Chapter 46: Selecting Materials

In the twenty-eighth year of the Xutian Calendar, February.

Wu Fei had already returned to the main base in Lingnan. Various departments were methodically carrying out the directives of General Wu.

Bamboo tallies inside the General's Mansion were dispatched outward, and when executed by the various departments, inspection notches were carved upon them. The tallies were then sent back to the archives of the General's Mansion.

During Wu Fei's absence, the outbound exploration missions of Yongji Pass for the first half of the year were executed according to the protocols of the previous year.

For instance, trade was strictly limited to a radius of two hundred miles around Yongji Pass, exactly as it had been last year. Merchants from various houses were permitted to explore regions beyond the two hundred-mile mark, but they had to operate under the guidance of the scouts provided by the Wu Family Army.

Paths once hacked out by the blades of vanguard scouts were now dirt roads marked with stones. As peddlers made their journeys, they placed stones picked up along the roadside at fixed distances.

In the past, Xuan Chong felt as though he were constantly drifting in the undertow of the upper echelons, but now his own influence could create widespread ripples.

...Divider of the Explorers...

In the northern part of the Spirit River, the Clawman Eket, together with some Yaoman soldiers, formed an expedition team and entered the Clawman tribe. This personnel composition was already similar to that of early colonial expedition teams—namely, white men utilizing local indigenous guides to open up trade routes across various tribes.

Now, however, trade differed from the past, because this time, Wu Fei was willing to export armaments to his allies in the Southern Frontier.

Eket brought the Dayao people into the tribe. Aside from engaging in trade, he also purchased a number of servants. Among these servants, he nodded to the accompanying Dayao squad leader, who opened the baggage wagon, retrieved firearms according to the headcount, and began distributing them.

After Eket assigned names to these slaves one by one, the Dayao men carved the names onto the firearms with knives, indicating that the weapons belonged to those specific holders.

When the slaves eagerly hugged their guns and wanted to fire wildly, Eket thrashed them one by one. The very sprout of arrogance, freshly freed from slave shackles, was beaten flat to the ground by Eket. Afterward, under Eket's leadership, the slaves were lined up and subjected to a naming ceremony one by one. Upon receiving their names, they were required to copy the names from the bamboo strips and carve them onto a fixed location on their equipment. After all, these Clawmen were illiterate; once given a name, if they did not carve it themselves by hand, they would forget it by the next day, rendering the naming completely useless.

Wu Fei: It seems the Westerners issue dog tags with numerical codes. If I may venture a guess based on my own perspective, pinyin names probably result in homophones when syllables match, but these logographic Chinese characters do not have this problem due to their distinct informational features.

Moreover, this naming method was not controlled by proxy army leaders like Eket. Instead, a "freelance operative" dispatched by the Wu Family Army determined the names based on the slaves' birthdates, facial features, palm prints, and other characteristics, thereby setting a certain threshold.

That's right, Wu Fei wanted to monopolize these essential humanistic information commodities in order to control the proxy armies.

Next, after these proxy soldiers finally finished carving their names and learned the meanings of those names, they were told that the guns belonged to them and bore their personal name markers. Once lost, they would face severe punishment: merits would be deducted if they had them, and if they had no merits, they would revert to slaves.

Beneath the treetops, the slaves carefully hugged their guns and attached extraordinary importance to the names Eket had given them.

Meanwhile, Eket looked with awe at the roster held by the Yaoman soldier. Only when the roster in his hands matched the roster in the Yaoman's hands could ammunition be requisitioned.

Three days later, Eket led this proxy army and finally completed two rounds of training, enabling them to fire their guns under the stern rebukes of the Dayao soldiers. Whenever commands to turn and march were given, they would immediately respond in unison: "Yes, yes, squad leader!"

The relationship between Eket and the proxy soldiers he personally selected fell under the category of the allegiance ritual known as "submitting one's name and pledging one's substance" within Dayao contexts, yet it differed slightly from standard Dayao practices.

