Poverty Alleviation in Qin: A Sky-High Review of "I Am the Female Prime Minister of All Time&qu

A scream suddenly shattered the afternoon's tranquility.

Song looked up and saw a man in a disheveled state, tumbling and crawling into the hall, kneeling on the ground with tears streaming down his face, pleading for justice.

She quickly got up and helped the person up, then carefully inquired about the reason.

It turned out that the man had brought his family to the city market that day and was returning home laden with money, food and supplies when they were suddenly attacked by a group of bandits from another county while passing through a deserted path on the outskirts of the city.

The bandits looted all his savings and provisions, and forcibly abducted his wife and daughters. In the end, the man fought desperately and ran all the way back to the county town to seek help.

Upon hearing the whole story, Song's face turned cold and terrifying.

This was the first time Lü Zhi had seen Song Ye, who was usually gentle and composed, display such a solemn and alarming expression.

During Song Ye's three years of governance, Pei County was known for its clean and efficient administration, stable livelihoods, and honesty in its people. It was also free from banditry.

It was this wealth that attracted desperate fugitives from surrounding counties.

These bandits dared not provoke the heavily guarded Dayi, so they hid in the desolate mountain roads on the outskirts of Pei County, targeting people returning from the market with their belongings to rob.

The situation was urgent, and Song did not hesitate for a moment. He immediately gathered Cao and a group of county officials and local militia, and the whole group rushed to the scene of the crime on the outskirts of the city.

Before her departure, Lü Zhi, filled with worry, softly instructed, "My lord, please take good care of yourself."

Others were unaware of the inside story, but she knew that Song Ye was a woman, and that if things got chaotic and a fight broke out, she would inevitably suffer losses.

Song nodded slightly to her, then turned the reins.

Horse hooves pounded the bluestone slabs in front of the gate, and a large group of people followed closely out of the city, raising dust that then slowly settled.

In the blink of an eye, the shouts, footsteps, and the clash of weapons all dissipated as the procession left the city, leaving only a long breeze blowing through the vast county court.

Empress Lü stood still for a moment, then turned and walked towards the inner courtyard.

She couldn't just wait; she had to do something.

The study door was half-open, and when it was pushed open, it made a long, thin creaking sound as wood rubbed together.

The setting sun cast its rays upon the desk, and a thin layer of dust covered the bamboo slips.

Lü Zhi's gaze swept over the bookshelves and the table, finally settling on the far corner of the bookcase. Several scrolls of bamboo slips were slightly tilted outwards, as if they had been casually placed there after being read, and had not been neatly arranged.

The book is thinner and lighter than ordinary books, and its edges are polished smooth and warm from years of handling.

She stepped forward, pulled out a scroll, and slowly unfurled it. The handwriting was neat and elegant, exuding a sense of confidence and composure. It was the "Peixian County's Grassroots Development Roadmap for the Next Three Years" that had been displayed in the sky.

The content includes farmland improvement, composting techniques, water conservancy dredging, household registration system, grain storage, and corvée labor allocation. The items are clearly organized, and there are many small, hastily written notes next to the main text, all of which are plans added afterward.

Empress Lü Zhi read more and more slowly, comparing the plans on paper with the actual scenery of Pei County: paving roads and building bridges, organizing markets, popularizing agricultural methods, clearing ditches...

The scattered fragments of the past three years are now connected by an invisible thread. Standing on the banks of the long river of life, she finally sees the direction of the surging flow ahead.

Song truly lived up to his word, and in just three years, he enabled the people of the entire county to live in peace and prosperity.

When she turned to the second volume of the diary, she found that this was the "notebook" that Tianmu had mentioned. Apart from the sharp comments on the first page, the rest of the content was blurred due to the passage of time.

Now, this diary is right in front of me.

When Lü Zhi opened the app, she saw a familiar comment: "[Upon arriving in Pei County, I was penniless.]"

Slowly turn to the second page.

The handwriting was still familiar to her, but the pressure of the pen was deeper than on the first page, as if she was writing with some emotion that no longer needed to be concealed.

Unlike the previous pages, which carried a sense of novelty like arriving in unfamiliar territory, those words carried a weight of having already seen them, confirmed them, and no longer wanted to avoid them.

