Mythic version of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 7305 What's the point!
To be fair, Liu Yi's abilities are absolutely not in question, but the fact that he was dealing with two huskies, and super heavy-duty ones at that, meant that he had to focus most of his energy on controlling them, which led to a major oversight in how he handled the situation.

Of course, the existence of a loophole does not mean that things have gone wrong. On the contrary, when Liu Yi discovered that the rice in Hao Zhou's house containing the essence of heaven and earth was actually genuine after hanging Hao Zhou on the roof beam to swing, his first reaction was that this was a big problem!

To put it this way, if you fake something, it's a very serious problem. But if you make something real, it's not just a matter of how serious it is, it's a matter of big trouble!
To put it another way, if the master coins used to make coins in China were to end up in private hands and be collected by someone, you'd better pray that your master coin is fake. At most, a fake master coin would constitute the crime of counterfeiting currency, the core of which is the creation of a currency sample. If it is just the unauthorized creation of a currency sample, it would be considered a crime of counterfeiting currency, which carries a minimum sentence of three years.

If it's true, the starting point would be three major charges: leaking state secrets (top secret level), dereliction of duty leading to the leak of state secrets (insider), and illegally possessing state top secret or confidential documents or items. If you obtained them and even used them, you would also be charged with counterfeiting currency.

The fake one above is at most handled by the Economic Crime Investigation Department of the Public Security Bureau, and major cases are supervised by the Ministry of Public Security. But if it's real, it would be directly supervised by the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security. There's no such thing as a small or large case. If it's real, it's definitely supervised by that level of authority.

Because this thing is classified as top secret from the start, and it's not just about investigating the owner, but also how it got leaked. It won't just be one person going to jail, it will be a group of people, and they will definitely have to be investigated backwards.

So after Liu Yi found the seeds of rice made from the essence of heaven and earth and confirmed that they were genuine, the nature of the matter shifted towards suppressing a rebellion, namely, how did you obtain such a thing!

Whether you can grow it or not, in Chang'an, only Zhao Yun's family, Qu Qi's family, and Shanglin Garden can privately grow a batch of this stuff. Even Liu Bei and Chen Xi's families don't have this stuff. If it appears in your house, you should think about whether your life is tough enough.

Surely no one thinks that the only crop that can be grown on a large scale is just like ordinary grain, and that any kind of crop will do? If that were the case, why would Lu Bu have Zhao Yun squatting in the field where he planted rice made from the essence of heaven and earth for his grandson and son?

If we're really talking about the difficulty of this thing, it's no joke. If it were simplified to the point where even veterans of the sixth level of smelting could grow it, Chen Xi himself would start promoting it. There would be no need to acquire land in Yangzhou, with its special military formations, special environment, and professional personnel. The annual output would be enough for the people on the front lines to eat a few more bowls of rice.

Even so, as a rare and precious natural treasure, this thing is still a top-tier ingredient for providing a gentle energy source for certain secret medicines.

After all, this thing is less like food and more like a rare and precious natural treasure that looks like grain!

To date, this is the only crop among the three great empires that can be obtained on a large scale, easily absorbed by ordinary people, and genuinely has the effect of improving physical condition.

As for other things, they may be more effective than crops made from the essence of heaven and earth, but in terms of scale, how many chestnuts can the giant chestnut tree in Rome produce in a year? Even if each one has the life essence of the Qi Refining stage, one chestnut is not as good as a bag of rice made from the essence of heaven and earth.

Moreover, if you plant too much of this stuff, it can produce some incredible things. For example, a single ear of rice might contain the same amount of life essence as someone who has reached the Qi Refining stage. Although it sounds absurd, if you plant hundreds of thousands of acres, you can produce hundreds or even thousands of such plants every year.

