Longzang

Chapter 351 New Trees Are Not Easy to Bully
It took Wei Yuan a long time to calm down after Xianghou left.

It had indeed been some time since they parted ways in the capital, but Wei Yuan subconsciously felt as if everything had happened just yesterday. He could only politely decline the message from Consort Yuan; matters within the realm were currently numerous and complicated, leaving him no time to travel to the capital. Besides, even if Wei Yuan wanted to go to the capital, he would need a suitable reason.

Wei Yuan chose a spot on the vast land of Wanli River and Mountains, dug a small pond several feet square and two feet deep, and then after a light rain, he put the seed, which was the size of a water vat, into the pond and watched the rainwater gather and slowly submerge the seed.

The rainwater carried a distinct, putrid stench. Since the battle with the Xu family, the fortunes of the Western Jin Dynasty had clearly declined.

The rainwater had a yellowish-green hue, but the seed seemed to like it very much, and began to absorb water at a visible speed. Then, a spark of life began to sprout from the center, releasing a wisp of spiritual energy.

Not far from Jade Mountain, the Ice Crystal Divine Tree stood quietly, with snowflakes falling within dozens of feet around it, and a thin layer of snow covering the ground.

The laurel tree stood on the edge of the ice and snow. A wisp of pale red sword energy slowly flew over and gently poked the icy tree. After a while, seeing that the icy tree did not move, it poked it gently again.

After several attempts, the Ice Crystal Divine Tree showed no reaction. So the pale red sword energy increased in power and slashed towards the outermost pale blue leaf.

A layer of ice crystals suddenly appeared on the surface of the leaf, blocking the sword energy.

This single exchange produced a tremendous sound that resounded for miles around, instantly attracting Wei Yuan, who was observing the seeds in the pond in the distance.

The laurel tree never expected that a single sword strike would sound like the tolling of an ancient bell. Terrified, it tried to flee, but its trunk trembled and it stopped in its tracks!
It then realized that a thin layer of ice had covered the ground, freezing all its roots in the ground.

It struggled several times but couldn't break free. Then it saw Wei Yuan standing beside it, looking at it expressionlessly. Wei Yuan didn't speak, but simply pointed to the Ice Crystal Divine Tree.

On one of the leaves of the Ice Crystal Divine Tree, there was a clear sword mark. The wound had cut all the way to the veins, and there was a faint red sword aura shimmering on it.

The laurel tree's branches shook frantically, trying to prove that its sword strike hadn't hurt it at all, and that the wound was clearly inflicted by the tree itself!

Unfortunately, the words were too complicated for it to understand, and Wei Yuan didn't seem to really want to hear them; he simply reached out his hand to it.

The laurel tree placed a flower in Wei Yuan's palm.

Wei Yuan remained unmoved.

After a long stalemate, the laurel tree finally reluctantly placed the pale red sword energy in Wei Yuan's hand. Wei Yuan went to the girl Yin Yang's side and wrapped the sword energy around her wrist.

The area within a hundred feet of the girl's Yin-Yang body was a forbidden zone, and no immortal plant was willing to approach it.

After doing all that, Wei Yuan picked up a stone and slowly refined the true meaning of the cauldron before starting to make the parts.

Seeing that Wei Yuan was no longer paying attention to them, the Laurel Immortal Tree grew angrier and angrier. It sprouted a new branch from its trunk, with a thin, newly formed sword aura on the tip, which it waved defiantly in front of the Ice Glass Divine Tree.

Suddenly, the Ice Crystal Divine Tree raised a branch and slashed at one of its own leaves, creating another wound on itself!

Just as the laurel tree sensed something was wrong and wanted to stop it but didn't know how, the ice glass tree tapped its two leaves together, immediately producing a loud, clear, and crisp sound like a sword cutting through steel!
Wei Yuan appeared instantly, first looking at the new wound of the Ice Glass Divine Tree, then at the Laurel Immortal Tree, and expressionlessly extended his hand again.

