Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 101 Everything for Stability

In November of the 33rd year, under Wu Fei's leadership, the border of the civilized nation continued to advance southward. This time, in addition to a decrease in the number of soldiers, the focus was mainly on "economic development".

On the north bank of the Lingjiang River, near the City of Fortune, which corresponds to the four fortresses on the south bank, numerous villages and markets with a high proportion of members from the Da Yao Kingdom have sprung up. Like a pearl necklace strung around the great gem that is the City of Fortune, it's more like a chain binding the City of Fortune.

In the City of Fortune, a newly renovated restaurant has been shut down and converted back into a teahouse. Merchants from within the pass rest here, eating peanuts and salted fish, and cautiously discussing how the weather in southern Lingjiang is about to change!

However, these merchants' discussions were useless; their predictions of economic trends made within the Great Wall were all overturned by the General's Mansion. And they were all forcibly pushed onto another commercial path by Wu Xiaoque.

For example, the reason the northern train route was opened was because Wu Fei spearheaded a large-scale reclamation project on the north bank of the Lingjiang River, relocating 30,000 households to the border region. This shattered the plans of many merchants in Lucky City who thought they could continue their "trade with the locals under the support of the army" as in previous years.

After discovering that the price of oxen in Yaoren Village was much more affordable than that offered by merchants from the south, the natives in the south stopped selling them to them.

These farmers, wearing straw hats and working in the fields, came here and, after cultivating the paddy fields, created a stark contrast between the local customs and the primeval forests to the south, separated by the river.

Because the villages that have been reclaimed and expanded have been able to localize the production of homespun cloth and pottery, causing significant losses to the hoarding merchants in Lucky City, these merchants have also tried to sabotage the reclaimed and expanded villages.

However, in these settlements, these settlers also underwent armed training.

Compared to the regular troops at the four fortresses on the south bank, they had replaced their iron helmets with bamboo hats, and their ranged weapons had been significantly changed from crossbows to firearms.

These muskets were produced by the waterworks in Fenxing City. The barrels were forged from wrought iron, thus reinforced with bamboo-like joints. These muskets were effective against light armor at a range of 120 paces. Of course, beyond 100 paces, they were not as effective at penetrating armor as the Wind-Riding Arrows.

The militia forces of these reclamation teams on the north bank were actually commanded from the city centered on Sifangbao in the south.

Wu Fei divided the area around Lingjiang into four parts based on the size of the counties in the Da Yao region. These are what people now call the four counties of Lingjiang: Cangwu, Hepu, Yulin, and Jiuzhen.

As a result, the personnel authority of the four military command posts on the south bank of the Ling River was greatly enhanced.

At this crucial moment before heading north, Wu Fei made the following arrangements, of course, to suppress the unstable elements of "radical military expansion" within the country and to fully shift to a farming lifestyle.

There is considerable dissatisfaction within the Lingnan Group regarding Wu Fei's decision to promote "stable farming".

Wu Fei confirmed: They have also been accumulating strength and building up their influence.

While drinking tea, Wu Fei questioned a troublemaker who was missing a skill and confirmed that the reason this group was able to unite so many people was that many of his old subordinates had the idea of ​​"taking more than their share".

Xuan Chong consulted history and found the historical figure Alexander. He was a typical example of someone who conquered but failed to build a framework. Not only did his regime collapse after his death, but it also fell apart.

…Xuan Chong: We can't be Alexander the Great…

The Lingnan Group that Wu Fei is now targeting is a confluence of a military meritocracy and a predatory business group. Wu Fei was the one who initially pushed for this confluence, and now he wants to break it up.

Let's start with the business aspect.

Lucky City has now become an investment base for "commercial plunder." These businessmen who used to attend the BRICS summit have invested so much money in Lucky City in recent years, clearly not betting on its beautiful scenery to buy a feng shui treasure for their graves to protect their descendants.

Wu Fei did the math: they spent a lot of money to stockpile supplies here, and at the same time spent a lot of money to buy off radicals in the army, trying to get the Wu family army to further invade southward and turn the south into a slave-hunting land.

Wu Fei shook his head at this. They've gotten used to the old robbery model and are now unwilling to follow his leadership and transform the industry!
What if a merchant wants to cause trouble? Although Wu Fei greatly respects Zhu Chongba's skills, he would not follow his example and confiscate Shen Wansan's property.

To deal with ignorant capitalists, prepare a dead end and a way out. Leave the baggage of those who take the dead end for the merchants who take the way out to lick. This will undermine their internal unity.

