Xin Jia could not remember where he had read it, but he kept repeating, "Shape wood into a mechanism, heavy behind and light ahead; draw water as though pulling it free, as swiftly as pouring hot water."
"What?"
The dozing Cao Family Head jolted awake. He seemed to have heard those words somewhere too.
"A counterweighted well sweep."
Seeing the Cao Family Head's confusion, Xin Jia explained, "Also called a suspended pole or a balance pole. It is a tool for drawing water."
"This thing..." The Cao Family Head immediately understood. "It can make drawing water more efficient?"
"It saves effort and lets you achieve twice the result with half the work when drawing water, but it is not widely used."
The Cao Family Head's eyes shifted as he asked, "Then how do we make one?"
Ever since Wen Ding had invented Fabricated Charges and used them to kill Ji Li, they had flourished in the hands of his grandson, King Zhou.
The Cao Family Head wanted to slack off while farming in the countryside, but what if King Zhou chopped off his head for disobeying the edict?
He should do whatever he could, if only to pull wool over people's eyes. Besides, the Cao Family Head was shrewd. If there was a tool that could make drawing water more efficient, the nobles would benefit alongside the farmers. They owned fields and needed water for irrigation too.
The more the Cao Family Head thought about it, the better it sounded. Paying land tax according to the number of people in his household hurt, but the amount was now fixed. What if this year's harvest increased by twenty percent? Or fifty percent, or eighty percent?
Even after deducting the land tax, he would still harvest more than in previous years. Guaranteed