Chapter 328: Only I Am Unique Law Chapter 328 Ma La (1)

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

2,000 meters from the designated bridge, a new "Xima Market" was established.

Its location was a compromise—not as far as Liao Fou and others demanded, nor as close as Yu Weichao and others demanded. Of course, the goods sold and their prices were absolutely commendable.

The "Xima Market" followed the common wholesale market model: a two-story building plus a layer of prefabricated sheds constituted a shop. Each shop covered over 300 square meters; the ground floor was for business, the second floor could serve as shop, office, or resting place, and the prefabricated sheds were nearby warehouses. Two parallel streets made up the first phase of the market, accommodating a total of 20 merchants.

Although few in number, the variety of goods sold by these 20 shops exceeded that of hundreds of merchants in Ma La. The sportswear, Liberation Shoes, rubber shoes, and metal pots Chen Yi had once sent to the West Continent, and sharp small knives, were ordinary goods in the "Xima Market"; more specialized and refined civilian products became the market's mainstream. Leather gloves were comfortable for riders, textile gloves suited infantry using blunt weapons, thick cotton gloves could handle extremely hot pots... comfortable silk or cotton underwear, waterproof shoes, plastic sports shoes, and knitted fabric shoes continued to be popular among villagers of the Ma La-State... cheap mosquito nets and laundry detergent were the focus of traveling merchants' snapping up, no one knew where they took them... archery rings made of soft metal won unanimous praise from archers, though most who could afford them were noble children in the city...

As a remote city-state, Ma La was not a commercial city; thousands of years of uniform handmade products were mature and durable, greatly reducing residents' desire to buy new goods... The "Xima Market" was different: the fresh novelties sold by merchants not only reduced labor burdens, but most importantly could increase family income.

Although the Elder Council of Ma La issued orders forbidding city residents from going to the Xima Market, and temple priests promoted heavily in the city, merchants who believed in money did not care about the Elder Council.

In fact, when Huang Wei, who had once been a street vendor among the trainees, became the direct person in charge of the "Xima Market," his first policy was to turn the "Xima Market" into Ma La's wholesale-and-retail market—a wish he had had when vending in Jiangbei, now not only realized but also well suited to the current situation.

Wholesale and retail created a huge price difference; traveling merchants wanted profits of about 50% of cost, seated merchants wanted about 30% of cost, and finally in the shops prices rose 100%... Regardless of how people in other city-states viewed this, for consumers in Ma La, going out 3 kilometers and taking a ferry to the Xima Market meant buying many good things at half price. Bringing a few extra items to sell in the market was like picking them up for nothing...

In just two weeks, the vitality of the Xima Market was aroused.

Since Chen Yi appeared near Yun Village, traveling merchants from all over had sold Jiangning goods in Ma La, and even more distant city-states. Only because Chen Yi himself was too lazy to purchase different types of goods did "Jiangning goods" consist mainly of clothing, hats, and metal. Even so, they received unanimous praise from all levels of Ma La, just as Western goods once entered China, with a reputation for being delicate and useful. Of course, as an attached value of that reputation, their high prices were unbearable for ordinary people...

Now, everything was different.

At Chen Yi's direction, Yu Weichao allowed Level 3 and below soldiers and clerks in the West River City Fortress to go to Ma La to consume; the stated reason was to weaken Ma La's hostile sentiments and enhance exchange and cooperation. But actually, only by increasing Ma La residents' income could their purchasing power be increased. At the same time, it also increased soldiers' satisfaction—money that could be spent was real money, making their high salaries real.

Comparison creates gaps, gaps create loyalty; seeing that Ma La residents earned less per month than they earned in a few days, the West River City Fortress naturally gained the natives' dependence.

From a safety perspective, soldiers had occasionally gone to Ma La before, but then there were no highways, transportation was difficult, and income was lower. The current permission actually became a restriction; Level 3 soldiers, that is, Class Monitors, or Sergeants, did not know much information, and ordinary soldiers knew almost nothing.

In fact, what the West River Water Fortress could do in Ma La was far more than what Ma La could do in the Water Fortress.

On the fifth day of allowing soldiers to go to Ma La, Dayang boarded a ferry with several Mu Village people; he was now doing his old job, spy chief of the West Continent. Of course, besides himself, the entire Intelligence Department had no full-time intelligence analysts—other intelligence personnel providing intelligence could only be called informants, not spies.

Dayang was already very satisfied with the current situation. To him, being able to use his strengths, it didn't matter whether in China or the United States, or Japan, Taiwan, Afghanistan... Of course, not being on Earth was somewhat off his expectations, but so what.

A small fishing boat holding only 30 people made soft rowing sounds; Dayang silently noted this in his mind: replacing with larger, faster ferries could attract more passengers.

