Chapter 253: The Art of Military Officials

Yuan Jiangjun and Ao Jin returned to the Water Mansion together, and Xu Jia placed the Water Demon Yamen into the Water Mansion; as for the Land Demon Yamen, it remained on Sanqing Mountain.

The fact that they two would be in charge of favorable weather and timely rain in the future was the most fundamental support for Xu Jia to grasp "Divine Power."

Xu Jia planned to raise true Military Officials, just like the warrior monks raised by the Shaolin Temple.

In fact, the timing was basically ripe, but the Daoist temple above had not yet been repaired; it was estimated to take two or three years to finish. However, this did not hinder the recruitment of disciples.

Shanju Guan also acknowledged him as their Ancestor, but these Daoists were not proficient in martial arts or Life Merit; most were the type who took elixirs and practiced alchemy.

Moreover, Shanju Guan still had a prominent reputation locally; they could treat snake venom, and the evil-warding talismans they sold could fetch two taels of silver each.

After the incident at Dizang An, there was no one left in Yushan who could compete with Xu Jia for faith; the people's spiritual sustenance, when offering incense on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, rarely went to the Jinshan Temple that had replaced Dizang An, and the nuns in the temple also practiced in seclusion and closed the gates, not liking to open the mountain gate.

Therefore, although Shanju Guan was on the mountainside and required an hour of climbing, the Incense Fire was much better than before.

Of course, before this, the persona of Shanju Guan was not that of a martial arts sect, and it did not often recruit disciples; disciples were either picked up or came to the door by chance.

Seen this way, Shanju Guan was quite suitable for cultivating some Military Official disciples, reciting Daoist scriptures while practicing martial arts.

The instructor had already been found, and it was the Martial Scholar Chen Gongming; to pass the Martial Scholar examination, one needed not only to practice martial arts but also to practice troop training and strategy.

However, Chen Gongming was clearly not very qualified, and his method of training troops was not necessarily correct.

The Great Ning Dynasty had no full-time soldiers; it was somewhat like the Great Ming of the previous life, where everything was local garrison farming, with one or two drills a month during busy farming seasons, and one drill every five or ten days in winter.

But that was all a matter of the early days of the dynasty; military fields and the like had been sold off for the most part many years ago, and the registered armies were basically all eating empty pay, or were all seventy or eighty years old.

Local military official positions had also become commodities for sale; just like Chen Gongming, after he passed the Martial Scholar examination, he was unwilling to join the army and instead became a local County Commandant.

Therefore, he was actually the most suitable person to drill these Military Officials.

Military Officials are the protectors of the Daoist gate.

Speaking of which, they were equivalent to the batch of people who could fight the best, such as the likes of Nezha, Yang Jian, and Sun Wukong.

What they practiced were all active arts, while static arts were meditation and sitting in Zen, gathering herbs and refining elixirs; Xu Jia practiced this type, but Xu Jia had not neglected Life Merit or active arts, it was just that it was difficult to attend to both when walking one path.

For the likes of Military Officials, they enter the Dao through martial arts; external training tempers the tendons, bones, skin, and flesh, while internal training tempers the five viscera and six bowels. These were not the key; the key was visualization and Divine Transformation.

Since ancient times, rebel groups such as the Yellow Turbans, White Lotus, Luo Sect, and Hongmen actually all had this part of the heritage, but they were more direct, which could be considered "Spirit Striking" rather than Divine Transformation, merely a method of spirit possession.

In his previous life, Xu Jia thought that internally refining the various gods meant inviting these deities into the body's palaces and temples, but in fact, this was also that kind of approach; so he invited one here and one there, and also built Daoist temples to worship these deities, using the body as a temple, but what he invited were not the gods of the inner body, but rather external gods.

It was fortunate that most of what he invited were True Gods, and no evil gods moved in, otherwise he would have been mad and crazy; even if he barely succeeded in cultivation, it would have been nothing more than a side-door path, and in the end, what he would have become was an Incense Fire temple... in the end, it was the Divine Path of the human body, barely counting as a "God Immortal."

