Chapter 686: Patience Has Its Limits

The merchant associations in Ningzhou were actually much more united than Wei Yuan had imagined.

In the following month, there were three more attacks against Qing brocade, causing the amount of brocade purchased from Qingming to be reduced by half. Many merchant associations would rather give up the profitable grain and pills than dare to buy Qing brocade again.

The amount of raw silk leaving the pass also decreased significantly. If it weren't for the supplement of Zhao silk, and Wei Yuan still having a lot of inventory on hand, the silk used to supply brocade to the Shaman tribe would not be enough.

Originally, Wei Yuan didn't care much; he was immersed in the rhythm of practicing Five Elements Dao Soldiers and gathering Qi every day, until news came this day that a merchant caravan transporting spiritual wood for infrastructure to Qingming was robbed, and all the goods were lost.

Wei Yuan was finally enraged.

He wasn't heartbroken over the thirty thousand taels of immortal silver spent on the goods, but rather that this batch of spiritual wood was specifically used to cultivate the Reincarnation Furnace. This matter directly affected Wei Yuan's Dao path.

After a little thought, Wei Yuan concluded that merchants value profit, and it was absolutely impossible for them to be united, so there must be a black hand behind this matter.

And now in Xijin, there were only a few people who could easily do this. After examining them one by one, Wei Yuan concluded that behind this matter, it was nine out of ten the Crown Prince.

In Wei Yuan's list of hostile relationships, the Crown Prince was originally ranked quite low, but now because he robbed one of Wei Yuan's merchant caravans, Wei Yuan directly promoted him into the top three.

After all, for Wei Yuan, he didn't need to ask the Crown Prince for anything, and he couldn't influence him either. The conflict between the two was just that they didn't like each other before, but now Wei Yuan knew that there was a Concubine Yuan between them.

However, for those who can master a country, who would be confused by a little bit of female color and confuse the priorities of military and national affairs?

Wei Yuan didn't want to fall out with the Crown Prince at this time, mainly because once the Crown Prince was defeated, things like adding nine gifts and fake festivals would come to his door, and he couldn't hide even if he wanted to. The history books clearly wrote that these things didn't have good endings.

Wei Yuan temporarily put aside his cultivation and began to check the major events in Xijin in the Human World Fireworks. Subsequently, a piece of intelligence caught his attention: Xijin's military grain was tight, and the imperial court had already levied grain in the eight western counties of Ningzhou three times, but all had little effect.

This intelligence revealed quite a bit of information.

Levying grain in the eight western counties of Ningzhou, the effect was definitely not good. First, this was the Xu family's territory, and wanting to levy anything here was as difficult as ascending to heaven.

Second, after Wei Yuan's layout for nearly two years, a large number of grain fields in the eight western counties of Ningzhou had been converted to mulberry planting, and the annual grain production had decreased by about six million shi, which was more than seven hundred million jin. These gaps were supplemented by four million shi from Qingming, and two million shi flowed in from other areas.

Grain prices in the eight counties were high, so grain flowed in continuously. But now the war in the north was tight, and military grain was consumed in large quantities, other places had no grain, and local officials and big families naturally held onto their stored grain tightly.

Knowing it was difficult to levy but still coming to levy, it showed that the imperial court was currently short of grain to the extreme.

Seeing this intelligence, Wei Yuan decided to launch the second step of the counterattack, completely interrupting the grain supply to Ningzhou, while recruiting refugees on a large scale.

Wei Yuan also issued a warning to all merchant associations: whoever does not purchase Qing brocade, Qingming will no longer guarantee their safety.

Wei Yuan's threat seemed like a moan without an illness, and for a time, it became a joke among the big heads of the eight counties.

Subsequently, Wei Yuan went to Xu Henshui's Pill Hall and stayed there for ten or so days.

Xu Henshui himself had profound attainments in alchemy, and Wei Yuan had personally received the last true meaning inheritance, and now he had two main medicines, Soul Yingluo and Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss, on hand, so the two worked together and finally successfully refined a furnace of Kunyuan Longevity Pills.

This furnace of pills was very strange, with one main and three secondary, a total of four pills.

The main pill was blood-red all over, surrounded by misty fire clouds, and the pill body was transparent, with a small phoenix bird living inside. The three secondary pills ranged in color from blood-red to light red, and the highest secondary pill actually had a natural Dao talisman, and its talisman was the meaning of longevity.

The main pill could extend life by two jiazi, and the three secondary pills ranged from twelve to thirty years.

It looked like the life-extending effect was average, but when the pills came out of the furnace, the two knew that this pill had a very high status, was real life extension, was rarely affected by previously taken life-extending pills, and was not suppressed by national luck. The main pill was worth at least ten million immortal silver.

For an immortal king like Xu Wangu who had used a large amount of life-extending immortal medicine, an immortal pill that claimed to extend life by two hundred years would probably not even extend life by ten years. For an immortal king like Xu Wangu, this pill was a supreme treasure medicine.