Wu Fei: I am happy that you are willing to invest in Lingjiang, but I will not allow you to use the investment to cause trouble.

Out of morality and integrity, Wu Fei would not confiscate the investors' assets directly like the "Indians" did. Instead, he would forcibly transfer their investments from high-profit, high-risk areas that could easily create minefields in the local area, trapping them in low-risk, low-return locations.

The slave-hunting industry in Southern Xinjiang is undoubtedly a high-risk industry with tenfold profits. Wu Fei calculated that the plunderers had spent approximately 200,000 silver leaves in Lucky City.

With the institutionalization of the four prefectures of Lingjiang, these merchants who had spent a fortune in Lucky City had to cooperate with the General's Office's policies and transform their southward-bound goods into resources that could be digested through "reclamation" if they did not want to go bankrupt.

Sure enough, in the City of Fortune, there are already quite a few blacksmith shops making black plows. These are all transformations undertaken by merchants who were forced to cut their losses.

However, they sold the goods to farmers who cultivated the land, but the farmers only grew grain. The General's Mansion set a basic purchase price for the grain, which put the merchants in a difficult position. Even if they transported the goods back to the famine-stricken areas inside the Great Wall, the profits were very low, reduced to one percent.

In other words, Wu Fei's move has now trapped all the funds of the commercial predators; the trapped shareholders are the most honest. Land reclamation is something that takes three or four years to see returns; that is, this restless faction will not make any rash moves for three or four years, and can only hope that after several rounds of planting, the border people who have reclaimed land will have purchasing power and be able to exchange a fixed amount of grain for workshop-made products such as cloth, pottery, ropes, and wooden barrels each year.

The second is the military merit faction.

Wu Fei had a deep understanding of this faction: if you wanted the army to wait for you quietly, you had to give them something to do, such as building a bridge when crossing the Lingjiang River for the first time.

In 33, Wu Fei issued fifteen documents to the army, mentioning the construction plan for seventeen fortresses and roads between the fortresses in southern Lingjiang over the next ten years.

Last year, the pioneering faction was still very weak. Taking the four forts of Lingjiang as an example, each fort only had two hundred soldiers.

Currently in southern Xinjiang, the land reclamation economy cannot support a standing army of more than a thousand men. At that time, Wu Fei determined that only after the paddy fields along the river in the fortress's radiation area were reclaimed could a larger force be deployed, and this was not something that could be accomplished in a year.

After the train service opened this year, the radical military faction inside the Great Wall suddenly felt that the time was ripe and believed that a large-scale military campaign was about to begin.

However! Before the radicals could gain more support and make any significant moves, Wu Fei's massive construction plan dragged the neutral faction, whom the radicals were trying to win over, into working in the industrial sector of southern Xinjiang. For example, right now, the train's transport capacity is fully booked for the reclamation tasks of the four fortresses. The "high-profit" products that other factions tried to transport were deliberately blocked by the administration, making it impossible for them to find sales channels. The risks were extremely high, and the unstable cash flow of these merchants led to their rejection by the train freight department with sound reasoning.

…As for the composition of the southward-advancing faction, Wu Fei also needs to replace them, and he needs to mix the useless ones among them…

At the training range in Jiangnan, the militiamen's guns were firing during their training. Currently, three out of ten had hit the target. The martial arts disciples who came to gain experience, on their own, couldn't even score a five-ring.

Among these militia members on the south bank, in addition to the registered residents of Yao people who were sent to the border, there were also naturalized native soldiers.

It all boils down to economics. Soldiers recruited locally don't need to pay "field service allowances," and they don't even have to worry about marriage.

In the mixed militia ranks, thanks to the effects of the "Holy Ash Pill," the only difference between the naturalized native soldiers and the local people of Dayao was their height. Oh, and of course, their accents as well. The ones chanting the Dayao Military Manual in thick accents were the natives.

Compared to the Yao people, the Jiao people are still shorter; but compared to their original race, they are generally taller, and can barely fit into the smallest size of the rattan armor of the Da Yao.

Of course, with such a short stature, it is impossible to draw a large bow and crossbow, even with a foot pedal assist, so ranged attacks can only be achieved by fully utilizing firearms.

Wu Fei's comment: The biggest hurdle in firearms technology in this world is "pure steel seamless steel pipes" that can withstand chamber pressure, which is what makes them surpass bows and arrows in terms of power. Well, the enchanted bows and arrows we have now.

