Da Zaojun

Song Wuji was holed up in Hongzhou Prefecture refining the Ascension Cloud. This cloud could not be created in a single thought; it required several steps. The core of this process was the concept of "human factors."

Favorable timing, advantageous location, and harmonious relationships are the three essential elements, with harmonious relationships being particularly important. As the ancient saying goes, "Harmony in the family brings prosperity in all things."

To refine the Ascension Cloud, one needs a family with five blessings and virtues, a family that accumulates good deeds and enjoys abundant blessings.

Nowadays, with the great changes in the world, there are almost no families with the five blessings and virtues, or families that accumulate good deeds and blessings.

The Kitchen God is, after all, a god of fortune.

Without good fortune, relying solely on the smoke from the chimney will not allow one to ascend to heaven.

As the ancients said: "Those who are blessed with good fortune will rise to the heavens and ascend to high positions."

Fortunately, Song Wuji had a solution: he transformed the secret realm into a place under his rule, spreading the belief in the Kitchen God among the people of the secret realm.

In this way, the harmony of the hearth and the spirit of family were combined, and efforts were made to distribute homesteads and grant farmland to eligible people, while also issuing currency.

The new currency was still the square-holed coin with a round top and a square bottom, but it was more exquisite.

The front reads "Fire Virtue Cleanses Impurities," and the back reads "Passing on the Fire and Gathering Furnace."

This coin has a basic unit of copper coins, namely one wen (文). Its shape is based on the Luobaozi coin, and its weight is based on the Han Wuzhu coin.

This coin was made by the coin-casting craftsmen from the Ningwang Rebellion Secret Realm of Tongfo Temple, who went to the Hufang Secret Realm to collect copper from Yangshan Mountain.

After being cast, the coins must be consecrated by the fire in the stove temple. Each coin is then considered a simple ritual implement, capable of warding off evil spirits. Moreover, the "Luobaozi" coin is an instrument of the God of Wealth's authority, imbuing it with the concept of wealth circulation.

This money is not only money for the human world, but also money for offerings to ghosts and gods, so there will be no inconsistency in the currency.

This currency is pegged to the value of the labor created by people, which is the merit system.

The Heavenly Net recorded everyone's merits, and Song Wuji forged ten times the total number of all merits, since labor is carried out every day and value is created at all times.

If merit points are used for trading, it will cause problems for ordinary people who have money but can't use it. Merit points are similar to war merits and are used to allocate homesteads, land, and even as a standard for evaluating officials. They should not be used for daily buying and selling.

Separating the contribution system from the monetary system and gradually returning the market to the market will help stimulate people to create more labor and more wealth.

As for the copper coins and various currencies from before the great change in the world, they can also be recycled. The Fallen Treasure Coins will devour these copper coins, put them into the treasury, and transform them into wealth.

As soon as these copper coins entered the market, everyone loved them. Wealthy families immediately exchanged their old coins for these new ones, with some even exchanging one new coin for hundreds of old ones.

It's not that they're stupid, but since ancient times, minting new coins has always been a sign of establishing a new dynasty, and there had been some rumors circulating among the people beforehand.

Furthermore, these new coins do indeed possess Song Wuji's fire element and destiny, enabling them to communicate with spirits and gods, and even suppress evil spirits... In the past, people would go to large temples and Taoist monasteries to obtain such coins, and after obtaining them, they would enshrine them.

In this time of great calamity, among ordinary copper coins, only those of powerful dynasties, such as Han Wuzhu, Qin Banliang, and Tang Tongbao, still have this effect.

They felt they were making a profit if they could exchange a hundred coins for one coin, not to mention that this copper was from a secret realm and could be used to forge divine weapons and magical artifacts.

These large families were originally major landowners, but now their land deeds are useless. The new fields were all cleared out by Song Wuji's decrees. If they want to become new landowners, they need to reclaim wasteland, but reclaiming wasteland in the wild is somewhat dangerous. All the silver gourds and dozens or even hundreds of boxes of copper coins they have stored will be circulated.

Only gold remains in our hands, because gold remains strong even after the great changes in the world. It can be used to bribe ghosts and gods. A gold ingot can even be used to store the belongings of ghosts and gods, granting them the authority of the God of Wealth.

After a large amount of old money and silver were exchanged for new money, the new money became more active in the market, and the three major money shops that had been established earlier also began to play their role.

Agricultural banks are linked to spiritual fields and grains; the amount of money circulated corresponds to the amount of spiritual fields cultivated, and the same applies to the amount of spiritual grain harvested.

Commercial banks, associated with the commercial market, were mainly anchored to state-run enterprises, such as shipyards, salt and iron factories, etc.

Another type of money exchange is linked to municipal infrastructure and various projects, as well as all labor that generates value, such as killing demons and reclaiming farmland.

As the saying goes, money makes the world go round. In the past, I used merit points to complete various tasks, which could also be used to buy things and go out to eat.

But it never had any weight to it; the coins felt heavy in the hand, which gave the people confidence.

Even though merit is just a "credit system" and not a tangible thing, people still prefer to exchange merit for money, food, homesteads, and farmland—things that can be seen.

Money is the lubricant of all human social activities.

Originally, Song Wuji was somewhat troubled by the difficulty of refining the Ascension Cloud, as he didn't have enough good fortune. However, after acquiring money, it seemed that many families were starting to experience good fortune, which allowed Song Wuji to collect and refine magical treasures.

Song Wuji didn't know the principle behind this, but he ultimately attributed it to the fact that money could generate "happiness," or rather, give people something to look forward to.

Because wealthy households exchanged a large amount of new currency, they then thought of converting it into combat power. They began hiring people to go out and kill demons and complete rituals, or they would pay for demon materials and then pay alchemists to refine them into pills.

In short, there are plenty of job opportunities in the market, and everyone can easily find work, giving the impression of an economic upswing and booming economy.

Most importantly, Song Wuji's side has no exorbitant taxes and levies. The abundant resources of the secret realm, as well as the large number of spiritual fields previously cultivated, mean that the government offices led by Song Wuji are not short of money. What they lack is manpower and population. They hope that more people will join in to strengthen the laws of the human world.

In this way, without Song Wuji having to go in person, within just half a month, secret realms in the wild were discovered and then opened up for cultivation.

Because the Heavenly Net records everything, no one can keep the Secret Realm Token for themselves. Apart from the Secret Realm Token, Song Wuji can do without anything else and let it circulate freely outside.

Although most of the tokens are ninth-grade or eighth-grade tokens, they can still strengthen the human realm, bring good fortune, bring a more perfect human realm law, and further support Song Wuji's strength as the realm master.

In addition to Hongzhou Prefecture, Taichang County, and Jianxin County, the people of the city began to spontaneously clean up the former towns and villages.

These places are often inhabited by demons of the seventh or eighth rank, and are also relatively easy to find demonic secret realms.

In short, by the time Song Wuji had completed the Ten Thousand Families Ascension Cloud, the Demon Hunting Army had already begun clearing out other surrounding counties that had fallen.

Song Wuji now possesses eleven more low-level secret realm tokens.

(End of this chapter)