He was born as a blacksmith, but he dominated the world

Chapter 502: Shocking Snake
"It may not necessarily be the imperial court. Although the Daqian royal family is also good at hiding, they don't have the courage to attack us. Moreover, do they have the ability to kill eight Dao Wu realms at the same time in one night?"

"It's hard to say. Just like that blacksmith, he rose to prominence out of nowhere. Maybe the imperial court has come up with some method to quickly promote people."

"I don't think it was the imperial court's doing. Expanding the army while attacking us? Emperor Shun is not that stupid."

"But if it's not the imperial court, who else could it be? Is there any other family in the world that has such means?"

The patriarchs of many powerful clans discussed the issue but could not come to a conclusion.

No one dares to confirm it, it must have been done by the imperial court.

After all, destroying two clans at the same time shows that the strength is quite terrifying.

If the Daqian court had such ability, it would have taken action long ago. Why wait until now?

The imperial court's expansion of the army brought far more turmoil than wars.

At times like this, they should focus more on stabilizing the situation rather than causing trouble.

Once the powerful clans are completely enraged, it will definitely not be a good thing for the Daqian court at this moment.

"What to do now?" someone asked.

The patriarchs of many powerful clans fell silent. The best option was to confront Emperor Shun face to face.

But it is obvious that no matter whether this was done by the court or not, Emperor Shun would never admit it.

If they admit it, it means that the Daqian court is confident enough to defeat the powerful clans.

If we don't confront Emperor Shun, we won't be able to find any other suspects for the time being.

At this time, someone suddenly said, "In the past few hundred years, the Taoist sect has been constantly destroyed, and most of them were not caused by the imperial court. Could it be that the dark hand behind the destruction of the Taoist sect is coming to deal with us now?"

Someone's pupils immediately contracted and his face changed drastically: "You mean, it has something to do with the giant skeleton?"

“It’s not impossible.”

Everyone's faces suddenly turned ugly. They had witnessed what happened to the Taoist sect with their own eyes and had also gloated over it.

Although it was one of the inheritances of the Taoist ancestors thousands of years ago, people's hearts have changed over the past thousand years.

The powerful clans do not feel that they are on the same side as Taoism. One represents transcendence of the secular world, while the other still stands within the secular world.

But there is one thing they have in common, that is, the Taoist sect and the powerful clans are all suppressing the giant skeletons.

But hundreds of years ago, this task was mainly done by Taoists.

To be more precise, the earliest Taoist sects were founded by a group of people with the highest level of spiritual practice.

Those whose cultivation is not high enough will go out to look for food and earn money to support everyone's livelihood.

As time went by, it gradually evolved into Taoism and powerful clans.

"This makes a lot of sense. Maybe there really is someone who would destroy the Taoist sect first and then all our major clans just for the giant's skeleton!" said a clan leader.

"Then what should we do? Hand over the giant skeleton voluntarily?"

"Wouldn't that be exactly what Emperor Shun wanted?"

"No, we don't have to hand over the giant's skeleton to the court."

"You mean to take it to other places? But wouldn't it be more dangerous if we leave the old house? Anyone who takes the giant skeleton out will probably die."

Everyone fell silent again, they all understood what was said.

It's a life-or-death situation, and the probability is extremely high.

Unless the opponent's target is not the giant skeleton, but the clan itself.

But the probability is very low.

After all, apart from rebelling against the imperial court, the powerful clans did not offend anyone they really could not afford to offend.

Even if tens of millions of civilians were gathered together, they were confident that they could kill them all.

On the other hand, possible enemies in the past did not have the ability to eradicate the powerful clans.

Otherwise, the powerful clans would have disappeared many years ago.

"Let's go back and discuss it with our ancestors. If this is true, we will have to send someone to take the giant skeleton away. Even if it means death, we must preserve the family heritage." A patriarch said with a firm look.

Obviously, even if his ancestors disagreed, he might still do this unwaveringly.

For powerful clans, nothing is more important than the inheritance of incense.

This matter has become their most persistent belief over thousands of years of evolution.

Live and live forever!

So, a group of clan leaders left the two clan houses that were almost completely destroyed, leaving the two clan leaders facing the mess and feeling distraught.

A month and a half later, two more giant skeletons were found in the underground palace of the royal private treasury.

Li Qingluan was still the one escorting them personally, and she seemed not to be afraid of being suspected at all.

However, the Li family acted very cautiously and had their own ways.

