In the early winter of the nineteenth year of Hongjing, the first snow fell over the northern lands, and even Zhao and Southern Qi, with their comparatively mild climates, entered the season when the wind carried a biting chill.
The autumn harvest had just ended, and every household had stocked their grain. It was the season when people had money to spend and needed warm clothes to wear. Right at this moment, the brocade-weaving workshops in Northern Qi and Zhao had all been completed—the timing could not have been better. This made it evident that both kingdoms were filled with capable ministers.
At this time, Wei Yuan emerged from seclusion once more, bringing out a newly concocted batch of Foundation Solidifying Pills totaling more than two hundred thousand. This batch was designated specifically for Dao Foundations—more precisely, for template Dao Foundations—and possessed the effect of marginally improving innate talent.
Originally, by Wei Yuan's estimates, this so-called "marginal improvement" amounted to roughly one in ten thousand, meaning only one person out of ten thousand would actually see their talent improved. Under normal circumstances, such a marginal benefit merely sounded pleasant and was essentially meaningless.
Wei Yuan did not mind, however. Everyone could simply take these pills as cultivation-boosting elixirs; they were ideal for handing out as year-end bonuses. The market price for an ordinary Foundation Solidifying Pill was around ten Qingyuan, and since these were crafted by Wei Yuan's own hand, they were naturally worth more—around fifteen Qingyuan each.
Wei Yuan distributed fifty thousand pills right in the Lu clan's ancestral lands, rewarding merit among the hundred thousand Dao Foundations there. Then he activated his high-speed craft once again, rocketing across the sky in a roar of thunder to return to Qingming. This time, the gazes in the heavens didn't even bother looking his way.
Upon returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan handed the pills over to the relevant administrators for distribution, while he headed to his residence in the immortal city to handle Qingming's recent administrative affairs.
He settled into his study, a room he had not visited in quite some time. The desk before him was completely bare, without a single official document.
Wei Yuan thought nothing of it. In today's Qingming, even template Dao Foundations were adept at using the Flourishing of the Many Realms, and government offices at every level strictly required their personnel to conduct official business through it proficiently. Certain crucial posts even demanded the skilled execution of dual-tasking.
Wei Yuan could naturally access the Flourishing of the Many Realms at will. With a slight shift of his divine intent, he entered the Flourishing of the Many Realms.
To facilitate their work and routine duties, the cultivators had constructed a dedicated governance system within the Flourishing of the Many Realms. Upon entering the system, an interface would appear, and depending on one's identity and clearance, one could find their assigned official tasks and process them.
Wei Yuan naturally had an interface unique to himself. The Realm Lord's treatment was naturally extraordinary; calling it an interface was an understatement—it was in fact a virtual grand palace crafted with the utmost ethereal grandeur. Standing inside, Wei Yuan felt as though his mindscape world had been elevated.
The hall was filled with distinct scenes at every step, and each scene carried specific significance. For instance, a distant snow-capped peak named Sky's Zenith bore blooming snow lotuses—each lotus representing an official affair requiring Wei Yuan's review and signature.
With a faint smile, Wei Yuan rose into the air and drifted slowly toward the snowy summit. Looking around, he found that not a single snow lotus blossomed on the entire peak—not even a stray petal was in sight!
This meant there was nothing that required Wei Yuan's sign-off.
The smile on Wei Yuan's face remained unchanged, for he did not know whether this administrative hall, built especially for him, contained a backdoor that recorded his every word and deed.
To prevent corruption and favoritism among officials, Qingming's governance system was equipped with an exhaustive logging feature. Wei Yuan just didn't know whether he was included in that surveillance. He felt it was high time to instill the concept that "punishments do not apply to the Realm Lord."
Wei Yuan moved over to the foot of the mountain, where a small pavilion stood beside an exquisitely picturesque stream formed by melted snow. Floating in the water were chunks of ice large and small, each block signifying a matter meant for Wei Yuan's information.
Right now, the entire stream was choked with ice fragments to the point where no water could be seen. A long dragon of ice crawled steadily along the channel.
Wei Yuan sighed. The matters reported for his information were as numerous as ox hairs, yet there was not a single issue left for him to decide. This Qingming...
Sighing helplessly, he sat down in the pavilion and began reviewing these matters. As he did, the ice blocks in the stream melted away one by one. Several thousand items were submitted for his awareness each day; having been in seclusion for several months, hundreds of thousands of documents had accumulated.
Fortunately, Wei Yuan possessed a formidable divine intent and could run over ten thousand tasks simultaneously. The ice fragments in the stream gradually dwindled. Two days later, the stream ran crystal clear once more, devoid of even a single scrap of ice.
Looking at the clear stream, Wei Yuan sighed inwardly. He had intentionally taken his time, yet he had still finished reviewing everything.
Right then, his heart stirred. A flash of seven-colored celestial light gleamed atop the snow mountain, and a snow lotus miraculously sprouted!
Wei Yuan was overjoyed. Almost teleporting to the side of the snow lotus, he carefully plucked it and perused its contents in detail.
This official matter concerned Southern Qi and Zhao simultaneously launching the large-scale construction of weaving workshops. These had recently been completed one after another, all utilizing technology stolen from Qingming.
