Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

The Great Chu had already achieved its first revolutionary victory, and in just five years, earth-shaking changes had taken place in various parts of the country.

The Futu Pagoda project was completed on schedule, and the statue of the Empress stands in the suburbs of Nanjing, facing Nanjing, becoming a landmark building.

Standing atop the tower and looking down, one can have a panoramic view of the entire city of Nanjing.

The success of the high-rise building of the Floating Pagoda also provided a great inspiration to the civil engineering industry of the Great Chu.

Shortly after the completion of the Futu Tower project, a wave of high-rise construction swept across various regions.

In July of the fourth year of the Xuansheng era, the first nine-story restaurant in Jinling was completed, instantly causing a great uproar.

To date, high-rise buildings have been renovated in many parts of the Great Chu, and a brand-new "modern era" has slowly begun.

In the Liaodong region, the Solon tribe completely submitted to the Chu Kingdom, and Hailan Prefecture was appointed as the commander of the outer vassal king's tribe. All the tribes in Liaodong had to obey his command, otherwise the Solon tribe had the right to exterminate them.

After five years of adjustment, most of the Solon people migrated to the relatively warmer Liaodong hinterland, finally ending their lives of hunger and cold.

The Solon soldiers were also organized into three brigades. Apart from their horses remaining the same, their bows and crossbows were replaced by lighter firearms, and they were also dressed in Chu military uniforms.

As living standards gradually improve, the ferocity of the Sauron soldiers will inevitably decline, but advanced weaponry will compensate for this decline and replace mounted archery.

After Liaodong was brought under the rule of the Chu state, all the ethnic groups who originally lived in Liaodong, along with the Yan people, were relocated to new settlements.

Besides the large-scale mining development in Liaodong, the livestock and leather industries are also gradually emerging in Liaodong and the grasslands beyond the Great Wall, showing new vitality.

In Taiji Kingdom, it has been completely reduced to a vassal colony of Chu Kingdom, and the new ruler must be recognized by Chu Kingdom to be valid.

With the backing of the Great Chu, Cui Mingji, Jin Zizai, and others have completely controlled the royal family of the Taiji Kingdom.

Aside from the officials of the Chu state, the Taiji state had become their sole domain.

Most of the soldiers recruited by Shen Lang from Yunshang Kingdom returned to Yunshang Kingdom after receiving their bounties following the end of the Liaodong war.

However, more than two hundred slaves insisted on staying to serve the State of Chu.

As it turns out, their persistence paid off.

Although they did not obtain Chu citizenship, they were granted the right to settle in Chu. The only price they had to pay was to guide the Chu navy in carrying out devastating attacks on pirates roaming the waters of Yunshang Kingdom to ensure the smooth flow of maritime trade routes.

As for Muto Kyoichi, the first Yunshang Kingdom person to leave a deep impression on Shen Lang, he has now transformed himself, wearing Wu clothing, and become the deputy consul of the Yunshang Kingdom Colonial Governor's Office.

When Muto Kyoichi returned to the Cloud Kingdom with a group of former slaves to handle maritime affairs, the following scene unfolded:

Several landlords from the Cloud Kingdom were eager to curry favor with Mutō Kyoichi and his group, but they were kicked into an alley and given a severe beating by his subordinates.

"You bunch of country bumpkins, you think you can get your hands on us? Look at your appearance, do you even deserve to greet us?"

"Do you know how much these clothes cost? Do you think you, a country bumpkin like you, have the right to even touch them? Can you afford to pay for them? Get the hell out of here!"

"What? Compatriots? Baka yarou, mwah! Look at this! Never seen anything like it before!"

"I have a Great Chu residency certificate. I am now a citizen of Great Chu, not a citizen of the Cloud Kingdom. You bunch of country bumpkins had better not try to claim any connection!"

"Daming? Daming is nothing! With just a word from me, all the Daming of the Cloud Kingdom will be blasted into dust by the navy of the Great Chu, believe it or not?"

"What a bunch of useless trash, what a downer. Get lost, or I'll beat you every time I see you, ugh."

The landlords who were once looked up to by the common people are now being ridiculed by the Run people who have obtained "green cards" from the Chu Kingdom.

Before leaving, they didn't forget to deliver a sarcastic remark about the rustic atmosphere.

After such events occurred, the powerful and influential figures of Yunshang Kingdom not only did not protest, but instead showed genuine awe for the Chu Kingdom.

This is the effect of a strong country; even a group of lower-class people who haven't obtained official citizenship dare to be so arrogant.

Upon hearing the rumors about the wealth of the Chu Kingdom, the native nobles of the Cloud Kingdom immediately had other ideas.

That was to send a large number of their own women into the Chu state for marriage alliances.

Of course, the marriage partners were mainly junior military officers, artisans with stable incomes, and factory managers.

As for better options, they didn't even dare to think about them.

Thus, starting from the third year of Xuan Sheng, women from official families in the Yun Shang Kingdom came to the Chu Kingdom one after another.

Because these women from the Cloud Kingdom were generally gentle and obedient, hardworking and never disobeyed their husbands' families, they quickly gained the favor of unmarried men in the Chu Kingdom.

These women from Yunshang Kingdom, who had traveled thousands of miles to Chu, quickly forgot their motherland after experiencing the initial homesickness.

They discovered that in the State of Chu, one could eat three meals a day, and each meal was enough to make one feel stuffed.

One of the girls, named Hua Zi, ate three large bowls of rice, drank two bowls of vegetable soup, and half a pound of fatty meat on her first day after marrying a foreman at a silk factory in Jiangnan.

There are even tea and snacks after the meal; it's the kind of life that wealthy people dream of.

All she had to do was take care of her husband's parents.

Moreover, her husband would give her four silver dollars each month as personal expenses for her to use as she pleased, while all other family expenses would be calculated separately.

Afterwards, when Hanako wrote to her family, she hoped that her fifteen-year-old sister could also come to Da Chu to find a good husband, so that she could have enough to eat every day and live in a spacious and bright house.

Thus, the State of Chu unexpectedly became a paradise longed for by countless women from the Kingdom of Yunshang. Their parents went to great lengths, even selling their property, to send their daughters to the State of Chu.

As a result, more and more women from Yunshang Kingdom came to Chu through various channels, which finally attracted the attention of the customs and led them to report the matter to the cabinet.

The cabinet quickly offered a solution: women from other countries could marry into the State of Chu, but they had to remain virgins, be free from all diseases, and be at least sixteen years old.

Upon hearing this news, the nobles of the Liaodong Taiji Kingdom immediately became anxious and began to marry their daughters to the Chu Kingdom through various channels.

As a result, the conflict between Yunshang Kingdom and Taiji Kingdom deepened further, which of course had nothing to do with Chu Kingdom.

Furthermore, the Luchuan Dynasty completely withdrew from the historical stage in the second year of Xuansheng, and the Chu State immediately installed a puppet regime to continue to exploit their wealth in a sustainable manner.

In fact, ever since Shen Lang cut off the main channel of the Luchuan River, the Luchuan Dynasty had never recovered its vitality and was eventually completely destroyed by the combined forces of various ethnic groups in the southeastern peninsula and the Chu army.

As for the South Seas, in the past five years, the Great Chu has completely brought them under its sphere of influence.

Abundant industrial resources were transported by sea to the industrial areas of the Chu Kingdom for processing.

However, in recent years, the natives of these colonies have repeatedly engaged in acts of resistance against the colonial authorities, which is truly distressing.

At this moment, Shen Lang was discussing this matter with Jiang Mengxuan.