Although no one could figure out why, it didn't stop the Han court from receiving hundreds of these outrageous plants every year. The only problem was that using such rare and precious materials as crops wouldn't fundamentally change the rice the following year. So later, these things were mostly sealed up in special ways to wait for the right time!
That's right. After cultivating crops imbued with the essence of heaven and earth for so many years, even a fool would know that such large-scale cultivation of rice imbued with the essence of heaven and earth requires extremely high density and activity of the essence of heaven and earth. The special Xuanxiang that shrouds certain areas of Fusang and Yangzhou, as well as some crystallized essence of heaven and earth produced by the Han Dynasty, and even the extra cloud energy, are actually all consumed in this process.

In addition to climate and nutrition, rice also needs sufficient essence from heaven and earth to grow.

This is why Chen Xi has not expanded the cultivation of the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice to this day, and it is also why the major families that have established states abroad have not specifically cultivated the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice.

To a certain extent, planting crops imbued with the essence of heaven and earth requires Chen Xi's approval. Of course, if you think you are Cookie and can set up your own experimental field for research, then you can ignore the requirement for Chen Xi's approval. But according to the rules, without Chen Xi's explicit consent, no one else can plant rice imbued with the essence of heaven and earth.

To prevent others from coveting the rice made from the essence of heaven and earth, Chen Xi staged a play around the third year of Yuanfeng. Although the Zhou, Ji, and Xu families were all playing themselves and their reactions to seeing something good were completely in line with what aristocratic families would do, the three families still suffered a real blow.

From this point on, Chen Xi made his stance clear: the rice made from the essence of heaven and earth must not be planted by anyone other than with the government's consent and his approval.

After all, Chen Xi was well aware of the dangers of this thing. The cost of planting it was only a small part of the problem. On the other hand, the large-scale cultivation of rice, which was imbued with the essence of heaven and earth, would attract a large number of ferocious beasts.

Well, even if it wasn't a ferocious beast at first, once it consumed the essence of heaven and earth and the rice that gave it intelligence, it would be pretty much a ferocious beast.

Therefore, planting rice imbued with the essence of heaven and earth requires the use of a special Xuanxiang military formation, as well as exceptional individual combat strength. More importantly, it cannot be planted near residential areas, as this would easily attract a large number of ferocious beasts after the rice matures, leading to significant casualties.

In other words, the right to plant this stuff was never delegated to the local authorities from day one!

If local governments have the authority to activate nuclear facilities, produce a full set of nuclear weapons, and launch proactive strikes, then who is in charge?

"Fine, fine, so it's a high-yield crop imbued with the essence of heaven and earth, huh!" Chen Xi was so angry he laughed. All the files he had collected before were about high-yield cash crops. Even Hao Zhou's application report was supposed to be about adjusting the grain structure, shifting from grain cultivation to high-yield cash crops. So Chen Xi didn't think much of it and approved it. And this is what they call a cash crop?
At this moment, Huangfu Song kept his eyes down, pretending to be a clay or wooden sculpture. He had thought about what kind of family in Xuzhou was involved in this kind of thing. After all, Huangfu Song had lived to such an old age and had seen the world. He knew just how despicable those people were. But was this a matter of being despicable? This was truly courting death!
"Based on my analysis, what Liu Changshi sent was indeed high-yield rice imbued with the essence of heaven and earth." Qu Qi gave his conclusion from a purely academic perspective, completely unaware that this was practically adding fuel to the fire!
"Hanmou, which generation is this rice from?" After laughing in anger, Chen Xi tried to restrain himself and asked Qu Qi. Since things had come to this point, the group of people in Xuzhou were doomed, but the reason why the rice seeds of the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice were lost had to be thoroughly investigated.

From a certain perspective, Zhang Song is now essentially on the hot seat of power, since it's more realistic that the rice seeds were lost from Yangzhou than from Japan.

"That's the problem. I clearly cultivated this rice variety, but you're the one who gives me my annual rice seed quota," Cookie asked with a hint of surprise, while casually hammering a few more nails into the coffin lid of the relevant management personnel in Xuzhou and the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice.

"If I remember correctly, Zhang Ziqiao should also be in Jiangling. Go and invite Zhang Ziqiao over," Chen Xi said coldly to Yuan Yin, who was taking notes beside him.

