Wei Yuan had been waiting at the border early on. In the distance, billowing clouds of dust swept across the horizon, vast and earth-shaking. The roars of colossal beasts echoed like thunder from afar, rising and falling in waves.
For the sound to carry from dozens of li away, these were clearly Dharma Idol colossal beasts—and a whole pack of them at that.
The Qingming defenders had seen plenty of grand spectacles; they swiftly took up positions inside the fortifications, standing ready for battle.
Amid the roaring of beasts, a steel war chariot burst from the dust and slammed heavily onto the ground like a mountain. Even standing at a distance, Wei Yuan could distinctly feel the tremor.
Accompanied by a shrill, primal roar brimming with savage fury, the barbed chariot tilted upward, and twelve pairs of thick, powerful hairy legs extended from underneath. It broke into a full stride, sprinting straight toward them!
Like a true behemoth, the chariot hurtled all the way before Wei Yuan. The hairy legs stomped down to brake, but massive inertia still drove the chariot forward dozens of yards, its thick limbs gouging deep furrows into the earth before it finally ground to a halt.
The whipped-up sand surged over the Qingming defensive works in an instant, giving the defenders inside a thorough dousing of dirt head to toe.
The chariot's roof hatch slowly opened. Tianyu poked his upper torso out, waving excitedly to Wei Yuan. Then his massive body rose into the air as twelve Little Pretty Shamans lifted him out of the chariot, setting him down steadily before Wei Yuan.
Tianyu spoke up immediately: "How do you like my new twelve-wheel-drive ride?"
Wei Yuan was at a loss for words. "Are you talking about that big fellow over there, or the Little Pretty Shamans under your rear end?"
"Hehehe, they're the same thing—no difference!" Tianyu chuckled innocently. Just then, another earth-shaking beast roar erupted from the chariot, cranking the theatrical momentum to the maximum.
Only then did Wei Yuan realize that the roaring came from an exceptionally loud-voiced Desolate tribe mighty warrior. He sat at the back of the chariot, dedicated entirely to roaring.
Tianyu explained, "With a ride like this, the sound is what makes it thrilling! Speed isn't even that important. Mine has professional-grade acoustics. That guy back there is our tribe's designated battle-crier—he doesn't come cheap by the day!"
Before Wei Yuan could comment, Yu Zhizhuo's voice rang out admiringly from a distance: "What a magnificent ride!"
In the blink of an eye, Yu Zhizhuo arrived beside Tianyu's new chariot. Circling it, he scrutinized every detail, even reaching out to squeeze one of its thick, hairy legs while clicking his tongue in wonder.
Tianyu beamed with delight, instantly taking Yu Zhizhuo for a kindred spirit—even though he had no idea who this man was.
After studying it intently for a long while, Yu Zhizhuo declared, "Brilliant concept! I've been agonizing over how mechanical components, engines, and the like are far too delicate. No matter how you treat them, the slightest magical vibration ruins them. Besides, their power output is limp and sluggish, with no real muscle behind it.
"Seeing this chariot made me realize that we cultivators are the best engines of all! Who needs those mechanical contraptions?"
Knowing his martial uncle's old eccentricities were flaring up again, Wei Yuan left him to his research and turned to Tianyu. "What good news brings you here this time?"
Tianyu said cheerfully, "The tribe's Old Ancestors said that since you're resisting the extraterrestrial fiends in the Nether Cold Realm, you're practically one of our own shamans now. So they specifically had me bring an ancient primordial botanical seed as a congratulatory gift!"
Hearing this, Wei Yuan immediately felt a headache coming on.
Of all the spiritual botanical seeds Tianyu had brought before, only a single strand of seaweed had actually sprouted; the rest had shown no life whatsoever. For instance, that rock before—Yu Zhizhuo had already confirmed it was just a rock. Although it had once been an immortal plant seed and retained a faint lingering resonance, to borrow a term from the outer realms, it was what people called a fossil.
Seeing Wei Yuan's skepticism, Tianyu hurried to make amends: "This time it really is different! It came straight from the Old Ancestor's personal treasure vault!" Tianyu then had his men haul over a stone sphere the size of a tabletop.
*Another rock...* Wei Yuan thought to himself. He knew better than to place high hopes on things from the primordial era. Even immortals couldn't outlive the primordial era—how could an inanimate object?
Still, trade was the main business; this was merely a minor interlude.
Tianyu had brought over a thousand mighty warriors carrying hundreds of wagons, totaling ten million jin of goods. Wei Yuan had prepared alcohol and hundreds of thousands of bolts of brocade.
While both sides were busy hauling cargo, Tianyu said, "We have plenty of gray stone where we live, and we've found a new vein of Thunder Sand. As for the spiritual wood you wanted, there's a tribe a hundred thousand li to the west that produces it in abundance; they're more than willing to trade it for woven brocade. All of this can be delivered to you very soon. The elders asked me to find out if there's anything else you need us to do?"
Wei Yuan calculated their recent and upcoming trade volume, then said, "I think it's time we built a road between our two peoples."
"Build a road? What do we need that for? Our mighty warriors don't need roads—where can't they leap across?" Tianyu asked, bewildered.
Wei Yuan explained, "Thunder Sand, gray stone, and spiritual wood are all heavy. Your mighty warriors are limited in number, and using them to haul cargo is far too costly. Once a road is built, freight wagons can pass through, and you can simply have ordinary shaman commoners transport the goods."
Tianyu's eyes lit up. "That's true! Ordinary commoners cost next to nothing, and slaves just need a bite to eat. These goods don't have strict delivery deadlines anyway; they can just haul them slowly! The pay for one Dao Foundation mighty warrior is enough to hire five hundred commoners."
