The Dao soldiers of the Palace of Grand Beginning had long ceased to be what they once were. Officially registered in the Grand Hall of Dao Soldiers were one hundred thousand Dao soldiers, originally led by a few hundred Dao Foundation squad leaders. Each Dao soldier cost a hundred taels of immortal silver a year, a Dao Foundation cost a thousand taels, and a dharma idol cost ten thousand taels.
However, decades ago, Wei Yuan had developed the template Dao foundation and prioritized training templates for the Palace of Grand Beginning. As a result, out of the one hundred thousand Dao soldiers, an astounding fifty thousand templates were produced. Even though Yanshi cut the compensation for template Dao foundations down to eight hundred taels, total military expenditures still soared severalfold, beginning to crowd out resources in other areas.
Azure Heaven Hall had also taken on a share of several thousand Dao soldiers, roughly half of whom were templates. But True Monarch Xuanyue had poured nearly all his money into constructing Azure Heaven Hall. With so many templates suddenly cropping up, where would he find the funds to pay their military stipends? Left with no choice, True Monarch Xuanyue had to swallow his pride: he sat on the promotion requests elevating template Dao foundations to squad leaders and refused to approve them, simply continuing to treat them as Body Casting Dao soldiers.
Fortunately, True Monarch Xuanyue was highly respected, and the Dao soldiers considered it an honor to join Azure Heaven Hall, so the money was not all that critical. Furthermore, the True Monarchs of other halls would quietly cover the shortfall for Xuanyue behind closed doors.
As for why Qingming was immensely wealthy while Azure Heaven Hall remained dirt-poor? In truth, everyone knew the reason full well: all his life, the True Monarch cared above all for saving face. He would rather die than tell Wei Yuan that the hall was broke again.
Only after taking over the Grand Hall of Dao Soldiers did Wei Yuan realize why the two Immortal Monarchs had agreed so readily. Right now, on Dao soldiers alone, the Palace of Grand Beginning's total annual expenditure exceeded one hundred million taels of immortal silver. Due to severe budget overruns on the Dao soldiers, the Palace of Grand Beginning was running an annual deficit hovering around seventy to eighty million taels of immortal silver. Over the years, their silver reserves had long since run dry, and Yanshi was on the verge of selling off the palace's ancestral estates.
Yet ancestral estates were limited, and Immortal Monarch Zhu Yan was a prodigal spendthrift unseen in ten thousand years. Even with Wei Yuan occasionally pitching in and contributing relief, the Palace of Grand Beginning's financial situation remained thoroughly grim.
After reviewing the revenue and expenditure figures for the Hall of Dao Soldiers, Wei Yuan finally understood the real reason behind the Palace of Grand Beginning's dire finances: both Immortal Monarchs were simply too concerned about their dignity. First, they could not bring themselves to ask Wei Yuan for money; second, they could not bear the embarrassment of cutting the veteran soldiers' benefits. When the veteran Dao soldiers advanced to templates, they received the compensation of a Dao Foundation. The problem was, a template was merely a template, not a true Dao foundation.
Confronted with this predicament, rather than opening their mouths to Wei Yuan, the two Immortal Monarchs stubbornly maintained their glamorous facade. Whenever Wei Yuan inquired, their answer was always the same: "Don't worry, the palace has money to burn!"
Back then, Wei Yuan had seen an entire village of immortal artifact spirits, so he had believed them.
Relocating the Hall of Dao Soldiers was a massive undertaking that affected the operation of the Palace of Grand Beginning's entire defense system. After careful deliberation, Wei Yuan decided on an approach of expanding first and reducing later; Qingming was swimming in money anyway and could easily afford the costs of the transition.
The first thing Wei Yuan did was convert all Dao soldiers' salaries from immortal silver to Qingyuan: 50 Qingyuan a year for peak Body Casting, with tiered reductions for lower cultivation stages. Then came the lion's share—the template Dao foundations, which were the primary cause of the deficit.
Wei Yuan was in no hurry to touch that part just yet. Instead, he first selected two hundred thousand elites from the Qingming Army, paired them with fifty thousand templates—making two hundred and fifty thousand in total—and formed the Qingming Northern Expeditionary Legion.
During recruitment, Wei Yuan placed special emphasis on the fact that they were going to guard the northern mountain gate of the Palace of Grand Beginning, and that all soldiers would automatically become registered outer disciples of Water Moon Hall. If they performed well in the future, they would all have the chance to enter the Palace of Grand Beginning proper.
Wei Yuan anticipated that once this announcement went out, applicants would flock in like clouds.
Then, for three full days following the announcement, a grand total of around a hundred people applied. Not only were these people elites, but they were also geniuses. The problem, however, was the number. Only if that hundred-odd were in the millions would it match Wei Yuan's expectations.
Wei Yuan was dumbfounded and immediately investigated the cause, focusing on whether rebel saboteurs were operating in the shadows.
Losing face as the Great Realm Lord Wei was merely a trivial matter; Wei Yuan fundamentally, completely, absolutely did not take it to heart. The defense of the Palace of Grand Beginning was what truly mattered.
The investigation proceeded very rapidly. The cultivators in charge randomly sampled ten thousand soldiers and had them fill out a questionnaire within the Splendor of the Many Realms, compensating each participant with one Qingyuan as a "nutritional allowance."
In the end, over four million signed up to participate.
