Longzang

Chapter 479 The army presses the territory
The caravan of the Desolate Ancestor Tribe arrived three days later. This time, it was unprecedented in scale, consisting of dozens of flat-bottomed boats. These flat-bottomed boats could not go any further when they were about a hundred miles away from Qingming, and they needed to meet up with Qingming there.

Wei Yuan's convoy consisted of over two hundred large trucks, almost mobilizing all the trucks in Qingming with weight-reducing formations, to transport all the tens of thousands of kilograms of wine over there.

Tianyu and Weiyuan chatted casually, watching the warriors from both sides carry goods. At this moment, the four were brought up by the Wu tribe and stood in front of Weiyuan. The escorting Wu removed their hoods.

This was a family of four, with somewhat peculiar appearances, and it was impossible to tell where they came from. They looked around blankly, unsure of their surroundings. The parents were already at the Dao Foundation stage, while their two daughters were only eight or nine years old, having recently undergone the Body Forging process.

Tianyu said, "These four are all top-tier sacrificial offerings with special bloodlines. In your human terms, both parents have immortal foundations, and the two children have even better talents. Oh, right, and this one too."

Tianyu handed Wei Yuan a black stone and said, "Plant it in the water. The debt from last time will be settled."

"what is this?"

"I don't know. It's been stored for a long time, but it should still be alive, it should be," Tianyu emphasized, trying to sound less guilty.

Wei Yuan put it away; the aquatic immortal plants from last time were already showing signs of life. Now that his mental world was full of water, his need for aquatic immortal plants had greatly increased. It would be best if they could be grown here, but even if they couldn't, it wouldn't be a loss to study them.

For this transaction, the Wu Clan mobilized several thousand powerful Wu warriors, who carried crates weighing hundreds of kilograms as easily as carrying an apple. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, brought three thousand cultivators who had reached the Great Perfection of Body Forging, who could also lift hundreds of kilograms and leap about.

Watching the cargo boxes being moved from the ground-going vessel into the truck, Wei Yuan patted Tianyu heavily and said, "Thank you so much this time!"

Tianyu grinned and said, "What are you thanking me for? Our ancestors already knew about those things, but there was nothing they could do. We were always weaker than the Rain Kingdom and had no say in the City of Heaven. So whenever our tribe was at a critical stage of development, the Rain Kingdom would come to weaken us in order to maintain their dominant position in this area."

Ninety years ago, my great-grandfather was the chief shaman of the tribe, and also the youngest. He didn't participate in the war at the time, but instead left the tribe to travel. When the war ended, his body was returned. He was my great-grandfather's fourth-generation descendant, and my great-grandfather said that it was Hongye who personally performed the ritual.

"Whom did the allied wars fight?"

"They are mostly from the Hanhai Liao tribe, and occasionally they fight against the human race. The land they get from fighting you is divided equally among everyone, but we don't border the Liao tribe, so every time we fight, we only get enclaves, which are not very useful."

Wei Yuan smiled and said, "It seems we'll have a lot of collaborations in the future."

"As long as the Land of Rain still exists, I should leave."

Watching Tianyu's retreating figure, Wei Yuan asked one last question: "Will your Witch Clan ever have a civil war?"

"Yes, but we are not qualified."

After the transaction concluded, Wei Yuan approached the truck, reached out and pierced one of the cargo boxes, watching as a trail of white sand spilled out. This was Thunder Sand, the main ingredient in the new gunpowder. It was scarce in the Western Regions, but the Desolate Ancestor Tribe possessed abundant deposits. Previously, Wei Yuan had been unable to purchase Thunder Sand, resorting to producing Thunderstruck Phoenix Blood Wutong as a substitute.

This time, however, they used alcohol to finally acquire Thunder Sand from the Desolate Ancestor Tribe. In fact, even without the alcohol, the Desolate Ancestor Tribe would probably have found another reason to give Thunder Sand to Wei Yuan.

Looking at the superior-grade lightning sand in his hand, Wei Yuan was very satisfied. By this time, the power sorcerers had already gone far away, but their singing could still be heard, clearly indicating that they were also quite excited.

