The merchant guilds of Ningzhou turned out to be far more united than Wei Yuan had anticipated.
Over the course of the following month, three more attacks were launched against shipments of Qing brocade, cutting the volume purchased from Qingming by half. Many guilds preferred to forgo lucrative profits from grain and elixirs rather than dare touch Qing brocade again.
The volume of raw silk exported through the pass also plummeted. If not for replenishments of Zhao silk and the substantial reserves Wei Yuan held in reserve, they would not even have had enough silk to supply the Shamans.
At first, Wei Yuan did not pay it much mind. He had been immersed in his daily routine of drilling Five Elements Dao soldiers and alternating it with gathering qi—until word arrived that a merchant caravan transporting spiritual wood for Qingming's infrastructure had been plundered, its entire cargo lost.
Wei Yuan was finally enraged.
It was not that he begrudged the three hundred thousand taels of immortal silver spent on the goods, but that this batch of spiritual wood had been designated specifically for constructing the Reincarnation Furnace. This struck directly at Wei Yuan’s Dao path.
With only a moment's reflection, Wei Yuan reached his conclusion. Merchants prioritized profit above all; there was no way they could genuinely act in lockstep. Someone was pulling the strings from the shadows.
In all of Western Jin, only five or six people possessed the influence to pull this off with such ease. After scrutinizing each in turn, Wei Yuan concluded that nine times out of ten, the mastermind was the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince had previously ranked quite low on Wei Yuan's list of adversaries. But now, because he had hijacked one of Wei Yuan's caravans, Wei Yuan promoted him straight into the top three.
After all, Wei Yuan had nothing to ask of the Crown Prince, nor could the Crown Prince affect him directly. In the past, the friction between them had merely been a matter of mutual dislike; now Wei Yuan knew that Imperial Consort Yuan stood between them as well.
Yet would anyone capable of ruling a state really lose his head over a woman and lose sight of military and state priorities?
Wei Yuan did not want an open rupture with the Crown Prince at this juncture, largely because once the Crown Prince was brought down, honours like the Nine Bestowals and the granting of imperial insignia and axes would come knocking at his door whether he wanted them or not. The history books made it abundantly clear: things like that never ended well.
Setting aside his cultivation for the moment, Wei Yuan began reviewing recent major events across Western Jin through the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Soon, a piece of intelligence caught his eye: Western Jin's military grain supplies were running critically low, and the imperial court had requisitioned grain from the eight western commanderies of Ningzhou three times, all to dismal effect.
This intelligence revealed a great deal.
Requisitioning grain in the eight western commanderies of Ningzhou was bound to yield poor results. For one, this was Xu family territory; trying to levy anything here was as hard as scaling the heavens.
Second, thanks to Wei Yuan's arrangements over the past two years, vast tracts of grain fields across those eight commanderies had been converted to mulberry groves. Annual grain output had dropped by roughly six million dan—more than seven hundred million jin. Four million dan of that shortfall was covered by Qingming, while two million dan flowed in from other regions.
With grain prices soaring in the eight commanderies, grain had poured in continuously. But now, with heavy fighting in the north and military rations being depleted rapidly, neighboring regions had no surplus left. Since local production in the eight commanderies was insufficient, local officials and prominent clans naturally hoarded what reserves they had with an iron grip.
Pressing for grain levies despite knowing how futile it would be proved that the court's shortage had reached a desperate extreme.
Upon seeing this intelligence, Wei Yuan decided to launch the second phase of his counterstrike: completely cutting off grain supplies to Ningzhou while simultaneously recruiting displaced refugees on a grand scale.
Wei Yuan also issued a warning to all the merchant guilds: Qingming would no longer guarantee the safety of anyone who refused to purchase Qing brocade.
This threat seemed like empty posturing, quickly becoming a laughingstock among the heads of the great trading firms and clans across the eight commanderies.
Afterward, Wei Yuan went to Xu Henshui's elixir abbey and stayed for nearly a dozen days.
Xu Henshui's mastery of the alchemical dao was profound, and Wei Yuan had received the final true intent inheritance firsthand. With the two primary ingredients—soul yingluo and Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss—now in hand, the two joined forces and successfully refined a cauldron of Kunyuan Longevity Pills.
This batch was exceedingly peculiar, yielding four pills in total: one primary and three secondary.
The primary pill was blood-red, shrouded in swirling fire clouds, its body translucent, harboring a tiny phoenix inside. The three secondary pills ranged from crimson to pale red; atop the highest-grade secondary pill, a natural dao talisman had formed, carrying the meaning of longevity.
The primary pill could extend lifespan by two cycles of sixty years, while the three secondary pills varied from twelve to thirty years.
On the surface, this lifespan extension seemed modest. But once the pills left the cauldron, the two realized the medicine possessed an extraordinarily elevated grade: it granted genuine lifespan, barely diminished by prior consumption of longevity medicines and completely immune to suppression by state fortune and karmic luck. The primary pill was easily worth ten million taels of immortal silver.
For an immortal monarch like Xu Wangu, who had consumed immense amounts of longevity medicine, swallowing an immortal pill purported to grant two hundred years would realistically yield less than a decade of life. To an immortal monarch of Xu Wangu's standing, this pill was a supreme, peerless treasure.