Nowadays, Tianyu was quite sensitive to costs; Wei Yuan found himself somewhat nostalgic for the silly, easily duped Strength Shaman of the past.
Wei Yuan continued, "Our trade is becoming more and more frequent. There's no need to wait until both sides have everything fully assembled before making a trade. We can establish an account ledger in both of our territories and agree upon quota limits for each type of material. As long as it's below the limit, you can ship goods straight to me whenever you want, and I'll do the same. Then, we only need to reconcile accounts once a month—settling the equivalent amounts and rolling over any surplus to the next month. What do you think of this approach?"
"Magnificent!" Tianyu's eyes gleamed as he instantly saw the immense commercial opportunity.
"Then how much brocade do you want?" Wei Yuan asked.
"The more, the better!!" Tianyu answered without hesitation. He then asked in return, "How much gray stone, spiritual wood, and Thunder Sand do you want?"
"Same here: the more, the better," Wei Yuan replied with a smile.
With that, both sides were thoroughly pleased.
Afterward, Tianyu and Wei Yuan discussed the details of building the road. The trade route would lead to Red Sand Oasis. To allow ordinary wagons to travel smoothly, it had to detour around treacherous terrain, making the total length nearly four thousand li. Excluding existing paths, fifteen hundred li still needed to be constructed. With a grand wave of his hand, Tianyu took on one thousand li of construction, leaving Wei Yuan to build only five hundred li.
Once this was settled, Tianyu suddenly said, "Once the road is open, shaman armies will be able to reach Qingming quickly in the future. You'd better build fortifications in advance. We Desolates are just a small tribe; there are matters beyond our control."
"Don't worry." Wei Yuan reached out and patted Tianyu's shoulder—even though Tianyu was being carried by the Little Pretty Shamans, putting his shoulder at a height of fifteen feet.
At this moment, Tianyu did not yet realize that a road did not inherently belong to either side; it belonged to whoever possessed the superior military force.
After seeing Tianyu off, Wei Yuan immediately decided to build fifty new workshops, doubling the production capacity of loom-woven brocade.
With extraterrestrial fiends looming on their doorstep, Wei Yuan had to accelerate the integration of resources from all sides to elevate Qingming's overall strength as much as possible. This demanded immense manpower, and both mortals and cultivators were indispensable.
Under the existing systems of the Nine Kingdoms, mortals held little value, but Qingming had a labor deficit of at least several million people. Relying on refugees arriving spontaneously was far from enough. Wei Yuan decided to give Western Jin another push to induce even more refugees.
Returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan unfolded a specialized map.
The map bore several lines drawn by Wei Yuan himself, each marked with different numbers. Centered on Qingming, the first line indicated the region from which refugees could reach Qingming on their own initiative. This line sat one thousand li east of Hanyang Pass, the maximum distance from which refugees could make it out of the pass. The second line represented the perimeter within which Qingming merchant caravans could gather refugees on a large scale, currently extending six thousand li east of Hanyang Pass.
Within the first line, through a series of operations orchestrated by Wei Yuan, grain prices had already risen by fifty percent. Although grain flowed in from other regions, according to the estimates of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the overall grain supply in that area had declined by twenty million jin each year.
Calculated on the bare minimum of two hundred jin of grain to sustain one person, that meant an additional one hundred thousand refugees each year. In reality, refugees did not wait until they were on the brink of starvation before fleeing their homes, so the actual number would be even higher.
Because grain prices were elevated in this zone, grain from the area within the second line would flow toward it, causing large numbers of refugees to emerge within the second line as well, where Qingming caravans could gather even more of them.
While this was a sound long-term plan, its immediate results were relatively slow. For now, the fastest method remained purchasing refugees directly from the nobles and officials of Jin and Zhao.
As long as there was profit to be made, regional dignitaries like Cui Shutong would naturally devise all sorts of schemes to manufacture countless refugees—as many as one could want.
This method, however, required immense amounts of immortal silver. Wei Yuan had been contemplating what to use to earn it. Brocade would generate massive fortunes in the future, but not quite yet. Once the new workshops were completed, Wei Yuan intended to double the amount of brocade sold to the eight commanderies of Ningzhou while pegging the price right at the production cost of the major brocade guilds, plunging them into a dilemma where producing was ruinous and halting production was equally disastrous.
The ultimate goal was to sweep away all the major brocade guilds, forcing those regions to deal only in mulberry silk and turning them into raw material suppliers for Qingming.
As for other lucrative industries, one had only to look at the various halls of the Palace of Grand Beginning: geomancy, pills, magical artifacts, spiritual plants, and spiritual beasts—those who only relied on raw physical brawn to fight were always the poorest.
After a moment of contemplation, Wei Yuan wrote two words on paper: "Magical Artifacts." In this era of great strife, magical combat was paramount for cultivators. No matter how poor a cultivator was, they could forgo pills and live without a Dao companion, but they had to have a handy weapon.
For a fine magical artifact, many cultivators would not hesitate to sell everything they owned.
With his plans settled, Wei Yuan checked the time and departed Qingming, heading straight for the Northern Mountain Gate.
This journey had two objectives: first, to fetch Eldest Senior Sister to the Nether Cold Realm; second, to consult Patriarch Xuanyue on how to counter extraterrestrial fiends. The threat of extraterrestrial fiends was not the concern of a single person or a single domain. With a powerhouse like the Palace of Grand Beginning backing him, why wouldn't Wei Yuan cling to that massive leg? Furthermore, with Patriarch Xuanyue stepping forward, it would be much easier to uncover veiled historical records left by past predecessors concerning the Heavenly Abyss.
The journey went smoothly. Equipping enough thruster tubes—eight of them strapped to him—Wei Yuan surpassed the speed of a Scenery Command cultivator, reaching the Northern Mountain Gate in just a single day.
Chapter 645