Chapter 486: Strength is the Foundation of Confidence

Time passed in a flash, and in the blink of an eye, over a year had gone by. The entire Jianghu was generally peaceful, with nothing of great significance occurring.

Only many mountain strongholds, bandits, and even sects notorious for their evil deeds were slaughtered, but no one knew who had taken action, and these became a series of unsolved cases in the Jianghu.

Yet, far away in the inconspicuous Xiaozhou, without many people knowing, earth-shaking changes had already quietly taken place.

The most intuitive change was that Xiaozhou had opened up a road in the east-west direction; this was the first major road in Xiaozhou in the true sense.

In the past, Xiaozhou only had a large number of rugged mountain paths. Let alone merchant caravans carrying goods, even walking without carrying anything was strenuous, and one would have to crawl up slopes from time to time.

But from then on, traveling from Xichuan to the east or entering Xichuan from the west no longer required taking a long detour, saving a great deal of time and energy.

Of course, it was impossible for Xiaozhou to have only this one road. In Shen Yu's vision, Xiaozhou should be accessible from all directions, connecting the four corners.

The first major road was the new beginning for Xiaozhou. For the sake of this road, Shen Yu would occasionally take action himself; with one sword strike, several mountain peaks were leveled directly.

If not for this, Xiaozhou's first road could not have been completed so easily.

At the same time, under the offensive of massive amounts of gold and silver, construction projects in various places were carried out in an orderly manner, and Shen Yu's previous plans were turning into reality bit by bit.

The only thing Shen Yu did not anticipate was that after Xiaozhou's first road was opened, the expected swarm of merchant caravans did not arrive; instead, everyone was watching from the sidelines.

There was no help for it; Xiaozhou was truly too bitter and poor. The people inside Xiaozhou would have their eyes light up at the sight of a merchant caravan, wishing they could even strip the clothes off their backs.

Unless they were large merchant firms with powerful Huwe, ordinary small merchant associations would not even think about leaving Xiaozhou in one piece.

To put it bluntly, the previous Xiaozhou was crawling with bandits. Walking on the road, one could encounter three waves of robbery in ten miles.

Think about the scene when a group of people starved to the point of madness saw a merchant caravan; what was that if not sheep entering a wolf's den? In the end, it would be considered good if they left you with a pair of underpants.

In such an environment, which merchant firm would dare to come and risk their lives?

This gave Shen Yu a headache for quite a while. To attract merchant caravans, he directly used the most effective silver-bullet offensive.

Shen Yu directly promised the outside world that for any merchant caravan passing through Xiaozhou, if they were robbed, the State Yamen would compensate them three times over!

If you were robbed of a pile of goods in Xiaozhou, I would compensate you with three piles of money!

Wealth moves the human heart. With massive amounts of silver scattered, he didn't believe they could hold out!

To this end, Shen Yu specifically hired two more groups of good actors to perform a few plays back and forth. The "one-to-three" compensation scheme certainly grabbed enough attention.

Afterwards, more and more merchant caravans chose to travel through Xiaozhou, and these caravans hired only ordinary people, with the bosses not accompanying them.

Xiaozhou was chaotic, and their personal safety could not be guaranteed there at all, so of course, they let others do the death-defying work.

When the time came, the caravan would be robbed and the accompanying personnel killed. With a one-to-three compensation, they, as the bosses, could even demand more; why not do it?

These merchant caravans were incredibly weak; perhaps even if they found a few strong men without Martial Arts from any mountain village, they could rob them. They were practically writing "come and rob me" on their faces!

Their calculations were very good; who wouldn't want to do a one-to-three deal?

But the result was that the public order in Xiaozhou was shockingly good. Even the incredibly weak merchant caravans could pass through safely, which blew the minds of far too many people.

What they did not know was that with the cooperation of the Black-Clad Guard, one year was enough for Shen Yu to clean up the entire Xiaozhou inside and out.

And the launch of various major projects allowed the people of Xiaozhou, who originally could not get enough to eat and might starve to death at any time, to not only eat their fill and dress warmly but also have extra money to spare.

With extra money in hand, they wanted to consume. Many merchant associations did not even leave Xiaozhou before they were surprised to find that their goods had already been sold out.

Since when did this broken place of Xiaozhou become so rich? Their inherent worldview was collapsing at a rapid speed.

Of course, during the whole process, there were many people who wanted to fish in troubled waters. If no one came to rob their goods, they would find people to rob them themselves; how could selling goods be as fast as the one-to-three compensation money?

It was a pity that the entire Xiaozhou was under the surveillance of the Black-Clad Guard, and those under Shen Yu were an elite among elites; did they really think they were just freeloaders?

