In this battle, Wei Yuan routed an army of over one hundred thousand from the Leize Tribe with fewer than ten thousand men. He had slain twenty thousand and captured fifty thousand, while suffering fewer than a thousand casualties of his own—a truly glorious victory.
Yet in Wei Yuan's heart lay an accounting of a different dimension. If soldiers were converted into immortal silver, and artillery shells and bullets were likewise converted into immortal silver, then the military expenditure Wei Yuan had consumed in this battle was three times that of his adversary. This was a classic victory of steel and gunpowder.
Afterward, Wei Yuan marched back and joined forces with Cui Yu. The hundred-thousand-strong Leize army besieging Cui Yu had already lifted their siege and withdrawn of their own accord as soon as reports from the front arrived, yet Cui Yu surprisingly had not pursued them.
Wei Yuan found this somewhat strange as well, feeling that it did not quite fit Cui Yu's style. Only upon careful inquiry did he learn that Cui Yu had faced nothing but ill fortune when pitted against Lei Dong; every plan had fallen apart due to unforeseen factors. During a night raid, an inept soldier had fumbled and set off an artillery shell, which in turn detonated several wagonloads of shells, blowing up over three hundred men nearby.
All these mishaps had cast a deep psychological shadow over Cui Yu, making him suspicious of every shadow and thinking Lei Dong was some peerless god of war. When the Leize forces withdrew this time, Cui Yu assumed it was a trap and dared not pursue.
Wei Yuan understood completely. He and Cui Yu then went together to rescue Xu Yi. Following his usual practice, Wei Yuan spent some time piecing together the course of the campaign: he listened to Xu Yi's account while several Dao Foundation warriors debriefed the officers under her command, quickly assembling a panoramic picture of the fighting.
Xu Yi's defeat had stemmed purely from being hopelessly outnumbered. Suddenly surrounded by an enemy force ten times her own size, she had suffered heavy losses after several bitter battles, losing over half her troops. With ammunition and rations exhausted, she had had no choice but to take shelter in an exceptionally perilous, easily defensible redoubt to await relief.
Including baggage personnel, Xu Yi had led seven thousand troops in total. On the day of the battle, however, a torrential downpour occurred, causing many fire guns to damp out and drastically blunting the army's firepower. In the end, over the course of several engagements, Xu Yi lost nearly three thousand soldiers, while inflicting over twenty thousand casualties on the Shamans.
At this point, Wei Yuan realized that neither Xu Yi nor Cui Yu had committed any blunders in their command. Facing over two hundred thousand Leize troops with just over twenty thousand men, the two of them had suffered five thousand losses while inflicting fifty thousand casualties on the enemy.
When facing a child of karmic destiny, the world itself worked against you, and myriad factors outside the battlefield would abruptly manifest—such as Xu Yi being ambushed and caught in torrential rain, or Cui Yu's ammunition suddenly blowing up, and so forth.
The explosion of Cui Yu's ammunition in particular put Wei Yuan on high alert. With firearms becoming widely deployed in the future, the volume of ammunition would only grow. This time, Wei Yuan had brought a full ten thousand artillery shells loaded onto fifty large wagons, and they had all been expended in a single battle. In the future, the quantity of ammunition would only increase; if such a stockpile detonated, it would be an absolute catastrophe.
Thus Wei Yuan resolved firmly that as soon as he returned, he would procure a batch of fengshui array discs from the Heavenly Mechanism Hall, and recruit several senior martial brothers and sisters from the hall to accompany the army and stabilize fortune. Wei Yuan had even worked out the official post's title: Chief Fengshui Officer, rank five, on par with a commandery governor.
The three forces joined together and, led by the Desolate Ancestor Tribe, entered the Red Sand Oasis.
The Red Sand Oasis was situated upon a high plateau spanning several thousand li, with a scorching, arid climate that was starkly different from the rest of the Wu domain. In truth, "Red Sand Oasis" was a collective name for more than seven hundred oases of varying sizes; as the surrounding land was mostly desert and dotted everywhere with dark red weathered rock pillars, it was named the Red Sand Oasis.
