Chapter 164: Tenfold Grain Price

The Wanxiang Tower had been wiped out, and the vast majority of the common people within Luolong County were clapping and cheering.

Meng Yifan carefully interrogated the clerks and managers of the Wanxiang Tower; for those guilty of heinous crimes, he would publicly announce their offenses and then behead them as a warning to others, which led even more common people to approve of Meng Yifan's rule.

In the time that followed, Meng Yifan set aside one hour every day to sit in court and hear cases; as long as the common people had grievances, they could beat the drum to seek justice.

The original Luolong County government office had its doors facing south, and if you had reason but no money, you had better not come; many common people without power or influence, even when bullied, could only suffer in silence like a mute eating coptis.

Now that Meng Yifan was in charge of Luolong County, he changed the old bad habits; when the common people came to lodge a complaint, as long as it was verified as true, Meng Yifan would stand up for them. After severely punishing several local bullies and tyrants who had oppressed the people, the commoners were jubilant and began calling Meng Yifan "Lord Meng the Clear Sky."

At the same time, Meng Yifan saw from his Game Panel that the number of subjects loyal to him was increasing, which left him sighing with emotion.

The vast majority of the common people at the bottom were honest and dutiful; their demands were not high, and as long as the officials were willing to uphold justice for them, they were willing to accept the official's rule.

Meng Yifan once again recruited some soldiers from among the refugees, bringing his total number of soldiers up to one thousand, and then began training them every day.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" On the Grand Parade Ground, the soldiers were training with great fervor; in addition to daily formation drills, the soldiers also had to train in assassination techniques.

Meng Yifan also had the soldiers do push-ups, sit-ups, squats, frog jumps, weighted long-distance runs, pull-ups, and so on.

These training subjects were those used by armies on Earth to train special forces, but because the people in this world of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty had physical constitutions far stronger than those of people on Earth,

the training subjects used for special forces on Earth could be easily completed by ordinary people of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, and they did not achieve much of a training effect.

Therefore, Meng Yifan directly increased the training volume by two or three times to train the ordinary soldiers.

For soldiers like Zhang Shagen who were already Martial Artists, Meng Yifan had them perform weighted training, increasing the volume by another four or five times; in short, he used every possible method to exercise their physical fitness, leaving them exhausted and sprawled on the ground every day.

Not only that, but Meng Yifan also opened up the basic martial arts techniques of the Wanxiang Tower to these soldiers for free, allowing anyone to learn them, and Meng Yifan would also provide a small amount of Pill to assist their cultivation.

Daily high-intensity exercise, combined with the cultivation of martial arts techniques, caused the soldiers' strength to improve rapidly every day.

Meng Yifan was now a First-grade Immortal Cultivator; he had mastered a Qi Observation Technique, and by simply imbuing his eyes with Spirit Power, he could see things invisible to the naked eye.

At this moment, Meng Yifan stood on the high platform of the Grand Parade Ground, his eyes slightly narrowed and covered with a layer of Spirit Power; he was astonished to see that as the soldiers trained, a dense, blood-thirsty aura of iron and steel was rising over the entire drill ground.

This aura was like wolf-smoke, shooting straight into the clouds and stirring the winds; the scene was extremely shocking and made one's blood boil to behold.

Meng Yifan discovered that under the shroud of this iron-blooded aura, any First Grade Ghost Soldier within a Ghost Head Blade that dared to manifest would be directly scattered into nothingness.

Even though Zhang Butou was a Third Grade Ghost General, his strength would be weakened by thirty percent in this iron-blooded aura.

"The iron-blooded aura of soldiers is so overbearing; no wonder the legends say that demons and ghosts dare not approach military camps," Meng Yifan realized with a sense of understanding.

…………

Xu Dafu had now also joined Meng Yifan's side; he organized many workers to collect excrement, specifically to gather Earth Saltpeter for Meng Yifan, and he also followed the methods Meng Yifan taught him, splashing urine and feces onto earthen walls to mass-produce Earth Saltpeter.

Meng Yifan's current army relied mainly on firearms for combat and had a great demand for gunpowder, yet there were no Saltpeter mines around Luolong County, so they could only refine Saltpeter from Earth Saltpeter.

During the last battle with the Divine Machine Battalion, Meng Yifan's gunpowder reserves had been basically exhausted; if they could not be replenished, the Bird Guns and Cannon in the soldiers' hands would be unusable.