[I've been here for a while now. I've seen and thought about some things, and it's time to write them down.]

It's often said that "the empire is newly established, and everything needs to be rebuilt." But what's truly "ruined" is never the court, but the people. Those grand pronouncements of "universal peace" written in official documents lose their meaning when they're ground in the sand.

[For centuries, the land has been fought over and over again; to them, the masters of the land have changed one after another, but the land remains the same, and the grain remains the same.]

[It's the same no matter who comes or goes; it's as if they've long since stopped believing in the idea that "changing people will make things better."]

This kind of "indifference" is harder to cure than tyranny.

[You ask me what this dynasty lacked most? It wasn't food, iron, or roads—it lacked "the feeling that people could still live with dignity."]

[Qin ruled by law, and its strict laws were a good thing. However, the laws were too harsh, too detailed, and too restrictive; the people were not being governed, but oppressed.]

[One person breaks the law, and the whole neighborhood is implicated. One household defaults on taxes, and the entire village is punished. The law, which is supposed to protect people, has become something to be feared.]

When fear reaches its extreme, a person becomes dull-witted.

[So dulled that I dare not speak, dare not move, dare not change my way of life.]

[It's often said that Buddhists are pragmatic, but if pragmatism is taken to the extreme and people are treated as tools—that's not pragmatism, it's wielding a knife.]

[Superiors only look at the numbers: Has the number of households increased? Have taxes been paid in full? Have corvée labors been collected enough? As long as the numbers look good, no one cares about the lives of the people. The court sees a clean map, but beneath the map lies a dense mass of people, the masses being crushed under the land.]

[Let's talk about women again.]

[Men can at least fight their way through the mud, but women have no chance. They are married off, exchanged, pawned, and sold, like bolts of cloth being passed from one house to another.]

A woman's fate is written on someone else's document, but her name is not signed at the end. They are placed in a certain position, like a piece of furniture, like a dowry, like an accessory in a contract.

[Strangely enough, I've met many women who are more clear-headed than those men who sit lecturing in the halls. They know the world is unjust, but they remain silent. Because speaking out is useless; it would only make them "restless."]

I often wonder, is a world where even "complacency" needs to be suppressed to be maintained truly stable?

[Perhaps one day, I will lead the people to stand up, and together with all women, stand up.]

Lü Zhi's fingertip remained still at the end of her finger, not moving for a long time.

There were no rousing shouts, yet they carried immense weight, a silent vow to lie dormant and await the future.

Each stroke, each line, conveys a sense of firmness and composure.

...

At the same time, in the suburbs.

In the shady, rocky area of ​​the deep pit, several bandits squatted around a boulder, dividing up the loot they had just plundered.

The sack was wide open, revealing all the grain and cloth, and a few strings of copper coins were piled up on the ground in a small heap.

Some people lowered their heads and counted them one by one, their lips moving slightly as they silently counted, and if they got the count wrong, they would start over.

A person next to him took out a dry biscuit, took two bites, and then frowned, disliking its coarse and hard texture, and casually tossed it back into his bag.

"Pei County is truly prosperous."

The tall, thin bandit held a string of copper coins in his hand, weighing them repeatedly. Greed lurked in his eyes. "An ordinary farmer can save up this much grain, money, and cloth in just one trip to the market. It's more than we used to rob several poor households combined."

"Don't get too cocky." The young bandit beside him looked uneasy. "This is Pei County, unlike other places. The government isn't so easy to fool."

As he spoke, he frequently glanced sideways at the overgrown grass on the slope, always suspecting that something was lurking in the shadows. "I've heard that this magistrate of Pei County is tough and ruthless. He has managed to govern this place in just two years since taking office. He is no easy person to deal with."

Upon hearing this, the leading man adopted a relaxed and casual demeanor, as if he had long held a position of power.

"The government? Aren't all officials the same? As long as you don't make a big fuss, you won't catch their eye."

He paused, then added confidently, "We only commit small robberies, we don't kill or set fires, and we flee after we've robbed. Those officials in the court would be better off enjoying collecting taxes than wasting their manpower chasing after us scattered bandits."

Upon hearing this, the others present all echoed his sentiments.

"Exactly! Stop worrying about it!"

"Then tonight I can enjoy the beauty to my heart's content...?"