For the Shamans, the climate here was quite wretched, so it had been set aside specifically for humans used as sacrificial offerings to dwell. In the eyes of the Shamans, humans were hardy and easy to raise—they could survive wherever they were dumped.
Over several centuries, the humans here had multiplied and thrived, growing from a few thousand souls initially into three hundred thousand today, coalescing into four great clans: Wang, Xie, Zhang, and Li. Each of the four clans had its own strengths, but their shared mission was to continuously supply sacrificial offerings for the Shamans' sacrifices to Heaven.
The largest oasis in the region spanned a full hundred li across, flanked by several lakes, and was home to a major city with a population of over a hundred thousand. Over ten thousand members of the Leize Tribe still remained in this city; having received no news of the defeat, they had not had time to flee. Across the entire oasis region, there were several tens of thousands of Leize Shamans.
When Wei Yuan's army arrived, the local Leize Shamans and garrison troops caused only a minor ripple of resistance. The thousand-odd who fought back were instantly turned into corpses, allowing Wei Yuan to smoothly take control of Red Sand City.
As they entered the city, most of the sacrificial humans lining both sides looked utterly bewildered, unable to fathom why humans would be walking alongside the exalted Shaman lords. Yet they were long accustomed to obedience. Even if baffled, they did not dare speak; whatever the Shaman lords required them to know, they would naturally be informed of, and whatever they were not told was simply not their concern.
Upon entering the city, Wei Yuan ordered Xu Yi to lead three thousand light cavalry to sweep the surrounding Leize settlements. All Leize Shamans were required to assemble outside the city within a specified time limit, on pain of death.
Wei Yuan naturally commandeered the castellan's manor and summoned the heads of the four great sacrificial human clans, along with the representatives of various Leize Shaman factions who had failed to flee, bringing them into the hall.
The castellan's manor was built in typical Shaman style, featuring arched, towering roofs and a cavernous interior rising thirty feet high to accommodate the massive stature of certain Shamans.
The layout of the main hall had already been modified. At the very head of the raised dais stood two chairs, where Tianyu and Wei Yuan sat side by side. Flanking them were several chairs: on the left sat the Desolate Shamans, and on the right sat Cui Yu and other military commanders and cultivators.
On the right, a woman in red was also seated. Although she sat in the back row, the blazing heat emanating—whether intentionally or not—from Sun of the Great Desolation across the hall vanished inexplicably the moment it reached her, shielding Cui Yu and the others in the front row as well.
Sun of the Great Desolation and another Desolate Shaman wore grave expressions, their gazes fixed continuously on the woman in red. The woman, however, did not even lift her head, engrossed in the storybook in her hands.
Curiosity piqued, the other Desolate Shaman whispered to Sun of the Great Desolation, "What do you think she's reading? It seems awfully captivating."
Sun of the Great Desolation mused, "Snatching it is out of the question. But that little brat Tianyu is on friendly terms with the humans; we can have him ask Wei Yuan about it later. If it's good, get one for each of our brothers."
"Sounds good!" The Desolate Shaman's eyes lit up.
Just then, a gentle, serene voice sounded in their ears: "Though this storybook is good, you wouldn't enjoy reading it."
Both Desolate Shamans were startled, their expressions turning even graver.
Up on the dais, Tianyu was uncharacteristically fidgeting in his seat. He whispered to Wei Yuan, "Is it really okay for me to sit here? Maybe I should step down! With two Patriarchs sitting down there, I... my heart's uneasy."
Wei Yuan whispered back, "Sit firm! Show the poise of the richest man around!"
Tianyu said, "What bloody good is being the richest man? If you can't beat others in a fight, aren't you just saving money for someone else? If those two Patriarchs lose their tempers, I'm afraid I'll get beaten black and blue."
At this moment, the hall doors swung wide open. The heads of the four great sacrificial human clans and seven or eight Leize Shamans walked in. Seeing Wei Yuan seated upon the high dais, the Shamans' faces shifted, but they wisely kept their mouths shut.
