Chapter 1247: Taking Root

After this great war, Jiuzhou seems to have fallen into a period of relative peace once again. However, everyone knows that such a situation is only temporary, because those warlords are all accumulating strength to take down the other warlords in one fell swoop.

Unifying the world is already carved into their bones; dividing the world to sit as master of one territory is perhaps only for those minor warlords. For those who truly possess great ambition and great aspirations, they have eyes only for unifying the world.

Large-scale battles across the world have ceased, but small-scale wars in various regions are uninterrupted, especially in the south. It is vast and sparsely populated, yet there are even more warlords there. Those few great warlords are recuperating; although they did not suffer much damage to their foundations in the previous great war, they were still routed by the Taiping Sect's counterattack, losing hundreds of thousands of troops.

They also need to recuperate for a period of time.

Therefore, those small warlords in the south are also taking this opportunity to begin devouring their surroundings—big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp—wanting to grow as much as possible before those few great warlords annex them.

Of the more than forty provinces in the south, except for a few large provinces, the remaining lands—though the provinces and commanderies are large—are truly vast and sparsely populated. Many a single county is larger than a commandery in the north, yet the population does not even compare to a county of the latter.

Added to this is the abundance of mountains and forests in the south, which have spawned miasma, and there are even more epidemics in the south.

Regarding medicine, after the Great Qin, the Medical School nearly became extinct.

After most of the Hundred Schools of Thought left, the development of the Medical School stagnated, and since it was not valued, the population naturally did not flourish.

Its potential for development is far from sufficient.

Therefore, these warlords can only do their utmost to annex other warlords in order to strengthen themselves.

Thus, the south is relatively more chaotic; it is not like the north, where the situation has mostly taken shape.

The northern frontier is held by the Yuan Prince's Mansion and Dong Zhuo's army, with the two occupying a six-to-four situation. Then, the Zhongyuan is dominated by the Imperial Court and the Taiping Sect, with some smaller warlords in between who might occupy a single province or several commanderies.

It is just that they will be eliminated sooner or later, either by the Taiping Sect or by their own automatic demise.

With the world in its current state, the Hidden Dragons have also mostly emerged.

Among them, the Taiping Sect's overt strength is undoubtedly the greatest in the world; after all, previously, the several great warlords combined with the Imperial Court did not pose much of a threat to it.

On the contrary, the several great warlords even suffered some losses.

One can imagine the power of the Taiping Sect.

However, the Taiping Sect's policies also dictate that the world's noble clans will not tolerate it, so if the Taiping Sect wants to unify the world, it must sweep across the world.

It is different from the Liu Han Imperial Court of the past.

After the Great Qin perished, Jiuzhou also entered a time of chaotic warfare among warlords, which was even more terrifying than it is now.

After all, there were the various warlords, the nobles of the various states, and additionally, the power of the Great Qin's own high officials and nobles.

They were incomparably chaotic. Liu Han Taizu was merely one party among them back then, but the former's methods were not inferior, and he also gained the recognition of many great clans.

Only in this way did he finally unify the world, but his unification of the world could not be separated from the support of the noble clans.

And this support was not free; it required them to pay a price.

And this price was that the power of local great clans increased greatly. If not for the appearance of a heroically talented and bold Martial Emperor in the Liu Han, who used absolute resolve to carry out a terrifying strike against the world's noble clans,

I fear the Liu Han Imperial Court would not have been able to persist for these few thousand years; perhaps in two thousand years, it might have entered the end of the dynasty.

The appearance of that Martial Emperor can be considered to have extended the Liu Han for several thousand years.

But that Martial Emperor was heroically talented and bold, and he severely weakened the noble clans; the result was also not good, as he suffered the combined backlash of the noble clans.

He originally had the chance to become a Golden Immortal, but not only did he fail to break through, he even suffered a plummet in his lifespan due to the backlash, leading to his death from exhaustion of lifespan in less than a thousand years.

One can see how terrifying the counterattack of the noble clans is.

Now, the situation the Taiping Sect has to face is even more terrifying than that of the Martial Emperor back then. The Martial Emperor back then did not think about eliminating the noble clans; he only wanted to suppress the noble clans and make them restrain themselves somewhat.

But the Taiping Sect wants to abolish the special rights of the noble clans. Once these rights are gone, are the noble clans still noble clans? Perhaps not.

It is precisely because of this that the noble clans are so hostile to the Taiping Sect, fighting it to the death.

The pressure on the Taiping Sect is still very great.

It is just that now, within the Taiping Sect, this layer of pressure seems invisible, and they are still proceeding step by step according to the original plan.

As time passes, the twelve provinces controlled by the Taiping Sect have already gradually begun to implement universal education.

The population has reached the level of over ten billion, and this number is also increasing rapidly every year.

The popularization of education has caused the literacy rate of ordinary people within the Taiping Sect to continuously rise; in this way, the number of administrative personnel is gradually no longer a factor limiting the development of the Taiping Sect.

As for the Science Path, it is developing even more rapidly among ordinary people.

Generations of masters have begun to appear.

The path of mathematics has shone with even more brilliant light; mathematics is truly the greatest of Science.

At the same time, various types of machinery have begun to appear on a large scale.

In just over a dozen years, the technology within the Taiping Sect seems to have ascended to a new level, stepping into a new process.

"Technology is developing quite fast."

Su Fan looked at the high-rise buildings visible everywhere in the Taiping Sect, his expression somewhat dazed. The undying light in the dark night made Su Fan feel as if he had returned to his former world.

In this, Su Fan also felt that the origin within his own body was increasing rapidly.

Su Fan knew clearly that this was the feedback from the Heavenly Dao.

Technological progress also means that the laws of the technological side are somewhat more complete. When the Human Race develops technological products capable of destroying the heavens and extinguishing the earth, then the laws of the technological side will be enough to compare to the Heterodox Paths.

The "Heterodox Paths" here is not an antonym; on the contrary, those who can reach the Heterodox Paths can all be considered to have attained the Dao.

After all, for the Heterodox Paths, the side paths also have methods to prove the Saint Dao, and the left paths can also reach the Dao Fruit methods of a Quasi-Saint Peak.

One can imagine that for the technological side, wanting to develop to that degree will also take some time.

As for developing into something like *Swallowed Star*, that would probably take who knows how long; after all, in *Swallowed Star*, the technological side also has existences comparable to the strongest of the Human Race, which is to say, existences that might surpass a Saint.

And in the Primordial World, wanting to reach this degree requires the technological side to be able to give birth to such a powerhouse.

That is something Su Fan dares not imagine. After all, he never thought that by promoting Science, Su Fan also wanted to see how far technology could lead the Human Race in the Age of Dharma Decline.

In reality, if there are truly no transcendent factors, can technology really lead humanity to a higher civilization?

Lifespan is a problem.

In the technological side, biotechnology can increase lifespan, but without transcendent factors, Su Fan cannot be certain whether the Human Race can go further.