In the spring, the mountain was lush with vegetation and had no lack of food. These wild hares and pheasants were very plump. At noon, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue were also able to eat a sumptuous meal of game thanks to them. 

In the afternoon, there wasn’t much that Yu Xiaocao needed to help with, so she walked around the Imperial Plantation like she was on a tour. Zhu Junyang was like a tour guide as he introduced her to the origin of the Imperial Plantation.

In the early days of the Great Ming Dynasty, the officials of the former dynasty either died or fled, and the farmsteads owned by those officials were returned to the imperial court. Most of the farmsteads were rewarded to meritorious officials. The former chief court eunuch, Chief Steward Cao, owned the largest plantation at that time. It had a total of over 18,000 qing [1]. It was difficult for the emperor emeritus to reward such a large plantation to others, so it was taken under the imperial treasury as the Imperial Plantation and managed by a trusted eunuch. In the Imperial Plantation, there were also a supervisor of the tenant farmers, low-ranking officials, and so on. Therefore, the eunuch was merely in charge of overseeing and hastening their work. The work in the fields still relied...