Chapter 365: Thick Earth Deity

Nanchang Prefect Yue Xun drilled these troops, and these troops felt a sense of "homesickness."

Not only did those naval troops go AWOL, but the infantry desertions could not be stopped despite repeated bans; one Colonel, wanting to execute deserters in public, triggered a mutiny in the camp, and was instead tied up by the soldiers, who scattered in all directions to return home—those with wives went to their wives, those wanting children went to have children—all just waiting for Master Xu to distribute the land.

It was not just them; the impoverished elderly who had lived bitter lives were the most hopeful for the Equal Field policy; they were old and weak, and if they had two mu of land in their name, even if they did not farm it themselves but rented it to others, they could, to some extent, be provided for in their old age.

Do not speak of the ancients governing the world through filial piety; that was merely a label touted by scholars. In the countryside, if an old person could have a mouthful of food, that was already very good; many places even had "abandoned-elder caves."

The Jiangnan West Circuit was better, with a flourishing literary atmosphere and deep moral education, yet it was still hard to avoid places in the mountain gullies; furthermore, for poor and humble households, no matter how great the filial piety, what could it really do to improve an old person's living conditions?

This even extended to Xu Zhiyuan opening large canteens, allowing elderly people over seventy to eat for free.

As for earning money, many elderly people had no means to do so, so they wove baskets, split bamboo strips, and did simple handicrafts; after unified collection, they were issued "Work Points," and children could herd cattle, cut grass, feed pigs, raise sheep...

In the small-scale peasant economy and early industrialization reforms, these tedious, repetitive, and simple labors were indeed suitable for them.

At the end of the month, Work Points were converted into issued "Work Wages," which could also be directly consumed in the canteen or used to purchase items in the "Cooperative."

The new coinage had already begun; using hydraulic hammers for integrated molding, with a steel core inside and copper plating outside, the patterns were clear, similar in size to the "five jiao" of the previous life, and had long been circulating in the market; at first, they were a type of "Flower Money," scattered during Mid-Autumn, Lantern Festival, Spring Festival, and times of bestowing blessings.

Later, it began to become popular in Yushan and Changde; because the style was exquisite and difficult to damage or counterfeit, one could even be exchanged for five ordinary copper coins, and it was believed to have "Dharma Power" upon it, capable of warding off evil, so even people from other places specifically exchanged them for use.

Now that production had increased, they were recycling copper coins and issuing these; currently, one such coin in the market was worth about two ordinary copper coins.

Of course, Xu Jia had no foundation to issue "paper money," so only the Money Shop of the Golden Toad had Gold Notes; he issued Gold Notes at his discretion based on how much gold he had, and they did not circulate in the market, being used only for large-scale trade among merchants, such as overseas silk trade and porcelain trade. There was also a type of "Silver Note," which could only be exchanged for silver; it was also issued according to silver reserves and used to pay for small and medium-sized commercial orders or engineering settlements, but in any case, it would not be over-issued.

Overall, the economy here was developing upwards, and now with this Equal Field policy and the confiscation of property, everything was reviving even more.

Xu Jia, cultivating on the mountaintop, felt the Wish Power behind his head growing stronger, but the Desire Power was also backfiring more and more; this surge of Desire Thought was unusually violent, yet it could not shake Xu Jia's Body God.

Xu Jia's "Demon God System" was even continuing to be constructed outside of his Body God.

The Body God, needless to say, consisted of the Twenty-Four Inner Scenes and the various main gods of the Three Primes and Eight Vistas; these main gods were in turn governed by the three hundred and sixty-five True Gods, and the three hundred and sixty-five True Gods governed the one hundred and eight thousand gods of the celestial void, all of whom were unified under the jurisdiction of the Primordial Spirit.

The Three Primes corresponded to the three primes of Heaven, Earth, and Water; the Heavenly Origin governed Heavenly Gods, the Earthly Origin governed Earth Deities and You Ming Gods, and the Water Origin governed the descent of Water Qi in rivers, lakes, and seas.

Among the Earth Deities, there were "Demon Gods," or rather, You Ming Demon Gods, who had temples on the earth corresponding to certain places. Now, with Yushan, Dexing, Wuzhou, Xinzhou, and other places under his rule, because of the wishes made—which were "never forgotten"—feedback was generated.

Thus, Earth Temples, City God Temples, Mountain God Temples, and River Deity Temples—these small temples of Earth Deity Demon Gods—gradually came into being within the Three Primes space of the Body God's Inner Landscape.

These Demon Gods were weak and small, not like the other True Gods, or the Five Elements Demon Gods, the Maiden Demon God, or the Nine Mother Demon God that Xu Jia had previously subdued. But they were more complete.

Within the Eight Scenes Cave Observation, one could view these various Earth Deity Demon Gods in the lowest layer of the Inner Landscape, each with their own hundred states; the one in the very center was none other than a divine female figure, peerlessly noble, who was the Thick Earth.

What is Thick Earth? It is the desire to compete with the Heavenly Lord in height. If the earth is three feet thicker, it is three feet closer to heaven; that is what Xu Jia was doing.

Of course, no matter how much Xu Jia added three feet to the earth, it was not as much as some people who wanted to scrape the earth three feet deep.

The virtue of Earth governs the Kun; as the saying goes, the terrain of the earth is Kun, and it carries things with great virtue; this lowest layer was the most basic "material foundation," the material foundation where the great desires and wishes of the common people were truly satisfied, and it was also the foundation of the Three Primes and Eight Vistas.

It was just that there was not enough "Thick Earth Qi" to condense this Thick Earth Deity, one of the extremely important "Eight Great Main Gods."

But this was a beginning after all; it was just that unlike the Taiyi Jiuku Tianzun formed by Azure Yang Qi, which was achieved as soon as Xu Jia made the wish, the Thick Earth Deity required the practice of the virtue of Thick Earth to be realized.

Xu Jia inexplicably thought of the "Five Elements Dragon Scale" and secretly wondered if this was the power of the "Earth Element Dragon Scale," but what were the subsequent four dragon scales?

But thinking carefully, he felt "dragon scale" was not accurate, so he classified it under "Spirit Treasures," and vaguely, an Immovable Mountain Great Seal appeared above his hands.

Xu Jia had originally thought that perhaps Thick Earth was the Earth Element energy among the Five Elements; in nature, it was like the Mountain Dwelling Sect's Gengyue Qi-Ingestion Method, which could inhale and exhale the Qi of mountains and ingest the essence of jade, but the reality was not so; this was a very abstract manifestation. If one were to cultivate solely using mountain jade, it would undoubtedly be a mistake, and one would become stiff, turning into a jade figurine.

On the other side, Chen Zhangsheng took Xu Jia's Talisman Edict and went to Jinshan Temple to find Elder Xianhuan; the three monsters of the Lishan Sect's Fenglei Hidden Immortal Lineage were also following along at this time, and their punishment, under Xu Jia's intentional guidance, had already been reduced significantly, and they had gained "half a human form."

The Fenglei Daoren, who was an old hen, only had a pair of chicken feet left, and her upper body had already recovered into a human form; the other two, Ling Yun and Yilei, had more animal characteristics—one remained in the appearance of a large frog, looking exactly like a female toad spirit with an impossibly large mouth, while the sheep demon kept a pair of sheep horns, and her lower limbs were also sheep hooves.

But they had finally begun to recover; they went to Jinshan Temple together with Chen Zhangsheng, muttering: "We haven't changed back yet, so we cannot leave. You are the Daoist companion of our Junior Sister; you must go to Lishan when you return to report the situation to our sect and tell them about our condition."

(End of chapter)