Chapter 46: Selecting Talent
Shu Tian Calendar 28th year, February.
Wu Fei had already returned to the main base in Lingnan. Each department was methodically carrying out work in accordance with General Wu’s instructions.
Inside the General’s Mansion, one bamboo tally after another was sent out to the various departments for execution, with acceptance engraved marks upon completion. The records were then sent back to the General’s Mansion archive.
While Wu Fei was away, the first half-year exit closed-door cultivation exploration missions at Yongji Pass were carried out according to last year’s plan.
For example, trade was strictly limited to within two hundred li around Yongji Pass, just like last year. Areas beyond two hundred li allowed merchants from each family to explore, but they had to act under the guidance of guides provided by the Wu Family Army.
Paths once hacked out by scouts using vanguard knives were now dirt roads with stones pointing the way. Hawkers placed a stone picked from the roadside at fixed intervals on every trip.
In the past, Xuan Chong felt like he was constantly drifting in the ripples from the upper levels, but now his own influence could also create widespread ripples.
…Explorers’ dividing line…
In the northern Ling River, Clawed People Yi Ke Te and some Yao Person soldiers formed an exploration team and entered the Clawed People tribe. This personnel composition was already similar to early colonial explorers, that is, whites opening trade with various tribes under the guidance of cooperating local natives.
But now, trade was different from before because this time, Wu Fei was willing to export armaments to Southern Border cooperators.
Yi Ke Te brought Da Yao people to the tribe, purchasing some servants in addition to trade. Among these servants, he nodded to the accompanying Da Yao squad leader. The squad leader opened the supply cart, took out firearms according to the number of people, and began distributing them.
After Yi Ke Te named each of these slaves, the Da Yao people also used a knife to engrave names on the firearms, indicating that this weapon belonged to that holder.
When the slaves excitedly wanted to fire wildly while holding the guns, Yi Ke Te whipped each one. The arrogance that had just sprouted after escaping slave shackles was beaten out of them, leaving them sprawled on the ground. Next, under Yi Ke Te’s lead, the slaves formed ranks, then underwent a naming ceremony one by one. After receiving their names, they were required to copy and engrave the names from the bamboo slips onto the fixed positions on their own equipment. After all, these Clawed People were illiterate; if they didn’t personally engrave the name once after receiving it, they would forget it overnight, making the naming pointless.
Wu Fei: The West seems to issue dog tags to each person, with numbers as codes. Possibly, based on my own speculation, homonyms occur when pinyin names have the same syllables, but these square characters have unique information features, so no such problem exists.
Moreover, this naming method is not controlled by vassal army leaders like Yi Ke Te, but by “scattered people” sent by the Wu Family Army who determine names based on the slaves’ birth charts, facial features, palm prints, and other characteristics. Thus, it has some threshold.
That’s right, Wu Fei wants to monopolize this essential key cultural information item to control the vassal army.
Next, after these vassal soldiers finally engraved their own names and learned their meanings, they were informed that the gun was theirs, marked with their name. Losing it would result in severe punishment: merits deducted if they had any, or reversion to slavery if not.
Under the treetops, the slaves carefully clutched their guns and placed special importance on the names Yi Ke Te had given them.
Yi Ke Te, meanwhile, looked reverently at the list in the Yao Person’s hand. Only after aligning his list with the Yao Person’s could he receive ammunition.
Three days later, Yi Ke Te led this vassal army to complete two rounds of training and finally could fire under the scolding of Da Yao soldiers. Every turn or movement command was immediately answered with: “Yes, yes, squad leader.”
The relationship between Yi Ke Te and the vassal soldiers he personally selected followed the “pledge of allegiance” loyalty ritual phase of Da Yao, but was slightly different from Da Yao’s situation.
In Da Yao’s mid-level official group, the pledge of allegiance to the patron official is not public to the upper levels. For example, in the Wu Family Army, which battle soldiers belong to Wu Fei and which are Wu Hanluan’s personal guards is unknown to Da Yao superiors. But the pledge of allegiance among foreign races like Yi Ke Te is statistically recorded at Yongji Pass.
Da Yao’s civilization level is higher, with trust and righteousness widely existing across upper, middle, and lower levels. Southern Border foreign races lack trust and righteousness; without third-party strong contract certification, they betray each other and even take pride in the profits from betrayal, considering it their own skill.
