Chapter 2180

The Flash Gold Plains have been chaotic for a thousand years, and with the Dragon God War devastating the entire plain, the economic foundation of the newly founded Cangyan state was weak, and the common people remained poor. As everyone knows, war burns money and lives, and Cangyan's handling of these several major foreign wars has already forced the people of western Cangyan to tighten their belts.

Cost control, cost control—He Lingchuan repeats this phrase several times every day at Baiqiuyuan.

But, the borders are unstable, powerful neighbors eye us hungrily—what domestic stable development are we even talking about? Hah, mere moonlit flowers and water reflections.

So these few wars are unavoidable.

Fortunately, his luck hasn't been bad.

"Actually, the Mou and Ya states probably don't even want to fight. The frequent appearance of the Imperial Flow Elixir has brought vibrant vitality to the mortal realm—only a fool would miss this golden opportunity for rapid development. Besides, the demon realm is in chaos, with the heavenly demons fighting each other to the death; they likely have no bandwidth to concern themselves with mortal affairs." He Lingchuan smiled. "If You Huan had become Grand Regent half a year earlier, the Mou-Ya War might not have happened at all."

On this day, He Lingchuan discussed the public security issues in southern Cangyan with Nan Ronghe.

The Flash Gold Plains were originally a land of sorrow and suffering, with a populace fierce and prone to brawling. Although the Dragon God War swept away a large wave of bandits and ruffians, after Cangyan's founding, the bad habits of theft, encroachment, mutual beating, and weapon fights among the people persisted and were hard to correct.

Added to the strange beast mutations brought by the Imperial Flow Elixir, security pressures across the regions are significant, especially in southern and eastern Cangyan, where the situation is most pronounced.

Nan Ronghe serves as the Commander of the Five Southern Provinces, responsible for maintaining security in these five provinces while also coordinating military affairs. His visit to the capital to attend court this time is to report on his duties, and incidentally, to present the work plan for the next phase.

After hearing Nan Ronghe's account of the rural chaos in the south, He Lingchuan only said a few words: "Hunger and cold breed theft."

He could openly admit his shortcomings without burden, but Nan Ronghe didn't know how to respond—he certainly couldn't say, "Your Majesty, you're right, we're just too poor."

The Nine Abyssal Great Emperor's unification of the Flash Gold Plains is an unparalleled achievement, worthy of a bold and vivid stroke in history. But the early days of statehood inevitably face all kinds of problems, which time alone cannot improve.

Nan Ronghe could only give a light cough: "Take the two villages of Nanyi and Xiang—when they clashed over a bit of land and water source, seven or eight were killed and twenty-odd injured. Originally, with the revival of heavenly and earthly spiritual energy, if they had just stayed put for a month or two, their harvests would have been abundant, enough to relieve their urgent needs. Now life is hard, but haven't we gotten through so many years like this? Yet, they insist on fighting over this trivial, fly-head-sized profit!"

Short-sighted to the extreme! He even felt a pang of anguish and indignation.

"Do those two villages have a blood feud?"

"Yes. Over the past decade or more, many have died at each other's hands. Five years ago, when one family's groom went out to fetch his bride and passed through the other side's territory, he was beaten until his leg was crippled."

"That's it. The Imperial Flow Elixir has come, but hatred is hard to dispel. The weak are prey to the strong, the powerful bully the weak—the Flash Gold people still live by the law of the jungle. These are deep-rooted ills from the past, needing time to gradually resolve." He Lingchuan casually picked up a notebook and began marking it in vermilion, "This period will again require your hard work—strengthen rural security, enforce strict punishments, and properly suppress the folk custom of private brawling."

He Lingchuan recalled that a few days ago, while incognito in the countryside, he walked into a roadside eatery in the suburbs of Ju City, where, on a mud wall stained with fly specks, he saw several large characters written in black charcoal.

Though the handwriting was crooked and uneven, the content was quite serious:

Whoever dares to steal chickens or fish to eat for free—first break their legs, then report to the authorities!

Just these few plain words—most customers entering the shop couldn't read them and had to ask the owner:

"What does it say up there?"

He Lingchuan rubbed his face: "Right—how is the recruitment for teachers at the Yin Dong Academy going?"

Two generations of the Nan Rong family have served as city lords; Yin Dong City and a few other cities in southern Flash Gold are rare havens of stability, with prosperous citizens and literacy rates far higher than elsewhere.

"We've already recruited over 1,200 people to come to the official academy for study, with literacy exceeding five or six hundred characters, training day and night without pause, using the *Five Ethics* personally compiled by Lord Situ. In a little over a month, we'll be able to select the best and assign them to various rural posts."

"How is the preparation for the village schools going?"

"Land is not lacking, but teachers are. Initially, three villages shared one public school. The buildings and land are already in place—over two hundred such sites are under repair and will be ready for use within a month." Nan Ronghe said, "But currently, the enthusiasm among villagers for sending children to school is not high, and enrollment numbers are low."

Attending school costs money, and going to school means delaying farming and labor, directly affecting household income.

"No problem. Government offices, merchant guilds, and inns everywhere need people who can read and do arithmetic. Once each cohort of students completes their studies, you assign someone to post their employment destinations at market gates and city entrances, so everyone knows that attending school leads to respectable work and higher earnings. As for the rest, they'll figure it out themselves."

He Lingchuan set down his brush and earnestly instructed: "With the revival of heavenly and earthly spiritual energy, people's surplus wealth and grain will gradually increase. They must learn to protect their property, or they'll be swindled out of everything. Therefore, popular education and moral transformation must be vigorously promoted—this is greatly beneficial for long-term peace and stability in the region."

Before, most Flash Gold people were utterly destitute, with no surplus wealth to manage; but now, the massive influx brought by the Imperial Flow Elixir is within reach, and ordinary people will soon be able to reap some real benefits and accumulate grain and money. If they remain illiterate and unable to count, they'll easily be cheated out of even the clothes on their backs.

Don't let it happen that while theft and robbery cases decrease, fraud and deception cases instead rise.

"Yes."

Coincidentally, the guards came to report: Lü Qiuwei requests an audience, and Nan Ronghe, having received the order, took his leave.

Lü Qiuwei came to report the seventeen incidents of unrest that occurred in northern and northwestern Flash Gold over the past four months.

Seventeen incidents sound like a lot, but the Flash Gold Plains are truly vast—looking at the sand table map, they appear only as scattered occurrences.

Of these, six involved people trying to carve out their own mountain stronghold, rallying local clans and factions to attack the county seat, plant a flag on the city wall.

The idea sounded fine, but the first step already failed.

They hadn't even had time to put their plans into action when someone informed on them; when the village patrol team rushed into their homes, one group had just finished drinking five taels of inferior liquor, was discussing how to rise up, shouting with fervor, faces flushed, necks thick.

He Lingchuan heard this and couldn't help but press his fingers to his forehead.

The Dragon God War had wiped out the evil bandits, ruffians, and local tyrants on the Flash Gold Plains—yet it inadvertently created space for these small-time troublemakers. Logically, the Nine Abyssal Great Emperor, being the people's choice, should have deterred such nonsense.

But people are a hundred, all sorts and conditions—no wonder, given how populous and peculiar the Flash Gold Plains are, with minds that run on different circuits.

Then it's hard to say "as it should be."

After all, unrest and rebellion on the Flash Gold Plains have persisted for a thousand years, long since become a norm in people's hearts, and cannot be fully corrected in a short while.

Once the Dragon God War ended, some people, seeing the wind cease and the rain stop, felt they could act again.