Wei Yuan was not yet aware of the decree from the Tang dynasty, and even if he had been, he would not have taken it to heart.
Just as when he had risen from a commoner to Military Commissioner of Dingxi, this Qingming and this post of second-rank Military Commissioner had been carved out through his own sweat and blood, not granted by anyone's favor.
Now that Qingming had begun to expand slowly once more, Wei Yuan had an endless list of things to do. Merely sending men out to survey the surrounding terrain was a monumental undertaking.
Without looking too far ahead, simply surveying outward by another hundred-odd li—expanding from over four hundred li to six hundred li—the increase in surface area was already a staggering figure.
Now possessing sufficient manpower, and adhering to the principle of never letting hands sit idle, Wei Yuan organized three hundred thousand people to clear and cultivate another two million mu of land. Once that reclamation was finished, the total would reach eight million mu.
Ten days passed in the blink of an eye since Wei Yuan decided to sell the raw silk. The merchant associations shipped their stockpiled silk to Qingming one after another, but what actually made it across was less than a million jin.
The managers of the merchant associations naturally wore helpless expressions. The moment they returned to Qingming, they poured out their grievances, lamenting how they had been subjected to threats, inducements, coercion, and the like. Yet how could such excuses deceive Wei Yuan? One look was enough to tell that people had accepted payoffs and sold the goods to the other side.
Still, such matters fell entirely within Wei Yuan's expectations. He had already noted down every manager who defied his orders, and those whose offenses were particularly severe were quietly excluded from all subsequent plans.
By this time, the fiftieth loom workshop had been built, successfully tested, and brought into production. After inspecting all the workshops, Wei Yuan called a halt to the subsequent expansion plans and transferred the cultivators back to the Weaponsmith Workshop to focus with all their might on producing infantry guns and artillery shells.
Fifty brocade workshops could produce nearly twenty thousand bolts of brocade a day, a volume sufficient to support the next phase of his plan.
Previously, Wei Yuan had realized that he had overlooked an issue: the brocade guilds and the forces behind them would certainly not sit idly by awaiting their doom. They would inevitably exhaust every means to resist and struggle, and driven into a corner like cornered dogs, they might very well spark another battle.
Moreover, although the Land of Rain had been repelled, Qingming had suffered tremendous losses as well. With no formidable enemies remaining in the vicinity, it was in a state of being fat but not truly strong. Wei Yuan felt that someone might try to step forward and reap the spoils as a fisherman catching both the snipe and the clam.
Shortly afterward, Wei Yuan received word that the Shaman caravan had arrived.
Wei Yuan had calculated the timing well in advance. When the merchant caravans began reselling silk to the Xu family brocade guild, he had already notified Tianyu to come take delivery. Over this period, the workshops constructed earlier had steadily churned out eight hundred thousand bolts of machine-woven brocade. Combined with their previous stockpiles, Wei Yuan planned to hand over one million bolts to Tianyu.
Having not seen each other for a mere three months, Tianyu had ballooned like a blown-up balloon. His physical build had doubled in virtually every dimension. He now stood two full heads taller than Wei Yuan, whose crown could not even reach the Shaman's pectoral muscles.
A behemoth of this scale had to be carried down from the carriage by eighteen young Shaman women. Wei Yuan studied him for a long while before asking with genuine confusion, "Where are you hurt? Not one of your five legs is broken, is it?"
Tianyu said lazily, "These lovely little Shamans are my hands and feet from now on. They're more attentive than my own limbs ever were. Let me show you what the life of a wealthy Shaman looks like."
Saying so, Tianyu gave a demonstration. He opened his massive maw, and a young Shaman woman beside him promptly dumped an entire vat of body-tempering pills straight into that bottomless pit of a mouth.
Tianyu crunched them with loud, crackling snaps, twin jets of fire billowing continuously from his nostrils. The medicinal potency of the vat was clearly formidable. Soon, Tianyu's aura began to climb slowly, his cultivation rising right then and there.
As his aura shifted, Wei Yuan discovered to his surprise that Tianyu was already a Great Shaman of the middle dharma idol realm! His speed of cultivation was virtually keeping pace with Wei Yuan's own.
Furthermore, woven into his aura was a thread of scorching, desolate energy unlike the qi of this realm. Wei Yuan thus asked, "You've already been to the Desolate Realm?"
Tianyu nodded proudly. "That's right! Not only did I make it in, but I even established a small patch of source ground there. It's just a shame that I can't say much to you about the Desolate Realm, or you'd understand what an absolute genius I am to have established source ground at this stage!"
Yet watching Tianyu lying there as though half-paralyzed, Wei Yuan could not associate him with the word "genius" in any way.
"Did you bring the goods?"
"Five million jin of thunder sand and five million jin of gray stone, not an ounce short. There was so much cargo that hauling it nearly worked me to death," Tianyu complained. Never mind that he had been carried the entire way by his bevy of beauties; even if his body was not tired, his mind felt exhausted just looking at so much cargo, and so he genuinely believed he had contributed tremendous effort.