Yongji Pass merchants had already experienced the Southern Border people’s fickleness many times. Without the Wu Family Army, merchants couldn’t collect debts by force; after receiving goods, these tribes would forget the balance forever, even migrating entire tribes elsewhere to evade debt, leaving merchants unable to find them.
Thus, an upper-level violence system is needed to certify loyalty legitimacy.
In Da Yao’s cultural lands, for Wu Fei’s side, lower-level loyalty to him actually doesn’t need Da Yao certification. As long as he isn’t caught by Da Yao with an unforgivable handle, those generals who pledged allegiance to Wu Fei will be loyal to him for life. Their loyalty to Wu Fei’s next generation will weaken somewhat, but as long as the next generation maintains Ah Dou level, the monarch-minister relationship can basically remain stable.
But it won’t work for Yi Ke Te’s side. Whoever he summons from his tribe now is Lu Bu-level character. Yi Ke Te’s loyalty to the vassal soldiers on the list he controls extremely depends on Wu Family Army certification. The Wu Family Army can thus stably control this vassal army institutionally. As for whether Yi Ke Te can build sufficient trust within his tribe, that’s not something a dropped superhuman can achieve.
Narrator: While doing this question, Xuan Chong thought that for legitimacy confirmation, it’s improper for the Wu Family Army, a military violence institution, to issue legitimacy. A military violence institution’s essence is that bigger fists mean stronger legitimacy. Once fists weaken, legitimacy is questioned. What truly suits issuing “loyalty” legitimacy was proven by his previous life’s history: religion is best for spreading faith to barbarians!
European Catholicism confirmed the legitimacy of Holy Roman Empire knights’ loyalty to the king. When reclaiming legitimacy, the German barbarian king had to beg for forgiveness. Thus, it proved this was the most suitable civilizational structure for German forest hunter-hunter descendants.
In the Southern Border, Li Huo Sect is this religion.
Therefore, Wu Fei’s strategy is to take advantage of his military strength in this generation to flatten Li Huo Sect, disperse its religious power, and reform its doctrines.
Wu Fei: Let’s do it this way for now! Build the material base first; spiritual reform can come slowly.
…Rear factory dividing line…
Amid the noise and vibration of mechanical gears turning, Wu Fei began secretly inspecting the workshops and discovered production efficiency problems in all of them!
Having seen 21st-century “intense competition” society, Wu Fei saw that under his feudal system, production was all slacking off.
How does “slacking off” happen? Personnel form small cliques at every work link, completely covering up information on work progress.
At sites requiring coolie labor, visible shackles on slave workers were decreasing. But when receiving wages recorded in the accountant’s office, the number of kneels was increasing.
As the sun, Wu Fei decided his radiance would “warm” everyone on the production chain, absolutely not allowing any “small furnaces” besides himself to appear on the production chain and form cliques.
Latest instruction: “To reduce slacking off, hold a general assembly.”
After Wu Fei personally appeared at each workshop and received unanimous approval, he confidently began reforms.
Reformers always start with great ambition. But now this history class requires hitting walls.
Wu Fei, who was an extreme right-wing conservative in political education in his previous life, strongly favored democratic procedures in industrial production. No other reason: industrial production has too many links, each concerning collective success or failure responsibility. Not letting them speak or voice opinions but directly assigning responsibility is wrong.
Wu Fei clearly remembered how veteran advanced aviation manufacturing in his era collapsed. All talk was let by PPT makers; after key PPT makers spoke in meetings, responsibility was borne by speechless engineers below.
Yongji Pass now had large military reclamation areas planned on the map for expansion. At the first “production conference,” after statistical calculations, Wu Fei conducted an overall discussion on manpower needed for coal mines, nitrate mines, iron workshops, and water conservancy channel openings. Wu Fei made choices at the meeting.
At the meeting, foremen all looked at Wu Fei: some trembling in fear of mistakes, others standing tall.
While looking at data, Wu Fei was also quietly observing these people. Wanting to run into feudal society but only taking one step and stumbling again.
Because data reported on bamboo tallies was not truthful. Below, some inflated figures; some were overly timid, “cautiously reporting,” making statistics unusable.