Wu Fei's unorthodox laboratory involved spending the equivalent of silver to forge pure steel bars, then constructing hydraulic machinery to drill through them over several days, sometimes even ten. The drilling process had to be flawless, as even slight deviation would result in uneven inner diameter and wall thickness, leading to barrel explosions at the thinner sections. This process consumed over twenty defective barrels. After several attempts, Wu Fei finally gave up, concluding that developing "pure steel rifling barrels" in this era was akin to "pursuing electromagnetic railgun technology in the early 21st century"—not impossible, but simply too costly.

The barrels are now made using a combination of wrought iron and cast iron, and this smoothbore design significantly reduces the pressure on the propellant chamber.

As the auxiliary armies in southern Xinjiang become increasingly armed with firearms, it is time to equip them with generals.

In response, Wu Fei, who was "fussy," thought of his brothers who indulged in drinking, gambling, and whoring.

…The military is a great melting pot, a good place to recast scrap metal in peacetime…

Wu Fei's letter reached the family, and without a doubt, it was full of excuses and delays. The Southern Frontier was a place shrouded in miasma; how could they possibly stay there for two or three years? The wives of each branch of the family told their sons, "Your mother can't bear to see you suffer there!" So they all pulled strings to help.

However, the second letter explicitly named a large number of young people. It also invoked family rules, stating that anyone who dared to run away would be expelled from the family register!

The clan elders were not very friendly towards Wu Fei. However, after Wu Fei brought up the family's greater responsibility of going north for a "marriage alliance" and ensuring that the rear could not be left without anyone, the clan elders fell silent.

Wu Fei had now found a way to use his "going north" as leverage. What was originally a "dilemma" became less difficult after the responsibility was assigned.

Wu Fei knew very well that some of the young people in the family were just wasting their lives, just like he had wanted to lie down and die ten years ago.

Now that he's gotten soaked in the rain, he naturally won't let his brothers in the family hide under the umbrella.

Moreover, Wu Fei had done the math! With the world in chaos, if the Wu family were to advance further in the future, amidst their immense wealth, the imperial clan would need to acquire a significant portion of that wealth through blood rewards. So, what would they use to obtain those blood rewards?

Wu Fei: "In the future, the Wu family will rise to prominence and participate in the bloody battle of 'Big Yao' in the north. They can't participate and haven't made any bloody contributions; but they should accumulate some hard work in guarding the border and fighting the barbarians in the south."

However, putting such a group of people into the Southern Advancement Faction will also cause headaches for the Southern Advancement Faction itself.

As a result, the "radicals" also fell into the trap. They had to integrate the group that Wu Fei had brought in before they could continue to be radical.

In August, Wu Fei wanted 56 people in Tianchi City, but in reality, the parents of these people all had influence within their clans.

At the entrance of the ancestral hall, amidst the wailing and commotion of these middle-aged women, the white-bearded clan elders' blood pressure soared. They immediately invoked clan rules to lock up all the women from the inner quarters. Subsequently, the clan elders also gathered up any idlers wandering the streets to keep them company. In one fell swoop, 543 people were sent away.

After leaving Yongji Pass, the young masters, who were used to a life of leisure within the clan, began to grumble and curse. Wu Zhantie: "That damned old Fei, if he's having a hard time, he drags us all down with him!"

The boys chimed in, "Yeah, we can't win against those old men at home, but when we go over there, we won't listen to them. Let's see what they can do to us!" "Exactly!" "Let's do it!"

These kids were making a fuss like this, unaware that back in their hometown, the adults they were forced to obey were being silenced by Wu Fei using family discipline.

These days, the elderly know the dangers of epidemics in southern Xinjiang, which is why they resisted Wu Fei's suggestion, but even if they resisted, they ultimately had no choice.

Within this clan, as the new generation's military commander, only Wu Hanluan could veto personnel changes within the clan. They had tried to use their connections with their cousins ​​in the Northern Route Army to persuade Wu Xiaoque to retract her order, but Wu Hengyu in the north was even more ruthless, insisting they join the Northern Route Army to achieve merit.

The military police rushed over, looked at the sparsely packed group, and then took out the specially made armed belts issued by Wu Fei.

…The spoiled brats prepared to fight, but the fight was quickly extinguished by the mental indoctrination sticks. …

In November of the 33rd year, by the Lingjiang River. Gong Qian, who had been staying for more than half a year, now felt that Wu Fei was genuinely busy, always up to something every month. Therefore, he couldn't help but want to say a few words in defense of Wu Fei, that it wasn't that he was unwilling to accept Da Yao's invitation, but that he was truly busy.