Wei Yuan said, "I've prepared one million bolts of brocade for you. In terms of quality, my brocade is far superior to that old stock of the Xu family. Sell this batch for twenty taels a bolt, not a single tael more. Sell as much as you can. A month from now, I will give you another five hundred thousand bolts, and the price will be slashed to fifteen taels."
Tianyu gave Wei Yuan a searching look, pondered for a moment, and said, "We have some land suitable for planting mulberries. Care to lease it? The elders are all worried that you won't have enough raw silk on your end."
*The elders of the Desolate Ancestor Tribe are quite forward-looking,* Wei Yuan mused inwardly before saying aloud, "Aren't you afraid that once I lease it, I won't give it back?"
Tianyu grinned. "Actually, my suggestion is to buy it; it's not much more expensive than the rent. The daily environment where our tribe lives is somewhat drier than the ordinary Wu domain, making it far more suitable for human sacrifices to live. You could buy some sacrifices to cultivate mulberries, and then you'd be able to supply sacrifices on a regular basis."
Wei Yuan turned grave. "Human sacrifice is my bottom line. I will never send a single person to your altars!"
Tianyu seemed rather dismissive. "Is it as though you humans haven't sold us enough sacrifices already? Besides, even if you won't sell, plenty of others will—alright, alright, I won't say another word. If you don't want to provide sacrifices, that's fine too. Just pay a portion of brocade as tax each year according to the land area."
Wei Yuan examined the location of the land. It was fully three thousand li away from Qingming, situated in an odd position that lay quite close to the Leize Tribe.
"This land wouldn't happen to belong to someone else, would it?"
Tianyu gave a wicked grin and said, "I told you he'd see through it, but the Old Ancestor wouldn't believe me! Hey, Old Ancestor, you lost! Remember, two great-great-granddaughters! I'm going to take my pick once we get back!"
The face of the Sun of the Great Desolation materialized out of the void, snapping crossly, "You don't get to pick! You'll take whichever ones you're given!"
Then he turned to Wei Yuan and said with solemn gravity, "Strictly speaking, that land was originally ours, but more than half of it was later seized by the Leize Tribe. It's well-suited for human sacrifices to dwell in, which is why everyone fights over it. If you're willing to deploy troops, I can hold off the Nether Shamans of the Leize Tribe for you. Once you take it, every human sacrifice on that land will belong to you."
"How many people are on that land?"
"Roughly two hundred thousand, maybe three hundred thousand. It's hard to say for sure."
"Good. Then let us swear an oath!"
The Sun of the Great Desolation manifested his full figure with a solemn demeanor. He had just uttered the words, "Ancestral Shaman above," when Wei Yuan interrupted him. Wei Yuan handed over a thick ledger covered densely with detailed clauses.
Wei Yuan said, "This is a new type of oath I devised. A drop of blood and a signature with your true name will suffice. The terms of the oath are on this page, already filled out automatically."
The Sun of the Great Desolation took the thick contract and actually sat down to read it carefully, page by page. From this, Wei Yuan could see that the old Shaman's boorish and rough exterior was entirely an act.
Even reading at exceptional speed, it took him a full quarter of an hour to finish. Tianyu had managed only three pages before his head spun and his vision blurred, tossing the book aside.
At last, the Sun of the Great Desolation finished reading and said, "Not bad at all. A bit wordy, but surprisingly free of traps. You humans can be honest after all."
Wei Yuan smiled. "There are many days ahead. I might fool you once or twice, but could I keep fooling you forever? The moment a single trick is discovered, our relationship is finished."
"Makes sense!" The Sun of the Great Desolation pricked his finger, signed in blood, and returned the oath to Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan likewise signed in blood, then said to Tianyu, "Sell this batch of brocade as fast as possible. The primary objective is to choke off the Leize Tribe's sales channels. From now on, ensure they cannot sell a single bolt!"
Tianyu nodded, then went over some finer details with Wei Yuan. What followed was the lengthy process of cargo handover and transit.
Wei Yuan returned to Qingming ahead of schedule, summoning several close and trustworthy caravan managers. He instructed them, "I will give you a hundred thousand bolts of machine-woven brocade. Sell them through our own merchant shops in Badu. Keep the price consistently one tael of immortal silver lower than the prevailing market rate, and cap sales at one hundred bolts per merchant per day. Make as much noise as possible, so everyone knows we have brocade that is both cheaper and better."
One manager remarked, "Brilliant! That way, we can use a very small volume to completely choke off their distribution channels. However, maintaining that price later on will require massive quantities of brocade. Do we really have that much?"
"You need not worry about that. Just find a way to strangle the shipments of the Ningzhou brocade guilds for the next two or three months."
Three months from now, the Ningzhou brocade guilds would not be able to sell a single bolt.
Chapter 608