Chapter 897: Return

Ten miles outside the Nancheng of Luoyang, there was an altar, nine zhang and five chi high. On the altar was a hall, "Asking Heaven." Around the altar, a large group of palace buildings was built. Water systems and landscaping were all complete. There were soldiers standing guard here, but there were no high walls. These buildings were the place for sacrificing to Haotian and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and the ancestral temple of the Wang imperial family was also set up here. Sacrificing to the blue sky, comforting the ancestors.

Ten miles outside the East City, there was also an altar, the same large group of palace buildings, for sacrificing to the earth and the five grains. Praying for favorable weather, a bumper harvest, harmony and peace, no various disasters, and blessing the people on this land.

The agricultural doctors who studied seeds and farming were here, and all the land in this area was planted by them. Sacrificing and studying seeds, improving farming, and increasing grain production—this naturally did not conflict, but rather complemented each other.

The construction of these two places had started long ago, when the repairs inside Luoyangcheng were almost finished and manpower had been freed up. As Wang Yan's subordinates, no one would doubt that Wang Yan couldn't defeat Cao Cao.

Huaxia Year 2907, which was the year 210 of the Western calendar, the first day of the first lunar month.

The altar outside the Nancheng was bustling with noise and excitement. Wang Yan wore a black dragon robe, a long sword at his waist, a crown on his head, and walked in all directions. Amidst the simple, desolate, yet magnificent ceremonial music, he climbed up step by step.

184: From the Yellow Turban Rebellion, gathering the defeated Yellow Turban soldiers, and fleeing to Liaodong. Destroying Gongsun Du, the Liaodong Wuhuan, and conquering the grasslands in the west.

189: Went south to Youzhou.

190: Killed Gongsun Zan.

194: The Battle of Hebei, drove away Yuan Shao, moved to Henan, and obtained the entire Hebei region.

195: Conquered the west, pacified the three-thousand-li grassland, and Fuyu and Goguryeo existed in name only.

200: The navy sent out to sea to find grain seeds returned, obtaining crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn.

201: Took Henan.

202: Zhang Lu and Liu Bei surrendered, obtaining Hanzhong and the eastern region of Yangzhou.

202 to 208: Inspected the governed territory, went deep into the grassroots, and actively reorganized internal civil and military problems.

208: Attacked Cao Cao.

Until before the spring of 209, ended the war, and unified the mountains and rivers.

Until today, the first day of the first lunar month of 210, sacrificed to heaven and ascended the throne.

These steps were the road he had walked over the past twenty-six years. The introduction looked very simple, and in fact, it was also very simple. Of course, this was for Wang Yan, as he was very familiar with this set.

Relatively speaking, the difficulty of this time was actually greater than that of the Song and Ming periods. Because the opponents were stronger and productivity was lower.

During the Ming Dynasty, he defended the Northeast and directly killed the Manchu Qing. Later, because of the peasant uprisings organized by Li Zicheng and others in the Central Plains, the original social structure was shattered, and his troops were the strongest, pushing all the way down.

During the Song Dynasty, he helped his father-in-law of the same path, resisted the Liao and Jin, and then completed the power transition from an internal mutiny with almost no damage.

This time, although there were peasant uprisings represented by the Yellow Turbans, the impact on the original social structure was not very great, and they ultimately just became roving bandits. Those who rose up taking advantage of the situation were all people from powerful clans.

And ever since fighting Yuan Shao, when someone acted as a traitor and sent him a letter, but still couldn't escape death, the powerful clans were wholeheartedly against him.

Moreover, on the other hand, the lack of productivity and the lack of development in various places also severely limited the speed of development. After all, even until now, the common people hadn't eaten their fill, and this was the result of his development for over twenty years, so the difficulty was greater.

However, for him, simple and difficult had differences, but not big ones.

Finally, Wang Yan climbed to the top of the altar. In the heavy tripod, raging flames were burning, and flags were fluttering in the wind. Civil and military officials wore magnificent ceremonial robes. Elite soldiers in bright armor stood solemnly holding halberds.