"Hanmou, let me confirm with you one more time, are the crops planted in Xuzhou really made from the essence of heaven and earth?" After sending Yuan Yin away, Chen Xi looked at Qu Qi with a serious expression and asked.

The rice seeds of the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice are very special. Each seed needs to be sealed with a special secret medicine, otherwise it may be killed by the insects remaining in the soil as soon as it is planted. Therefore, if the seeds are planted directly, there must be a secret medicine isolation layer, and this isolation layer must be able to continue to maintain itself for several days after the seeds germinate.

It is precisely for this reason that Cookie later established a breeding base for the "Essence of Heaven and Earth" rice, which directly solved the first problem. Moreover, the closed-off base is easier to manage and has a lower probability of accidents.

However, concentrating the essence of heaven and earth in one place for breeding places extremely high demands on the environment, the density and activity of the essence of heaven and earth, and the ability of the management personnel. In addition, after being cultivated, the rice needs to be transported, and there are bound to be accidents along the way. Therefore, the Han Dynasty currently only has two large-scale breeding bases for cultivating seedlings of rice with the essence of heaven and earth.

Due to the limited scale, the rice soaked in the special medicinal solution that was used before is still being used in large quantities. However, no matter how much it is used, it is impossible to extract enough grain for the entire Xuzhou prefecture, unless the quota set by Chen Xi from the beginning has a serious oversupply.

The problem is that Chen Xi's metrics are collected directly from the lower-level managers. If the metrics obtained in this way are seriously overflowing, then the entire management of the Heaven and Earth Essence Rice is probably rotten to the core.

Chen Xi had some confidence in his abilities and moral character. Even if some of the managers had ill intentions, most of them wouldn't actually go that far.

Therefore, if Xuzhou really managed to obtain enough high-quality rice seeds of the essence of heaven and earth for the seed replacement, then the scale of high-quality seeds set by Chen Xi in the tenth year of Yuanfeng must have had a huge loophole in some aspect, which is actually unrealistic.

"Yes." Qu Qi was born into a noble family, but in normal circumstances, he didn't encounter bad people, so he didn't need to think about whether there was a problem. After all, no one would harm Qu Qi. But this time, Chen Xi asked him repeatedly, and Qu Qi's somewhat rusty scheming finally started to move. Then he realized that something seemed a little wrong!
“That’s not right. Where would Xuzhou get such high-quality rice seeds with the essence of heaven and earth?” Qu Qi found a seat and asked, “Shouldn’t you be the one writing the quotas and I be the one preparing the materials? Otherwise, even if it’s rice harvested last year, we can’t use it.”

Without the secret remedy of Cookie, if you don't have the fighting power of Zhao Yun and Lü Bu, plus the ability to guard the ground tirelessly and prevent any insects from getting close, then planting the rice is tantamount to feeding it to a strange beast.

This explains why, despite having hundreds of giant chestnut trees in Rome that could produce hundreds of top-quality chestnuts each year, the Romans should have used the chestnuts to cultivate more chestnut trees imbued with the essence of heaven and earth, perhaps even on a scale similar to that of the Han Dynasty. In reality, however, Rome could only manage this on a small scale because they couldn't solve the problem of planting large chestnuts, which would be tantamount to feeding exotic beasts.

With the resources and military strength of the Roman Empire, it was possible to guard the land like Lu Bu and Zhao Yun did, but Lu Bu and Zhao Yun could only guard two acres of land. How much could Rome guard?
"That's right, the problem has become like this. Xuzhou is basically doomed now. Such large-scale planting of crops imbued with the essence of heaven and earth without my approval—every single one of them is going to die," Chen Xi said coldly. Rice imbued with the essence of heaven and earth can be used to mass-produce exotic beasts because humans have limited digestive capacity and cannot fully absorb the life essence of the rice. But other animals…

Therefore, without special means, large-scale cultivation of this thing is equivalent to manually increasing the intensity of human beings. So without a foolproof method, Chen Xi would definitely not approve it. And if this is done without Chen Xi's approval, it is no longer a matter of harboring malicious intentions.