The questions on the survey were varied and eclectic, concealing the true inquiries within. Naturally, there were also subtle traps, such as "Do you feel that a certain decision made by the Realm Lord was biased?" and the like.
Anyone answering "yes" was quietly flagged by the Splendor of the Many Realms. Those who not only answered "yes" but specifically wrote an argument detailing where the Realm Lord was wrong received an especially prominent mark.
And if Wei Yuan hadn't devised such questions himself, the question-writer would be slapped with a flashing, dark-red tag.
Wei Yuan didn't intend to do anything to these people, and he would quietly correct the mistakes pointed out to him. Still, he felt that for Qingming's greater good, he needed to remember these individuals with innate rebellious streaks.
Through this method of investigation, the subordinate officials found the answer in two days: outer disciples—and merely registered ones at that—truly held virtually no appeal for anyone.
The survey results further showed that let alone registered outer disciples, even official inner sect disciples held hardly any appeal for people! Even being a formal disciple of the Palace of Grand Beginning—the exact status Wei Yuan had held back in the day—everyone would still ask: "Does it pay? Does it pay well?"
The result made Wei Yuan's vision go dark with exasperation. But upon delving into the reasons, he discovered that it wasn't that people looked down on the Palace of Grand Beginning. During their schooling, these young Qingming warriors had already learned the common knowledge of cultivation from Dao Foundation all the way to Scenery Command. They had a remarkably sober understanding of their own limits, knowing that in this lifetime, reaching a template Dao foundation was their absolute ceiling. Even if they were handed titles like true successor, direct disciple, or last apprentice, they would still just be a template.
In fact, the Jade Toad Visualization Method had long been popularized and made public in Qingming. Wei Yuan had even rewritten Water Moon Hall's Dao scripture, removing the specific cultivation techniques and extracting the fundamental principles of the Dao law's true intent to compile a standalone canon titled *Principles of Moon-Gazing with the Plain Toad*, which was sold openly throughout Qingming for anyone with money to buy.
Supposedly, anyone who could understand this book had the potential for Scenery Command!
Yet after so many years, the book still gathered dust in bookstores. The original print run hadn't even sold out to this day, saving them the trouble of a reprint.
So at the end of the day, the young people of Qingming simply knew a bit too much. The pie in the sky that Wei Yuan painted was lovely, but everyone was well aware that they couldn't swallow it.
"Damn your grandfather..." Wei Yuan tossed aside the investigation report and cursed, deeply feeling that the kids these days were far too difficult to manage. He picked up his brush and pondered, preparing to paint another pie in the sky.
Yet after turning it over in his mind, he realized this pie was hard to paint. If he drew one they couldn't eat, no one would believe it; if they actually could eat it, his heart would ache from the cost.
He raised and lowered his brush several times before finally gritting out savagely, "Isn't it just handing out money? Fine, pay them!"
Taking over the defense duties of the Dao soldiers was a long-term undertaking. Stationing a single legion abroad was merely a stopgap; what was truly needed was a massive force capable of prolonged deployment on the northern border.
Taking all factors into account, Wei Yuan decided to establish a semi-independent operational entity. He plucked one character each from Azure Heaven Hall and Water Moon Hall, factored in the name of the Qingming realm, and ultimately established the Qingshui Defense and Security Complex.
Qingshui Defense comprised several legions, offering benefits substantially higher than those of the regular Qingming military, while mid-to-senior commanders also gained eligibility to enter the Daoist Court.
When Qingshui Defense began recruitment, applications soared into the millions in just a few days, reaching the point where dozens of people fought for a single spot. This gave Wei Yuan a full appreciation of the sheer power of cold, hard cash.
Since Qingshui Defense was responsible for the Palace of Grand Beginning's defenses, Wei Yuan naturally bundled the dharma idol cultivators of Azure Heaven and Water Moon Halls into it, appointing his martial grandfather, Perfected Fenhai, as the complex's first director-general.
Perfected Fenhai was skilled in boiling seas—a wonderful omen—and Wei Yuan had high hopes for Qingshui Security's boiling future.
However, Fenhai had never managed such a large conglomerate or so many people, so Wei Yuan specifically assigned him eight assistants. Two handled communications, one handled connection to the Splendor of the Many Realms, and the remaining five oversaw their respective lines of business. Perfected Fenhai merely needed to sit in his office and nod.
All eight assistants were gorgeous as flowers—which nearly brought about catastrophic disaster for Fenhai, but that was a story for later.
In truth, when Wei Yuan selected assistants, he hadn't deliberately sought out attractive ones; in fact, he hadn't even chosen the people himself. But under equal qualifications, people naturally preferred hiring good-looking candidates—that was human nature.
Those hiring cultivators who refused to recruit good-looking candidates were promptly dismissed upon discovery for violating human nature.
Above Fenhai stood the Joint Decision-Making Committee of the Complex, the supreme governing body of Qingshui. The committee's Principal Presiding Officer was Wei Yuan, while the rest served as participating commissioners. In addition, two Supreme Presiding Officers were appointed: one was Xuanyue, and the other was Zhang Sheng.
Xuanyue was on the verge of ascending to immortality; thus, those in the know were stunned by the sheer status and pedigree of Qingshui Security. The news spread across Qingming in the blink of an eye, and since it was a rare large-scale recruitment of lucrative positions, applicants responded in droves.
Having handled the expansion, next came the reduction. Wei Yuan fixed his sights on the veteran Dao soldiers, sharpening his blades.
Chapter 1403