Chapter 200: Cost and Sacrifice

Dead silence.

In the council hall, even the crackling of the candles seemed to be frozen.

Several elders with white hair and beards wore faces full of shock and disbelief.

"Crazy! You're crazy!" the Seventh Great-Uncle, who managed the family's laws, trembled with anger and slammed the table. "Heng'er, do you know what you're saying? Although our Wang family aren't sages, we still uphold the kingly way of education! Your behavior is no different from that of beasts. If this gets out, the Wang family's hundred‑year reputation will be ruined in an instant!"

"Reputation?" Wang Heng's face showed a mocking smile for the first time. "Great-Uncle, please forgive my bluntness. What can reputation do—produce a few pounds of steel? Make a steam engine turn an extra cycle?"

He rose to his feet and walked to the massive world geomancy map hanging in the center of the council hall.

His finger tapped the location of the Dongying archipelago.

"This is not our Chinese homeland; it is a colony. The only rule for dealing with a colony is to extract, to extract without regard for cost."

"Uncle Wang Meng spent twenty years turning this barren land into arable farmland. He did well, but farmland is for growing crops, and that grows too slowly."

"What I want to do is turn this farmland into a mine! Turn everyone there into ore! In the shortest time possible, extract all their value, then turn them into slag to contribute the last bit of residual heat to the Wang family's iron torrent!"

"You..." the Seventh Great-Uncle was so angry he could not speak, his pointing hand trembling.

Wang Hao's brows were tightly knit.

"Wang Heng, I've looked at your plan. Theoretically the efficiency is indeed the highest. But have you calculated the risk?"

"Such oppressive rule will surely provoke the fiercest resistance from the Wa people. When beacons blaze everywhere, your so‑called Public Service Team could turn into rebels at any moment. Although Zhenbei City's troops are elite, what price would it take to suppress a rebellion across all of Dongying? Have you reckoned that cost?"

Wang Hao's words hit the nail on the head.

He wasn't talking about morality; he was talking about cost.

Wang Heng seemed to have anticipated this question all along.

"Uncle Hao, I've considered your question too." He turned, speaking calmly, "Rebellion is inevitable. But it is not uncontrollable."

"First, I will confiscate all metal throughout Dongying, including farm tools and kitchen knives. Civilians must not retain even a scrap. All metal will be uniformly controlled by the Wang family overseers of the Public Service Team."

"Second, I will impose collective liability on the Wa people by household. If one person rebels, the whole family is executed; if one household slacks, the entire village shares the penalty. I will extinguish their sparks of rebellion with their own blood."

"Third, and most importantly." These Wa people now feel honored to be granted Han surnames; they consider their own land lowly, and they receive the Wang family's education, becoming whatever we say they should. Take that fellow by the road—today's Zheng Da—do you see any rebellious streak in him?

"We have now raised a generation that knows only the Wang family, not Wa country. If we let them come to Yangzhou to bury their ancestors with their own hands, they would gladly do so."

The council hall fell silent once again.

Everyone's gaze turned to the head's seat, where the young family head who had not spoken a word all along sat—Wang Che.

Wang Che's fingers lightly tapped the icy rosewood armrest, making a "thud, thud" sound.

That was his habit when thinking.

After a long while, his tapping stopped.

He opened his eyes.

His eyes, once clear, were now deep as a bottomless cold pool.

"I approve your plan, but I have one suggestion."

"It would be a waste to dispose of these elderly, weak, sick, and disabled Wa people all at once. Separate them and send specially assigned family members to educate them, making them believe their frailty and disability stem from lack of virtue in a past life, and that the Wang family can help them atone so they may be superior beings in their next life."

"With so many overseas nations, conquering them with our Wang family's sturdy ships and powerful cannons would take who knows how long. But with this batch of Wa people who fear neither death nor anything but seek repentance and redemption, it's different: in places where guns and cannons cannot reach, we can have them carry explosives to act as human artillery shells."

Hearing these words, the Seventh Great-Uncle shot up his head in disbelief, staring at him: "Family head! You… you… how can you be more… unacceptable! This goes against heaven's harmony…"

"Heaven's harmony?" Wang Che cut him off, his voice low but carrying undeniable authority. "Great-Uncle, I only ask you: for the Science Academy's latest Number Three Steam Engine to run daily, how much refined coal does it need? To double its output, how much high‑strength heat‑resistant fine steel is required?"

The Seventh Great-Uncle opened his mouth but could not utter a word.

Wang Che's gaze swept over each elder present.

"Gentlemen uncles, you've watched me grow up. You know I, Wang Che, understand neither 'heaven's harmony' nor the 'kingly way.'"

"I understand only one thing: 'price.'"

"To let ironclad ships sail the seven seas, we must burn coal as high as a mountain. To let cannon fire cover the entire coast, we must forge steel more precious than gold."

"All of this requires cost—cost that our Wang family cannot yet fully bear."

"And Wang Heng has found a way for us to pay that cost."

"Dongying is our cost. Those Wa people are our price."

"Using the flesh, blood, and bones of a generation of Wa people to pave a golden road for our Wang family and for China—this deal looks profitable to me."

He rose, walked up to Wang Heng, and personally handed him the authorization document bearing the family head's seal.

"Wang Heng, I not only approve your plan; in the name of the family head I grant you full authority."

"In Dongying, your word is the Wang family's law. Whatever you need—troops, weapons, or the Science Academy's latest torture devices—the family will provide."

"I have only one demand." Wang Che's eyes locked onto Wang Heng. "Within three years I want the resources Dongying sends back to the family to increase fivefold; within five years, tenfold."

"Can you do that?"

Wang Heng took the weighty document, feeling the cold touch of the family head's seal upon it.

A smile rose from his heart onto his face.

He knelt on one knee, right hand over his heart.

"I obey the family head's order."

"Wang Heng, I will not disgrace the mission."