Chapter 480

Cai Qiu’s Treasure Hall sells Bone-Burning Pills at 490,000 taels each, Premium Bone-Shedding Pills at 200,000 taels, and Meridian-Cleansing Pills at 250,000 taels.

The batch of pills Jiang Xinfan brought back sell for 750,000 taels for Bone-Burning Pills, 300,000 taels for Premium Bone-Shedding Pills, and 370,000 taels for Meridian-Cleansing Pills.

Thus, buying these pills from Frost Ash Society costs about fifty percent more than normal market prices.

This isn’t hard to understand—after all, it’s an unofficial channel; those who dare sell them take risks, and a fifty percent markup is likely due to Ji Hong and Jiang Xinfan being internal members of Frost Ash Society.

With the pills replenished, Xia Hong naturally began another round of seclusion.

Meridian-Cleansing Pills, when paired with the Twelve Blood Meridian Art, serve two purposes: one is to flush out impurities from the meridians, the other is to enhance the efficiency of qi and blood circulation.

The former purifies and unblocks the meridians, releasing the body’s latent potential to slightly increase strength; the latter directly accelerates cultivation speed.

Without breaking through his Xianyang realm, Xia Hong could only rely on this to improve his strength, and to shorten the time needed to reach Xianyang’s late stage, he likewise depended on it.

“Continuously buying them isn’t sustainable; once we return to Xia Cheng, if we can reverse-engineer the formula, it’ll be easy—but the only pity is, the Twelve Blood Meridian Art’s cultivation requirement is too harsh: one must possess a top-tier combat body with base strength exceeding five zong at the moment of breaking through Yuhán, otherwise there’s no eligibility to cultivate it, making widespread promotion impossible…”

The Blood Ginseng Pills from Muyin Town are a watered-down version of Meridian-Cleansing Pills; Great Xia has already mastered their refinement. Even if we can’t distribute them to everyone in Great Xia, merely lowering the requirement to ordinary top-tier combat body Zizhi would have an immensely terrifying impact.

Thinking of this, Xia Hong looked at the Wu Dao Lotus Platform beneath him and murmured softly: “Staying outside is always too busy; once back in Xia Cheng, I’ll use the Wu Dao Lotus Platform’s technique derivation function to focus on studying the Twelve Blood Meridian Art—ideally, create a watered-down version that lowers the cultivation requirement, so it can be maximally promoted and still deliver tremendous results!”

Great Xia’s greatest weakness is its too-short rise—only fifteen years—likely making it hard to find similar in the entire Zhen-level encampments.

On one hand, this is certainly something to be proud of; after all, achieving dominance in a region within such a short time is remarkable; yet on the other hand, it means Great Xia lacks depth. It’s easy to dominate the small, blocked region of the Nine Towns in the southern foothills, but in places like Mao’ao River, facing ancient Fan Zhen powers, the inherent deficiency immediately becomes apparent.

Releasing the body’s latent potential to slightly increase strength, and accelerating qi and blood circulation to boost cultivation efficiency—these two functions apply to all cultivation realms and last a lifetime; if truly widely promoted, they could maximally bridge the unbridgeable time gap between Great Xia and Fan Zhen powers, or even more ancient lineages.

“75 jun—my strength has finally moved slightly, but the room for improvement seems minimal; every bit helps, mainly to accelerate my cultivation speed and break through to late Xianyang as soon as possible…”

After a moment of contemplation, Xia Hong closed his eyes and began cultivation immediately.

………………

Like the Nine Towns region, the four Fan Zhen of Mao’ao River share nearly identical institutional designs, down to the finest local appointments.

Within a Fan Zhen, the Fangbo is supreme; beneath him are the Li Yi and Tai Yi; the Li Yi commands the military, overseeing all military affairs—including all commanding generals and officers under the Military Bureau—and nominally controls them all; the Tai Yi governs civil affairs, managing the six bureaus: Military, Jurisdiction, Justice, Personnel, Civil Affairs, and Finance—all six bureau heads theoretically answer to the Tai Yi.

Of course, these are merely the top-tier structures of the Fan Zhen.