When this pill came out of the furnace, Wei Yuan gathered the Taichu Palace cultivators to discuss, and finally decided to hand over the main pill, Kunyuan Longevity Pill, to the sect as a contribution.

These cultivators in Qingming were all gifted, and their Dao hearts had been exceptionally clear recently, which was exactly the time for rapid progress, and even the old Daoist Chuhe began to re-plan his Master Yu Jing path.

So except for Wei Yuan, who was old, no one else worried about their lifespan.

The True Lords of the Taichu Palace were also advancing bravely, and only two or three had worries about their lifespan. If this Kunyuan Longevity Pill couldn't alleviate Tinghai Xianjun's injuries, then it could be used to exchange for immortal items of equivalent value from major families.

As for the other three secondary pills, Xu Henshui, as the main alchemist, contributed another main medicine and numerous auxiliary medicines, so he took the thirty-year one and wanted to go back to offer it to the Xu family's immortal ancestor, while the remaining twenty-four-year and twelve-year ones belonged to Wei Yuan.

The distribution was decided, and Wei Yuan waited for another half a month. Seeing autumn go and winter come, Concubine Yuan had been back in the capital for some time, and the Qingyang Military Governor position had not yet been settled, while the eight-county merchant associations were becoming more and more rampant, actually intercepting one of Wei Yuan's merchant caravans again.

At this time, the optimization of the Reincarnation Furnace had been completed, but because of insufficient materials, the construction progress was affected.

Wei Yuan felt that patience has its limits. According to Xu Wenwu's words from the world beyond the heavens, others have already stepped on your feet, and you still don't kill his whole family?

So Wei Yuan first gathered several loyal merchant firms and let them hold an auction gala at Hanyang Pass. This auction would feature many rare treasures, including a batch of life-extending pills at the level of the Small Nian Pill.

The news of the gala spread and immediately attracted attention from many parties. Such a gala, those second-generation ancestors of big merchant associations and big families would definitely not miss it, so they gathered from all directions.

Subsequently, Wei Yuan announced that he was going to the capital to meet the Emperor.

Originally, local princes going to the capital to meet the Emperor was a common occurrence, but Wei Yuan's nature was special, and he had only been to the capital twice in total, and had never been summoned since.

Going to the capital to meet the Emperor, as usual, required notifying the states and counties along the way to avoid misunderstandings. This time, Wei Yuan had sent people to notify Hanyang Pass ten days in advance.

The newly appointed Garrison Commander of Hanyang Pass received the news, and the teacup in his hand fell to the ground on the spot.

Later, seeing the letter saying that Wei Yuan would not enter Hanyang Pass, but would bypass it from outside the pass, he finally recovered his soul and hurriedly ordered his servants to clean up.

This new Garrison Commander was a Dharma Form of four hundred years old, very senior among the elders of the Xu family, but his status was not high, and his strength was also in the lower-middle range. Relying on accumulation over time, he finally reached the late stage of Dharma Form, and there was no possibility of further progress, only seeking life extension.

The current defense of Hanyang Pass was lax, and it had become a base for the Xu family to select and train new recruits, and the soldiers who could really fight were less than fifty thousand. The remaining two hundred thousand were all new recruits who had been in the ranks for less than half a year.

Ever since Wei Yuan dismantled all eight giant crossbows in one breath, the imperial court had no money to replenish new giant crossbows, and the Xu family could not possibly come up with this sum of money.

The Xu family actually occupied a fertile land and had accumulated for many years, so they should be quite wealthy. But over thousands of years, more than half of the accumulated wealth had been used on the immortal ancestor's cultivation, and the rest was mostly private collections of each family, with little left in the public treasury, and there were deficits every year.

For things like repairing the city defense of Hanyang Pass, it was natural to use the public treasury, but where was there any money in the public treasury?

The newly appointed Garrison Commander calmed down and said to those around him, "As long as he doesn't enter the city, everything is easy to talk about! Whatever conditions he wants, grain or water, give them to him as much as possible."

"My lord, should we strengthen the city defense?" a staff member suggested.

This Xu family elder gave a cold laugh, "This Hanyang Pass of ours is like paper, city defense? What to defend with? With those old master soldiers in the city, which captain or lieutenant isn't related to someone? If those tiger and wolf troops of Qingming really want to fight, they will run faster than anyone else!

No need to say anything, if Wei Yuan really wants to attack, you all just open the city and surrender."

"We?" A young staff member hadn't understood yet, and then was given several winks by an old staff member, only then did he understand.

If Wei Yuan really wanted to use force, the Garrison Commander would definitely not be in the city long ago, and the one responsible for opening the city and surrendering would naturally be them.

An official sighed, "It's only been a few years, and Wei Yuan has become like this. I don't know how many troops he will bring this time to meet the Emperor in the capital."

The Garrison Commander stroked his beard and said, "He brought quite a few the first two times, and now the situation is different and tense, I estimate he will bring thirty thousand this time!"

All the officials gasped.

At this time in Qingming, Wei Yuan had already gathered an army of one hundred thousand to go to the capital to meet the Emperor.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 687 =====