Mu Village villagers were excited; they were Level 2 workers of the Water Fortress, mainly doing carpentry work inside the city, belonging to villages subordinate to the West River Water Fortress; Dayang's cover identity was a boiler worker of Xia Shicun, and they were assigned to the same dormitory.

Rounding a water bend, Ma La appeared before their eyes.

Dayang sighed, whether in disappointment or admiration, and jumped down from the small boat.

The legendary Ma La, over 20 meters high, all hard granite, wide enough to run horses, who knew how much effort was spent back then. Whether to save materials and for safety considerations, the main part of the city was wedged between two steep modified mountain ridges; the forward protrusion became a horse-face-like defensive structure, and the hundreds of meters high mountains on both sides, with just a few hundred men on guard, had no danger of falling, maximizing the saving of troops. And from appearance, Ma La was more than twice as high as the existing Xi'an Ancient City Wall; thousands of years of repair and accumulation were not trivial. Those hard-to-deal-with Elephant Beast Cavalry and Dragon Head Cavalry of the West River Water Fortress War Faction, under such city walls, seemed not worth worrying about.

Although from the perspective of modern cities, a city with a circumference of no more than 20 kilometers was too small, it could be said to be a sacrifice for safety.

By comparison, the city walls of the West River Water Fortress were like children's toys, delicate and small.

Dayang secretly thought: stone wall defense was better than reinforced concrete structures! The Martial Arts Hall trainees were all talkers, actually wanting to build reinforced concrete walls wholeheartedly; a wall 20 kilometers long and 20 meters high, even if only 7 meters wide, would require 2.8 million cubic meters of reinforced concrete; at the most ordinary standard, 2.5 tons per cubic meter, that would need 7 million tons of material supply.

Dayang was a mid-to-high level person in the Water Fortress, knowing current supply was mainly completed by Chen Yi, about two to three times a month, totaling around 400,000 tons. This included weapons, daily necessities, spiritual food for morale, and goods for sale, newly replenished vehicles and fuel, various machinery and even simple factory equipment; building materials were one of the bulk items, mainly rebar, but monthly it was hard to exceed 200,000 tons; 7 million tons of supply... humph... better to send 200,000 tons of explosives to destroy Ma La.

"City gate check, pay head tax!"

The high-pitched shout of the West Continent interrupted Dayang's train of thought; he hurriedly took out a thin coin ready to hand over.

Ma La previously did not collect city gate taxes; later the West River City Fortress used Good Citizen Certificates as vouchers to collect head tax when villagers entered and exited the city gate, but it was quickly learned by Ma La nobles.

A Mu Village villager stopped Dayang from taking out money; saw another person ahead skillfully throw two thin coins, and give another thin coin to the soldier at the gate; Dayang and the remaining two were exempted from fees and entered the city directly.

Corruption!

Dayang noted two words in his mind again. A corrupt regime was easy to defeat, but also showed this was a wealthy regime.

Perhaps the frequent state of war on the West Continent made Ma La more like a military fortress; there were not many pure commoners in the city, and one could occasionally see cavalry or infantry carrying weapons passing by. Thinking that several Heavy Cavalry units and Heavy Infantry units were stationed outside the city, Dayang's idea of forcibly occupying Ma La weakened a bit.

However, he still tried hard to observe the defensive facilities within sight—the possibility of forceful occupation had never disappeared; if not for Chen Yi always considering the temple's reaction, what should be entering the city now was an army. And Dayang's main goal was also to examine the possibility of occupation.

He walked and looked, no different from villagers entering the city for the first time.

"Ba ji" sounds came from underfoot from time to time; that was stepping on sewage or excrement. Ma La residents without an underground sewage system were used to it; even children ran barefoot on the streets fighting.

Officials and nobles mainly rode. Dayang had to gradually adapt with the Mu Village people and endure their boring jokes about excrement.

"Wooden houses, wooden barracks, leather instruments... if there were 20 cannons or rockets, they could burn Ma La into a magma city... too simple."

However, the Elder Council nobles would definitely not submit because of this.

The only thing that could make them submit was collapsing city walls.

Dayang thought while listening to the "ba ji" sounds underfoot, forcing himself not to look at what had happened.

"Let's go eat." A Mu Village person suddenly said in simple language.

"Okay, go to the biggest one." The other two Mu Village people cheered. They had been to Ma La more than once. Although before they were reluctant to eat even a thin coin's worth of soup noodles, now, a weekly treatment of one copper coin was enough for them to try fresh at the best restaurant in the city.

Dayang followed in without caring; just as he sat down by the window in the hall, he saw a familiar face.

"Chen... Boss."

"Call Chen Sir." The Yun Thirteen following beside him corrected him. (To be continued, if you want to know what happens next, please log on to www. qidian. com, more chapters, support the author, support official version reading!)