That alone would have been tolerable, but both Zhao and Southern Qi had begun purchasing raw silk on a massive scale, driving up silk prices. As a result, many sericulturists who had long supplied Qingming changed their minds. Some who had signed long-term contracts even tore them up, secretly selling all their silk at inflated prices to the brocade workshops of Zhao and Qi.
The person in charge of this matter was none other than Xu Wenwu. This fellow did hail from an otherworldly realm after all, and handled trade-related matters with effortless skill.
Xu Wenwu stated that the trend of sericulturists breaching contracts could not be allowed to grow; otherwise, future contracts signed by Qingming would lose all binding force. Currently, Qingming maintained dedicated commercial bureaus within Zhao, wielding considerable authority.
Xu Wenwu therefore proposed using the local commercial bureaus to arrest all sericulturists who had breached their contracts, confiscating all proceeds from their silk sales and throwing them in prison. If they failed to establish authority this time, future commercial and maritime treaties would become meaningless pieces of paper.
Xu Wenwu then suggested another ruthlessly aggressive tactic: raise this year's purchase price for raw silk threefold! At such exorbitant rates, every brocade workshop in Qi and Zhao would suffer colossal losses, driving them all into bankruptcy within a single year.
At that price, even Qingming would take a loss, but such a loss would be a mere drop in the bucket for Qingming, whereas it would utterly destroy the silk-weaving industries that the two kingdoms had invested fortunes to build.
Because this matter involved Zhao and Immortal Zhao Li shared a special relationship with Wei Yuan, Xu Wenwu dared not make the decision on his own authority and had specifically forwarded it to Wei Yuan for approval.
Wei Yuan saw through it, however: it wasn't that Xu Wenwu lacked the nerve to act on his own, but rather that he hadn't gained admittance into a certain inner circle, which was why this memorial had landed before him.
Attached to the document was a massive amount of data detailing the current state of the silk industry in both Qi and Zhao. When it came to intelligence-gathering capabilities, Qingming was far superior to either kingdom.
After reading through it, Wei Yuan pondered for a moment and set the tone: pursue and arrest everyone who dared breach contracts with full force. Even if officials from Zhao intervened, investigate thoroughly to the very end. Not a single contract-breaker was to be spared; fine and imprison them according to the law without the slightest leniency or exception.
On this point, Qingming's dignity could brook no violation. Wei Yuan explicitly authorized the use of force if necessary, even allowing troops to march into Zhao.
Secondly, keep the silk purchase price unchanged. This meant that aside from what was under contract, Qingming would not purchase a single ounce of silk.
The moment this approval was sent, Xu Wenwu appeared outside the hall, having come specifically to seek out Wei Yuan. Seeing Wei Yuan, he immediately said, "If we don't raise prices at all, we won't be able to buy any silk this year! Long-term contracts account for only twenty percent of our usual purchases. Our machine brocade output next year will plummet accordingly!"
Wei Yuan smiled faintly and replied, "Isn't your goal to strike a blow against Zhao and Qi?"
"Of course! Their ambitions are voracious; they must be dealt a crushing head-on blow!"
Wei Yuan smiled gently. "Refusing to buy silk is what will truly strike a blow against them."
Xu Wenwu was baffled, but Wei Yuan told him, "Just watch. All will become clear soon enough."
Xu Wenwu could only nod and prepare to carry out the orders. Just then, Wei Yuan stopped him and asked, "Who do you usually associate with closely and communicate with the most?"
Without hesitating, Xu Wenwu reeled off seven or eight names. Wei Yuan nodded without saying anything further.
After Xu Wenwu departed, Wei Yuan fell into thought. Sure enough, none of the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning were among the names Xu Wenwu had mentioned.
...
Three months later, heavy snow fell across the northern lands, and Zhao and Qi were likewise clad in silver.
Taking advantage of the bitter cold, the two kingdoms flooded the market with their new machine brocade, stirring up a massive wave.
In the Southern Qi royal palace, the King of Qi stared at the memorial before him, his expression turning increasingly grim. Before finishing it, he hurled it aside in fury and roared, "What is the meaning of this?!"
Flanking him, over a dozen ministers stood frozen, none daring to breathe a word.
The King of Qi was practically roaring: "Over a million bolts of machine brocade were woven, yet after more than a month on the market, only a few tens of thousands of bolts have been sold?! Why aren't any of you speaking? Have you all gone mute? We ordered you to secretly ban and confiscate Qingming's brocade—did you ban it or not?!"
One minister braced himself and replied, "It has already been banned. Over the past month, only five thousand bolts of Qing brocade were sold."
"Fine! Qing brocade has been banned, so what is going on here?!"
Chancellor Lu sighed and reported, "Minister Mi did his utmost to ban Qing brocade. Over the past month, this subject visited marketplaces everywhere, only to discover that the root of this matter lies in the poverty of the common people. They simply cannot afford so much brocade; what we have sold thus far is already the limit. This was a failure of foresight on my part, and I beg Your Majesty's punishment."
The King of Qi swept everything off his desk in a single motion, raging, "Qingming's brocade production is at least ten times ours, if not a hundred times! Where did all their brocade go? Wasn't it sold to the people of their own territory? How could they manage to sell it?!"
Chancellor Lu braced himself and answered, "Qingming is prosperous, unlike our kingdom."
The King of Qi narrowed his eyes and asked, word by word, "Then why are the people of Qingming wealthy?"
Chapter 1192