Chapter 243: A Shock To Under Heaven
In the tenth month of the Tong Zheng Calendar, Xuan Chong in Xia Prefecture looked at three messages from outside.
Message 1: Wu Hengyu was fiercely attacking somewhere in the northwest.
Message 2: Zhen Hao was secretly performing blood sacrifices on living people in several prefectures in northern Heluo; for the sake of reducing food and grass consumption, several other noble families also participated.
Message 3: Zhao Cheng in Ji Prefecture sought peace, with very high sincerity: ceding Ji Prefecture and handing over the key to the Palace of Exchange. This was one of the palaces in the exact west of Emperor Shu’s Nine Palaces back then, which could use metal qi to cut and process various metal items.
Xuan Chong paused for a moment, glanced at the letter Wu Hengyu sent him, then set Wu Hengyu’s letter aside. Now both of their camps had their own interests, so how could they cooperate with brotherly affection as the bridge like in the past?
Xuan Chong looked at Zhao Cheng’s peace-seeking letter full of helplessness and felt regret for this old opponent’s exit, saying leisurely, “If you and I weren’t enemies, how good that would be!”
Xuan Chong said to Wu Juwang, “Now we can only swallow three prefectures, the rest still need someone to hold them down for us; also, I want that Palace of Exchange.
Now in Da Yao Kingdom, the old capital has lost the ‘nine palaces’; these palaces float chaotically in the clouds over Da Yao Kingdom’s territory. Sometimes they drift back to Yao Capital, but more often they scatter. In the past, with the mountains and rivers unstable under heaven, these palaces were hard to capture; but now that the war is over, they can be captured by adjusting the mountains and waters. The Palace of Exchange belongs to metal, to the west, and Xuan Chong’s side can just capture it. And if he could obtain the key, he could acquire everything in the Palace of Exchange without damage.
Wu Juwang nodded: “After this great defeat, even if Zhao Cheng reorganizes his forces, it will take ten years.”
Wu Juwang was obviously being conservative in saying this. Being with Xuan Chong, he had habitually estimated the enemy leniently. In fact, just the mines that Xuan Chong and Wu Zaixing buried in Zhao Cheng’s territory would take at least five years to clear; to restore national strength would take at least seven or eight years, and this was premised on Zhao Cheng’s body being as good as when he was young and no internal troubles in the rear dragging him down.
As for Wu Zaixing and other military officers, none had any objections, with no worries about “releasing the tiger back to the mountain.”
This was because in this hegemony war, they had gained confidence in their own strength! Moreover, they were younger than Zhao Cheng and did not fear future changes at all.
…Xuan Chong and Zhao Cheng were people of the same era, and this era was about to turn the page…
Obviously, Zhao Cheng could see Xuan Chong’s strategic plans, so he offered a truce condition that Xuan Chong could not refuse, and even in the future for several decades, the two sides would still cooperate.
Zhao Cheng also looked toward Xuan Chong in the north: “Your strategy of advancing step by step with reforms cannot swallow the world in one gulp! The conservative forces everywhere are quite massive and must be garrisoned one place at a time; if you rashly take them all, the noble families everywhere will be like water, able to carry the boat but also able to capsize it. So, you need a custodian, someone who can help you keep the world for decades.”
Zhao Cheng looked back on the past and murmured, “Back then, when I first came to this world; if the one who could win me on the chessboard was you, things would be different now, right?”
Ten days later, Zhao Cheng received Xuan Chong’s reply, and both sides were willing to form an alliance at Wanmaji.
Just like that, Zhao Cheng’s army left Ji Prefecture, and as soon as he left, Wu Rui entered Ji Prefecture right after.
At the alliance meeting, Zhao Cheng saw Xuan Chong, and both were very surprised.
Zhao Cheng thought: Wu Fei had a dignified and elegant appearance with the air of a gentleman, so how was he rejected by Princess Xia Sheng back then?
As for Xuan Chong, he thought: Zhao Cheng’s facial features were more honest and straightforward than he had imagined.
In front of the Treasure Cauldron, both sides made a blood alliance with blood from their chests, agreeing on the current sphere of influence of both sides, no fighting each other for ten years, allowing the people under heaven to recuperate.
Xuan Chong, Zhao Cheng: “If violated, be abandoned by heaven and earth.”
…The hegemony war ended…
This great war from May to September should have ended very easily from the perspective of people under heaven before.
First, Duke Zhao (Zhao Cheng) had broken through various prefectures in recent years, destroying six states, gathering the strong soldiers under heaven under his command; while Zhen State had been obsessed with goods in recent years and not thinking of progress.