Among the lower and middle bureaucratic strata of Dayao, the submission of names and pledging of substance to a patron was not made public to the upper echelons. For example, Dayao superiors remained unaware of which frontline soldiers in the Wu Family Army belonged to Wu Fei and which were Wu Hanluan's personal guards. In contrast, the allegiance pledges among ethnic minorities like Eket were meticulously tallied and recorded by the Yongji Pass administration.

Dayao possessed a higher degree of civilization, where trust and righteousness widely permeated all social strata. The ethnic minorities of the Southern Frontier, however, lacked such reliability; without the certification of a third-party powerful contract, they would constantly betray one another. Furthermore, they would be immensely proud of the profits gained through betrayal, considering it a testament to their own cleverness.

Merchants at Yongji Pass had repeatedly experienced the fickle nature of the Southern Frontier people. As long as the Wu Family Army failed to appear and merchants were unable to collect debts by force, these tribes would never remember their final payments upon receiving goods. They would even migrate their entire tribes to other locations just to evade debts, leaving the merchants unable to track them down.

Therefore, an overarching violent apparatus was necessary to certify the legitimacy of allegiance.

In the civilized domains of Dayao, under Wu Fei, the lower ranks did not actually require Dayao certification for their allegiance to him. As long as he did not hand Dayao any unforgivable pretexts, the generals who submitted their names and pledged their substance to Wu Fei would remain utterly loyal to his generation. Granted, their loyalty to Wu Fei's succeeding generation might diminish somewhat, but as long as Wu Fei's heir maintained the competence of a mediocre ruler, a stable master-servant relationship could basically be maintained.

However, this approach could not work with Eket. Regardless of whom he recruited from his own tribe right now, their moral character resembled that of Lu Bu. Eket's control over the loyalty of the proxy soldiers on his roster depended entirely on the certification of the Wu Family Army. Only thus could the Wu Family Army institutionally maintain stable control over this proxy force. As for whether Eket could build sufficient trust within his own tribe? That was certainly not something an accidental superman could achieve.

Side commentary: While tackling this problem, Xuan Chong felt that when it came to confirming legitimacy, having a military and violent institution like the Wu Family Army issue legitimacy was actually inappropriate. By its very nature, a military-violent organization derived its legitimacy from the size of its fist; once the fist weakened, its legitimacy would be questioned. What was truly suited for promulgating the legitimacy of "allegiance," as his previous life's history had already proven, was religion when dealing with barbarians!

European Catholicism conferred legitimacy upon the knights of the Holy Roman Empire for their allegiance to the king. When that legitimacy was revoked, the Germanic barbarian kings were forced to go and beg for forgiveness. Thus, this proved to be the most suitable civilizational framework for the forest-dwelling and hunting ethnic groups of Germania.

In the Southern Frontier, the Li Huo Sect played precisely this religious role.

Therefore, Wu Fei's strategy was to take advantage of his military strength—specifically during his own generation—to flatten the Li Huo Sect, disperse its religious authority, and reform its doctrine.

Wu Fei: Let's do it this way for now! Lay the material foundation first, and spiritual transformation can be pursued slowly.

...Divider of the Rear-Area Factories...

Amidst the roaring vibrations of turning mechanical gears, Wu Fei began an undercover inspection of the workshops, only to discover that the production efficiency across all workshops was deeply problematic!

Having grown accustomed to the hyper-competitive society of the twenty-first century, Wu Fei viewed the production under his own feudal system as nothing short of dawdling and foot-dragging.

How did "dawdling" occur? It happened when small cliques formed among personnel at every stage of work, and these cliques completely locked down and concealed information regarding work progress.

In workspaces requiring grueling physical labor, visible shackles on slave laborers were steadily decreasing, yet the frequency with which they had to kneel to collect their wages from the accounting rooms was steadily increasing.

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Like a sun, the light Wu Fei emitted was meant to "warm" everyone along the production chain; he absolutely forbade any "small stoves" other than his own to appear along that chain or foster cliques.

His latest directive: "To reduce dawdling, we must hold mass meetings."

