Fang Yun said calmly, "It was nothing much. Starting today, the Agriculture Hall would take responsibility for the food and drink of most people throughout Ning'an County. As for what they ate and how much they ate, that would be decided by the Agriculture Hall. This would allow us to observe in detail what foods made an entire population stronger, smarter, grow faster, and so on."
The expressions of several officials changed sharply. This was a strategy of pulling the firewood from beneath the cauldron. It meant that most of Ning'an County's people would no longer need to buy food at all! Grain prices would no longer be a problem in Ning'an County, and the Left Prime Minister's faction had thrown its punch into empty air.
Fang Yun had actually bypassed the issue of "grain prices" entirely and directly ensured that the people had enough to eat. Moreover, this was not charity, but Agricultural School research. Not only would it not be judged a downgrade, it would effortlessly solve the livelihood problems caused by grain prices. The livelihood and agricultural affairs assessments would rise rather than fall!
Suppressing his anger, Shen Ming asked, "May I ask, County Magistrate, how long will this research last?"
Before Fang Yun could answer, Great Scholar Xu Shi said, "It has not yet been decided. At the shortest, ten years; at the longest, thirty."
When Xu Shi spoke the first half of that sentence, Shen Ming and several officials quietly breathed a sigh of relief. But when he said "ten years," they all went blank.
"Ten years?" Shen Ming cried out.
"It can be done like this?" Ao Huang was dumbfounded as well. He had considered countless countermeasures, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected Fang Yun to use such a lineage-ending scheme!