With a territory spanning tens of thousands of square kilometers, these top figures control the overall direction; specific local affairs are naturally handled by the next level of local departments.

That next level is the Six Bureaus of each commandery and city.

Thus, it’s interesting: the core administrative departments and local subordinate institutions of the four Fan Zhen have names exactly reversed from Great Xia’s.

Great Xia has Xia Cheng’s Eight Bureaus, and local Eight Departments;

the four Fan Zhen have Zhencheng’s Six Departments, and local Six Bureaus.

When mentioning the Six Bureaus, one must discuss the relationship between the Commandery Governor and the Six Bureaus.

The Commandery Governor is the head of a commandery, typically appointed from the Fangbo’s son; even if not his son, he is always the strongest and most influential person in the Fan Zhen after the Fangbo.

Such individuals stand just one step below the Fangbo; for them to govern a commandery is already extraordinary—if they also controlled the local Six Bureaus, there would be virtually no hierarchical distinction between commandery and Zhencheng.

To prevent local powers from growing too strong, all four Fan Zhen adopted the same measure: weaken the Commandery Governor’s authority; except during special periods, the Commandery Governor has only supervisory power over the Six Bureaus, not command authority.

In other words, the heads of the Six Bureaus answer only to their Zhencheng superiors, follow Zhencheng orders in daily affairs, and their appointments, dismissals, and promotions are all managed by Zhencheng—the Commandery Governor cannot interfere.

Of course, the Commandery Governor’s supervisory power is no mere formality: he may inspect the Six Bureaus’ accounts at will, investigate their staff, and if he finds any irregularities, he may report directly to the Li Yi or even the Fangbo.

Thus, the relationship between the two is delicate: there is an element of hierarchy, yet they are not fully superior-subordinate.

This institutional design clearly aims to prevent local powers from growing too strong; those in high positions surely see this clearly.

To avoid suspicion from superiors, the heads of the Six Bureaus and the Commandery Governor maintain a deliberate distance, never growing too close.

The Commandery Governor’s mansion and the Six Bureaus normally operate independently; they only collaborate when ordered by the Fangbo or the Li Yi.

Yet, despite not commanding the Six Bureaus, the Commandery Governor still holds considerable authority within the commandery—for example, the vast majority of Commandery Guards and Zhen Guards fall under his control.

The Commandery Governor’s primary duty is defending his territory; he must have troops, so unless ordered by the Fangbo, Li Yi, or the Military Bureau, these Commandery and Zhen Guards obey only the Commandery Governor—they are essentially his personal armed force.

The Commandery Governor cannot lead these troops himself, nor does he have authority to draw personnel from the Military Bureau, so the Commandery Governor’s mansion appoints three Military Advisors; these advisors assist the Governor in administrative affairs and help command the troops—clearly his trusted confidants.

Chen Cang is one of the four Fan Zhen, and its situation is identical!

Yanling has three Military Advisors, appointed in order: Zhao Yixin, Chen Tianhong, Yang Zun.

Chen Tianhong hails from the Longxing Chen clan; given the delicate relationship between the Chen and Chu clans, one would think he could never become a trusted confidant of Commandery Governor Chu Tianshu—but nothing is absolute: Chen Tianhong not only became Yanling’s Military Advisor, he is also the closest among the three to the Commandery Governor.

“Yang Zun is irrelevant—he’s from the Nine Towns, an outsider in Chen Cang; becoming a Military Advisor was likely just for cultivation resources, so his distance from Chu Tianshu is understandable;

but Zhao Yixin is Chu Tianshu’s direct disciple—this relationship is extraordinary; that Chen Tianhong is even closer to Chu Tianshu than Zhao Yixin can only mean he is among the rare few in the Longxing Chen clan who have completely abandoned clan prejudice, unwilling to engage in internal strife, hoping Chen Cang will unite and continue to grow…”

Chen Cang Year 291, November 25th, night

At the main hall of the Chen residence, Ji Hong waited at the door, awaiting Chen Tianhong’s summons.

To be fair, since taking him as his final disciple, Chen Tianhong has treated him well—his daily cultivation resources and treatment within the residence over these past years have been nearly identical to those of the best Chen clan youths.