After Wu Fei personally showed his face in various workshops and won unanimous approval from everyone, he full-heartedly embarked on reforms with soaring confidence.

Reformers were always full of soaring ambition at the outset, only to inevitably run into walls when confronted with the reality of history lessons.

Wu Fei, who in his previous life belonged to the far-right conservative faction in ideological and political matters, was nonetheless a strong advocate of democratic procedures when it came to industrial production. Without a doubt, industrial production involved far too many links, each bearing responsibility for collective success or failure. Distributing responsibilities directly while denying people the right to speak and voice opinions was fundamentally wrong.

Wu Fei knew very well how the technologically advanced, veteran aerospace manufacturing industry of his era had collapsed. All the talking was monopolized by people who merely made PowerPoint presentations, yet when those presentation-makers finished speaking at meetings, the burden of responsibility fell squarely on the engineers below who had been denied a voice.

The maps of Yongji Pass now mapped out a vast number of military agricultural colonies soon to be expanded and cultivated. At the first "production meeting," after conducting statistical calculations, Wu Fei held a general discussion regarding the manpower required for opening up coal mines, saltpeter mines, iron workshops, and water conservancy canals. Wu Fei made his selections at the meeting.

During the session, the foreheads of the foremen were fixed upon Wu Fei; some trembled with apprehension, terrified of making a mistake, while others puffed out their chests proudly.

While examining the data, Wu Fei secretly observed these individuals. Attempting to leap directly into feudal society with a single stride had caused him to stumble right back down.

Because the data reported on the bamboo tallies was actually untrue. Some subordinates exaggerated their achievements by launching "satellites," while others were overly timid and "under-reported," rendering the compiled data utterly unusable.

Much like a company in his past life that employed both Indians and Chinese, how could such reports possibly be compiled together?

Reflecting on the situation, Wu Fei realized: Ah, I am a feudal lord, and as a feudal lord, I naturally favor some and distance others. Consequently, those close to me offer flattering words of advancement, while those kept at a distance fear making errors that could cost them their lives.

Those relatives and in-laws tied to his own household rushed to claim credit in advance. They managed the quarrying operations and directly reported production figures over fifty percent higher than in the past.

Upon cross-checking, Wu Fei determined that meeting this target would result in at least double the slave fatalities and injuries compared to the past, which was detrimental to sustainable development and had to be adjusted.

Conversely, the old craftsmen who genuinely understood the intricacies of the production chain all declared in the face of Wu Fei's urging for production improvements that ancestral regulations could not be tampered with. They terrified themselves with the prospect that if they pounded their chests in assurance and subsequently failed, they would become unfortunate scapegoat figures who had "issued a military pledge yet failed to deliver."

Wu Fei pondered for a moment and decided that the remaining agenda of the meeting would be determined the following day.

Wu Fei: I cannot step down into the arena to manage this personally; I need to find someone who isn't afraid of offending people to take charge.

...Wu Fei had already thought of a suitable candidate for factory director...

North of Yongji Pass, in a brand-new experimental institution for natural philosophy, a twenty-meter waterwheel constructed of pine timber and bound with iron hoops was rotating. The waterwheel drove the workshop's drive shaft, which extended directly into a mechanism zone forged from "mind-iron." From there, thunderous energy began to generate, flowing directly into a spiritual artifact structured from precious jade. ("Mind-iron" was a special phenomenon regarding which Wu Fei had questioned the system, only for the system to evade teaching physics; this substance exhibited a single-pole magnetic field phenomenon.)

Under the influence of thunder, droplets of silvery-white liquid trickled down from the smelting furnace. Because it was blended with jade marrow, this substance possessed vitality, moving about like living flesh as the jade marrow formed a neural-like network within the metal.

This mass of metal arrived in Wu Qing's hands, quickly transforming into a vambrace, though it subsequently morphed into a sword.

Nearby, Jiamude was tinkering with his small furnace, staring anxiously at the pitch-black metal liquid inside, which resembled welding flux, terrified that his wife might transform again to shower him with affection.

