Chapter 384

Zhao Tong initially disagreed with Wei Yuan's statement, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed to make some sense.

Now Wei Yuan had made it clear that he was not prepared to hand over the eight magic giant crossbows. With Western Jin's currently strained treasury, there wasn't even enough money to train new troops, and perhaps they wouldn't be able to replace these eight giant crossbows for three or five years.

This meant that for a long time to come, Hanyang Pass would become a mere decoration, and defending against the Shaman tribe would depend entirely on Wei Yuan.

Zhao Tong knew he couldn't persuade Wei Yuan, so he could only stamp his feet and sigh, then said, "Then give me a straight answer so I can go back and report. How far do you plan to expand your territory?"

Wei Yuan took the map, pondered for a moment, and said, "If I say I won't expand eastward, you surely won't believe me, and the Prince won't believe me either. But my next main goal is to conquer the Shaman tribe to the west; my range of activity in the east will be limited to Hanyang Pass and will not cross it.

However, there is a prerequisite: Hanyang Pass cannot block the flying boat merchant fleets coming to Azure Void, nor can it set up checkpoints to collect taxes. Otherwise, others might be fine, but the Garrison Commanders and Vice Commanders will most likely meet with accidents."

Zhao Tong was shocked and said, "This won't do! The Garrison Commanders and Vice Commanders are imperial officials, holding the fourth and lower-fourth ranks. How can you take action against them?"

Wei Yuan laughed, "If tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of small soldiers die, those big shots won't even frown. Look, I killed 300,000 of the Xu family in one battle, and didn't they still come later? But if I kill a few more fourth or fifth-rank officials, and slaughter a few more Dharma Form elders, when the blade falls on those big shots' heads, I guarantee that more than half of the people who want to fight me will disappear. Besides, they were all killed by horse bandits; what does it have to do with me?"

Zhao Tong smiled bitterly and said, "Stop while you're ahead, otherwise you'll go too far, and it won't be easy for me to speak for you."

"As long as the Xu family doesn't go crazy, I naturally won't make things difficult for you. Besides, my mortal enemy now is the Shaman tribe."

"That's good, I'm going back to report."

After Zhao Tong left, Wei Yuan opened the imperial edict and read it through hastily. The edict reprimanded Wei Yuan for moving troops without authorization and crossing the border to make arrests; the wording was quite severe, scolding Wei Yuan thoroughly, but there were no actual punitive measures.

Wei Yuan tossed the imperial edict into the trash can and returned to the main peak.

Now his residence on the main peak had been rebuilt and expanded several times over. The front hall was the place where the cultivators of the Primordial Palace held routine meetings, the left side room contained the sand table map of the realm, where Wei Yuan and the others decided on development strategies. The right side room was filled with shelves of maps covering the entire human domain.

Wei Yuan came to the sand table map, looked carefully at the terrain trends in the northwest, and thought about where to build a new city and deploy the giant crossbows.

The giant crossbows had a maximum range of two hundred miles, the bolts could track targets, and their power could kill ordinary Dharma Forms; they were truly great weapons of slaughter. What they were best at dealing with were large aerial targets like flying boats.

Of the eight giant crossbows dismantled this time, Wei Yuan only planned to deploy two in the direction of the Shaman tribe, four in the direction of the Xu family, and two in the center of the realm for defense.

Wei Yuan stood in front of the sand table for two full hours, drawing a northwestward march route and making multiple marks. Where to build a city, where to establish a relay camp, how many routes the army would set out on, and even how many people per route and at what speed they would advance were all marked.

Ahead of this route, far beyond the sand table, was Wei Yuan's final destination: Hongye's Rain Country.

After finalizing the strategy, Wei Yuan received a report that the eight giant crossbows had been transported back.

Wei Yuan immediately called Yu Zhizhuo to go and receive the giant crossbows.

Hearing this news, Yu Zhizhuo immediately put down everything he was doing and called all his junior brothers from the Heavenly Craft Hall.

The convoy transporting the giant crossbows slowly entered Azure Void, consisting of over eighty trucks; a single giant crossbow required ten large trucks to transport after being dismantled.

Following his predetermined plan, Wei Yuan had four giant crossbows transported to Profound Guard Three and Profound Guard Four respectively. The other four were transported to the center of the realm. These two guard cities both pointed eastward; anyone marching out of Hanyang Pass and wanting to attack the realm would have to pass around these two guard cities.

Wei Yuan had already ordered people to build two high platforms in the two guard cities to serve as launch bases for the giant crossbows.

When dismantling the giant crossbows, Wei Yuan had already ordered people to draw detailed diagrams of every part, as well as their installation positions and sequences. The main component of the giant crossbow was the fuselage, which was made of four identical base beams spliced together, followed by four bow arms. The main magic arrays were inscribed on the base beams, and the magic arrays on the four base beams were all different.

Yu Zhizhuo observed while recording. His several junior brothers each had their own tasks, using tools to measure all the parts and recording them on blueprints, so that after they were thoroughly studied, Azure Void could also manufacture giant crossbows itself.

