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Time flickered, it was already November in a blink of an eye, the sad atmosphere of Wang Qian's death had slowly faded from the people, and Xianyang in the cold winter had slowly recovered the hustle and bustle of the past.

The construction of the Seongnam Library is still in full swing.

According to the progress of the project, all the earth and stone works should be completed before the beginning of spring, and the foundation will be poured after the weather is warm, the building attached to Beijing Normal University must be completed before the autumn of this year, the auditorium must be completed before the winter, and the library must be completed before the summer next year.

In order to allow the Beijing Normal University and the library auditorium to keep pace with the times and install supporting tap water and sewers, Zhang Cang and a group of officials from the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Industry, and the Shaofu are still planning Chen Xu's whimsical huge project, preparing to build a dam on the upper reaches of the Jing River or tributaries, and introduce water into Xianyang through pipelines, so as to provide enough water source and pressure to install tap water for the entire Xianyang.

This huge tap water project is larger and more complex than the construction of Keju Commercial Plaza, and the requirements for earthwork and mathematical calculation are more stringent, but this matter is more handy than Keju Square, Daqin's craftsmen are obviously more handy, because the dam construction of ditches has long been a very mature project, and what to do now is to find a suitable dam location, and then design reasonable water supply and drainage pipes, etc., so that Xianyang can be connected to tap water, which is the common wish of the emperor and the common people.

However, although Chen Xu has already studied tap water, and even researched a variety of supporting showers, toilets, bathtubs, sinks, faucets and other related equipment, and even the faucets have been improved for many years and are almost not much different from those of later generations, but because of the water pressure problem, there is no household in the entire Xianyang City to use tap water, not even the palace, at present, there are only four or five princes outside the city to build a new courtyard, and every day the servants need to fill water with buckets, which is a very fucked tap water.

Although Zhang Cang's actions are very in line with the people's will, the entire Xianyang City from the emperor to the common people is also full of infinite expectations, but in Chen Xu's view, if Xianyang City wants to really connect to tap water, it will definitely not succeed in four or five years, and the pipeline alone is a huge problem. The first is that there is no anti-rust cast pipe means in later generations, and the second is that Daqin's annual steel production is too low to withstand such a huge consumption.

And one of the main reasons is that there is no money.

The installation of tap water is a huge and complex system project, according to Zhang Cang's rough estimates, it requires an investment of at least 200 million, which is a huge project second only to Dongfang Road, and the imperial court cannot support it, Chen Xu, as the left minister, will not allow Daqin to retreat to the previous state of forced expropriation of civil power because of the repair of tap water, the commercial must be solved by commercial means, and he will not agree to forcibly build tap water before solving the source of funds, because it is not necessary.

The discussion among the people about tap water is more lively, and even the emperor of the previous dynasty is still very interested in asking some officials of the Ministry of Industry, Chen Xu, as the initiator of tap water, was naturally asked, but when the emperor and the Manchu civil and military heard that at least 200 million yuan of investment was needed, all of them were shocked and decided to stop caring about this issue.

It doesn't matter if you have tap water or not, I've been used to it for so many years anyway.

What's more, the Shaofu and the imperial court were already unable to make ends meet, and the emperor felt that the money was not enough to spend.

In early November, after a month of repeated deliberations, the Shaofu ordered Zhao Wei and a group of imperial families to release the final list and resettlement measures for the abolition of the harem after repeated discussions, and the emperor approved them after several deletions, revisions, and deliberations.

It is speculated that within a few days after the edict of the harem came out, the east gate and north gate of the palace were crowded all day long, and more than 7,000 palace maids and concubines were sent out of the palace, all of whom were sent to a temporary resettlement site outside the west gate of Xianyang by the forbidden army with large bags and small bags, and tens of thousands of people gathered here every day, most of them were related households with some relationship with the palace, including princes and princes and wealthy businessmen, as well as six kings and nobles.

These women who were sent out of the palace were warmly sought after by all classes because they lived in the palace all the year round, and most of them were able to read and write, and many of them were proficient in various weaving, embroidery, and tailoring and knew etiquette.

Therefore, every day, as long as the forbidden army escorts it, tens of thousands of people will rush up, some are directly picked up by relatives and friends, some are bought by wealthy businessmen, and some are because of their noble status by many princes and princes who rush to spend money to redeem them and raise them, the scene of crying and laughter and scolding are endless, people roar and neigh one after another, some women fall into a good family, and suddenly cry with joy and tears, some old and decrepit palace maids will be sent back to their hometowns in the future because no one needs them, If there are no relatives in the family, they will have to fend for themselves, but no matter what, the lives of these people will be completely changed, and they will no longer have to stay in the deep palace and die alone.

The identity of all dismissed palace maids and concubines will be restored, and no matter who receives the Shaofu, they will be strictly registered, who is the surname, what position they originally held in the palace, who they were taken in, where they are placed, and their specific identities will be registered one by one, and the recipients will be asked to press their fingerprints to sign their names to ensure that these women are indeed properly placed and will not be sold into slavery.