Although Jiamude's name contained the radical for wood, he actually excelled in "metal-element" spells. Conversely, Angri's name contained the radical for fire, yet his spiritual roots possessed the wood attribute. A single display of his "blood of vitality" could heal soldiers' wounds over a wide area and even reattach severed limbs.

Metal-element spells excelled at restraining combatants clad in heavy armor, melting the iron armor on enemy frontline soldiers or generating barbs inside their cuirasses while simultaneously dulling the gears of giant puppets.

Having observed Jiamude's smelting process, Angri emphasized several technical nuances Jiamude had overlooked, and the second batch was successfully smelted.

Such a harmonious research atmosphere was exceedingly rare, because ever since the battle of Yongji Pass concluded, Jiamude had harbored lingering resentment toward Angri. Especially in Wu Qing's presence, being reduced to a prisoner of war left him profoundly unhappy.

With a loud clatter, as the mechanical door slid open, Angri inside the laboratory raised his head and called out toward the doorway: "General, you have arrived."

Wu Fei nodded at Angri. Ever since integrating into the Wu Family Army, this fellow had been exerting himself to the utmost. As for the crowmen under his command, thanks to the productivity of the Wu Family Army being vastly superior to that of the Southern Frontier, the scope of their armaments was far broader than it had been down south.

Back in the Haotian Realm, Angri's crowmen were used to dropping bombs from the skies. Wu Fei quickly arranged for alternatives: five-kilogram sheet-iron bombs were simply too heavy for the crowmen, who could not carry even three of them. However, they could carry up to ten "clamor bombs"—designed to create chaos in formations by spewing irritating smoke—fitted as caltrops. The crowmen could hurl these caltrop darts from the skies across a range of one hundred and fifty paces, far exceeding the destructive power of dropping iron bombs.

Of course, there was another reason Wu Fei kept to himself: entrusting actual bombs to the crowmen to carry into the skies made him somewhat uneasy. What if a crowman turned rebellious one day and dropped a salvo of bombs over Yongji Pass before immediately fleeing? In short, the crowmen had not yet pledged their loyalty through a definitive act of service; once they earned enough merits in the upcoming Southern Frontier campaign, Wu Fei would supply them with lethal weaponry.

At that point, Wu Fei would further elevate Angri's status.

After exchanging respectful greetings with Angri, Wu Fei walked over to Jiamude's side. Jiamude was still fussing with his equipment. After watching him for a moment and realizing he was merely putting on a busy facade for show, Wu Fei walked up and kicked him in the rear end.

Wu Fei: "Hey, I'm here, and you don't even bother to greet me."

Jiamude had no choice but to sit up: "General, I am practicing alchemy."

Observing Jiamude's timid and submissive demeanor, Wu Fei suddenly experienced the sensation of Wu Hengyu bullying him in the past. Hmm, this feeling was quite pleasant.

However, Wu Fei's primary mission was not to conduct an inspection; he instructed Angri to continue with his work and led Jiamude away to a lower-level office.

...

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Inside their private room, Wu Fei looked at Jiamude and said with a smile: "No need to be so restrained. Wu Qing is my sworn sister, and you can now be considered my brother-in-law. We are all family."

The corners of Jiamude's mouth twitched. Wu Fei's words were sheer nonsense. Wu Qing, that snake-person, was Wu Fei's slave. Just because Wu Fei verbally acknowledged her as a sister did not genuinely make her one. The gossiping squad commanders in the Wu Family Army were well aware of the whole story. As for himself—a prisoner of war, a male favorite bestowed upon Wu Qing—everyone inside Yongji Pass suppressed their laughter whenever the matter was discussed.

Wu Fei: "Oh, come on, don't make such an ugly expression. A great man must know how to bend and stretch. What do petty gossip and rumors matter? That bunch of people outside used to murmur behind my back too, yet don't they all respectfully address me as General now?"