The laurel tree felt it was a tree and wouldn't move at that moment.

But Wei Yuan had his own way. He pointed to the girl with his Yin-Yang finger, and the laurel tree had no choice but to crack open its bark, from which a new branch emerged and slowly placed the sword energy in Wei Yuan's hand.

After Wei Yuan left, the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree had nowhere to vent its anger, so it threw a flower at the Ice Glass Divine Tree. Then, the Ice Glass Divine Tree's branches and leaves shook, making a gesture that was extremely vulgar and insulting to trees in the Immortal Plant World!

The laurel tree was dumbfounded, its worldview shattered.

Then Wei Yuan appeared before it again. This time, the Laurel Tree truly didn't know what it had done wrong.

Wei Yuan emerged from the vast landscape, opened the medicine cabinet he had just exchanged, and placed a roll of fresh cinnamon bark from the immortal tree inside. One of the auxiliary ingredients in the Kun Yuan Longevity Pill formula he had just learned was cinnamon bark from the immortal tree.

The bark of the laurel tree had long since cracked and peeled off, but it was still used to wrap its body. As a result, Wei Yuan discovered it, and thus another roll of laurel bark was added to his collection.

After carefully storing the elixirs, Wei Yuan reviewed his cultivation progress. He had acquired two new immortal plants, each contributing a small increment to his progress each year. However, his biggest gain from immortal plants was the Dragon Blood Wood, which had already borne fruit five times.

It is extremely weak at this moment, and is on the verge of falling from its immortal rank. It is unlikely that it will bear fruit a sixth time in the near future.

Five new Dragon Blood Wood buds can contribute two more progress bars, and then there are the 130,000 new people joining the realm. In the end, if Wei Yuan does nothing, he can reach 21 progress bars of spiritual energy per year, and the time to complete the mid-stage of the Dao Foundation will be less than five years.

In terms of a single contribution, the greatest is not spiritual plants, but ordinary rice.

Normally, 500,000 mu of ordinary rice only produces one unit of spiritual energy, but each time it ripens, it contributes an additional unit. Crucially, it ripens every two months, so it can produce an extra six units of spiritual energy per year!
Wei Yuan made up his mind to prepare to cultivate another 500,000 mu of new farmland.

In the brief silence, the fourth cohort of the Cui family arrived. This time, there were five hundred people, two hundred of whom were elders. The agreed time had passed, so Wei Yuan returned the Dragon Blood Wood, which was taken back by the Cui family's Dharma Image. However, no sooner had the Cui family's flying boat departed than the Zhao Kingdom's Li family's flying boat arrived. This time, the representative of the Zhao Li family was still Marquis Xiang, King Qian. The Zhao Kingdom's Li family was essentially the royal family, and this time they sent two hundred disciples who had achieved the Great Completion of Body Forging, with requirements similar to the Cui family, but without any restrictions on the mortality rate.

Zhao and Li rose to power through military campaigns and are now a strong nation among the nine kingdoms. Their national spirit is martial, and they are not afraid of casualties.

In addition to the silver, Wei Yuan's reward also included Zhao's guarantee of smooth trade routes.

With the start of the fourth Foundation Establishment class, Wei Yuan also selected one thousand Body Forging Masters from the realm to join this class in Foundation Forging. The realm has recently replenished its population significantly; among the sacrifices, refugees, and surrendered soldiers, there are over a thousand Body Forging Masters, totaling more than five thousand.

After this battle, the number of cultivators joining the realm gradually increased, and there were enough fire-element cultivators. As a result, Wei Yuan built several blast furnaces in one go, producing 200,000 catties of molten steel per day.

Wei Yuan seized the rare quiet time to work hard in farming and forging iron, striving to improve his combat strength in the shortest possible time.

However, Wei Yuan was unaware at this time that the impact of annihilating the Xu family's 300,000-strong army far exceeded his expectations.