Like a company in his previous life. Report makers included Indians and Chinese. Could those reports be statistically combined?
Wu Fei reflected: oh, as a feudal lord, he naturally has favorites. Thus, close ones speak favorably, distant ones fear implicating themselves.
Those few disciples related by marriage alliance to his family preemptively claimed merit: they handled the quarry and directly reported output over 50% higher than before.
When Wu Fei verified, he determined that achieving this target would at least consume over twice the previous slave casualties, unfavorable for sustained development, so it must be adjusted.
Conversely, veteran artisans truly familiar with the production chain, facing Wu Fei’s urging to improve production, all said ancestral system cannot be changed, fearing that after patting their chests and failing, they’d become “those who pledged allegiance but didn’t complete it.”
Wu Fei thought for a moment: the rest of the meeting content to be decided tomorrow.
Wu Fei: I can’t personally manage it; need to find someone not afraid to offend people to handle it.
…Wu Fei already had a suitable factory director candidate in mind…
In northern Yongji Pass, a brand-new laboratory: a 20-meter water wheel bound with iron hoops made of pine wood rotated, driving the workshop shaft, which inserted into the “intent iron” material mechanism area. Thus, thunder power began generating, entering the spiritual artifact with Precious Jade structure. (“Intent iron” was another thing Wu Fei asked the system about; the system dodged teaching physics-related special phenomena. This stuff has single magnetic pole phenomenon.)
Under thunder’s effect, drops of silvery-white liquid dripped from the refining furnace. Mixed with jade marrow, this substance had vitality, moving like a piece of meat; jade marrow formed a nerve-like network in the metal.
This mass of metal came to Wu Qing’s hand and soon formed a bracer, then subsequently changed into a sword.
Nearby, Jia Mude tinkered with his small furnace, looking at the black weld-like metal liquid inside, fearing his wife would transform and come love him again.
Jia Mude’s name carries wood, but he actually excels in “gold element magic.” Ang Ri’s name carries fire, yet his spiritual root is wood attribute; his “vitality blood” can area-repair soldier wounds, even reconnect severed limbs.
Gold element magic excels at countering thickly armored combatants, melting iron armor on battle soldiers, or generating barbs inside armor, while also dulling gears in giant puppets.
Ang Ri watched Jia Mude’s refining process and emphasized a few key points Jia Mude missed; the second furnace succeeded.
Such a harmonious research atmosphere was rare, because since the Yongji Pass battle, Jia Mude had reservations about Ang Ri. Especially with Wu Qing present, he as a prisoner was very displeased.
Clang clang, as the mechanical door opened, Ang Ri in the laboratory looked up toward the door: “General, you’ve arrived.”
Wu Fei nodded to Ang Ri. This guy had been very diligent after integrating into the Wu Family Army. As for his Crow People subordinates, benefiting from the Wu Family Army’s much higher productivity than Southern Border, their armament paths were also much broader.
In Haotian Realm, Ang Ri’s Crow People threw bombs from the sky. Wu Fei quickly arranged it: five-kilogram iron bombs were too heavy for Crow People, only three per, but “noisy bombs” causing queue chaos—cross darts emitting irritating smoke—could be carried ten per. Crow People throwing cross darts from the sky reached 150 paces, far more powerful than iron bombs.
Of course, another point Wu Fei didn’t say: really giving bombs to Crow People to carry into the sky made him uneasy. What if a rebellious Crow Person one day bombed Yongji Pass and fled? In short, Crow People haven’t submitted a pledge of allegiance yet. After enough in the next Southern Border campaign, Wu Fei would assign them lethal weapons.
And then, Wu Fei would further promote Ang Ri.
After Wu Fei and Ang Ri exchanged polite greetings, he went to Jia Mude’s side. Jia Mude was still fiddling with equipment. After standing a while, Wu Fei found he was purely pretending to work with busyness, so he walked over and kicked his butt.
Wu Fei: “Hey, I’m here, not even a greeting.”
Jia Mude could only sit up: “General, I’m performing alchemy.”
Seeing Jia Mude’s obsequious look, Wu Fei suddenly understood Wu Hengyu’s feeling of bullying him. Hmm, this feeling was pretty good.
