Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 243 Give as much as you can

When familism prevails in the world, and people generally place great importance on family relationships, it foreshadows the incompetence of the state.

This illustrates that the state cannot provide strong support to the people, nor can it guarantee that the people will not be illegally harmed by others. Therefore, sticking together based on blood ties becomes the only reliable means for people to protect themselves.

The history of clans protecting people is long. In ancient times, people banded together to fight against natural disasters, man-made calamities, and wild animals. At the same time, the family was also a prototype of state management.

When a unified dynasty rises, its first target is always the powerful families, because if these families continue to prosper, they will have the power to overthrow the country.

When the Yun Family Manor was first formed, it was loosely organized, and of course, not very united, but also very easy to manage. Now that their blood relatives are coming, the Yun Family Manor is evolving from a group of natural persons into a group composed of the simplest family units.

If Eji and Feng An do nothing, Yun Clan Manor will become a group composed of small clans within ten years, and within another fifty years, it will become a large group with Yun Clan at its core and a group of powerful middle-class families as its main body.

A century later, the Yun family will be no different from Cao Kun's family. In the end, they will inevitably challenge the highest power. They will either win and die without a burial place, or they will fail, bow down and be harvested, leaving a little embers to plan for the future.

Therefore, Yun Ce hopes that E Ji and Feng An can mediate or act as judges with the aim of splitting up the family and increasing the number of natural persons involved.

When two men are vying for one woman, the preference will naturally lean towards the latter, allowing the woman to marry a natural person rather than returning to her original family to strengthen their power.

If both men are natural persons, the division should naturally favor the weaker party. In short, the strong should not be allowed to become stronger. This is actually the underlying meaning of many legal principles in the ancestral land.

I thought that Eji and Feng An would understand this idea, but they didn't.

Yun Ce overturned the plan that they had come up with after much deliberation, and directly gave them guiding principles, forcing them to divide the population according to the guiding principles he provided.

The result of this was the creation of many seemingly illogical miscarriages of justice. Fortunately, those men had already lost their women once, so losing them again was not as painful.

As for the spies who had infiltrated, Yun Ce didn't care. The autumn harvest was just around the corner, and there would be plenty of work for them to do in the fields. After the harvest, the Yun Clan Manor would immediately begin the arduous construction of defensive fortifications. With so much work to do, Yun Ce didn't think they could find out anything.

After all, what the Yun family truly needs to keep secret is Jin Suo Pass. Apart from this place, the Yun family manor, Jingkou Pass, and even Xiangcheng are all pawns laid out in the open, and they are not afraid of people knowing about them.

Before the autumn harvest even began, the money for purchasing military rations from Wu Tong's side had already arrived. This time, Yun Ce didn't need to personally escort it; the person who came to Yun Family Manor to transport the military rations was Zhou Chengming.

Remembering that Zhou Chengming had once robbed and killed the tribute from Chuyun Prefecture to the Han Emperor, Yun Ce wondered if sending this guy to escort the grain would cause any problems.

Wu Tong brought a lot of money, but half of it was not melted gold ingots, but various kinds of gold jewelry. Many of the jewelry pieces still had their gemstones, and some pieces still had traces of blood that hadn't dried.

Eji picked out many uniquely designed pieces of jewelry and gave them to Liang Kun to sell in Xiangcheng. Yun Ce also picked out several very exquisite pieces of jewelry to give to Eji and Zhang Min, but neither of the women wanted them and instead gave them to Liang Kun to sell.

In her spare time, Yun Ce found a kind of thin bamboo with a beautiful color, baked it into the shape of a bracelet, and then polished it with a fine cloth until it became shiny and had a bit of an antique feel. The two of them were overjoyed and each wore one.

Money is something that can't be kept at Yun Family Manor. Caravans frequently come to Jingkou Pass, and although they are only the lower-level caravans of the Pingcheng Grand Caravan, they still bring a lot of supplies to Yun Family.

Since the caravans confirmed that Jingkou Pass had enough gold to pay for the goods and did not like the barter trade, the quality of the goods they brought to Jingkou Pass has become increasingly higher.

As a result, Huo Liao never complained again about wanting to work but not having enough materials.

After the caravan arrived at Jingkou Pass, Huo Liao personally went to select the materials he needed. Unexpectedly, he found two huge pieces of meteorite iron in the caravan.

This is a really good thing. After Huo Liao hit it with the hammer, he felt that his luck was really incredible. He had easily obtained the metal needed to open and close the two iron gates of Jin Suo Guan.

The two doors, weighing forty tons, are connected by a mechanism made of ordinary metal. They will need to be replaced soon, and the ordinary metal will be deformed by the heavy iron doors. Although the newly manufactured high-carbon steel will not be bent, it will break!
This type of meteorite, which combines rigidity and flexibility, is ideal for making the interlocking mechanism of a door.