The Divine Transformation of a Military Official is not inviting a spirit into the body, but rather, like when Xu Jia previously recited the Lingbao Duren Sutra, Jiuku Ye would respond to the sound and arrive, and thus Xu Jia became Jiuku Ye; during this period, Xu Jia's self-consciousness remained, and he could move freely, and once he stopped reciting the scripture, he was naturally no longer Jiuku Ye. Another example was when Chen Gongming kicked over the Mountain God statue at Shanju Guan; that was also following Xu Jia's guidance, undergoing Divine Transformation into a Daoist Lingguan.

Divine Transformation and inviting a god into the body are completely different meanings; Divine Transformation can directly sense a True God and obtain the blessing of the True God, but the True God does not possess the body. Inviting a god into the body, however, inevitably requires possession; for example, Xiaopangdun's Shaman Technique can borrow Dharma Power and communicate with spirits...

Furthermore, those full of blood and energy are very difficult for gods to possess; the gods that possess the body are either demon immortals or Ghost Gods. The human body has extremely heavy Yang energy, and possession is like drilling into a furnace, which is not worth it.

Once a Military Official is cultivated and added with Divine Transformation, they are a Tai Sui in the human world and a Lingguan in the world.

Martial arts plus Divine Ability has no future, but what about martial arts plus Divine Ability, plus firearms?

What Xu Jia wanted to train were Tiangang Thunder Fire Military Officials; he did not ask for many, as long as fifty people could achieve success in the initial stage, that would be enough. If these fifty people then passed it on, eventually having five hundred people would be enough to defeat fifty thousand so-called elite soldiers of this era.

The cost of such cultivation is very high, but once it expands later, it will not be an issue.

Xu Jia had not cultivated Military Officials on a large scale in his previous life; it was too expensive, and there was a threshold. Many people could not do the visualization of the Lingguan, and only a few could calm their hearts. He only cultivated two who were particularly good at fighting, his Feng Huo Er Jiang, but he did not see their successors when he returned to the spirit realm last time; perhaps they branched out and started a gang in America.

Xu Jia summoned Chen Gongming. During these days, Chen Gongming had been practicing the Tiangang Thunder Fire Dao and the method of gathering Sha and refining Gang that Xu Jia had passed on. During this time, he had been inquiring about places where lightning struck to gather and refine Thunder Sha, and at the Zi and Wu hours, he would gather the Zi-Wu Tiangang.

He had been granted the first level of the General Register and the second level of the Human Immortal Register, and since he was originally a martial arts expert, he had only suffered some losses from going to the Cuichun Pavilion too often, but he had made up for it during these days.

He had also achieved some results, for example, the "Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound" had already been mastered.

Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound is a method of refining the viscera; it is generally considered to be the sound of the five viscera and six bowels squirming, but it is actually sound produced in the chest cavity, which is the so-called chest resonance; in fact, it still needs to be accompanied by a "True Word."

Internal organ sound, as long as it is still "intestinal sound," once the digestive system is strong, it will be like the sound of frogs and toads croaking in summer, which is the "Toad Sound."

These are all "internal practice" skills, but one is in the chest cavity and the other is in the abdomen, covering the five viscera and six bowels.

Chen Gongming gathered Thunder Sha and Zi-Wu Tiangang, practicing "Gang and Sha in Unity," which is a type of True Qi. This type of Qi is not very suitable for immortal cultivation and health preservation, but it is the best choice for improving personal martial power.

"Master, you called me here, is there something you need me for?"

He was originally over eight feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds, known as the Bear County Commandant, but now he had lost that puffy fat and had a feeling of a tiger's back and a bear's waist, much more capable, and there was much more spirit in his eyes.

"I observed the celestial phenomena a few days ago and knew that the world is about to fall into chaos, so I intend for you to train a group of Military Officials to protect yourself in the chaotic world and protect the villagers. Are you willing?"

Chen Gongming's eyes lit up: "Master wants me to lead troops? I originally had some good men, but since I stopped being the County Commandant, I disbanded them. If Master allows it, I can pull together two hundred people immediately, but the food and expenses are truly costly."

(End of chapter)