In the Western Jin Dynasty palace, the King of Jin, holding a steel-pipe gun, awkwardly loaded the ammunition into the gun before firing a shot at the artificial hill not far away.

With a deafening roar, a corner of the artificial hill collapsed, sending rubble flying in all directions.

"Is this the musket Qingming made? The power is acceptable, but the accuracy is worrying." Prince Jin commented as he tried to load ammunition into it, but he couldn't get it in no matter what he did.

Zhao Tong, who was standing nearby, looked at the piece of jade paper and reminded him, "You need to use your Dao power to clean the gun barrel first."

King Dao of Jin exhaled, blowing a large amount of black ash from the gun barrel. This time, the ammunition could indeed be loaded. Zhao Tong, referring to the firing procedure written on the jade paper, said, "The ammunition must be sucked to the bottom."

With a surge of power, Prince Jin drew the ammunition deep into the chamber, while the air escaped through a small hole in the barrel. Once ready, Prince Jin fired again, this time smashing a large chunk of the artificial hill.

After firing several shots, the Prince of Jin lost interest, put down the musket, and said, "It's equivalent to a casual strike from a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but it's not very accurate beyond thirty feet. Did Wei Yuan use this to wipe out the Xu family's 300,000-strong army?"

Zhao Tong said, "Wei Yuan didn't just have one or two guns, but tens of thousands! When tens of thousands of guns fired at the same time, three or four thousand of the Xu family's cavalrymen at the forefront were wiped out."

"They won't be able to fire more than a few shots before the cavalry are right in front of them, will they?" the Prince of Jin asked.

"Your Majesty is wise, it is indeed so. Those who shot slowly fired three or four shots, while those who shot quickly fired five or six. Wei Yuan had set up obstacles in front of the position beforehand, so the cavalry were a little slow when charging."

The Prince of Jin asked, "Why didn't the Xu family flank the enemy? Why did they insist on charging straight at us?"

Zhao Tong said, "Actually, judging from the morale of both sides at that time, Wei Yuan was clearly weaker. One side was infantry and the other was cavalry. Even if their morale was even, if I were in command, I would probably have to charge head-on. As long as the charge was successful, the battle would be won."

The Prince of Jin nodded and said, "Send some of these guns and ammunition to the Ministry of Works and order them to replicate them as soon as possible. Also send some to the Prince of Ying and have him first form a musketeer battalion of ten thousand men to see if they are of any use."

Seeing that Zhao Tong seemed hesitant to speak, the King of Jin asked, "Speak freely, why are you holding back?"

Zhao Tongdao said, "Forming a new battalion will likely cost a lot. The national treasury is already empty this year, and I'm afraid those civil officials will cause trouble again."

“Then take it from my personal treasury.”

"Your Majesty, there is no silver left in the inner treasury."

The Prince of Jin was taken aback, then frowned and said, "Then let's gather five thousand, no, three thousand men first!"

The Prince of Jin picked up a tube of ammunition sealed in oiled paper, fiddled with it in his hand, and said, "Those officials, big and small, are all so fat and bloated. Can't we get them to donate some money for the military?"

Zhao Tong lowered his head and said, "Since the beginning of this year, the capital and local officials have donated silver three times, totaling 410,000 taels."

Suddenly feeling agitated, the Prince of Jin slammed the ammunition to the ground, and with a loud bang, the ammunition exploded!

Amidst the flames and smoke, the Prince of Jin's voice was as cold as ice: "Wei Yuan seized a piece of land and managed to equip tens of thousands of people in less than a year! How come when it comes to me, I can't even equip three thousand people?!"

Zhao Tong trembled all over and dared not speak.

At this moment, the melodious voice of Consort Yuan came from the side: "Wei Yuan's land only produces five taels of silver, and he gets all of it. Your Majesty's land produces a hundred taels of silver, but Your Majesty only gets one tael. This is the reason."

A glint flashed in the Prince of Jin's eyes, and he said slowly, "The aristocratic families truly deserve to die!"

(End of this chapter)