The talented individuals in Ji Prefecture even asserted: Zhen has ten defeats, Zhao has ten victories.
However, amid the eager anticipation of the many village elders and locals in Ji Prefecture, the Chong Army directly went down the river to Ji Prefecture.
Just as Xuan Chong and Zhao Cheng reached the alliance, Wu Rui was swallowing Ji Prefecture, and millet from Xiang Prefecture began to be mobilized from various county treasuries, transported down the river to Ji Prefecture. And simultaneously, Wu Fei mobilized five firearms corps into Ji Prefecture, preparing to thoroughly suppress it. To let the remnants in Ji Prefecture know that “regime change” had happened.
Late in the tenth month, in Ji Prefecture, in a fertile river bend area; this was a fortress of the local largest household Xu clan, this fortress arranged along the river was actually a walled village a hundred zhang long and thirty zhang wide.
Excessively exceeding the regulations, could not be more excessive.
In the fortress, there were over five hundred Xu clansmen and family retainers. The lead guard in charge was looking out from the city wall. They looked at the cannons pointed at their doorstep, at a loss.
Wen Siting sucked the meat off a freshly roasted bird leg, then picked his teeth with a small bone. Meanwhile, the little brother beside him happily bit into the oily butt of this pigeon-sized poultry.
Wen Siting turned his head to look, then patted the little brother: “One wild bird, don’t chew it so crunchily, like you haven’t eaten; after we collect grain later, I’ll treat you to all-you-can-eat meat.”
At this point, Wen Siting considered the brothers behind him and said, “Everyone gets a share after breaking the manor!” Everyone’s morale rose cheerfully with this old rogue’s words.
The accompanying clerk then reminded, “General, we are here to borrow grain.”
Wen Siting glanced at this local defector from Ji Prefecture.
Wen: “Did I say rob?” Then he raised the bone and said firmly: “I’ve even written the IOU!”
For the five Chong Army corps entering Ji Prefecture, the superiors wrote very euphemistically on “collecting grain”: try to be harmonious with local military and civilians, acquire food and supplies.
But Wen Siting, as an old rogue who had studied as a clerk for a few years, immediately understood the General’s Mansion’s meaning: live off the enemy territory, prioritize the big households.
Wen Siting’s grain collection team had only two hundred people, but all were with cannons, and among the heroes brought from the north, there were no lack of “tomb-raiding rats” who could dig holes and plant explosives.
With a “boom,” the brick wall that could originally withstand bandits climbing collapsed with a crash.
The dirt rats who went to plant the explosives rubbed their hands and said, “Normally, how could we dig walls so openly? We’d have been chased and bitten by the dogs the master family let loose long ago!” And now, the dogs in the manor had already been skinned and roasted over the fire.
After several sections of the city wall simultaneously collapsed, Wen Siting deployed firearm soldiers in three ranks to block the breach.
Those family retainers, facing the “heavy firearm that one person carries,” even with true qi protecting their bodies and wearing some wood-embedded copper-iron protectors, were all completely blasted dead by the projectiles.
Wen Siting walked into the fortress, looking at the guard in charge propping himself up with a broadsword on the ground, unwilling to fall, thrust a spear into him, spat, and said: “Playing with knives in front of me?”
After capturing this walled village, there were fully eight thousand shi of grain in the treasury.
One shi of grain can feed a strong man for forty days; of course, military consumption is high, calculated as feeding a soldier for twenty days, eight thousand shi of rice can fully supply this unit’s five thousand troops for a month’s expenses. Of course, horse fodder not included.
In a strategic decisive battle, this grain could solve immediate urgent needs. Yet with so much grain, it wasn’t offered when Zhao Cheng was there.
Wen Siting looked at the white grain, cloth, and goods, dazed for a second, then spat and cursed: “Ji Prefecture people are really dripping with oil.”
Yes, how could they not be rich? Back when the Wu Family traveled as merchants, a large amount of goods were plundered by Ji Prefecture’s prefect, and these goods were more or less harvested by these local noble families.
Of course, reaped the pleasure back then, more than a decade later, all looted in one go.
Wen Siting sorted the goods, gathered the men and women in this manor evenly, then prepared to let the army’s logistics receive them.
Wen Siting: “This is all merit!”
…Captures to be turned over to the public…
Wen Siting’s “grain collection” was a great success, making other frontline corps envious. Because “isn’t this just robbing?”