Yun Ce really wanted to use this metal to make himself a meteor hammer that would suit his skills. Ordinary wrought iron meteor hammers would break off their spikes and be flattened if they encountered someone with a hard head, which would greatly affect their future use.

Huo Liao initially dismissed Yun Ce's needs and didn't intend to pay attention to them. However, after being persuaded by Feng An, he specially prepared a batch of something called No. 45 steel and forged two meteor hammers for him.

After Yun Ce wielded them, he was full of praise. The weight, hardness, and flexibility of the chains on these two meteor hammers were the best he had ever handled. "Boom!"

Yun Ce slammed his hammer with all his might onto the massive iron gate, only shaking off some dust and leaving a dent in the gate. Gouzi calculated that Yun Ce would need at least 8,600 hammer blows to break open the gate and create a hole in it.

The gate was hollow and filled with sand. This sand was what deflected the force of Yun Ce's impact on the gate and ensured that the force was almost completely absorbed by the time it reached the second layer of iron plates.

After closing the gate, Yun Ce said to E Ji, "Shen Tingyu won't be able to break down this gate to come in and hurt you."

Eji laughed and said, "We have two such gates."

Huo Liao, who had been standing silently to the side, immediately corrected E Ji when he heard that she had made a mistake: "We actually have six such gates."

Upon hearing this, Yun Ce immediately beamed with joy. To be honest, ever since he told Shen Tingyu that he had used more than twenty large fish bladders to sleep with his sister, he had been feeling uneasy.

Especially after hearing Shen Tingyu say that he planned to use thirty large fish bladders to sleep with his wife, the feeling of unease became even stronger. Others might just be talking nonsense like him.

Shen Tingyu is different. This guy might take this matter seriously. If it really happens, Yun Ce doesn't care much about it. After all, it's a disaster caused by his careless talk. He's just afraid that Eji won't be able to handle it.

Now that there are six iron gates protecting Eji, Yun Ce doesn't believe Shen Tingyu can do it.

However, after seeing the six gates that Huo Liao had described, Yun Ce was completely relieved. The ingenuity of the two giant iron gates and the four gates behind them was not something that outsiders could understand.

From now on, whenever Gouzi senses Shen Tingyu within a 30-mile radius, Yun Ce will immediately send Eji to Jin Suo Guan to hide her. As for Zhang Min, she is safe, since Shen Tingyu is a man of his word.

The underground construction at Jin Suo Guan is still ongoing. At some key locations, Yun Ce even allows Huo Liao to use explosives to speed up the project.

It wasn't until Huo Liao blew up an underground river with his new toy that Yun Ce threw a lot of colorful driftwood into the underground river. Then he sent people to stake out the nearby rivers. Finally, little by little, he determined the outlet of the underground river, which was near Longkou Mountain. The underground river emerged at the foot of Longkou Mountain and eventually flowed into the Qingshui River.

Because the underground river is not very large, Huo Liao plans to cut it off here and dig a waterway to turn it back to the north of the Great Wall. In this way, a water system will appear in front of Jin Suo Guan. If this water system is used carefully, a moat will appear in Jin Suo Guan.

"This cave has an underground river and hollow spaces; could it collapse?"

Huo Liao put down his copy of "Advanced Mathematics" and said, "We didn't carve out a large cavity. Besides, most of the mountains here are made of viscous, high-strength limestone. Even a normal earthworm wouldn't have any problems turning over."

Although Huo Liao still couldn't understand "Advanced Mathematics," these professional terms, spoken by someone holding "Advanced Mathematics," were incredibly convincing.

Everything was peaceful at Jin Suo Pass, and there were many surprises. Reassured, Yun Ce took E Ji back to Yun Clan Manor to prepare for the annual autumn harvest.

Zhou Chengming arrived at Yun Family Manor ahead of schedule with three thousand cavalrymen and a long convoy.

Arriving ahead of schedule is not a good sign; it indicates that the food supply inside Iron Enclosure Pass is already in trouble. This guy brought three thousand men; he might very well be planning to dine at the Yun Clan Manor.

This time, Yun Ce did not invite these people to the manor to soak in the hot springs, so naturally there was no way the servants would swipe their cards for them. He only treated them to a meal of oil-splashed noodles because Zhou Chengming had taken care of Zhang Min before.

After finishing their meal, Zhou Chengming followed Yun Ce to a small courtyard, which was the accommodation he had arranged for Lao Zhou.

"Give Tiewei Pass as much food as you can, because I'm afraid that even if you want to give it to them later, you won't have the chance."

Just as Yun Ce was about to leave, he suddenly heard Zhou Chengming's words.

Yun Ce turned around, only to see that Zhou Chengming had already taken off his shoes and gotten into bed, as if he hadn't said those words at all.

　Chapter 3 is here. I'm definitely not sleeping in tomorrow. I'm still asking for votes. It's the end of the month, so who else can I give my monthly votes to if not Jie2?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)