Seeing that everyone had arrived, Wei Yuan declared, "Leize is already a thing of the past, cast into the quagmire of history. From this moment forth, this land shall once again be bathed in the fiery radiance of the Desolate Shamans! Does anyone object?"
Wei Yuan waited for a while, a burst of sword qi already primed in his hand, but unfortunately, not a single Leize Shaman leaped up to oppose him.
Those inclined to speak out of turn had already been cut down before entering; those left alive to stand here were all obedient Shamans.
Wei Yuan cleared his throat and continued, "From this day forth, the entire Red Sand Oasis along with the surrounding red earth plateau belongs to the Desolate Shamans. In this territory, all old laws of Leize are abolished, and a new code of law shall take effect. The core of this new law divides all inhabitants into four tiers, specified as follows:
"The first tier is named the Desolate race. All who originate from the Desolate Ancestor Tribe and are vetted and recognized by Lord Tianyu are Desolate race, enjoying supreme privileges. The second tier is the Qing race—myself and my people. We are Lord Tianyu's loyal, trustworthy brothers and partners, with privileges equal to those of the Desolate race. The rights of the first and second tiers are as follows...
"The third tier consists of sacrificial humans, and the fourth tier consists of Ze slaves. The obligations of the third and fourth tiers are as follows..."
Wei Yuan spoke at length and in sweeping detail, and in the blink of an eye, a legal code comprising hundreds of statutes was unveiled. Its main thrust was that the upper races of the first two tiers enjoyed all manner of privileges—killing a member of the lower races required only paying monetary restitution—while the lower races bore every sort of obligation, and any offense against an upper race was punishable by hanging.
The legal code was thorough and airtight, leaving Sun of the Great Desolation listening in shock; he had never imagined Wei Yuan possessed such talent. However brainless Desolate Shamans were said to be, one who had cultivated to Sun of the Great Desolation's level had toes far sharper than ordinary minds, and he instantly recognized from this code that Wei Yuan possessed genuine statecraft genius.
To Wei Yuan, however, having the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World draft a legal code was child's play; it could produce thousands of them without repeating a single clause.
Next, Wei Yuan ordered the Leize Shamans taken away. Cui Yu then left the hall to lead troops in scouring the city for Leize Shamans, confiscating all their possessions and placing them in centralized detention.
The sacrificial humans remained largely untouched for now. Under the pretext of taking inventory of the offerings, Wei Yuan instructed the patriarchs of the four great clans to send all youths of appropriate age in their clans to the castellan's manor for centralized aptitude testing.
Once those within the target age range had been screened, Wei Yuan intended to test the entire population of sacrificial humans, striving not to overlook a single promising talent.
With fundamental order established, Wei Yuan ordered the legal code promulgated. Then came the task of taking stock of property, personnel, and local resources, which would take some time.
Detachments of scouting cavalry had already been dispatched to identify strategic locations in preparation for constructing fortifications.
Taking the Red Sand Oasis meant caravans from the Desolate Ancestor Tribe heading into the depths of the Wu domain would no longer need to make a massive detour, shaving off at least several thousand li. Moreover, driving a thousand li north from here to capture a pass city would completely choke off the Leize Tribe's westward trade route. Cutting off Leize's trade route was tantamount to cutting off the Xu family's trade route.
Over the next several days, Wei Yuan continuously erected fortifications at key transit hubs, while large detachments of cavalry arrived from Qingming in succession, along with freight convoys delivering over a hundred wagonloads of weapons and equipment. Wei Yuan steadily established forward bases north of the oasis, stockpiling military supplies, seemingly intent on driving north.
After a few days of this, Tianyu finally could not hold back and approached Wei Yuan, asking, "Didn't we agree that you'd use this place to plant mulberries and produce silk? Why haven't I seen you survey a single acre of farmland?"
Wei Yuan slapped his thigh, only now remembering that he had completely forgotten all about it.
Chapter 625