"What's the point?" Only now did Liu Tong fully understand what had happened in Xuzhou. It was no longer a simple case of powerful families colluding with the bureaucracy to create natural disasters, reaping the accumulated wealth of the local people over the past twenty years, and forming large-scale personal dependence—operations that Huangfu Song had been accustomed to when he was young. Instead, it was something far more outrageous, and even Liu Tong couldn't understand the reasons behind it.

At this moment, Chen Xi, Liu Tong, Qu Qi, and Wan Zhen all looked at Huangfu Song. After all, compared to the younger generation who had not experienced such darkness, Huangfu Song had rich experience in dealing with the inhumanity of the previous era.

"I want everything." Huangfu Song felt the gazes of Chen Xi and the other three. To be honest, he didn't want to answer, but he was forced to speak because of Chen Xi's cold and sharp eyes.

"What does 'seeking everything' mean?" Chen Xi vaguely realized what an inhumane answer this was, but he still couldn't quite believe that things were really as simple and brutal as he thought.

“Theoretically speaking, there shouldn’t be any problems that can be detected.” Huangfu Song sighed. “According to you, because of the Canghou’s secret medicine, it is normally impossible to determine that this seed is a crop made of the essence of heaven and earth. It can only be planted as a high-yield and high-quality seed, and it will indeed sprout, but then be destroyed by birds, insects and the like due to insufficient planting conditions.”

Upon hearing this, Cookie sighed. His secret medicine could ensure that the rice would only reveal its special life essence when it grew to about three inches, attracting various animals to eat it, so there was no problem with germination.

“Since it is rice made from the essence of heaven and earth, the manifestation of it will definitely be pests and diseases, and these special pests and diseases will definitely completely devour the rice.” Huangfu Song said this without any fluctuation in his voice. “In other words, after the pests and diseases, when you go back to check, you won’t be able to find any problems, let alone rice made from the essence of heaven and earth.”

"We could even report that a large-scale outbreak of special pests and diseases has occurred in Xuzhou," Chen Xi said with a gloomy face. His spiritual talent, Zhenguo, can correct the climate of the four seasons and ensure that the entire Han Dynasty region maintains a fairly good climate. However, Chen Xi's spiritual talent cannot suppress pests and diseases. It can only be said that the climate is good and it is not easy for them to occur. But if they do occur, there is nothing that can be done.

Considering the overall environment in recent years, the blame for the problems in Xuzhou could even be pinned on Rome's misuse of superweapons. After all, Xuzhou had never experienced such a large-scale pest infestation before. The fact that it has become so severe this time, causing crop failure in Xuzhou, means it is definitely not Xuzhou's fault.

"In addition, the application submitted to the Prime Minister was for high-yield cash crops, so the investigation would definitely have leaned towards that aspect. If there had been replanting, it would have been enough to completely cover it up." Huangfu Song said this very calmly. It was all too normal for officials to protect each other, and all the evidence had been destroyed by pests and diseases.

“The evidence wasn’t all swallowed up,” Liu Tong retorted.

“I know, I’ve heard that there are a few veterans who have undergone the sixth level of forging, and they know that the rice they grow is made from the essence of heaven and earth.” Huangfu Song did not refute Liu Tong’s words. “After all, as Chen Hou said before, if the bureaucratic system is truly united and determined to hold on even when the leader is gone, then we need to consider who the villain is.”

There are no secrets in this world, and the sixth level of refining already grants access to information that ordinary people cannot.

So it's normal that they know what they're growing, but when things really escalate to this point, how many of the officials who told them the truth would risk their lives to speak out when they were told not to spread the word?

After all, the veterans who dared to plant this thing at that time were all rather unbelievable in their intelligence, and had no idea that planting it required approval!
But they must have found out after the incident, and by then it was too late!
I'm currently holed up and have taken a look at the side story plans. I feel somewhat hopeless.