For such people, Shen Yu did not show any leniency; he punished them with all his might.

After a set of combined blows, the merchant caravans became honest. And as more and more merchant caravans passed through Xiaozhou, Xiaozhou gradually became prosperous.

As long as they waited for all the other roads to be cleared, Xiaozhou would inevitably usher in great development.

As for Shen Yu, he had become idle. Every day, he would either go shopping with Gu Yutong or stay in the study reading books, looking like someone who had no interest in worldly affairs.

Only Cheng Lin, who stayed by his side, knew exactly how much this Lord Shen had done in this past year.

Cheng Lin even suspected that those notorious mountain strongholds, bandits, and so on that were slaughtered in the Jianghu were all the handiwork of this Lord Shen.

After all, the intelligence information on these people was passed through him. He would pass on a report, and that very night, the evil force would be gone; it was hard not to let one's imagination run wild.

Standing outside Shen Yu's study, Cheng Lin hesitated for a long time. Today, he had news that could not be considered good news to report.

"Cheng Lin, why are you standing outside? Come in!"

"Yes, my Lord!" There was no need to hesitate anymore. Cheng Lin, who originally didn't know how to open his mouth outside, pushed the door and entered.

"What happened to make you so hesitant?"

"My Lord, the imperial court is likely going to send people here!"

"Oh? Send people? When did this happen?"

Quietly flipping through the book in his hand, Shen Yu didn't even lift his head. This was not putting on an act, but truly being immersed in it.

This was also thanks to the reward he got from signing in recently: "Reading as if with divine help." In the past, he would get sleepy as soon as he saw a book, but now he could hold a dry and boring book in his hands and read it with great interest for half a day.

The wisdom contained in the book—the more he read, the more he could feel the vastness of knowledge, and the more he felt his own insignificance.

"My Lord!" Carefully glancing at Shen Yu, Cheng Lin said in a low voice, "It is estimated that in these two days, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel will make a proposal, and then there should be no one in the imperial court who will object. It is very likely that a group of people will be sent to Xiaozhou!"

"Is that so?" Putting down the book in his hand, Shen Yu couldn't help but smile lightly.

"The matter hasn't been settled yet, and the news from your Black-Clad Guard has already arrived. Your Grand Commander is much more sensible now!"

"Yes, how could he not be sensible!" At first, when this Lord Shen wanted the Black-Clad Guard to help him investigate the mountain bandits and robbers doing evil in various places, the Grand Commander didn't take it seriously and just handed it over to the people below to do.

As a result, the people below were also unreliable. Perhaps they felt that this was no big deal, so they just fooled around and finished it.

As a result, this person found out. Afterwards, it was heard that this Lord Shen went directly to the Capital and found the Grand Commander to have a "heart-to-heart" talk.

According to gossip, after Lord Shen left, their Grand Commander didn't go out for half a month. In the end, he only went out because there was something in the palace that required him, and then others discovered that he was even limping when he walked.

A dignified Transcendence Realm expert, almost unable to walk steadily—who wouldn't be afraid of this?

If he were any less sensible, it was uncertain whether he would be able to get out of bed next time. The best result would be lying in bed for a year or a half.

After that, Cheng Lin discovered that the news sent by the Black-Clad Guard was fast and accurate, which was clearly a grade higher than before.

It was also hard on the Grand Commander; who was he not to fool, but he chose to fool him? Was this gentleman someone who was easy to fool?

"These are all just minor matters. As long as those who come don't hold us back, and are people who don't covet or steal but can actually get things done, then let them come!"

"My lord, but..."

He stopped mid-sentence, and Shen Yu understood what he wanted to say. Cheng Lin wanted to remind him that it was possible the imperial court was uneasy and had sent a spy over.

After all, with Shen Yu causing such a stir in Xiaozhou, Cannibal Valley and Evil Man City should have jumped out to fight him to the death long ago. But they hadn't; Xiaozhou remained calm and peaceful, and nothing had happened at all.

Either Cannibal Valley and Evil Man City had been wiped out by Shen Yu, or they were colluding together.

Regardless of which it was, it was enough to make people wary. Especially the former.

Facing Cannibal Valley and Evil Man City, the imperial court had been helpless for hundreds of years; if they had been wiped out silently by Shen Yu, then just how strong was he? Would the imperial court be wary? They certainly would!

Regarding someone like Lord Shen, the imperial court would inevitably be both wary and eager to curry favor and win him over; they could not let him jump to the opposing side, so sending people over again was within reason.

And the reason Shen Yu was not afraid was because they were no longer on the same level; there was absolutely no need to worry about the wariness of others.

Or rather, he simply did not take it to heart.

Strength is the greatest source of confidence!