become prime ministers and nobles.

Chapter 451 Shuyun and the others have arrived

"My lord! You've finally arrived!"

Upon seeing Shi Wanxia, ​​the disaster victims immediately surrounded her, all talking at once about their hardships.

Shi Wanxia asked Shi Qing to write down everyone's requests, while she walked over to the woman and touched the child's forehead—it was burning hot.

She immediately summoned the accompanying physician to examine the child, and then took two bags of rice from her own baggage and handed them to the woman: "Make some porridge for the child first, and if it's not enough, go to the government office to find me."

The woman took the rice, tears streaming down her face: "Thank you, sir... thank you, sir..."

Upon returning from the resettlement site, Shi Wanxia immediately ordered the replacement of the minor official in charge of distributing relief grain with Li Zhong, who would personally oversee the grain and supplies.

At the same time, the craftsmen were urged to speed up the construction of simple houses, and it was required that at least half of the disaster victims be able to move into houses that could shelter them from the wind and rain within ten days.

"Sir, the craftsmen say that ordinary adobe houses might collapse again next time it rains. Should we use blue bricks instead?"

Shiqing asked, holding the blueprints.

Shi Wanxia shook her head: "Blue bricks are too expensive, and the treasury doesn't have that much money right now."

"Go and have the craftsmen build it according to these blueprints—I've added wooden beams to reinforce it, and dug the foundation deeper so it can withstand ordinary rain."

The drawings she made were structural diagrams of adobe houses that incorporated modern earthquake and flood prevention knowledge.

At first, the craftsmen were skeptical, wondering what a female prefect could possibly know about building houses.

But when the first room was built, the craftsmen tried pouring a bucket of water on the wall, and the wall did not leak as usual;

They pushed the roof beam again, but it didn't budge.

"My lord, these blueprints are truly amazing!"

The foreman kept praising the blueprints, "With this, the houses we build will definitely be sturdy!"

Having solved the housing problem, Shi Wanxia then set her sights on roads and water conservancy.

The flood destroyed three main roads connecting Chuzhou to neighboring prefectures, and most of the river embankments outside the city also collapsed.

Without roads, supplies cannot be transported in;

Without river embankments, the people will suffer again during the next flood season.

She immediately organized the disaster victims to participate in the emergency repairs: the young and strong went to repair the river embankment and pave the road, while the elderly and women were responsible for boiling water and cooking, and each person was given two catties of grain as payment every day.

This decision not only solved the manpower problem for the project, but also provided income for the disaster victims, achieving two goals at once.

It can be used to repair riverbanks and roads, but requires a large amount of adhesive.

The lime mortar used at that time had poor viscosity and easily dissolved when it came into contact with rainwater.

At this moment, Shi Wanxia remembered the "cement" technology she had proposed a few days earlier.

She had people search outside Chuzhou City for several days, and finally they found limestone and clay mines in a mountain.

Subsequently, she recruited more than a dozen experienced kiln workers and built a small cement workshop next to the mine.

Shiqing squatted with her in the workshop, watching her guide the kiln workers to mix limestone and clay in the right proportions, calcine, grind, and finally make a grayish-white powder.

"Sir, is this stuff really better than lime mortar?"

Shi Qing looked at the cement powder in her hand with some doubt.

Shi Wanxia smiled, asked someone to bring water, mixed the cement powder with water to form a paste, and then applied it between the two stones.

"Wait until it dries, then try to separate the stones."

The next day, Shiqing went to try it out—the two stones seemed to be stuck together, and she couldn't pry them apart no matter how hard she tried.

"Sir! This 'cement' is amazing!"

She ran back and excitedly told Shi Wanxia.

With the cement, the repair work on the river embankment and roads was greatly accelerated.

The craftsmen reinforced the river embankment with cement, and laid a layer of cement under the roadbed when paving the road. The river embankment, which originally took a month to repair, was completed in half a month.

When the first grain cart passed by on the newly paved road, the people gathered around the roadside and cheered—with this road open, their lives finally had hope.