Some commanders of Zhenzhou corps still couldn’t let go, very unhappy with this “old rogue’s” approach; but then commendation came directly from above, giving Wen Siting one hundred twenty merit points, um, equivalent to beheading one hundred twenty armored soldiers on the battlefield, this merit could let a low-level officer directly jump to mid-high level.
Afterward, the Chong Army entering Ji Prefecture understood what the template for “harmony with military and civilians” really was.
Frontline generals received even clearer instructions from Xuan Chong: “Don’t care about reputation. The local clans robbed my merchant caravans back then, slandering my merchants as barbarians. Now, why reason with them! Break doors, confiscate homes, divide land to local strong laborers. Stir them into total reversal.
But be sure to follow principles in this process, no private hoarding, cooperate with civil administration.”
Xuan Chong’s strategy for dealing with Ji Prefecture’s defeated side was crystal clear: take away all noble families entirely, young women fill as wives for officers and soldiers, the rest of the clan population registered to enrich the southern border and Xingzhou.
As for the local farming men with calluses on their hands, join military reclamation land.
Once Ji Prefecture’s land is fully reclaimed, assign these farming men to different villages offset by native place. —Xuan Chong: Can’t let Ji Prefecture native farmers stay in place, this prevents remnants of local forces; after all, no matter how thoroughly Ji Prefecture is cleansed, clan people still exist at the bottom. But also can’t let these farmers go too far from home, because too far would make them uneasy and rebel; relocating dozens of li to new fields, these farmers can still accept.
Xuan Chong used Ji Prefecture’s case to tell Lingzhou, Kaizhou and other forces: you who are now urgently shouting irreconcilable enmity, think it’s just using your own articles to unilaterally bully us? Zhen State can only sanction you with “no official positions”? No, thinking too beautifully.
Now in stable areas inside Zhen State, great clans of noble families are “divided up”; entering school deducts twenty to thirty points. This is the result of them not making trouble with Zhen State’s system. You jumping around here means the whole family exiled to the border!
…Soldiers also begin to take root…
Wen Siting’s sweep in Ji Prefecture, um, “scraping” was outstanding enough. Appointed to military govern reclamation in one county of Ji Prefecture.
Wen Siting, based on captured county maps, knew where the land was fertile? Which noble families had many fat sheep?
So he visited household by household. In this change, he was like a warlord in the Republic of China, starting to deal with village elders.
Wen Siting was now in a great household, and the household head, Elder Jiang, was toasting him.
Elder Jiang: “I see the general is a heroic figure; my family happens to have a young daughter not yet married, dare I ask the general?”
Wen Siting, drunk and muddled: “A great man has no lack of wives, but sir and I are like old friends at first sight, willing to become brothers! Your daughter is my daughter.”
However, a few minutes later, after seeing Miss Jiang’s appearance, Wen Siting quickly turned to Elder Jiang and said, “Father-in-law, your son-in-law bows to you!”
Elder Jiang that very night held the grand wedding of his daughter and Wen Siting. And the Jiang Family gate posted the Chong Army flag. Although to get this flag, they still paid a large amount of property to subscribe to rank bonds. But the Jiang Family up and down thought this marriage was still worth it.
Wen Siting reported his matter upward, Xuan Chong reviewed it and gave instructions: “Jiang Family cannot stay in the original county, must select another county in Ji Prefecture to settle.”
Compared to other great clans being exiled across prefectures, this was already quite decent treatment.
Xuan Chong silently thought to himself: “Giving you a chance to support my great army.”
Casually checked off on the officials’ roster—also transferring Wen Siting’s position to another place in Ji Prefecture, ensuring maximum distance from his in-laws.
…Carry on the past and forge ahead into the future…
At year-end, after stabilizing Zhenzhou’s public sentiment, Xuan Chong began touring factories in Lingnan. Began guiding dividend development, and warning merchants: “Their merit was already paid in the pre-war rank bond issuance phase, now don’t make trouble. The merit book has turned the page, whoever wants to return must flip the old accounts.”
Negative example: After Zhao Cheng returned, Zhen Hao on one hand advised Zhao Cheng to ascend, on the other secretly formed parties with those failed generals of this war. Zhen Hao didn’t want Zhao Cheng to train a new batch of generals to replace them, now demanding merit.
This hegemony war under heaven made big and small merchants in Zhen State all eat their fill.
But due to Xuan Chong’s division of commercial zones, after the merchants had funds, they lacked security; nor wanted to continue industry and commerce, taking over those low-profit “workshops and factories” specified by Xuan Chong.
This was just like in Xuan Chong’s previous life, people had money but didn’t dare spend, commercial capital the same, only after absolute safety would they spend lavishly, leading to financial overheating!