This was a heaviness unique to China. In this heaviness, the blood and wisdom of ancestors for thousands of years were condensed.

The ritual official presided over the ceremony, and Wang Yan was just a machine without emotion, being manipulated. The great affairs of the country lay in sacrifice and war. Developing generation after generation, many things had fixed rituals. To say how much use they had, that wouldn't be the case, but they represented the inheritance of history and the continuation of civilization, which was the greatest role, indispensable.

After sacrificing and reporting to heaven and earth, Wang Yan officially ascended the throne as emperor, and Guo Jia recited the first imperial decree. After the recitation, the messengers below the altar would take the imperial decree to various places to announce it to the world.

Jia Xu recited the second imperial decree, which was the reward for the civil and military officials. Of course, it was limited to high-level civil and military officials, and local officials were not included. There were too many people, and it couldn't be recited.

The civil and military officials who had followed him since the early years were all founding dukes, with various additions and titles. Civil officials such as Guo Jia, Jia Xu, and Guan Ning, and martial generals such as Liao Hua, Huang Zhong, and Zhao Yun—Lu Bu was even made a Duke of the State, and Zhang Wu, who had followed him since the Yellow Turbans, also became a Duke of the State. Of course, there were also the three Liu Bei brothers, who had surrendered with a force, so giving them a Duke of the State was also normal.

The number of founding dukes was not large, only over thirty people.

The rest were Commandery Dukes, County Dukes, as well as Commandery Marquises, County Marquises, Township Marquises, and Pavilion Marquises, and over a thousand people were enfeoffed, many of whom were not present.

Zhuge Liang was not enfeoffed as a Duke of the State, and not even a duke, just a Commandery Marquis. The main reason was that his seniority was shallow, and his merit only included capturing Jiangguan. Compared to the group of people enfeoffed as Dukes of the State, Liao Hua pacifying the three-thousand-li grassland was too awesome, and even Lu Bu, this famous traitor, had countless war merits from fighting north and south; Zhuge Liang's merit was really not enough to look at.

However, speaking of Zhuge Liang, after the war ended, Zhuge Liang had recommended talented people to Wang Yan, namely Pang Tong, Xu Shu, and a large group of Nanyang hermits who were friends with him.

Zhuge Liang was young and vigorous, and he submitted a letter recommending himself. But Xu Shu and Pang Tong didn't do that; they just steadily served as officials, basically following the same promotion trajectory as Zhuge Liang. This group of people were all capable. The commoner children cultivated by Wang Yan were indeed much inferior in ability. But this was also normal; they were all talented people, and they had talent.

But the base of commoners was large, and after so many years, it wasn't that there were no capable people; on the contrary, there were many. The so-called capital officials in Luoyang were mostly commoner children, who had climbed up level by level. The various dukes and marquises enfeoffed were also mostly commoner children, which was solid proof.

Wang Yan didn't pay extra attention to these two people; capable people would come up sooner or later.

As for the other so-called hermits, this was a relatively special group. Their backgrounds were not the same, but generally, they still belonged to the aristocracy. Those who were truly of commoner background were very few. The main reason was that for commoners, acquiring knowledge was a chasm that was difficult to cross, and the channels were too few.

However, this group of hermits didn't harm people either, and to a certain extent, they could be said to be kind to the people and were quite respected. This group of people all had skills in their hands, either pure talk or cultivating immortality, and they all knew medicine, and were also proficient in things like the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams. Some waited for the time to change, and some were truly reclusive and cultivating, quite divine.

But under Wang Yan, this group of people had a hard time. Because they didn't produce, had no means of production, and whether they were practicing medicine or teaching knowledge, using mental labor or technical labor to exchange for means of production, they had to have the approval of the government, otherwise they would be punished. They also had to distribute land according to the head count, and if their land wasn't planted well, they would also be punished.

