"It really moved!"
In the tenth year of Yonghe, with spring warm and flowers blooming, A She, already eight or nine months pregnant, stood by the river supporting her belly. Yet she could not hide her astonishment and nearly jumped up. "How much work will this save?"
The other women watching and the able-bodied men working in and out of the water were little better, and many cried out in surprise as well.
Awu was more straightforward. She was not pregnant, so she simply jumped up to look at the turning millstone, unable to hide her amazement.
As for the elders, carpenters, and stonemasons gathered there, they could not help examining it from every angle, wishing they could carve this simple machine into their eyes.
This was a water-powered mill so simple it bordered on crude.
The settlement occupied by the Liu Clan Relatives lay at the Southern Foot of Flower Mountain. To its east were several streams originating in the mountains and flowing toward Jurong, among the many headwaters of the Qinhuai River. They had naturally formed a marsh on a level stretch halfway up the mountain. After reclamation and renovation, it had now become an elevated reservoir, responsible for irrigating the surrounding farmland all the way down to the level ground below.
With that difference in water level right there, Liu Cheng, a transmigrator, had long wanted to make something of it. But he knew his own limitations, so he had resolutely proceeded one step at a time.
After returning last year, once the autumn harvest was over, he had first persuaded Grandpa Liu San to come out of retirement, gathered the craftsmen among the refugees and those obtained from the Shen Family anew, assembled a technical team of considerable size, and then proceeded step by step.
It