Neither the palace guards nor the even more mysterious Shang Yusi noticed how they got in.

It was not until the Li family members arrived at the royal private treasury that they discovered it.

Such tactics made the palace guards and the monk Yu Si break out in cold sweats.

After the previous few times, they had increased their precautions and sent in more personnel, but to no avail.

Such means are simply horrifying.

In other words, the Li family does not seem to have much ill will towards His Majesty the Emperor. If they really want to assassinate him, who can stop them?
Perhaps this is the Qingzhou Li family's way of proving that they have no ulterior motives.

So every time Li Qingluan came, Emperor Shun would call Jiang Lin over.

When Li Qingluan asked Jiang Lin about getting married again, Jiang Lin still gave an ambiguous answer.

He didn't know why, but every time he was asked this, he always had an extremely strange feeling in his heart.

It seems that as long as I agree, unimaginable things will happen.

The Qingzhou Li family would rather be enemies with all the powerful clans, and their only goal is to make Li Qingluan marry them. In Jiang Lin's opinion, this is very abnormal.

So he didn't dare to agree and could only consider the wording carefully.

Li Qingluan did not force her and always kept smiling.

The more relaxed she laughed, the more pressure Jiang Lin felt.

When he saw the giant divine bodies fighting outside the pit, he felt very stressed and even felt that he might die at any time.

When facing Li Qingluan, the pressure is completely different.

I didn't feel like I was going to die, I just felt it was very strange.

It's so weird that every time I think about it, my whole body tenses up.

"In that case, let's talk about it next time we come. I hope you will have changed by then."

After seeing Li Qingluan off, Jiang Lin returned to the imperial study.

Emperor Shun was no longer looking at the giant map. Instead, he turned to him and asked, "What do you think Li is going to do?"

Emperor Shun was also well aware that the Li family had great ambitions, but he could not figure out what they wanted.

Jiang Lin is indeed very capable and has great potential for the future.

But is this alone enough to make the Li family willing to stand against the powerful clans?

This is completely contrary to the beliefs that the powerful clans have upheld for countless years.

They never put all their eggs in one basket and always make many plans at the same time.

Now, the only basket of Qingzhou Li family is Jiang Lin.

So Emperor Shun also wanted to figure out what exactly they wanted.

Jiang Lin shook his head and said, "If I could figure it out, I wouldn't have to come to see her."

This is true. If Jiang Lin can think it through, he can either discuss it with Emperor Shun or go directly to Qingzhou Li for a talk. Emperor Shun was silent for a moment, and then said, "Then what do you think should be done?"

"If the Li family doesn't mess around, just leave them alone. There's nothing to worry about." Jiang Lin said, "The most urgent task is to expand the number of border troops as soon as possible. If we have enough strength, we don't need to be afraid of anything they want to do."

Emperor Shun nodded, this made sense.

In just over a month, the number of new recruits for the border troops has exceeded three million.

But it is still a long way from becoming a real frontier army.

These new recruits have never been on the battlefield, their skills are very poor, and they are not even familiar with the battle formations.

It is obviously impossible to expect them to improve their combat effectiveness.

According to the estimates of the Ministry of War and several generals, it will take at least another three months before initial results can be seen.

However, it would be very difficult, or even almost impossible, to recruit 13 million new border troops relying solely on Daqian's national strength.

If we do that, then everyone will become a soldier.

What can a bunch of old, weak, women and children do? It's hard to farm.

The people can live a little harder, but not too hard.

Emperor Shun still remembered what Emperor Taizu had said, that only if everyone in the world had enough food to eat would they not rebel.

Daqian’s bottom line is that it cannot force the people to rebel.

Therefore, if the border troops want to expand their numbers, they can only find ways from outside.

Dachen and Daliang are already recruiting people.

In addition, the border troops have also moved to further places and are fighting against the new dynasty.

The dynasties further away were also no match for Daqian, but it was not easy to destroy all the resistance forces.

In four hundred years, Daqian's territory increased less than ten times.

From a few states, it expanded to nineteen states.

From south to north, it is only about 10,000 miles.

It is still a million miles away from the most distant place.

It may take hundreds of years to conquer such a large territory.

Of course, this is calculated based on the current military strength.

The Blacksmith Camp has now recruited many blacksmiths, and the total number has reached more than 40,000.

Although most of their skills were mediocre, with the pig iron fired by Jiang Lin as a prerequisite, the weapons they made were not bad.

