Counterattack

Once the council concluded, the Crown Prince left his estate and entered the palace, making his way into Chunhua Hall. The hall was newly reinforced with guards, supervising eunuchs, and palace maids. It was secured so tightly that not even a fly could slip inside. Yet these guards were stationed not merely to keep the outside world out, but to keep those within from leaving. The Crown Prince stepped inside with unhurried composure and seated himself in the main hall. Imperial Consort Yuan emerged from the rear quarters and sat directly across from him, offering no greeting or bow. Behind the Crown Prince, a civil official's face darkened at once. He barked, "Insolence! How dare you not kneel before the Crown Prince?!" Imperial Consort Yuan said calmly, "The only one I kneel to is the King." The official choked on his words, unable to formulate a reply. The King of Jin was not dead yet, and the Crown Prince had already begun overstepping propriety. Such a transgression was all too easily recorded against him in the historical chronicles. For that very reason, even though absolute power was already firmly in his grasp, the Crown Prince still put on a show every day by holding court, playing his part to perfection. He had waited thirty bitter years to ascend the throne, determined to become the greatest wise sovereign in the history of Jin. He could not afford to let his reputation suffer the slightest blemish. His expression darkened as he turned to the ministers behind him. "All of you, withdraw." Once the officials had retreated from Chunhua Hall, a feverish heat ignited in the Crown Prince's eyes. "You have finally returned! Father's days are numbered, and the supreme seat will be mine sooner or later. Why must you remain so stubborn?" Imperial Consort Yuan said, "As long as the King draws breath, this is an utter impossibility." The Crown Prince gritted his teeth. "I don't want to wait any longer! If you yield to me now, I promise to grant the post of Qingyang Military Commissioner to Wei Yuan! In the days ahead, as long as we live in harmony, I will value him just as Father does!" Imperial Consort Yuan replied indifferently, "Whether Wei Yuan holds that title in Qingyang matters little. But if you gave that post to anyone else, who would dare accept it? Who could even manage it?" The Crown Prince's composure finally shattered. He seized a teacup and smashed it violently against the floor, snarling, "How am I inferior to Wei Yuan?! Why do you choose him over me?!" "Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand." The Crown Prince's face clouded with malice. "Fine, fine, fine! Then I shall watch and see what miserable end your Wei Yuan meets!" Imperial Consort Yuan said, "My royal father watches like a prowling tiger. If you treat Wei Yuan well, you gain an extra anchor and a bulwark for your western gate. If you push him too far, guess whether he will accept my father's imperial honors instead?" The Crown Prince sneered darkly. "The King of Zhao always fancies himself a paragon of enlightened rule. Once I have secured the throne completely, I intend to test my strength against his. It is high time to take back the two commanderies that were seized. Heh, Father was the one who lost them, after all!" With that, the Crown Prince rose and swept away in a flurry of his sleeves. As he passed Imperial Consort Yuan's sole remaining maidservant, he suddenly swung his arm and struck her across the face with a vicious slap. The maid accepted the blow impassively, though her cheek quickly swelled. That night, the Crown Prince did not remain to sleep in the palace. Instead, he took two concubines straight back to his manor. But the moment he passed through his gates, several urgent dispatches arrived in quick succession, all bearing military intelligence from the north. The Crown Prince rerouted his steps to the study and spent the night reviewing the reports. The most critical among them came from Prince Ying, who had sent three consecutive missives demanding one hundred thousand soldiers, fifty thousand breastplates, and one hundred thousand dan of military provisions. Furthermore, Prince Ying's wording was fiercely sharp. He explicitly demanded Qingming breastplates; if Qingming breastplates were unavailable, they had to be replaced with armor of equal quality. If that could not be achieved, Prince Ying named the Minister of War directly, demanding that he report to the front line to command the troops and repel the enemy in person. Accompanying the letters was a suit of armor produced by the Ministry of War, sent back by Prince Ying. Stained with blood, it had been cleaved almost in two along a diagonal slash, bearing grim testament to the wearer's gruesome demise. Disregarding the filth, the Crown Prince examined the gash closely. Seeing the chaotic grain along the fracture and the conspicuous fissures and air bubbles, his face turned black. He lifted the piece to test its weight, then let out a heavy snort of disgust. A standard Qingming breastplate weighed thirty jin, never deviating by more than three liang. Yet this armor did not even weigh fifteen jin, to say nothing of the fact that its steel was vastly inferior to Qingming's. The Crown Prince unrolled a map and carefully studied the position of Prince Ying's defensive line. Though Prince Ying had not stated it outright, the Crown Prince understood that if this matter were not resolved, the hundreds of li of fortifications Prince Ying held might collapse entirely; falling back a hundred li would be the best possible outcome. And so the Crown Prince stared at the map through the night, weighing his options again and again. He had reviewed less than half of the dispatches when daylight broke, bringing with it the hour of the morning court. *** In Qingming, Wei Yuan was hard at work training the Five Elements Dao soldiers. Nearly three hundred pixel Dao soldiers stood in their assigned formations across the square before him, arrayed in the Sharp Metal Demon-Slashing Array. At the heart of the formation, a dark red demon saber was slowly coalescing into form. With a flick of Wei Yuan's divine sense, the demon saber flew out of the array and cleaved a nether iron target—forged to withstand Dharma Idol-level attacks—clean in two. Wei Yuan was fairly satisfied with the striking power of this demon-slashing blade. It was sufficient to slay an early Dharma Idol cultivator, heavily