Chapter 272: The Preparatory Work for the New City
Chapter 272: The Preparatory Work for the New City
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: Hitesh
At Great Yan Dynasty's northeast region, in its northeastern corner, there laid a remote and nameless coastal plain, and it was also where Purple Leaf City was situated. Led by Ye Zidou, like the lichen with the most potent vitality, several million people quietly set their root here, sprouted, and gave birth to their offspring. They accumulated their strength a little bit at a time, and gradually accumulated Ye Zidou's capital for establishing a kingdom of his own.
In those years, as the concubine's son of Ye clan from Tianfang Kingdom, Ye Zidou had offended innumerable elders and talented youths in his own clan. Eventually, he was sent out by his clan to build a new city in this ghostly place. As a matter of fact, this region was personally designated by some elders of his clan, as they compelled Ye Zidou to develop Ye clan's influence in this region. This was despite the fact that during a span of several hundreds of years in the past, this coastal plain had already devoured several tens of ambitious sons of nobility from Tianfang Kingdom.
During Spring, this place was dry, with fine sand flying and filling the air. The Summer was extremely hot, accompanied by typhoons, while Autumn had its days pouring with endless thunderstorms. And when Autumn's tail just swept across the earth with raging thunders, the snowstorm that blotted the sky and blanketed the earth would have already arrived, whistling from the snowfield to the north, bringing with them an extremely cold temperature that could freeze and shatter large boulders into the tiniest sand scattered on the beach. On top of that, every now and then, some aquatic demons would come wreaking havoc on the shore, and some fiendish demons from the ocean would occasionally pass by and engage in some looting, making this place a harsh land that could even be compared to the nether hell.
However, Ye Zidou had deliberately set his foundation here, and built a city in this harsh land. After several tens of years of development, the Purple Leaf City had become the brightest pearl in the easternmost region of Great Yan Dynasty. Be it the merchants of mountain products who traveled from south to north, or the jewelers always visiting the Great Eastern Ocean, or the slave traders who came and went in large parades and armed to the teeth like a real army, they all had taken Purple Leaf City as the post station where they could take some rest before continuing on their journey.
As people would always greet, ‘May you have a thriving business and money rolling in’, Purple Leaf City was currently a perfect demonstration of this phrase. It was strategically located in a very dangerous place within an extremely harsh environment, while a full ten thousand miles westward of it was an uninhabited land with no trace of any living being. Therefore, Purple Leaf City had become Great Yan Dynasty's only city in this part of the region that covered ten thousands miles of land, and because of that, it was making more money than Little Meng City. On top of that, as the local specialty here was many times more abundant and precious than of Meng Mountains, those who visited this place were Great Yan Dynasty's first-class and strongest merchants.
One thousand two hundred miles to the east of this coastal plain where Purple Leaf City was built, a saber-shaped peninsula abruptly stretched out from the mainland, stretching eight thousand miles straight to the southeast and into the ocean. The part where this peninsula connected with the mainland, which was also its widest area, only measured roughly three hundred and eighty miles. The peninsula became narrower as it stretched further into the ocean, and when it came to the southeastern tip of it, it only measured roughly one hundred miles from shore to shore.
If one could look at it from the sky, this nameless peninsular was a sharp saber that the mainland poked into the Great Eastern Ocean.
The peninsula was filled with lofty mountains and high ranges, and only a few little plains among the mountains could be used for farming. The mountains were fully grown with countless black pine trees, forming dense woods that had not been visited by any human beings for several tens of thousands of years. The tallest pine tree had a diameter of one hundred feet, and stood over two thousand and eight hundred feet tall. Uncountable rare and precious herbs thrived in these mountain woods, while numerous formidable and savage beasts and birds made their home here. Countless mountain spirits and water ghosts were hiding in the darkest shadows inside these woods.