Once the pill was complete, Wei Yuan gathered the cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning to deliberate. In the end, they resolved to submit the primary Kunyuan Longevity Pill to the sect as a meritorious contribution.
The cultivators in Qingming were all exceptionally talented, their dao hearts unusually clear of late, and they were advancing by leaps and bounds. Even Old Taoist Chuhe had begun replanning his path to Scenery Command.
Consequently, aside from Wei Yuan, who was considered advanced in years, none of them worried about their lifespan.
The True Monarchs of the Palace of Grand Beginning were likewise forging ahead fiercely; only two or three harbored concerns about longevity. Even if this Kunyuan Longevity Pill could not alleviate Immortal Monarch Tinghai's injuries, it could be traded with the great clans for immortal artifacts of equal value.
As for the three secondary pills, Xu Henshui—as the chief alchemist who had contributed a primary ingredient and numerous adjuvants—took the thirty-year pill to present to the Xu family's immortal ancestor. The remaining pills, granting twenty-four and twelve years respectively, went to Wei Yuan.
With the distribution settled, Wei Yuan waited another half-month. Autumn yielded to winter, and Imperial Consort Yuan had been back in the capital for some time, yet the appointment of the Qingyang Military Commissioner remained unresolved. Meanwhile, the guilds of the eight commanderies grew increasingly arrogant, even intercepting another of Wei Yuan's caravans.
By this point, the optimization of the Reincarnation Furnace was complete, but construction had stalled for lack of materials.
Wei Yuan felt that if this could be tolerated, what could not? As Xu Wenwu's otherworldly sayings went: when someone steps on your toes, how could you not slaughter their entire family?
Thus, Wei Yuan first summoned several loyal trading firms and had them host a grand auction at Hanyang Pass. The auction would feature numerous rare treasures, including a batch of longevity pills on the level of the Minor Longevity Pill.
News of the grand gathering spread swiftly, drawing wide attention. The prodigal sons of the major merchant guilds and prominent families would never miss such an occasion, and they converged from every direction.
Next, Wei Yuan announced that he would travel to the capital to seek an audience with the King.
It was customary for regional feudal lords to visit the capital for imperial audiences, but Wei Yuan's position was unique. He had only been to the royal capital twice, and had never been summoned since.
Convention dictated that notices be sent to prefectures and counties along the route to prevent misunderstandings. Wei Yuan dispatched messengers to notify Hanyang Pass ten days in advance.
When the new Pacification Commissioner of Hanyang Pass received the dispatch, the teacup dropped straight from his hands, shattering on the floor.
Only when he read further and saw that Wei Yuan would not enter Hanyang Pass, but bypass outside the fortifications, did his soul return to his body. He hurriedly ordered the servants to tidy up.
This new Pacification Commissioner was a Dharma Appearance cultivator over four hundred years old. Among the Xu family elders, his seniority was immense, but his standing was unremarkable and his strength decidedly mediocre. Through decades of slow accumulation, he had barely scraped into the late Dharma Appearance stage, with no hope of further progress, desiring nothing more than longevity.
At present, the defenses of Hanyang Pass were lax, having turned into a base for the Xu family to recruit and train greenhorns. The battle-ready soldiers numbered fewer than fifty thousand, while the remaining two hundred thousand were raw recruits enlisted less than six months ago.
Ever since Wei Yuan dismantled all eight colossal ballistas in one sweep, the court lacked the funds to replace them, and the Xu family was even less inclined to foot the bill.
The Xu family occupied fertile lands and had accumulated wealth for ages; by rights, they should have been extraordinarily wealthy. Yet over centuries and millennia, more than half of that accumulated fortune had been poured into their immortal ancestor's cultivation. Most of the rest was hoarded as private holdings by individual households, leaving the public coffers nearly empty and running a deficit year after year.
Repairing the city defenses of Hanyang Pass naturally required public funds, but where were the public coffers supposed to find any money?
Once the new Pacification Commissioner settled his nerves, he turned to his attendants and said, "As long as he doesn't enter the city, everything is open for discussion! Whatever conditions he asks for, whether food or water, give him as much as we can."
"My lord, shouldn't we reinforce the city defenses?" an aide suggested.
The Xu family elder gave a cold sneer. "Our Hanyang Pass is made of paper. City defenses? Defend with what? Look at the pampered soldiers in this city—which captain or colonel isn't someone's relative? If Qingming's tiger-and-wolf legions actually attack, they'll run faster than anyone!
"Say no more. If Wei Yuan truly decides to attack, you lot can just open the gates and surrender."
"We lot?" A young aide had not yet caught on, until an older aide shot him several pointed glances, prompting the realization.
If Wei Yuan truly turned to force, Lord Pacification Commissioner would certainly have vanished from the city long before. The task of opening the gates to surrender would naturally fall to them.
One official sighed, "In just a few short years, Wei Yuan has become like this. I wonder how many troops he will bring on this journey to the capital."
The Pacification Commissioner stroked his beard and said, "He brought quite a few the previous two times. Now circumstances are different and tensions are running high. By my estimate, this time he will bring thirty thousand!"
The gathered officials drew in a sharp breath.
Meanwhile, within Qingming, Wei Yuan had already assembled an army of one hundred thousand to travel to the capital and seek an audience with the King.
Chapter 683