But in Zhen State! Do these merchants have security? No, all production and sales channels were fragmented by Xuan Chong. No monopoly, no one too big to fail.
So the southern merchants one by one feared being suddenly kicked out of the game, began investing in re-production according to plan!
Relatively speaking, the merchants under Wu Hengyu had been spoiled, relying on monopolizing key commercial channels, thinking themselves impossible to eliminate, began investing excess funds into power games.
Perspective to the newest steel factory built in Zhenzhou, this was built by merchants hiring outer path cultivator talents from Liangtian Pavilion. Molten iron from a five-meter-high large furnace poured into another small furnace for further smelting; during smelting, wrought iron and various “fine powders” were added.
Xuan Chong knew these fine powders were actually some rare earths.
Liangtian Pavilion’s these outer path cultivators were students of Jia Mude, and Jia Mude’s line of metal qi masters, combining Da Yao system’s long-standing equipment manufacturing, completed a summary of all “metal attribute” substances. Docking with today’s “Yao Calculation” system.
In short, according to the mnemonic “fire overcomes metal” “fire generates earth,” classifying the “rust earth” generated by fire qi overcoming metal on metal surfaces, and defining “pure oxygen” as “one unit fire qi.”
Through Yao Calculation, dividing “rust earth” into “one-unit earth” “two-unit earth” “three-and-two-tenths unit earth”; and based on metal weight and “quench unit return sharp” (reduction) difficulty, subdividing all metals.
In this theory, metal qi is everywhere, just soilized by fire units.
Xuan Chong’s this theory was not perfect, but had almost covered half the periodic table, common metal elements like gold silver copper iron were all in it, and titanium, manganese, nickel, tungsten, platinum also separated from crude categories like “fine iron” “secret silver” “tungsten gold.” And those few in rare earths not yet clearly distinguished, but actinides and lanthanides already identified.
Now under the workshop’s Yao Calculation instruments, various forging processes were cracked.
Note: This world besides atomic basis, has another layer of rules seemingly directly interfering with “four fundamental forces,” Yao Calculation built on this rule.
Xuan Chong watching steel rolling out: “In technology, no clear theory at the start; but after pushing open the door, related domains will inevitably be figured out.”—For example, early atomic model was electron-orbiting atomic nucleus planet model, half right half wrong, but already pushed open the door to atomic energy.
Currently Da Yao factories’ this half theory had let steel factories research many corresponding formulas.
Among them on floating sky boats, in some latest engine design, the cylinder body could already withstand “fierce explosion,” in coming decades could be equipped army-wide.
Xuan Chong passed through the smelting factory, with Wu Lu rode rail vehicles to the adjacent military equipment office.
Here, military equipment was being manufactured; among them the armor forging area. Freshly out-of-furnace steel cut into small segments, armor forgers hammered each small segment well. And knocked out regular indent patterns.
Then sprinkled with “jade powder” and other high-spiritual substances, attached to indents, folded and hammered. Spiritual patterns embedded in the armor.
This made the user’s true qi able to control armor plates like seeping into skin. This piece-by-piece production of armor plates was already like a cookie factory assembly line, not a single artisan’s meticulous hammering.
And in another place, gun barrel forging workshop. A long gun barrel, like cannon barrel manufacturing, using nested self-tightening technology, finally embedded in iron felt repeatedly squeezed by steam engine. Embedded with melted white jade silk, using spiritual materials to strengthen heat conduction and control of high-temperature gas in the gun barrel.
Process still very slow, one month for one steel tube; but now stockpiled over a hundred, enough to equip elite troops.
Wu Lu picked up a heavy firearm, searched for a long time without finding the percussion cap, discovered bullets were already copper-cased fixed; then went to the range, raised it to aim at the target and test-fired, result after firing, no hand cannon recoil feel; huge recoil though numbed the shoulder blade, but firearm had spring mechanism and muzzle guiding airflow recoil compensator, dissipating the force.
Wu Lu surprised looking at this firearm, factory personnel: “This is armor-piercing projectile, even eighth layer martial dao wearing spiritual artifact level armor cannot block within three hundred steps.”
Wu Lu: “What about ninth layer?”
Xuan Chong beside said: “Ninth layer realm martial artists are very sensitive to ‘momentum’; when you fire, the projectile’s huge kinetic energy lets him feel the bullet’s momentum from a hundred meters away, then extreme dodge, as for within a hundred meters? You’ll be discovered when you raise the gun. As for innate experts above ninth layer, they have spiritual sense; that is, your killing intent before firing, he already perceives it—about spiritual sense, this is the wondrous connection between consciousness and consciousness, innate and foundation establishment can preemptively sense the other’s malice.”