If they wanted to be officials, they had to start from being a Pavilion Chief; if they couldn't do the Pavilion Chief well, they would have no official career for the rest of their lives. If they wanted to do technical work, they had to be reorganized; if they weren't reorganized, they couldn't do it.

They weren't even allowed to hide in the mountains, sleeping in the open. Now that the world was initially settled and the large army had no opponents, they began to search the mountains, clear out wild beasts, drive the wild beasts into deeper mountains, not let them come down to eat people and destroy production. In the process, if they encountered hidden households, there was no nonsense—they were caught, given household registration, and distributed land.

In short, they were not allowed to have idle people; they had to work.

Therefore, the so-called hermit experts were rapidly decreasing. A few became officials, a few opened clinics in local areas, or after training, taught in schools. This training wasn't to teach knowledge to these people with profound cultural backgrounds, but to deeply convey the ideological spirit set by Wang Yan. They couldn't interpret the content of the textbooks at will, and the whole country had to remain consistent, which was the top priority.

Most of the rest basically went to do research. There were also a very small number of people who ran to Huashan to join Zhang Lu and went up the mountain to cultivate immortality, which was the only sect Wang Yan recognized. However, these people ultimately couldn't escape either, because Zhang Lu's subordinates also had many people doing research, but they were specializing in Daoist studies, Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and Eight Trigrams.

Wang Yan naturally wasn't so overbearing as to not let other sects exist. He opened sect registration, but the requirements were relatively strict. They had to have clear programs and doctrines, the content had to pass strict review, and restrictions were also placed on the development of believers and sect property. The conditions were too high, and many people couldn't reach them.

The reason for opening registration was mainly because the current ideological trend was relatively intense, and the hundred schools of thought had revived, unprecedentedly prosperous. With Wang Yan's speed of reading books, he was even a bit unable to keep up with the speed of publication. So like-minded people needed a place to deeply cultivate their own culture.

Obviously, the Wenchang Pavilion couldn't accommodate them. This required them to clearly sort out their propositions and find a place to develop themselves. Wang Yan doing this was also using policy to drive them to carry out self-reform.

As for developing into various parties in the future, and then coming to a party struggle, that was impossible. Generally speaking, they were all doing research, either theory or application, or studying life, studying the universe.

Once they started seeking political power, that was wanting to die, and killing a batch would be good for a while. This was a necessary side effect of prosperous cultural development.

Or rather, no matter what, once it developed to a certain extent, it would always seek political power in order to master a greater right to speak. The intensity of the struggle for the Dao was even fiercer than political struggle. The struggle was extended, not unchanging in a fixed field. The most important point was the stance of people.

Speaking back to the titles, the titles Wang Yan gave were not hereditary and perpetual, and the group of meritorious nobles had to be suppressed. Of course, what was suppressed was not the first generation. In this regard, Wang Yan had always been a good boss and absolutely wouldn't do the thing of killing the dog after the rabbit was caught. The reason for cleaning up these old brothers who had fought for the country was only one: they were tired of living and weren't content with their lot, so they couldn't blame him.

He suppressed the meritorious nobles to avoid class solidification and maintain a good upward channel. The first generation was strong, the second generation was strong, but it was impossible for every generation to be strong. He tried his best to avoid letting fools occupy high positions and important posts, which was something that had to be insisted upon.

As for not being hereditary and perpetual, whether the subordinates were willing or not, he had already said it clearly long ago: if they weren't willing, they could go die. He could only guarantee that the descendants of these people, provided they weren't too stupid, could at least live a comfortable life.

This was guaranteed by the system, and there was no need for the national treasury to spend money to raise waste. Just open up business. After all, they had very strong resources, and doing business would inevitably make them rich.

And then when they were short of money, he would clean them up, and everyone would be happy...

Sun Ce and Shi Xie still wisely chose to leave, and they ran to Southeast Asia, taking away a portion of the common people. As for Old Cao, the matter of going to sea had been prepared properly, and he was making final preparations recently, and would leave China for Tianzhu in a little over a month.

