[Historical farming + scheming power politics + fast-paced wish fulfillment]
Li Dingguo, Anxi General of the Great Western Army, adopted son of Zhang Xianzhong, commands sixteen battalions of elite troops.
Then he was impeached.
“His power has grown beyond control.”
At court, the civil and military officials all laughed at him for being a farmer. He handed over his sixteen elite battalions in exchange for eight thousand old, weak, and sick men, then went off to farm in Yongning, a remote backwater.
Sun Kewang thought he was finished.
Zhang Xianzhong thought he had gone mad.
Only Li Dingguo knew what was engraved in his mind:
The Eye of the Earth's Veins.
With his eyes closed, he could see underground mineral deposits and water flows three zhang down. With a touch, he could measure a soil's fertility to within a thousand jin. It came with a golden-grained rice seed: sprouts in six hours, yields three times as much per acre, and withstands drought and cold.
While others thought he was wielding a hoe, he was mining saltpeter, casting cannons, uncovering hidden fields, and planting secret agents.
While others thought he could only farm, he was turning grain into a weapon and making Yongning a granary the whole realm could not do without.
Until one day, an arrogant envoy arrived from Chengdu: “His Majesty says not a single grain of Yongning's food may leave the city.”
Li Dingguo gazed at the mountains of golden-grained wheat behind him, patted the pitch-black cannon beside him, and smiled:
“Then go back and ask His Majesty this, ”
“Is his imperial decree harder, or my cannonballs?”
[The whole court laughs at me for being a farmer, never realizing I am not cultivating the land, but the realm.]
Reader's note:
He keeps his head down and farms early on; cannons roar in the middle; in the end, the granaries topple the gates of the imperial city.
Everyone who looks down on him will become a piece on his chessboard.
Best enjoyed with a bowl of white rice.