However, Wu Fei’s main job wasn’t inspection; he told Ang Ri to keep busy first and led Jia Mude to the lower-level office.
……
In the room with the two, Wu Fei looked at Jia Mude and smiled: “No need to be reserved. Wu Qing is my sworn sister; you’re practically my brother-in-law now. We’re family.”
Jia Mude’s mouth twitched; Wu Fei’s words were pure nonsense. Wu Qing, that Snake Person, was Wu Fei’s slave. Just verbal acknowledgment as sister didn’t make her one. The gossipy squad leaders in the Wu Family Army all knew the ins and outs. As for himself, a war captive, a male favorite granted to Wu Qing—now when Yongji Pass insiders discussed it, they held back laughs.
Wu Fei: “Hey, don’t look so glum. A great man must bend and stretch. Gossip is nothing; those outside have muttered about me too, but now they all respectfully call me General?”
Wu Fei gestured like a know-it-all in “guidance”: “A man loses his title, falls to the bottom, but must still have broad mind and long vision! There’s a poem: ‘Fear not clouds obscuring the view, for one is at the highest level.’ Bro, step up!”
Hearing this, Jia Mude pondered. In his eyes, crude Wu Fei spouting this poem really impressed him.
But Jia Mude knew his situation well.
Jia Mude: “General, what exactly do you want from me?”
Wu Fei: “Need your help with something.”
Jia Mude: “I dare not, but please instruct, General.” — Clearly, Wu Fei’s modern people mode of getting close made rank-conscious Jia Mude very unadapted.
Wu Fei handed over a jade slip.
After seeing it clearly, Jia Mude took a deep breath and asked Wu Fei: “General, entrusting this to me, aren’t you afraid it’ll leak from me?”
Jia Mude stared at Wu Fei, almost saying, I’m a Southern Border person.
Wu Fei slowly said: “Don’t worry, there are ways to guard against you. But just guarding you purely, keeping you pinned forever—what’s the point? I don’t have that much time; I want you to be useful to me.”
Jia Mude accepted the jade slip and nodded, acknowledging Wu Fei’s appointment as factory director.
Wu Fei nodded: “If you do well here, for Li Huo Sect, I’ll support you as sect master.”
Jia Mude paused slightly, then slowly said: “Li Huo Sect’s sect master has always been our old ancestor. Me?”
Wu Fei: “Your old ancestor, I think he’s lived too long, far exceeding the years descendants need to support him. At their age, fulfilling filial duty now should be burning paper money, not tremblingly enshrining flesh and blood.”
Jia Mude fell silent.
Wu Fei smiled: “No talk of that. You have virtue. In great disaster years, they resort to child-eating; ending ancestors’ sinful deeds—just state your stance from the common people’s angle, then you can recuse yourself. I won’t make it hard for you.”
After one incense stick.
After Wu Fei left, Jia Mude sat alone in the room thinking, gripping the freshly refined silvery-white jade sword. Unknowingly, too much magic power infused it, and the jade sword shattered under the strain.
As the sword shattered, Jia Mude snapped out of anxiety and slowly said: “I must preserve the foundation left by ancestors.”
…Laboratory corridor, leather boot footsteps gradually fading…
Like SS villain leader Xuan Chong strolling through Jia Mude’s experiments.
Midway, Xuan Chong stood before a separation cylinder, opened the system, and asked: “System, in this world’s Daoist arts, is there a possibility of separating ‘uranium’ ‘plutonium’ isotopes?”
Seeing Jia Mude’s refined metal processes, Wu Fei began suspecting whether this plane’s “immortals” could truly summon great sun “world-destroying” power like ancient legends. If so, his current “military strategist” efforts were truly negligible.
System: “Your question is outside the curriculum scope. This class is history class.”
Xuan Chong: “Hmm, what if I’m about to die?”
System: “You can use academic credits to exchange for help (cheat).”
Xuan Chong: “Heh, how much help can credits provide? If I want to lie down and overthrow Da Yao, ok?”
System: “One hundred credits: hire someone with longer schooling to activate simulation; you just lie aside and watch.”
Xuan Chong: “Longer schooling person, wait—one hundred credits? One credit per great war; to gather a hundred, I’d have conquered Da Yao myself.”
System: “Yes, study hard yourself, improve daily. Don’t think of copying homework.”