In fact, regarding the matter of letting Cao Cao and Sun Ce leave, the subordinates didn't agree. They also thought it would be raising a tiger to cause trouble, and that they might come back to fight them in the future.

To this, Wang Yan also explained the reason, and whether they agreed or not, it was decided.

What they said naturally made sense, but in reality, it was useless. Instead of thinking about whether Cao Cao and the others would fight back in the future, it was better to think about whether their descendants would become powerful clans again, digging at the walls of the empire, destroying the laws of the empire, fooling the emperor of that time, bullying the common people of that time, and causing the people to live in misery and the world to be in chaos.

At that time, whether Cao Cao and the others fought back, was it really that important?

Or rather, if there were no Cao Cao and the others, Wang Yan himself would send people there. And whether he sent Cao Cao and the others, or sent his own people, if the ability of the descendants wasn't good, the final result would be the same. Since there were such capable people, there was really no reason not to use them. Compared to killing them directly here, it was a huge waste.

Because of the lack of manpower, what Wang Yan could do was to finish developing all the land in China before he left, and initially expand outward. If he left and this world still operated, then what the successor had to do was to stabilize the domestic situation, and on the basis of further improving the lives of the people, drive the descendants of Cao Cao and Han Sui to continue to expand, let them rule those lands, and follow behind the descendants of Old Cao and the others, chasing them to fight outward.

He could guarantee that the successor of power would be a good great-grandson with a sufficient level, who could handle the situation and have wisdom, but after that, he didn't know. The empire falling apart would only take a few decades, and that was still because the foundation was deep. If not for this, it might not even take a few years.

In the final analysis, imagining that an ancient centralized dynasty could be passed down for a long time was itself problematic, because it didn't conform to the laws of historical development. Even if everyone under his rule now knew that there were continents overseas, it couldn't stop the changes here. Maybe someone would rebel, or maybe because of various reasons, it would finally become a constitutional monarchy; these were all uncertain.

But what was certain was that the Wang imperial family would not be the masters forever. Unless Wang Yan himself was immortal and stayed forever...

Since that was the case, why did he have to bother with so much? The system was built, the path was pointed out, and if it still couldn't develop, why bother with so many nonsense words...

Whether Wang Yan ascended the throne or not had no impact. There were no opponents internally, and no opponents externally; he was just burying his head in development. Following the development of society, he constantly improved the laws and constantly adjusted the system.

Overall, what Wang Yan did was a service-oriented government, solving problems for the common people. So Wang Yan was more focused on handling discipline issues. Power breeds corruption; this was the norm. He mainly used an iron fist to maintain the fairness, justice, and as much integrity as possible of the government, maintaining overall stability.

The population was increasing day by day. When the world was initially unified, the population was only thirty-four million. In the years that followed, there was an annual population growth of millions, and it was getting higher and higher.

Correspondingly, grain production was also getting higher and higher. Because of the improvement of crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes, grain consumption was supplemented, making people eat more and more grain. Animal husbandry was also developed, constantly enriching people's dietary structure.

Benefiting from the development of hygiene and medical care, the infant survival rate increased year by year, and life expectancy continued to grow.

This was the credit of Hua Tuo and Zhang Zhongjing; they were truly great doctors. Of course, it wasn't just the two of them who were awesome; in fact, there were quite a few awesome people. Many hermits also had superb medical skills, and they also made outstanding contributions. Zhuge Liang could do a hand, and although his level wasn't as good as the top people, he could handle ordinary minor illnesses, and they were all capable people.

It was precisely because of the continuous efforts of these people that the leapfrog progress of hygiene and medical care was promoted. They constantly improved medical records, summarized different causes of the same disease, optimized the compatibility of medicinal materials, and continuously conquered difficult and miscellaneous diseases, and their level was quite high.