And because of the particularity of these women and the scarcity of resources, Chen Xu also went through the back door to let Zhao Wei select more than 200 palace maids who were knowledgeable and proficient in weaving and embroidery for him, some of them were sent to work in the garment factory opened by the women's college, and some stayed at home to sew and mend clothes to take care of their families, and some were sent to Qinghe store to help, and when the time came, they could also give a few to their sister Xing'er as a dowry, if these women found a man to marry in the future, it would not affect their work.

The palace dismissed seven thousand palace concubines, almost more than two-thirds of the total, and with the dismissal of countless eunuchs, chamberlains, eunuchs, cooks, musicians, servants and other redundant men and palace slaves, the number of more than 3,000 people, so far Qin Shi Huang's huge harem has been reduced by half, and the scale of tens of thousands of people has been eliminated, this number even Shaofu Ling Zhao Wei feels incredible, because according to his and a group of royal family's more conservative guesses, the total number of men and women is about five thousand, but the final result has doubled.

And most of the female officials and palace people that Zhao Wei thought could stay were finally censored by the emperor and asked to be dismissed.

The First Emperor, as the first emperor of the Chinese Dynasty, was heroic, and he never dragged his feet on what he confirmed, and especially followed the essence of Chen Xu's theory of being out of sight, and with a stroke of the pen, he drew out two-thirds of the number of people in his harem, and only retained about 100 concubines according to the weekly system, and the rest of the palace maids and female officials who served daily life, food, travel, etc., were only more than 2,000 people left, so after all the personnel were laid off and settled, Zhao Wei found that the entire harem was suddenly very quiet, In the past, between the many dormitories and buildings in the harem, there was no longer any way to see the lively and noisy scenes of the past, and even the remaining concubines' bedrooms were deserted a lot, and all the concubines were a little trembling and at a loss, for fear that they would be expelled from the palace by the emperor one day.

But the deserted palace also made Zhao Wei completely relaxed, the scale of tens of thousands of people was abolished, and at least tens of millions of dollars were saved every year, which was no less than supporting an elite horse pawn of tens of thousands of people, you must know that these palace maids and palace people can eat, drink and live much better than horse pawns, although not everyone can wear silk and satin, but the clothes are not ordinary folk clothes, each piece is made by the special garment workshop of the harem, just the female officials and palace maids and embroiderers in the garment workshop have reached the scale of nearly 1,000 people, almost the largest department in the harem, There are countless cloths, silks, needles and threads consumed every year, and even with such huge expenses, there are still many concubines and even princesses who can only be allocated one or two sets of carefully woven and embroidered seasonal dresses every year, and most of the clothes need to be purchased by their own money out of the palace or let their palace maids do it.

In mid-November, as the harem dismissed the palace maids and palace people came to an end, Xianyang City, which was lively and noisy because of this matter, slowly returned to calm.

Although Wang Jian died less than 100 days ago, and large-scale entertainment activities such as marriage were prohibited among the people, Chen Xu still invited a group of relatives and friends to celebrate the 100-day wedding banquet for his second daughter in a small area in Qinghe Villa.

Although it is the daughter of the concubine, Chen Xu did not favor one over the other, the 100-day banquet was held very richly, cattle, sheep, dogs, chickens, ducks, fish, sea cucumbers, deer lips, fungus, mountain delicacies, plus this year's greenhouse vegetables were sown earlier, so cucumbers, eggplants, carrots, onions, watermelons and other fruits and vegetables are also ripe, more than a dozen chefs and dozens of kitchen workers in Houfu and Qinghe Hotel also riveted their skills to show their talents, and made the most delicious dishes they have been doing in recent years, so this wedding banquet is full of more than 200 dishes, The huge dining table filled the dining room, with brand-new porcelain and glassware, a variety of grape and mulberry wines, and even several other flavors of fruit wine, and the whole Hou Mansion was filled with a rich fragrance that was almost solidified.

Chen Ping, Zhang Cang, Liu Bang, Gong Shengsheng, Hu Kuan and all other friends in Xianyang all arrived, Versace as an uncle naturally came to celebrate, and also got a letter from the family Fan Gong himself, purchased a gift package worth more than 200,000 yuan, in addition to the silk silk gold jade, there is also a stack of cash tickets with a total price of 100,000 yuan, which is a heart of the grandfather's family, and this intention also scared all the guests who participated in the 100-day wedding banquet trembling, feeling that their gifts are a little out of their hands.

Although the gift is not good, but eating and drinking is still OK, Chen Xu and Han Xin Chen Hu are accompanied, Chen Ping and a group of relatives and friends show their skills on the wine table, and drink dozens of boxes of wine, all kinds of delicacies are presented to the table like water, and there is still some short supply, a wedding banquet lasted for two hours before it was over, from noon to the end of Shen Shi, all the guests who came came only then blushed and staggered to leave.