injure an intermediate one, and wound an advanced one. Yet the Dao soldiers were not true Dao Foundation cultivators after all; the strength of these two-hundred-plus pixel soldiers was merely comparable to standard template cultivators. As a result, the speed at which they formed the demon saber was agonizingly slow, requiring half a day just to condense a single blade. Its practical utility fell short. However, this was only the beginning, proving that the method was viable. Wei Yuan added the Sharp Metal Demon-Slashing Array to his optimization registry and submitted it to the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World for deep refinement. The Dao soldiers then began rearranging themselves to practice the next formation: the Blood-Transforming Soul-Capturing Great Array. Wei Yuan had quite a number of formations left to practice. His lengthy list included unorthodox setups such as the Spirit Refining Array, the Ten Thousand Souls Banner Array, and the Yin-Yang Harmony Array. While immersed in his cultivation, Wei Yuan's heart suddenly stirred. An intelligence report was delivered from the Hall of Governance: a merchant house in Ningzhou specializing in the sale of machine brocade had been attacked by assailants in the night. The premises had been burned to the ground, all merchandise reduced to ashes, and neither the proprietor nor the clerks had escaped alive. This was already the second incident this month. The previous one had involved a caravan transporting machine brocade that had been ambushed on the road; every driver and laborer had been butchered without exception, and even their accompanying dog had been slaughtered. Wei Yuan knew then that the Ningzhou brocade guilds had finally launched their counterattack. These large guilds had expanded aggressively during the period of trade with the Shamans, manufacturing looms relentlessly for an entire year. Not only had they hired back veteran craftsmen, but they had also multiplied their apprentices several times over. All of this represented dazzling immortal silver. Naturally, they were unwilling to watch it slip away, and they would never meekly surrender the Ningzhou brocade market to Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan had long anticipated this, and he immediately initiated the first stage of his contingency plan. He summoned the directors of every merchant house in Western Jin and announced three measures. First, the purchasing price of raw silk was raised by thirty percent. With this increase, the silk alone in a single bolt of brocade cost four taels! Taking everything into account, the Ningzhou brocade guilds would need to charge over eight taels per bolt just to break even, unless the authorities and the Xu family were willing to reduce taxes and land rents. Second, grain shipments to Ningzhou were slashed. Qingming currently shipped four million dan of grain to Ningzhou each year, sustaining two million people at the bare survival baseline of two dan per person. In a single stroke, Wei Yuan cut one million dan. Third, grain and medicinal pills were placed on a quota system tied directly to machine brocade. Anyone who did not sell Qingming machine brocade would receive no quota for grain or Little Cultivating Origin Pellets. The announcement of these three measures provoked an instant uproar among the Ningzhou merchant houses. But Wei Yuan paid no heed to the merchants' complaints, informing them plainly that until the murderers were handed over, the quota system would remain untouched. Thanks to its superior quality and diverse patterns, Qingming machine brocade had already made a name for itself, earning the title of Qing brocade. It lagged only slightly behind Ning brocade and far surpassed the fabric produced in the State of Zhao. In the market, merchants spoke only of fabric made in Zhao, not of any recognized 'Zhao brocade.' Having established his initial countermeasure, Wei Yuan returned to his regular routine: cultivating his Dao arts while brooding over maps every day, contemplating where to poach talent and where to wage war. *** Shanyang Commandery, Ningzhou. Inside a magnificent guildhall within the commandery seat, guests gathered like swarming clouds. The entrance was packed with an assortment of lavish carriages, and several flying boats were even moored in the distance. Today was an emergency conference of the merchant associations from the neighboring commanderies. Almost every director of the major merchant associations had arrived, and many clans had sent their family heads in person. Inside the great hall, the head of the Yao family sat prominently in the center of the high seats, his face glowing with vigor. Flanking him were the head of the Xu family, who managed the medicinal herb trade, and the head of the Lu family, who dealt in grain production. The head of the Mi family sat in the eighth seat on the left. Just a few years earlier, he had firmly held one of the top three positions. As the meeting commenced, the Mi family head spoke first: "Ning silk must naturally be used to weave Ning brocade! I propose a total border closure. Not a single liang of raw silk should be permitted to leave the pass! That will sever the very roots of Qing brocade! Qingming produces no silk of its own; no matter how extraordinary Wei Yuan's abilities may be, he cannot conjure silk out of thin air." The head of the Yao family held his teacup, chuckling softly. "Your Mi family produces barely a few liang of silk to begin with, yet you have the gall to propose closing the passes? We who actually produce silk haven't even spoken, so on what authority does your Mi family represent us? You certainly have a thick skin!" The Mi family head's face flushed crimson with rage. "If Qingming grows too powerful, none of us will benefit! You planted mulberry trees like madmen, and what has come of it? They've already started throttling our grain!" The Yao family head replied placidly, "The State of Jin is vast. What does a minor grain deficit matter? Other regions will naturally make up the difference. If you want to close the pass, fine! Just buy up all the silk at the current market price, and you can keep it closed for as long as you like! If you have the money, close it; if you don't, shut your mouth!" The Mi family head's expression turned ashen. Years ago, before Qing brocade ever existed, he had spoken those exact same words to the head of the Yao family.