Besides infrastructure, agriculture is also of paramount importance.

The floodwaters submerged many farmlands, and with the replanting season fast approaching, Shi Wanxia took Shi Qing to visit every town and village under Chuzhou's jurisdiction.

In Zhangjiazhuang, on the outskirts of the city, she saw large tracts of farmland still flooded, with farmers squatting on the ridges, sighing and complaining.

"Lord Shi, if this water can't be drained, the seeds we sow won't sprout!"

"Village chief Zhang Fugui said with a worried look on his face."

Shi Wanxia squatted down, touched the soil in the field, looked at the terrain, and said to Zhang Fugui, "Have someone dig a few drainage ditches along the edge of the field to divert the water to the nearby stream."

"In addition, I brought you some early-maturing wheat seeds. They will sprout in twenty days after being sown, just in time for the autumn harvest."

She then took out a booklet from her bag and handed it to Zhang Fugui: "This booklet describes how to compost. It uses straw and manure to ferment, which is twice as effective as using manure alone to fertilize the fields."

"You can try it on your own field first. If it works well, then you can teach other villagers."

Zhang Fugui took the booklet, flipped through a few pages, and although he didn't recognize some of the words, he roughly understood it by looking at the illustrations.

Holding the booklet, he bowed deeply to Shi Wanxia: "My lord, you are truly our savior!"

As the days went by, the changes in Chuzhou became increasingly apparent:

Simple houses were built in rows, horse-drawn carriages appeared on the roads, the water in the farmland was drained, and the planted wheat seeds sprouted tender green shoots.

However, Shi Wanxia and Shi Qing were getting more and more tired—the two of them had to manage government affairs, infrastructure, and agriculture, and often couldn't close their eyes until late at night.

That evening, Shi Qing watched as Shi Wanxia slumped over the table reviewing official documents, her head nodding as she drifted off to sleep. She couldn't help but whisper, "Sir, please take a rest. These documents can be reviewed tomorrow."

Shi Wanxia rubbed her eyes and gave a wry smile: "How can we rest now? The people of Chuzhou are waiting for us. If only Shuyun and the others could come..."

She had barely finished speaking when a familiar voice suddenly came from outside the door: "My lord, we're too late!"

Shi Wanxia suddenly looked up and saw Shuyun, Qinxin and Qinglan standing at the door, still covered in the dust of their journey, followed by a dozen craftsmen and assistants in work clothes.

"The charm of books! The heart of music! The tranquility of the waves!"

Shi Wanxia stood up abruptly, her eyes instantly reddening.

The fatigue of the past few days finally overwhelmed me the moment I saw them.

Shuyun stepped forward and handed over a cup of hot tea: "My lord, when we set off from the capital, we specifically brought the craftsmen and supplies you requested."

"Don't worry, leave the rest to us."

That night, Shi Wanxia chatted with Shuyun, Qinxin, and Qinglan until late into the night.

Shuyun said that the affairs of the household were on track, and His Majesty had specially selected a group of experienced officials and craftsmen and ordered her to bring them along. They were all capable of handling things independently.

Qin Xin brought some fabrics and embroidery threads from Xinyang Textile Workshop, saying that she could teach the women of Chuzhou to do embroidery and help them increase their income.

Qinglan even produced his own water conservancy engineering drawings, saying that he had studied the river embankment situation in Chuzhou and was confident that he could build the embankment to be more solid.

"With you all here, I feel much more at ease."

Shi Wanxia looked at the three of them, a long-lost smile appearing on her face.

The next morning, Shi Wanxia announced the appointment in the main hall: "Shuyun will serve as acting prefect, responsible for the daily administration of the yamen, document correspondence, and the dispatch of officials;"

"Qin Xin is responsible for the resettlement of disaster victims, the allocation of supplies, and the review and approval of pension payments."

"Qinglan is responsible for emergency repairs of roads and water conservancy projects and the management of cement workshops."