Wu Lu nodded: “Then just send enough people to entangle.”
Xuan Chong turned to look at Wu Lu and asked: “What makes you think someone will die-entangle for you?”
Wu Lu opened his mouth, said lowly: “Oh.”
Xuan Chong: “To get people to do things, always calculate the reward they expect in their hearts.”
…Peace and harmony…
After touring the factory, vast farmlands, with good sunshine, every household turning out sweet potatoes to dry in the sun.
This drying sweet potatoes behavior, whether great households or small, all did so; and the meal fragrance in cooking smoke was also the same. Small households gnawing sweet potatoes is fine, but why did those great households also give up fine clothes and delicacies? Because “millet” and other strategic materials were loaned to the public treasury, used to build water conservancy roads and other infrastructure. And public treasury when repaying, principal still millet, but “interest” exchanged by merit points.
Just like middle class in Xuan Chong’s era fearing stratum drop, now these great households also feared stratum drop.
With war end, money-for-rank activity stopped; rich households up and down Zhen State were unadapted. To the point of anticipating next war, as for rank price in next war? They one by one saving money for the future, and saving money means no extravagance.
Xuan Chong looking at all this he created, silently said nothing, and at this time system gave final three-year time countdown, this class should end. And he had one last thing to do.
After observing factories and farmlands.
Xuan Chong had a detailed talk with his heir Wu Lu: “If now passing position to you, what would you do?”
Wu Lu: “Prioritize state altars, put people first.”
Xuan Chong sneered: “The scholar’s articles taught you, you understand them all? Used skillfully in dealing with the world?”
Wu Lu was speechless.
Xuan Chong to Wu Lu: “You use grand words you don’t understand to answer my question, trying to fool me?”
Wu Lu said lowly: “I don’t understand, but I want to practice this path.”
Xuan Chong shook his head: “All paths will go astray, all great righteousness will be misinterpreted. Teach you a maxim, if later someone uses ‘sacred words’ they themselves cannot fully explain with words and deeds to confound you, mostly false scholars. And now you and I father and son talk heart-to-heart, no need for empty words.”
Wu Lu paused, nodded.
Xuan Chong stopped the literary flourish: “Don’t always nod, say something.”
Wu Lu: “I, yes, father.”
Xuan Chong: “Simply tell you about governing the country. Don’t think you’re shouldering the heavy responsibility of the world. Under my rule, truly bearing everything are those iron-forging in factories, those mud-legged in mulberry fields, and those cattle and horses in corvee labor. Your hands have no calluses, skin daily tempered by spiritual herbs, going out with vehicles. If not for me bringing you out, when you go home, those elders coaxing you would still stuff maidservants into your room! So, you say put world first! What exactly are you bearing? Bearing this sky-high wealth?”
Wu Lu amid Xuan Chong’s sentence-by-sentence rebukes could only pick at his fingers, wanting to explain when mouth opened. But was suppressed by Xuan Chong. —Wu Lu discovered, his old dad settling accounts after autumn was really fierce, during war was “good son,” after war became “spendthrift son.”
Xuan Chong pointing at the outer farmlands mulberry fields and smoking factories, said: “This world can be divided into two kinds of people, one suppliers, the other supplied. When the world is well-governed, suppliers have ‘world’s rise and fall every commoner’s responsibility’ sense of duty; while supplied must preserve a bit of ‘don’t use one’s idle pursuits to consume others’ livelihood and goods’ sense of shame.
Your father once traveled Yao Capital, numerous famous scholars, scholars, immortal path, every time discussing state policy, all emphasized putting world first; was that really putting world first? That was emphasizing to superiors: rain and dew first moisten them before moistening people. They are supplied, yet already shameless.”
“Mulberry branches leafless smoke rises from earth, pipes welcome dragon at water temple. Several vermilion gates watch song and dance, still fear spring gloom chokes the strings.
These farmlands workshops’ people now all diligent and responsible! Not because some holding scholar articles for education and indoctrination created this scene.
But in these ten years, labor must have reward, merit must have prize. If laborers not gotten, my heart uneasy with debt; if merit not rewarded, I sleepless at night.
And you this lifetime, destined not to farm mulberry, to be supplied. If you shameless, suppliers will inevitably discard responsibility. Then these ‘cattle and horses’—”
Xuan Chong pointed at the laboring people in farmlands mulberry, said: “Do kings lords generals have kind?”