Their level exceeded that of the group of doctors during the Song and Ming periods. Perhaps the people of this time were more awesome, or perhaps it was indeed the earlier the time, because the closer to the origin of germination, the more awesome the level of TCM was.

It even gave Wang Yan some new inspiration, and at the same time, he brought out the strong-body pills that had been improved several times, letting this group of people continue to optimize. Whether it was reducing costs or enhancing efficacy, as long as one point could be achieved, it was a great thing; if both points were achieved, that was naturally even better.

At the same time, as time passed, the literacy rate continued to increase, and the number of people with high educational backgrounds continued to increase. Wang Yan made great efforts to realize universal education. At the same time, he opened the imperial examination to select officials. He constantly split up the giant Wenchang Pavilion, built high-level academies and universities in various places, and provided more development paths.

With the increase of high-quality talents, he constantly promoted the progress of tools and improved productivity, thereby promoting the development of the whole country. Water conservancy was becoming more and more perfect, land transportation was becoming faster and faster, and water transportation was becoming more and more developed.

This once again fed back into commercial circulation, prospering the national economy and improving the living standards of the common people. Changes in the social environment would further influence the cultural and artistic levels. The ideological trend had never stopped and had been progressing. Chinese culture and art had achieved unprecedented prosperity.

Everything was operating healthily.

Old Cao's side could also be considered smooth. They landed on the coast and started fighting without saying a word. They had to fight; their grain couldn't support them for such a long time, and the fastest way was to rob. The combat effectiveness of the Great Han army was not for show, and Wang Yan had also equipped them with armaments.

Even though it was an away game and a plain battle, Old Cao's wisdom and the soldiers' literacy still made the Tianzhu army retreat steadily. By the time the Tianzhu side reacted, Wang Yan had already diligently transported all the combat soldiers over. Old Cao easily gained a foothold and began to enslave the Tianzhu people, slowly expanding.

Wang Yan actively did logistics for Old Cao, or to put it another way, carried out targeted economic control and plunder. This principle was not understood by the people in Old Cao's camp in the short term, and even if they understood it, they were helpless.

Because this was the suppression of productivity, they couldn't resist. Wang Yan's general money had already been issued there, which was evident.

Similarly, the same principle applied to Sun Ce and Shi Xie; they weren't even as good as Old Cao. It was just that Han Sui's side was a land route, and the distance was too far, which was not very convenient. But even so, Wang Yan's money was circulating there; it was just that trade wasn't as fast as sea trade.

Wang Yan didn't open up sea trade to the merchants under his rule, not in the short term. Because although he plundered resources from other places, the development within the territory wasn't good yet, and there was still considerable room for growth. Only after they prospered within the territory would he open up control over them and carry out great voyages and global plunder. Now it was still national trade, subsidizing the common people.

By the time he left, it was estimated that it had just begun to be implemented...

Time is the greatest enemy of heroes.

Heroes of the Three Kingdoms emerged in large numbers, but they still couldn't resist time. Even Wang Yan had no way. Although he had obtained a long life in another form, he would also repeat the process of aging again and again.

When he felt the process of aging again, others began to die.

Cai Yong lived to be over eighty years old—the old guy could live quite well, and even saw Wang Yan's grandson and his great-grandson born. He spent his whole life purely doing research and left behind a legendary life that belonged to him.

Huang Zhong also lived to be over eighty years old. Before the crusade against Cao, his eldest son had passed away, and he witnessed the development of his younger son.

Liao Hua, the boy who had foolishly carried weapons for Wang Yan back then, died in the winter of his seventieth year. His life was very exciting, but the second half of his life was not happy, because the world was peaceful and there was no war. Although he still had military power and still studied various battle methods and summarized his own insights, there were no opponents, and there were simply no opponents.

The only one who felt differently from him was Huang Zhong. The remaining martial generals had all told Wang Yan about their unhappiness. They always said that martial generals should die on the battlefield when they were strong, rather than when they were toothless and couldn't even control their bowel movements.