Gong Qian was gazing into the distance at the group of military families who had migrated from the mainland; the ongoing military training made him nod silently. — The military families within Da Yao were relocating their members to a newly built city on the frontier thousands of miles away; this was truly a preparation to defend the borders of Da Yao.

In ancient times, the holy dynasty divided the land and created eight hundred feudal lords. In the early days of acquiring land, which one of them did not have to "forge through thorns and brambles" just like they do now?
On the training ground, Wu Fei looked with a smile at this group of young people who were said to be the main disciples of the Wu family. These young people, who had once shouted on the road that they would "obey orders but not proclamations", were now very quiet and well-behaved.

Behind the drill ground, eighteen so-called "captains," their mouths gagged with wooden sticks, were being whipped naked with salt-soaked bamboo sticks. The reason for the whipping was that they were supposed to report for duty on the morning of November 1st, but they had walked until November 9th. According to military law, this group would receive three whippings and one beheading.

Of course, this isn't wartime; they're new recruits, and they're stationed far from home. Wu Fei: They can only lift it high and lower it gently; each captain will give it a hundred lashes.

For the children of the clan, those hundred or so lashes with bamboo cane were like something out of a horror movie; their parents' family discipline never involved such bloodshed.

After drawing all the lots, Wu Fei called out names one by one according to the roster. The trembling disciples screamed as if they had been electrocuted. Then, under Wu Fei's murderous gaze, they came to the front of the stage, put their hands into a white ash can, and slapped the bloody buttocks of the person being whipped.

If you don't leave a gray handprint, you'll get your pants pulled down and get a spanking on the same kind of butt.

These chosen clan members now feel that even slapping each other is better than patting each other's buttocks.

But under Wu Fei's coercion, one after another, their hands covered in dust, they slapped each other's unfortunate buttocks.

It's worth mentioning that the white ash in that jar was puffball powder. This powder, sprayed from a giant fungus resembling a white steamed bun, is a top-quality hemostatic and wound-healing medicine, and it's quite expensive.

…Wu Fei, standing there talking without any sense of hardship: "You haven't even been on the battlefield yet, and you're already wailing and howling like a banshee. If you cry again, you'll have to kneel in the ancestral hall…"

After the punishment was over, Wu Fei turned to the two team officers he had personally selected, Yu Liangcai and Wu Xi, and instructed them: "Take them to eat and wash up! Prepare mats for those with injuries on their buttocks."

Of the two, Wu Xi was a rough and uncultured fellow. He was the guy Wu Fei had specifically asked to make a formal speech when they arrived at Lingjiang after leaving the pass the time before last. The "Xi" in his name was personally given to him by Wu Fei. As for his surname Wu, it was at least five generations removed from the main branch of the Wu family; his ancestor was born to a maid. He wasn't even considered an illegitimate child. Wu Fei himself had entered him into the family genealogy. That's the connection.

Wu Xi's loyalty is on par with that of Xu Chu and Dian Wei; even now, having returned to the clan, he still follows Wu Fei's lead without question. Although he is also a member of the Southern Advance Faction, he has now taken on the mess that Wu Fei has left him. In the past two weeks, he hasn't had any gatherings with his old comrades in the army because he's been too busy.

Wu Fei handed over the clan members to the two of them, and in front of the group of spoiled brats, he instructed Wu Xi: "In the next two years, if there is no war, it's okay if ten or so people are killed or injured. I'll take care of everything. But you must make sure they know the rules of the army."

Wu Fei turned to the group of Wu family disciples who were lining up and said, "In this place, the natives are uncivilized, and everything else is meaningless. Only those who can control troops can live well! And if you want to control troops, you must first meet the standards."

Wu Fei's tone then turned threatening: "The natives here have been killed and subjugated in less than a year! If I hand over the native soldiers to you now, in less than three months, you will all have your throats slit by the natives in your sleep! Those natives will escape back to the forest, and while they're at it, they'll make your heads into decorations and hang them on their bodies!"

These martial arts disciples, who had been transferred here, stood on the muddy training ground, obediently bowing their heads as their elder brother lectured them.

Wu Fei reiterated to the two team leaders, "Being stricter with them for the next six months is helping them; spoiling them will only harm them."

…A progress bar was flashing above each person's head. …

Wu Fei then went to Gongshu Wang's place and, in front of him, very familiarly opened his cabinet, opened his invitations, and put a checkmark on some of the names that had already been dealt with.

Wu Fei said to Gongshu Wang, who was awkwardly laughing, "You should also get ready, so we can head north together."

(End of this chapter)