The magic arrays on the giant crossbow fuselage were mainly for increasing range, while tracking, law-breaking, and killing arrays were all carved on the crossbow bolts. Hanyang Pass had equipped each giant crossbow with ten bolts, and these were naturally moved back by Wei Yuan as well.

The group was busy for a whole day, and Yu Zhizhuo finally finished drawing the blueprints for all the parts of the giant crossbow and recorded all the magic arrays. Then, several disciples of the Heavenly Craft Hall began to direct the cultivators to reassemble the giant crossbows. Yu Zhizhuo was organizing all the blueprints while constantly calculating something. Wei Yuan asked, "How is it? Can we build them?"

"No problem. These giant crossbows are very old designs; the main issue is that the materials are hard to come by, and there is plenty of room for improvement in the design. Give me some time, and I should be able to build better ones."

"What about the cost?"

Yu Zhizhuo calculated silently and said, "No more than 200,000 taels of immortal silver, including fifty bolts."

Wei Yuan was shocked and said, "So little? Western Jin spent 1.5 million taels to build one of these giant crossbows!"

"How is that possible?" Yu Zhizhuo's first reaction was disbelief, then he understood and sighed, "No wonder the national treasury is always empty. It would be a miracle if the treasury could be flush."

Wei Yuan reacted as well. Although such things were as common as hair on an ox in history books, when Wei Yuan actually encountered it, the huge price difference still left him dumbfounded.

If Yu Zhizhuo's improved giant crossbows only cost 200,000 taels, what were the original ones worth?

"Master Uncle Yu, then how much do you think these giant crossbows are worth?"

Yu Zhizhuo had been refining weapons for many years and was already at a master level; what kind of materials hadn't he seen? He estimated for a moment and said, "120,000 taels, no more than that."

Wei Yuan could only sigh: "They really dare to profit!"

!.

A giant crossbow with a production cost of 120,000 taels became 1.5 million when sold to the imperial court, an increase of more than eleven times. By comparison, Wei Yuan sold a breastplate for 20 taels, and the Zhao military procurement price was 50 taels, an increase of only one and a half times. Perhaps this was the reason why Zhao was much more prosperous than Western Jin.

However, although he knew the Zhao military procurement price was 50 taels, Azure Void's breastplates could only sell for 20 taels. The 30 taels between 20 and 50 were not something Wei Yuan could earn. Where those 30 taels went, the 1.3 million taels difference for the giant crossbows also went; it was nothing more than the Seven Families and Thirteen Clans.

"Should we build a few? Give me a month, and I can complete the design for a new bed crossbow." Yu Zhizhuo was eager to try; he was born with an interest in this type of giant war machine.

Wei Yuan shook his head and said, "Our resources are limited now; let's build flying sword guns first."

Yu Zhizhuo glanced at Wei Yuan and said meaningfully, "I understand."

Guns and giant bed crossbows actually represented two directions. Bed crossbows were sharp weapons for defense, while guns were used for offense.

With the giant crossbows transported back, the tens of thousands of captive soldiers also arrived one after another. The process was a bit complicated; these captive soldiers were captured by the Heaven-Slaying Gang, and not long after, Wei Yuan's army arrived, defeated the Heaven-Slaying Gang, and rescued them from the horse bandits.

But the grace of the Military Governor had to be repaid, and there were only two ways to repay grace: either with money or with one's body.

These common soldiers, most of whom were new recruits who had just been regularized, how could they have money? Those who had money had long since donated it to become officers. So in the end, they could only choose to repay with their bodies, serving the Military Governor for ten years. Of course, if they really couldn't do it and wanted to redeem themselves early, that was also possible, at 50 taels of immortal silver per year, paying for the remaining years. It just depended on whether there was a benefactor willing to pay that money.

In fact, the smarter ones had heard of the relationship between the Heaven-Slaying Gang and Azure Void, but precisely because they were smart, no one exposed it.

Given the Military Governor's status, being willing to put on such a show for everyone could already be considered a sign of respect; if they were still ungrateful and really angered the Military Governor, they might be thrown into a mine to dig until they died.

Although the 40,000-plus garrison troops of Hanyang Pass were watered down, their overall quality was still above that of the Xu family's private armies, and they were not comparable to other government troops. The officers in the ranks had already been screened out, and after taking a redemption fee, they had all been released; now, what remained were pure Body Forging soldiers.

Then there were over 100,000 refugees on the road, and Wei Yuan estimated that within a few days, Azure Void's population would exceed one million. He had truly managed to hold on this time; the captives from the first great battle with the Xu family hadn't even been fully digested, and now there were hundreds of thousands more, with thousands of refugees joining every day.

The 500,000-plus people who joined later were all strong men and women in their prime, all in time for Body Forging. Once they broke through the first realm of Body Forging and were fully equipped, their combat power would be more than doubled.

Wei Yuan decided to lie low for a while to digest this population and increase his strength; at the latest, by the next harvest season, it would be time for the army to strike.

(End of chapter)