Jia Xu also died, having displayed all his learning in this life, working diligently like an old ox.

Guo Jia, the boy who had led a donkey and carried all his belongings to surrender to Wang Yan back then, always talked about avoiding trouble, but in the end, he worked his whole life.

Liu Bei rushed about for half his life and finally found a home under Wang Yan, although he had no choice but to return, as he had no choice at the time. Also under Wang Yan's wise leadership, he lived to be seventy-three.

After he left, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei also passed away one after another. The event of the Peach Garden Oath back then seemed to be right before his eyes. This time, Guan Yu didn't go to Maicheng, and Zhang Fei didn't get drunk.

Cao Cao had Wang Yan help him nurse his body, living ten more years and dying at seventy-five. Old Cao was still quite hard-working, having racked his brains his whole life. In China, he studied how to fight Wang Yan, and in Tianzhu, he studied how to fight the foreign races, playing with schemes his whole life, and of course, he didn't lack women and wine.

After this group of people died, so many of Wang Yan's wives began to leave. Then it was the son generation, then the grandson generation.

Everyone couldn't understand why Wang Yan still hadn't died, and many people were hoping for his death.

Wang Yan didn't fulfill their wishes, nor did he have much sadness. At eighty or ninety, he was still taking people out to inspect the world, which made many people despair...

The commanding height of the imperial city could overlook the entire city of Luoyang, because no building was allowed to be higher than the imperial city.

After a century of development, Luoyangcheng was becoming increasingly huge. The national population was nearly seven hundred million, and Luoyangcheng had a population of ten million—a proper super-large city.

Wang Yan, standing at the high point with his hands behind his back, used his slightly dim old eyes, and couldn't even see the full picture of the entire city.

One hundred and thirty-four—this was Wang Yan's age this year. At this moment, he was already full of white hair, his beard and eyebrows were all white, wrinkles were everywhere, and there were many age spots, and his whole person was wrinkled.

But his waist and back were still straight, his hands were behind his back, and the wind blew through his wide clothes, blowing his three thousand white hairs, still unchanged in naturalness and harmony.

The wind at the end of summer was very cool, and the evening glow reflected by the setting sun spread for thousands of miles, which was very beautiful, and Wang Yan was appreciating it.

Wang Ge looked at his ancestor's back, only feeling a burst of powerlessness, and also having a strong sense of reverence. There was no way; his ancestor's life was truly too exciting.

"How is this landscape?" Wang Yan asked with a slightly hoarse voice, without turning his head.

"Returning to the Imperial Ancestor, it is beautiful beyond words."

"Hahaha..."

Wang Yan laughed up at the sky, "Beautiful beyond words, beautiful beyond words..."

Wang Ge didn't understand where the punchline was, but he also laughed along.

Wang Yan laughed for a while, turned his head, and looked at Wang Ge with a smile. He took the Heirloom Seal out of his sleeve and threw it over casually.

He said faintly: "It's yours."

Wang Ge caught the Heirloom Seal in a panic and confusion, looked at Wang Yan's faint gaze, swallowed the useless nonsense into his stomach, and immediately kowtowed and knelt down. "Grandson will definitely not fail the Imperial Ancestor's expectations."

"Go."

Wang Ge kowtowed three more times, stood up, looked at the Imperial Ancestor's back, turned around, and went down the high building, instructing the guards to keep an eye on Wang Yan's movements and not let any accidents happen.

After walking far away, he then held the Heirloom Seal in his hand with trembling hands and looked at it back and forth. He had touched this thing long ago, but the meaning was ultimately different.

"Received from Heaven, may it last forever and prosper..."

His voice was trembling violently, suppressing his excitement. He understood what kind of empire that was.

Above the high building, Wang Yan was still standing tall with his hands behind his back, looking down at the huge city with deep eyes.

On the horizon, the glow of the sunset rolled over three thousand miles...

"Beautiful beyond words..." ===== CHAPTER 898 =====

"It's breathtakingly beautiful..."