Yao Qi had fled all the way to Li City, the Li Commandery Seat.
Before coming, he had been utterly despondent, but once he reached Li City, he discovered that life was actually rather pleasant.
The Hou Family had taken him in. The courtyard residence he now occupied was even larger than his place in Chaoge. Although land prices in Li City could not compare with those in Chaoge, it was undeniably lavish, with carved beams, painted rafters, and every imaginable amenity.
Not only that, but being a noble in Li City meant he did not have to live in fear. The punishments were not particularly harsh, either, and his days proved remarkably peaceful.
And there was money to be made.
Yao Qi had been responsible for enclosing land for the Yao family, so naturally, he had also overseen its Wool Sweater workshops.
He knew how to judge sheep and could tell which ones produced wool suitable for making sweaters.
The sheep best suited to shearing for sweaters were Qiang sheep.
As the name suggested, these were sheep raised by the Qiang, domesticated from wild argali, which later generations generally considered the ancestors of domestic sheep.
Wild argali had two types of hair: coarse outer hair, about as thick as human hair, and fine underwool that grew close to the skin.
The underwool served specifically to keep them warm in winter, so each spring it would fall out, with a fresh coat growing back in autumn.
As the saying went, the Qiang arose from sheep. The Qiang had domesticated wild sheep into Qiang sheep, whose wool no longer had distinct coarse and fine layers. Moreover, they no longer shed it; their wool simply kept growing.
It could be said that Qiang sheep produced wool of just the right thickness, and