Right now, at the southeastern tip of the peninsula, at a place less than ten miles away from the ocean, one hundred tall and burly Long Bo men, with the tallest of them standing over one thousand and five hundred feet tall, were seen carrying a small hill each, running back and forth on a very wide plain. While burping, they kept looking around, and when they saw an area with uneven terrain, they would rush over, grab the little hill from their shoulders, and smash the uneven ground with it. They kept smashing and slamming until the ground sunk deep into the earth and looked as smooth as a mirror. Only then would they walk away satisfyingly.
After being tortured by these Long Bo men, the plain measuring roughly fifty miles in both width and length had sunk several tens of feet into the earth. Its surface was now at least several tens of times harder than steel, and had become a foundation that looked like a giant piece of steel plate.
Several tens of thousands of burly men with great strength were seen carrying large baskets behind their back, filled with sand, wood dust, metal powder, rubbles of jade, and many other pieces of trash with the characteristic of either five elements or none of the five elements. They threw these trashes onto the ground, pilling them into one little trash hill after another. Then, those Long Bo men would rush over, happily wield the small hills and give these trash hills a round of heavy beating and smashing, forcibly stamping them into the ground.
Among these trashes were also some sulfurs, blood of black dogs, human and pig feces, and many dirty, strange objects, and that too in great amounts. When they were mixed with those materials of various elements, this foundation would have a very strong natural defensive strength against any escape arts of five elements, as even those Yin deities or strayed ghosts would not be able to travel freely across it.
This was an evil technique recorded in the Scroll of Stealing, especially used in breaking all escape arts of five elements or escape techniques used by Yin ghosts. Except for innate escape arts, or a few rare divine abilities of spirit escape, when all the acquired escape arts were faced with this kind of blended materials, no one would be able to let one travel freely through it, even if one poured in all their efforts to perform hand incantations, reciting spells, and changing different escape arts. As a matter of fact, the things that were found the most in Scroll of Stealing were all kinds of peculiar escape arts, methods of breaking through restrictive formations, and stealing in somebody's house. Thus, the methods preventing someone from breaking into one’s house easily were also the knowledge that had been greatly emphasized upon in the Scroll of Stealing.
For an expert in thievery, it was natural that he had to know how to better prevent a thievery himself.
Apart from these construction workers who were bustling about, there were also a group of several dozens of lady officials from the inner imperial court, each clad in a long dark dress and wearing a tall crown on their heads. They were seen holding various instruments, measuring and surveying the terrain, while drawing and plotting the design of a grand and magnificent city on a huge piece of paper. All of these lady officials had a very youthful and beautiful visage, and a slender and curvy body figure. Every single one of them was an extraordinary beauty who was one in ten thousand. Moreover, each of them was smart and capable. They knew how to do land surveying, drawing and plotting the design of a scaled city, and could conduct planning and designing of every single functional part of the new city, while their attainments in each of these skills were no weaker than a grandmaster who had spent his entire life in constructing cities.
Also, there were many young lady officials with identical outfits flying here and there on sword beams. They were holding whips in their hands, supervising the construction workers in carrying out their respective tasks, and when they noticed someone was slacking on their jobs, they would immediately give him a fierce strike. Those were whips made using the skin of great pythons, and with a casual strike, they could easily leave a one-foot deep trench on the ground, which was more than enough to frighten those construction workers, who dared not to be slackened on their jobs again.
Meanwhile, amidst the mountain ridges off in the distance, there were some lady officials leading many imperial eunuchs with them, supervising large groups of construction workers in harvesting rocks and wood logs, and many other construction materials. In some valleys at a further distance, some lady officials were supervising construction workers in digging out mines, harvesting metal ores from under the ground. And right in the same valley, they forged some furnaces, using them to melt various metals into ingots, keeping them aside so they could be used in the near future.
This was a group that consisted of a total of three thousand lady officials, who were taught meticulously by the inner imperial court of Great Yan Dynasty. Every single one of them could be a chief administrator, capable of running a city. When all three thousand of them were gathered in one single place, they possessed the ability to run an entire vassal kingdom. But, right at this moment, their status was merely Princess Zhang Le's private belonging. Once Princess Zhang Le married in the future, these three thousand young and beautiful lady officials, whose cultivation base were at least Xiantian realm and above, would all become the lady-in-waiting that formed part of Princess Zhang Le's dowry.
