Chapter 201

【Heavenly Screen Review: "Guanzi is just a practical person, not playing with the fake."】

【He engaged in economics, making the Qi State rich; he changed the military system, making the Qi army hard to bite;

He pulled the big flag, making the Qi State occupy all the righteousness;

He played the dark side (economic warfare), making his opponents die without knowing how.】

【He treated governing the country as a system project, with economics as the foundation, military as the guarantee, diplomacy as the means, and system as the framework.

Strategy in his hands is no longer a plan, but a national policy.】

【Later generations Zhuge Liang compared himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi, not comparing loyalty, but comparing this practical ability to take charge of the overall situation and benefit the world.

He is the pinnacle of the art of emperors, the perfect interpreter of "hegemony," and the heaviest and most solid cornerstone in the political wisdom of Huaxia.】

【Fourth Place on the List of the Ten Great Strategists of History—Guan Zhong, Review Completed!】

【Heavenly Dao Blessing: Thirty years of lifespan added! Awarded ten volumes of "Guanzi" economic policy essence!】

(Note: Guan Zhong's merit is in the present, and his benefit is for a thousand autumns; his economic and governing thoughts have far-reaching influence. Granting lifespan rewards his merit, and granting books allows his ideological essence to spread more systematically, benefiting future rulers.)

The yellow-brown, heavy-as-earth blessing light pillar, carrying faint book phantoms, fell into the Spring and Autumn space, covering Linzi City.

Quiet.

The training ground in Xianyang was silent.

Only heavy breathing and the sound of some people swallowing saliva subconsciously.

The review of Guan Zhong did not bring emotion, but a sense of suffocation.

It was a comprehensive, no-dead-angle strength, a terrifying wisdom that calculated, excavated, and utilized national power to the extreme.

He was not fighting with people; he was playing against the Heavenly Dao, geography, human hearts, economic laws...

Everything visible and invisible, and he set the rules for his country to win.

Ying Zheng's hand on his knee had clenched into a fist at some point, his knuckles white.

His chest heaved violently, and a kind of near-fanatical light burned in his eyes.

It was not appreciation, it was... finding a soulmate, finding a direction, and even finding verification.

"Li Si! Wei Liao! Wang Jian! Did you all hear? Did you all see?"

"We heard! We saw!"

The named important officials responded in unison, each with a flushed face.

They were experts, and they knew even better what that combo punch of Guan Zhong meant.

It was almost opening a door to a new world for them—no, it was providing a ready-made, top-tier luxury reference manual for the great cause they were currently engaged in: "unifying the world"!

"Write it down! Write it down for me word for word, in detail!"

Ying Zheng almost roared, "The profit of salt and iron, the system of soldiers and people, the policy of farming and war, the strategy of diplomacy... what Guan Zhong did is exactly what my Great Qin needs right now!"

"No, what my Great Qin wants to do is bigger and stronger than him! But this path, this principle, is connected in one vein!"

He turned his head sharply, looking at the calm "Guo Shi" Gu Shanhe on the high platform, his gaze burning as if it were about to burn:

"Guo Shi! This list... this list is great! Guan Zhong's strategy is the right path to enrich the country, strengthen the army, and unify the world! I... have been taught!"

It was not just Ying Zheng.

At this very moment, in the myriad worlds, any monarch with ambition and any minister with talent for governing the world,

Were all shocked, attracted, and... frightened by Guan Zhong's huge, precise, cold, and efficient "hegemony system."

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, would think of the Salt and Iron Debate, thinking of the economic blockade against the Xiongnu.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, would ponder the logic behind the Fubing system and the Equal-field system.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang would ponder how to better control salt taxes and the Weisuo military system.

Even the great masters on the grassland were thinking about how to deal with this kind of "soft knife killing" economic warfare.

Guan Zhong was ranked fourth.

Then, the top three who could surpass this "originator of hegemony" and "chancellor of the ages"...

Everyone, without exception, held their breath and continued to look up at the heavenly screen.

【Third Place Among the Ten Great Strategists of History: Jiang Shang (Jiang Ziya)】

【Era: Late Shang → Early Zhou】

【Titles: Taigong Wang, Originator of Military Strategy, Chief Engineer of the Founding of the Zhou Dynasty】

As the name appeared, the image condensed in the light and shadow made everyone pause.

That was not a majestic minister, nor a shrewd strategist, but a... old man.

A very old man, wearing shabby clothes, with messy hair and beard, squatting on a large rock by the Wei River fishing.

The fishing rod in his hand was straight, with no hook.

The old man squinted, basking in the sun, occasionally yawning, ignoring the woodcutters and fishermen passing by.

But if you looked closely at his half-closed eyes, occasionally opening a slit, the light inside was cold and sharp, as if it could pierce through the surging Wei River before him and see the shadow of the Shang palace far away.

A line of characters appeared beside the list, the handwriting also carrying a sense of ancient stubbornness:

"The straight hook doesn't fish for fish, but for eight hundred years of empire. It's not too late to come out of the mountains at eighty; at that age, you can still flip the table."

"Jiang Ziya? Jiang Taigong?" Ying Zheng's pupils shrank slightly.

This name was more ancient than Guan Zhong, and also more... legendary, bordering on myth.

This was the founder of the eight hundred years of the Zhou Dynasty, the founding ancestor of the strategist trade.

Even he couldn't help but lean forward slightly.

The heavenly screen's voice was very flat this time, even a bit slow, but every word that fell carried heavy weight, capable of knocking out the dust of history:

【Jiang Shang, courtesy name Ziya. When the strategist trade didn't have a proper name, he had already reached the top—helping people change dynasties.】

【When he came out of the mountains, he was old enough to be many people's grandfather.

At this age, others were either enjoying their grandchildren or lying down waiting to die.

He, on the other hand, went to the river to fish with a straight hook, waiting for a client who could let him poke a hole in the sky.

This wait brought King Wen of Zhou, and brought a storm that swept the world.】

【Act I: Half a Life of Poverty, Hiding Sharpness in the Marketplace】

The scene shifts to the streets of the Shang capital Zhaoge.

The young Jiang Shang had worked in many trades:

Helping people slaughter cattle in Zhaoge, his knife technique precise, cutting meat and removing bones cleanly, but his eyes always drifted toward the palace;

Opening a small restaurant at the Mengjin ferry, selling wine and food, listening to merchants, defeated soldiers, and escaped slaves from all over telling news, silently remembering it in his heart;

Also doing small business, losing more than earning, poor as a church mouse.

Neighbors laughed at him as a "useless person who fails at everything," and he just laughed when he heard it, not arguing.

Returning to the leaking hut at night, by the light of a little inferior oil, he carved on turtle shells and animal bones he picked up, deducing the trajectories of stars, the shape of mountains and rivers, and the hearts of the people.

Some people are not born to live ordinary lives.

His stage was not here, but in a further, higher place.

The poverty before his eyes was just a dragon trapped in a shallow beach, its scales not yet dry.

【Act II: Straight Hook at the Wei River, Those Who Wish Take the Bait】

Time jumps to decades later, Jiang Shang was older, his back a bit hunched.

He left the noisy Zhaoge, heading west all the way, arriving at the bank of the Wei River, at the foot of Mount Qi—the territory of the Zhou State.

He found a flat rock by the water, sat down, whittled a straight wooden stick as a fishing rod, too lazy to even make a hook, and just hung the line into the water.

He sat for a whole day, rain or shine.

A young fisherman passed by, saw the straight hook, and laughed until he couldn't stand straight:

"Old man, can you fish like that? Are the fish stupid?"