Gunpowder was never enough, which was a matter that troubled Meng Yifan; although he could refine some from Earth Saltpeter, Earth Saltpeter had too many impurities, and the amount of Saltpeter that could be extracted was limited, while a force of one thousand men using firearms consumed a massive amount of gunpowder in a single major battle.

Insufficient gunpowder reserves were a difficult problem that had to be solved as soon as possible; with no Saltpeter mines around Luolong County, Meng Yifan could only think of ways to purchase it from elsewhere.

He planned to travel to other cities once Luolong County was on the right track to see if he could find a way to purchase Saltpeter.

Wang Dachui led the Manufacturing Department in collecting iron ore from Luolong County, wanting to mass-produce Tiger Crouching Cannon.

This small steel cannon possessed the portability of the Elm Cannon as well as the sturdiness and durability of steel Cannon; Meng Yifan prepared to replace the Elm Cannon with the Tiger Crouching Cannon.

Because although the Elm Cannon was easy to manufacture, it had a fatal flaw: after firing a few shots, it was very prone to bursting. Meng Yifan had tested it, and an Elm Cannon would be completely scrapped after firing at most ten shots.

In the last great battle with the Divine Machine Battalion, one Elm Cannon had directly exploded, causing five or six soldiers near it to be blown to death, which led to the soldiers being terrified whenever they fired later, always fearing that the Explosive Shell would not hit the enemy but would kill them first.

Meng Yifan had long wanted to re-equip his soldiers; now that he basically controlled Luolong County and had made a windfall after wiping out the Wanxiang Tower, he could use it to purchase ironware and manufacture Tiger Crouching Cannon.

Everyone was busy; Meng Yifan re-recruited a batch of constables and had them patrol the streets on time. Those hooligans and scoundrels who used to loiter on the streets were their primary targets for crackdown. After severely dealing with this group of social dregs, the public order of the entire Luolong County improved significantly.

Strangely, these hooligans and scoundrels were basically low-level members of the Three Great Gangs. Meng Yifan had people deal with them, yet the Three Great Gangs did not stand up for them; instead, the Three Great Gangs all kept a low profile and stopped causing trouble.

They stopped collecting protection money, stopped issuing usurious loans, and even stopped bullying men and women. The core members of the gangs rarely loitered on the streets; it seemed the Three Great Gangs had decided to turn over a new leaf and henceforth be law-abiding subjects.

Such peaceful days lasted for three days; when the fourth day arrived, just as the sky was breaking, Wang Erlang went to the grain shop on the street to buy grain as usual, only to discover that overnight, the price of grain in the shop had soared tenfold.

Originally, one tael of silver could buy two catties of rice, meaning one catty of rice now sold for five taels of silver. Wang Erlang rubbed his eyes and looked at the price tag again, finding that it really did say one catty of rice sold for five taels of silver, which shocked him greatly, and he hurriedly asked, "Manager, is your price tag written wrong?"

Manager Tang of the grain shop smiled and said, "It's not written wrong; that is the price."

"Aren't you bullying people? With grain sold so expensively, how could we common people afford it?" Wang Erlang said indignantly.

"Because Lord Meng rebelled, the Prefect of Dongchuan Prefecture ordered a strict ban on transporting grain to Luolong County. The grain we have now was all smuggled in through small paths at the risk of losing our heads."

"Outside the city, Demon Beast run rampant and the roads are blocked; wanting to transport grain in requires relying on powerful Martial Artists to escort the grain, fighting all the way, and many people have died. It is only reasonable for grain to be sold a bit more expensively."

Manager Tang explained, then said with some impatience, "The grain is at this price; if you want to buy it, buy it. If not, then get lost and don't delay my business."

Wang Erlang had limited silver and of course did not want to buy such high-priced grain; he hurried toward other grain shops, only to find that overnight, all the grain shops in Luolong County had raised their prices, all selling one catty of rice for five taels of silver, which made him as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, not knowing what to do.

Soon, more and more common people discovered that the price of grain had risen tenfold; for a time, the common people of the entire Luolong County were anxious and rushed to various grain shops, demanding that the shops lower the price of grain.

The managers of these grain shops were also tough; seeing the common people demanding a price reduction, they were not only unmoved but directly closed their doors and stopped selling grain for the day.

Some families had some stored grain and were not particularly anxious, but some common people were waiting to buy rice to cook; if they could not buy grain today, the whole family would have to go hungry.

The people regard food as their Heaven; without grain, the common people simply could not survive.