Princess Zhang Le would then select 108 ladies from among them, who would later become her future husband's concubines.
On the peak of a lofty mountain several tens of miles away was a flat field where one could overlook this piece of plain. There stood Wu Qi, wearing a sad face as he breathed out a long sigh and looked at those hardworking lady officials. Three thousand young and beautiful girls, every single one of them equipped with a vast expert knowledge, and their fates now completely tied to Wu Qi. When they were given to Princess Zhang Le as her personal belongings and followed Wu Qi to this peninsula to work on the preparation work for the construction of the new city, they had already been branded with Wu Qi's seal, and could no longer ditch that status for the rest of their lives.
"That damn Yu Xuan! I only bribed you with thirty cities, asking you to pick some capable helpers for me, and you actually brought me all the lady officials who are specially trained by the inner imperial court!" Wu Qi cursed the man who was now far away in Ji City, his eyes bloodshot.
What an excellent attitude in handling his job! Once Yu Xuan the old fogey accepted the bribe, he would definitely get things done beautifully. Not only he doubled the goods and materials that amounted to an astronomical figure requested by Wu Qi, even for the manpower that Wu Qi requested, he had devoted all his effort in picking a batch of the most capable and reliable people that he could find in Ji City.
Since they were born, these lady officials had been taken into the inner court, and they were brought up under elite education and brainwashing. When they reached their adulthood, and once they took a person as their master, they would hand their soul and their life to the master. Originally, when some members of imperial clans got married, such as a prince or princess, a batch of these lady officials would be given to them, helping them in running their mansions and all trifling matters. But in the end, Yu Xuan, the old fogey who carried his job with an excellent attitude, had given all these three thousand lady officials to Wu Qi, and made them take Princess Zhang Le as their master.
Three thousand experts in the field of administration… Great, this was excellent!
But, at the thought of these three thousand young and pretty experts in the field of administration becoming a part of the dowry in the future, Wu Qi just felt something was not so right.
Although he had come to this world for quite some time, Wu Qi still could not accept some customs in this wicked world. For example, the human medicine which Lu Chengfeng had to consume on a daily basis, or the custom that raised someone like they were merely some items, and could be given out to someone else as a reward.
Nevertheless, with this group of three thousand lady officials, and the imperial army consisting of one hundred thousand eunuchs who Princess Zhang Le brought here from the Garden of Zhang Le, and the three hundred thousand hard laborers that were transported over here using the teleportation formation, Wu Qi totally did not have to worry about any matters concerning the construction of the city. During the past two months, he just kept watching at how under the command of these lady officials, this piece of large foundation was slowly tidied and opened up by the hard labor, in preparation for the constructing the first city that wholly and truly belonged to him in the future.
"Well, screw it! I can always send all three thousand of them to someone in the future. I bet it will make a great gift."
Feeling a headache, Wu Qi decided not to pay any attention to these messy matters. He gave Princess Zhang Le a look, who was flying here and there with a group of several dozen personal guards and maids, pointing her fingers at every single site. He shook his head, then fished out a Yin deity with the cultivation base similar to early-stage of Nascent Divinity realm from the Spirit Breeding Ring. He sprayed out a jet of Divine Flame of Order, and the Yin deity immediately let out a horrifying howl, while a thread of its true spirit leaped out and vanished into thin air, entering into the cycle of reincarnation. Meanwhile, the enormous and pure soul energy left behind by it transformed into a ball of pure soul energy, and was devoured by a bright light that shot out from between Wu Qi's brows.
This was the last Yin deity among the several hundred Wu Qi abducted in the Meng Mountains.
Relying on the energy from these Yin deities, the strength of Wu Qi's soul was currently equal to the sum of a few early-stage Nascent Divinity cultivators.
After that, he took out all eighteen celestial fiend puppets and made them hover in a row before him. After spending two months in preparation, it was now the time to refine them.