Chapter 478: The Army Approaches

The Huangzu tribe's caravan will arrive in three days, and this time it's unprecedented in scale, with dozens of flat-bottomed boats. These boats can't proceed further than a hundred li from Qingming and must meet Qingming here for the handover.

Little Wei Yuan's convoy consists of over two hundred large cargo wagons, nearly all the wagons in Qingming equipped with weight-reduction arrays, just to transport the hundred thousand jin of wine.

Lord Tianyu and Little Wei Yuan chatted casually as they watched the warriors from both sides hauling cargo. At this moment, four individuals were brought forward by the Wu tribe and stood before Little Wei Yuan. The strength-witch guarding them removed their hoods.

They were a family of four, with unusual features, impossible to place as from any specific region. They looked around in confusion, unaware of where they were. The parents were both Kaihui Daoji, while the two daughters were only eight or nine years old, just beginning their Body Casting.

Lord Tianyu said, "These four are top-tier offerings with special bloodlines. In your human terms, both parents are Xianji, and the two children have even better talents. Oh, and here's this."

Lord Tianyu handed Little Wei Yuan a black stone and said, "Plant it in water. That clears the last debt."

"What is this?"

"I don't know. It's been stored for a long time, but it should still be alive. Probably." Lord Tianyu emphasized the last word to appear less guilty.

Little Wei Yuan put it away. The previous aquatic immortal plant had already begun to stir with life. Now his Mind Realm was filled entirely with water, greatly increasing his need for aquatic immortal plants. If it could grow, fine; if not, studying it wouldn't hurt.

For this trade, the Wu tribe deployed thousands of strength-witches, carrying hundreds of jin of cargo as easily as holding an apple. Little Wei Yuan brought three thousand cultivators who had fully completed Body Casting, equally capable of lifting hundreds of jin and leaping about.

Watching each crate being moved from the ground-riding boats onto the wagons, Little Wei Yuan gave Lord Tianyu a heavy slap on the shoulder and said, "Thanks a lot this time!"

Lord Tianyu grinned and said, "Thanks for what? The things you mentioned—my ancestors already knew them, but there was nothing they could do. We've always been slightly weaker than the Rain Kingdom and have no voice in Tiancheng. So whenever our tribe reaches a critical stage of development, the Rain Kingdom comes to weaken us, to maintain their dominance in this region."

"Ninety years ago, my great-grandfather was the top witch in our tribe, and also the youngest. He didn't join the war then—he left the tribe to travel. When the war ended, his corpse was returned. He was the fourth-generation descendant of my ancestor. My ancestor said Red Leaf killed him personally."

"Who did the united war fight?"

"Mostly the Hanhai Liao tribe, occasionally humans. The land we took from you was divided equally, but we don't border the Liao tribe—every time we won, we got enclaves, useless territory."

Little Wei Yuan smiled and said, "Then it seems we'll have many more collaborations in the future."

"As long as the Rain Kingdom still exists. I must go."

Watching Lord Tianyu's back, Little Wei Yuan asked one final question: "Do your Wu tribe have civil wars?"

"Yes, but we don't have the right to."

After the trade ended, Little Wei Yuan went to the wagons, thrust his hand through one crate, and watched a stream of pure white sand spill out. It was Thunder Sand, the main ingredient of the new explosive. This material is scarce in the Western Regions, but the Huangzu tribe has vast mineral deposits. Little Wei Yuan had long been unable to obtain Thunder Sand and had resorted to making substitutes from Thunder-Struck Phoenix Blood Phoenix Tree.

This time, using wine, he finally acquired Thunder Sand from the Huangzu tribe. Even without wine, the Huangzu tribe would likely have found another excuse to give Little Wei Yuan the Thunder Sand.

Holding the high-grade Thunder Sand in his hand, Little Wei Yuan was very satisfied. The strength-witches had already left far away, but their singing could still be heard—clearly, they were quite excited.