It's common knowledge that the Witches of the Wilderness are fond of alcohol. It's also true that the wine produced in the Witch Domain is far inferior to that of the human race. Through numerous casual conversations with Tianyu, Wei Yuan learned a great deal about the true situation of the Witch Clan. People starve to death in the Nine Kingdoms of Great Tang, and every year, Witches in the various tribes of the Witch Domain also starve to death.

The Wild Ancestor Tribe's food and fish production are extremely limited, making alcohol an absolute luxury, with a rationed supply. From top to bottom within the tribe, the higher the rank, the stricter the rationing; otherwise, if a few Wild Shamans drank freely, the entire tribe would starve.

On the human side, there is always a shortage of food but not manpower, so wine is also a luxury item with limited supply. The wine for this transaction was all purchased by Wei Yuan from various surrounding areas, and it took him more than half a year to accumulate enough for one transaction.

This acquisition drove up wine prices, so some people used their stored grain to make wine, while others switched to growing grapes and other fruits suitable for winemaking. However, the scale of these efforts was small and could not compare with that of mulberry trees.

On the way back, Wei Yuan originally intended to throw the stone next to the central city, but a strong feeling of unease made him change his mind. He then flew north all the way until he was a thousand miles away before the feeling changed. He then threw the seed of the immortal plant, which he didn't know what it was, into the sea below.

The Wild Ancestor Tribe truly lives up to its reputation as a tribe with a history spanning hundreds of thousands of years. Their treasure trove contains many valuable items, and Tianyu can easily produce two ancient immortal plants.

Upon returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan received a letter from Sun Chaoen, informing him that he had transferred 6,000 of his 8,000 men to Qingming. He also coordinated with the other two prefectures to send a total of 15,000 men to provide support.

However, the way these 20,000-plus reinforcements arrived was somewhat peculiar; it was a private operation by the three prefects, and the imperial court was unaware of it. All expenses for the reinforcements were covered by Wei Yuan, and he also provided for the families of those who died in battle.

These 20,000-plus men were still listed as stationary in the military camps in the imperial records, allowing the three prefects to embezzle their quotas. Furthermore, Wei Yuan's proposed compensation was higher than the imperial one, so the difference naturally went into the pockets of the three prefects.

Therefore, the three prefects spared no effort, carefully searching their own military camps, and then dragged out all the soldiers without power, influence, or background and sent them to Qingming, hoping that none of them would come back.

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

After dealing with these matters, Wei Yuan immediately flew northwest to observe the progress of the Rain Kingdom.

Now that Wei Yuan had discovered them, the Rain Kingdom no longer concealed itself and removed all the barriers in front of them. The Youwu also stopped guarding them closely, so Wei Yuan easily sneaked to a distance of seven hundred miles.

New dikes have been built on the distant land, the canal has been extended to nine hundred miles, the sluice gates of the great lake have been opened to release water, and a canal more than ten feet wide has appeared on the land.

The river was filled with flat-bottomed boats coming and going. The boats that came were extremely heavy, with their sides almost touching the water's surface. The boats that returned were all empty.

The canal was surging with waves, and huge water beasts moved slowly forward in the water, each of them dragging a dozen boats behind it.

Nine hundred miles away, there were camps and warehouses set up by the Wu tribe everywhere. The vast expanse was filled with four altars, one large and three small, being built at the same time. Each altar was covered with Wu tribe laborers.

At the canal's front end, hundreds of thousands of Wu Clan laborers continued their arduous digging, advancing ten miles per day. A massive Wu Clan army of over ten thousand had already advanced dozens of miles, constructing a new defensive line to protect the canal behind. This area was still outside the Shattered Domain, where the extraterrestrial monsters' vision was significantly reduced. The Wu Clan's realm held absolute dominance. Even if Wei Yuan unleashed his full power of Azure Nether to attack, without sufficient Yu Jing, he would find it difficult to breach this Wu Clan defensive line.

Wei Yuan looked into the distance and saw at least four or five million members of the Wu tribe within his field of vision.

(End of this chapter)