The worst one can produce a mid-level fifth grade product, while the better ones can reach the upper grade.

Many of the original blacksmith camp masters were able to forge weapons of higher quality.

People like Qi the Blacksmith have even reached the level of spiritual weapons.

Among them, the pig iron produced by Jiang Lin naturally played a great role, but from the side, the masters of Daqian Blacksmith Camp were indeed much more skilled than ordinary blacksmiths outside.

After all, working with Jiang Lin, they created so many high-quality weapons every day, and their furnace baking method progressed rapidly.

Many people have already reached the third level of martial arts cultivation, and the higher fifth level is no problem at all.

You have to know that when Jiang Lin first came to the Blacksmith Camp, only the master craftsman Yu Maoming could reach the fifth level of martial arts.

Although the quality of the weapons was not high enough, they were still sent to the border in batches as replacements.

With better weapons, the power of the border troops' battle formations increased greatly.

The speed of the war will naturally be much faster.

Even General Ling sighed that if he had had these weapons when he attacked Dachen and Daliang, he would have been confident that he could have taken down these two dynasties in three months at most.

Time passed like this, and half a year later, when the fifth powerful clan was destroyed without anyone noticing, the powerful clans finally could no longer sit still.

They sent people to the palace to question Emperor Shun in person whether he had acted secretly.

The answer obtained was, naturally, similar to what was expected.

Emperor Shun denied that he had done it and even swore to heaven.

This made the powerful clans a little depressed. As the emperor, he shouldn't lie by pointing at the tablets of his ancestors.

In fact, they actually hoped that Emperor Shun would admit it, even if they would not pursue the matter afterwards.

After all, if Emperor Shun admitted it, it would mean that his enemy was right in the open.

Even if the strength exceeds expectations, it can be dealt with.

But Emperor Shun denied it, so the enemy was lurking in the dark.

No one knows how strong he is, what he wants to do, who he is, or anything like that.

The unknown is the scariest thing.

After returning, the powerful clans drew lots for life and death within the family without saying a word.

All those above the fifth rank of the Divine Martial Realm will participate, with each family sending out ten people, and at least one at the peak of the Divine Martial Realm to lead the team, two at the ninth rank of the Divine Martial Realm, and three at the eighth rank of the Divine Martial Realm.

The remaining number of people are between the fifth and seventh levels of the Divine Martial Realm.

More than twenty powerful clans have brought out more than two hundred masters of the Divine Martial Realm.

Such strength is very terrifying.

The number of people in the Divine Martial Realm among all the border troops added together is not as many as the number they sent out.

And so many people in the Divine Martial Realm are only a part of the powerful clans.

Even if they all died, it might be a big loss for them, but it would not be fatal.

The powerful clan did this matter openly and had no intention of concealing it.

In other words, they took the initiative to tell Emperor Shun that they no longer wanted the giant skeleton and planned to transport it away.

Even if you want to fight, don't come to our old house and fight to the death outside.

If we lose the fight, it’s because we are incompetent.

However, there are more than 200 people in the Divine Martial Realm, and all of them are above the fifth level of the Divine Martial Realm.

Such strength is almost equal to that of several Xuanhua Daos.

At that time, the masters of Xuanhua Dao Mountain were only at the fifth level of the Divine Martial Realm, and there were not many at the sixth or seventh level.

If you want to destroy such a team, even if you mobilize millions of border troops, you may not necessarily win.

The border troops had no intention of engaging in combat with the powerful clans, and continued to expand their territory further afield.

When the giant skeleton was pulled out of the home of the powerful clan and sent away, the whole world was shocked.

Especially for ordinary people, their inheritance is easily cut off, so many people only know today that there are more than just them and the monsters in the world.

There are more powerful beings who have appeared in the world before.

The overwhelming and mighty force made everyone feel suffocated. It was a force that ordinary people could not bear.

Even Jiang Lin, who was thousands of miles away, could feel it clearly.

He stood in the blacksmith's shop with the blazing Hengyu furnace behind him.

Countless pig iron in the furnace is improving its quality under the burning flame, and then is quickly transported away by the blacksmith apprentices.

The jingling sounds continued one after another.

Jiang Lin looked far to the south, as if he could see through the long distance the skeleton of a giant being escorted away by the masters of a powerful clan.

He blinked and said to himself, "In this case, what should Li do?"

(End of this chapter)