Gesturing with his hands like an enlightened guru, Wu Fei offered some "guidance": "A man may lose his title and find himself at rock bottom, but he must still maintain a broad mind and a long-term vision! How does that line of poetry go again? 'I care not that floating clouds obscure my vision, for I stand upon the highest peak.' My friend, you must strive upward."

Upon hearing this, Jiamude pondered for a moment. In his eyes, that the crude Wu Fei could rattle off such a poem made him view him in a completely new light.

Nevertheless, Jiamude was acutely aware of his own predicament.

Jiamude: "General, what on earth is the matter that you wanted to see me?"

Wu Fei: "I have a favor to ask."

Jiamude: "I wouldn't dare; please just issue your commands, General." — Clearly, Wu Fei's modern-style attempt to buddy up left Jiamude, who was conditioned by strict hierarchies, utterly unaccustomed.

In response, Wu Fei handed over a jade slip.

After inspecting its contents clearly, Jiamude drew in a sharp breath and asked Wu Fei: "General, since you are entrusting this matter to me, are you not afraid that the secrets will leak from my end?"

Jiamude stared intently at Wu Fei, practically spelling out the fact that he was a man of the Southern Frontier.

Wu Fei slowly replied: "Rest assured, I have measures in place to guard against you. But if I were merely going to keep you suppressed just to guard against you, what would be the point? I don't have that much time to waste; I expect you to be useful to me."

Accepting the jade slip, Jiamude nodded, tacitly acknowledging Wu Fei's appointment of him as the governor of the factories.

Wu Fei nodded: "If you perform well under my command, I will support you in becoming the sect master of the Li Huo Sect."

Jiamude paused slightly and said slowly: "The sect master of the Li Huo Sect has always been our patriarch. Me?"

Wu Fei: "As for your patriarch, I believe he has lived far too long—far exceeding the duration his descendants are obligated to support him. At his age, the filial piety you should be practicing right now is burning paper money, rather than trembling while offering up flesh and blood."

Jiamude fell silent.

Wu Fei smiled and said: "Let's not dwell on that; you are a man of virtue. Even in years of great famine, people would exchange their children to eat them. To put an end to the brutal tradition of your ancestors creating bloodshed and malevolence, you only need to take a public stance from the perspective of the common people. When the time comes, you can simply recuse yourself; I won't put you in a difficult position."

An incense stick's duration later.

After Wu Fei departed, Jiamude sat alone in the room in deep thought. He gripped the silvery-white jade sword he had just refined, and unconsciously, because he poured too much magical power into it, the jade sword shattered under the strain.

As the sword broke, Jiamude snapped out of his trance-like apprehension and said slowly: "I must preserve the foundation left behind by my ancestors."

...In the laboratory corridor, the echoing sound of leather boots gradually faded away...

Like a villainous SS officer, Xuan Chong paced through and finished touring the experiments conducted by Jiamude.

Along the way, Xuan Chong stopped in front of a separation vat, opened the system, and inquired: "System, within the Daoist arts of this world, is there any possibility of separating uranium and plutonium isotopes?"

Observing the refined metalcraft in Jiamude's experiments, Wu Fei had begun to doubt whether the "immortal" tier in this plane truly possessed the capability described in ancient legends—where mighty figures could summon great suns to "destroy heaven and earth." If that were truly the case, his current efforts within the "military strategist" path were truly vulnerable.

System: "Your query falls outside the scope of the curriculum. This course is about history."

Xuan Chong: "Well, what should I do if I'm about to die?"

System: "You can expend academic credits to exchange for assistance (cheating)."

Xuan Chong: "Hah, how much help can academic credits provide? If I want to overthrow Dayao while lying flat, is that doable?"

System: "One hundred academic credits will allow you to invite someone with a higher academic seniority than you to initiate the evolution while you lie down and watch from the side."

Xuan Chong: "Someone with a higher seniority? Wait, one hundred academic credits? One major battle earns one academic credit; if I had to gather one hundred credits, I'd bloody well conquer Dayao myself."

System: "Indeed, study hard and progress every day. Do not think about copying other people's homework."