The Huang witches' love of alcohol is well known. The wine produced in the Wu Domain is far inferior to human wine—that's true. Through repeated casual chats with Lord Tianyu, Little Wei Yuan learned much about the true state of the Wu tribe. The Great Great Tangjiu Kingdom starves people; every year, Wu tribes across the domain also starve to death.

The Huangzu tribe's food and fish yields are extremely limited; alcohol is an absolute luxury, strictly rationed. From top to bottom, the higher the rank, the stricter the rationing—otherwise, if the few Huang Witches drank freely, the entire tribe would starve.

On the human side, there's always grain shortage but never lack of people, so alcohol is also a luxury with limited supply. For this trade, Little Wei Yuan collected all the wine from surrounding regions, gradually gathering it over half a year to accumulate enough for one exchange.

This purchase drove up wine prices, so some people began brewing wine from stored grain, while others switched to planting grapes and other fruit suitable for winemaking. But the scale was small, nowhere near that of mulberry trees.

On the return journey, Little Wei Yuan initially planned to toss the stone beside the central city, but a strong sense of discomfort made him change his mind. He flew north for a thousand li until the feeling changed, then cast the unknown immortal plant seed into the sea below.

The Huangzu tribe, as a lineage spanning hundreds of thousands of years, indeed had many treasures—Lord Tianyu could casually pull out two ancient immortal plants.

Returning to Qingming, Little Wei Yuan received a letter from Sun Sun Chaoen: he had already transferred six thousand of his eight thousand troops to Qingming. He also coordinated with the other two commanderies, securing a combined fifteen thousand reinforcements.

But the way these twenty thousand-plus reinforcements arrived was unusual—it was a secret arrangement among the three commandery governors, unknown to the imperial court. All expenses for the reinforcements fell on Little Wei Yuan, as did the compensation for the dead.

Yet on the imperial records, these twenty thousand-plus soldiers were still listed as stationed in their original camps, allowing the three governors to begin siphoning their empty rations. And since Little Wei Yuan's compensation standards were higher than the court's, the difference naturally ended up in the governors' pockets.

Thus, the three governors spared no effort, meticulously combing through their own camps and dragging out every soldier without power, influence, or connections, sending them all to Qingming—and hoping none would ever return.

>

As soon as the reinforcements arrived, Little Wei Yuan immediately ordered them moved to a separate camp for closed training.

After handling these matters, Little Wei Yuan flew without pause toward the northwest to observe the Rain Kingdom's progress.

Since Little Wei Yuan had discovered them, the Rain Kingdom no longer concealed its actions. It removed all forward barriers, and the You Witches no longer guarded tightly, allowing Little Wei Yuan to easily infiltrate to seven hundred li.

Far across the land, new embankments had been built; the canal had extended to nine hundred li; the great lake had been opened to release water, and a canal over ten zhang wide now cut across the earth.

On the canal's surface, flat-bottomed boats shuttled back and forth—those arriving were heavily laden, their gunwales nearly touching the water; those returning were empty.

Waves churned in the canal, and massive water beasts slowly advanced through the water, each dragging behind it a dozen boats.

At the nine-hundred-li mark, countless Wu tribe tents and warehouses stretched endlessly. Four altars—three small, one large—were under simultaneous construction, each crawling with Wu laborers.

At the canal's front, hundreds of thousands of Wu laborers continued digging, advancing at a pace of ten li per day. Over a hundred thousand Wu troops had pushed forward dozens of li and established a new defensive line to protect the canal behind them. This area still lay outside the Broken Realm, where the vision of celestial monsters was greatly weakened. The Wu Domain's heavens and earth held absolute dominance. Even if Little Wei Yuan poured all of Qingming's strength into an assault, without sufficient Yu Jing, he could not break through this Wu defense.

Little Wei Yuan gazed into the distance and saw at least four to five million Wu people within his line of sight.

(End of Chapter)