Dragon Canon

Hsu Su had brought a total of six attendants with him. They carried a total of eleven trunks containing feng shui array discs, objects to secure fortune, and six statues of golden toads and pixiu[1].

The group followed Wei Yuan into Yong’an City, making their way to the commercial district in the eastern part of the city. At the moment, the so-called “commercial district” consisted of only a few roads and a patch of weeds. Not a single shop or tavern had been established yet.

Over a hundred people in ragged clothes were digging ditches along both sides of the road, while another laid strips of cut limestone at the bottom. Once done, they built up the walls of the ditches. Several cultivators who had already attained great completion in the Body-tempering stage were acting as supervisors and offering guidance. From time to time, they would roll up their sleeves and help with the work themselves.

The caravan attendants watched the scene with some curiosity. Those who had attained great completion in the Body-tempering stage held a certain status. Even if they had no hope of attaining a Dao Foundation, they could still secure a minor ninth-rank position in the mortal world such as a head honcho of the yamen runners of a county, a prison warden and so on. Why would they lower themselves to perform such menial labor?

Hsu Su stopped in his tracks and carefully examined the ditches and piles of dressed stone for a moment. Only then did he continue on his way.

After surveying the commercial district, Hsu Su quickly selected the location for the merchant association’s branch office. He immediately marked out the boundaries of the compound, measured the auspicious energy and feng shui, and chose a focal point to bury a feng shui array disc.

Wei Yuan and Cui Yu weren’t present. They had left temporarily to pick some local specialties for Hsu Su to take back.

Holding another feng shui array disc, Hsu Su periodically recalibrated the array’s distances. It wasn’t until all six guardian beast statues were placed that he considered the first step complete.

A girl standing nearby remarked, “Shifu, this city is rundown and dilapidated. There isn’t a single decent-looking house, and there aren’t many people either. I just performed a rough estimate, and there can’t be more than twenty thousand people in this ‘city’. With how small the population is and how poor these people are, is it really worth setting up the Six Auspicious Beasts Prosperity-Gathering Array? This array alone costs several thousand taels of immortal silver! How many years is it going to take us to earn it back?”

Hsu Su explained patiently, “When you’re observing something, you should not just look at what is on the surface, but also what is lying underneath. At first glance, it seems like there are only wooden shacks and poor people dressed in rags throughout the city, with not a single decent building in the entire city. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that the road right in front of us is remarkably straight and wide enough to fit four carriages side by side. The day it is paved with hard stone, it will immediately become a major thoroughfare.

“If you look even closer, you’ll also notice that many of the weed-covered open spaces are actually pre-planned city blocks. Furthermore, drainage channels are being built with a limestone base on both sides of the main road. Here’s another detail: Every city block has at least two public outhouses, which are cleaned and maintained regularly. That’s why we haven’t encountered any foul odors as we walked here. This is a rare scene even in the capital.”

The girl thought about it carefully before echoing in agreement, “You’re right!”

Hsu Su smiled faintly and said, “Although Wei Yuan is young, his ambitions are vast. This city is planned to accommodate at least two hundred thousand people, with room for further expansion. I don’t know if this is his own idea or if he has a wise mentor guiding him from behind the scenes, but it makes no difference to us. A mere commandery administrator is no match for a man of his caliber. Chen Dao may be able to suppress him if he could give it his all, but alas, the man is constrained by too many things, not to mention that this isn’t the land of his dreams. Thus, he certainly wouldn’t put much effort into it.”

The girl seemed to find the conversation uninteresting and cut it short. “Shifu, we’re just running a caravan. What does the battles between powerful figures have anything to do with us?”

Hsu Su’s patience did not wane. “Don’t underestimate the caravan. If we succeed, sooner or later, we’ll be drawn into the power struggles of these powerful figures. If we can’t untangle the subtle relationships between them, we’ll end up dying without even knowing why. Think carefully—why would I go through all that trouble and take such enormous risks just to bring this caravan to this middle-of-nowhere?”

The girl finally showed some interest and replied, “Wasn’t it because you have your back against the wall?”

Hsu Su laughed in exasperation. “Foolish girl! I’ve taught you so much, yet you’ve returned it all to the God of Dreams[2] in your sleep! If I’d just looked a little further east, wouldn’t Chen Dao or Lee Weisheng have had promising futures? Wouldn’t they have been worth investing in?”

The girl sighed helplessly. “Fine, fine. You have eyes as bright as a torch and can see the state of the world as clearly as day. Are you happy now?”

But Hsu Su shook his head. “You are wrong. In fact, I had no idea that such a prime feng shui location existed until I came here.”

“But then, why did you come here?” The girl’s curiosity was finally piqued, and she began pressing him for answers.

Hsu Su replied, “Because a high-ranking figure sent me a message and specifically instructed me to make this trip.”

“A high-ranking figure? How high are we talking about?”

“I don’t know either. All I know is that the message came from the palace[3].”

By now, the base of the great array had been laid, and the six auspicious beasts were in place. Several attendants began digging the foundation within the marked-off area. A group from the caravan would be staying behind to continue the construction. Once the basic framework was complete, they could hire more local laborers to build the courtyards and houses.

Hsu Su was already envisioning a prosperous future, smiling as he said, “I wonder what kind of goods they’ll bring out tomorrow.”

The girl curled her lips in disdain and replied, “It’s just going to be the stuff from their sect. It’s not like we don’t have connections in the Palace of Absolute Beginning.”

“You’re right,” Hsu Su’s smile faded slightly.

Early the next morning, Wei Yuan arrived at the caravan’s camp. Behind him were several cultivators, each carrying a cargo crate.

Hsu Su had been waiting for some time. Several junior stewards from the caravan were also present. They were all eager to see what Wei Yuan had brought.

Wei Yuan instructed the cultivators to open the crates. Two of them contained steel blocks, each a chi thick and oddly shaped. The other two held neatly stacked piles of loose parts.

Wei Yuan personally took action, peeling off a thin slice from each of the two steel blocks. When he put them together, the group finally realized that it was a cuirass[4]. After he assembled the loose parts, a sleeveless cuirass was completed just like that.

Hsu Su and the stewards gathered around to examine it closely. The girl, however, was curious about the two blocks of steel and went over to take a closer look. It was then she discovered that they were really many, many layers of chestplates and backplates stacked on top of one another. They just fit together so perfectly that they appeared to be a single solid block of steel. She then counted them and found that there were fifty stacked plates in the block of steel.

After a thorough examination, Hsu Su drew his long sword, ignited a flame over the blade, and pierced the cuirass with a single stroke. After he pulled out the blade, the stewards all moved closer to examine the damage.

Moments later, Hsu Su exhaled and said, “The steel quality of this cuirass is pretty good, but what’s really impressive about it is that they are exactly identical. Any soldier wearing them would certainly feel a boost in morale. Hmm, it also possesses a slight resistance to Dao energy. It’s not much inferior to the heavy armor worn by the border army and approaches the level of a low-grade mystic artifact. You probably have quite a few of these cuirasses in stock, right Realm Lord?”

Seeing the front and black plates stacked together so tightly they appeared to be a single block of steel, Hsu Su knew they must already be in mass production.

We Yuan nodded. “That’s correct. However, you likely won’t be able to carry them all away in one go. What are you willing to pay for this set of armor, Mister Hsu?”

“This cuirass is nearly a low-grade mystic artifact, and the purchase price for such an armor is roughly the same across all nine states of Great Tang—around fifty taels of immortal silver. Therefore, the price I can offer you is... twenty-three taels.”

The price was slightly higher than Wei Yuan had anticipated. Hsu Su had traveled a long way to come here, and he couldn’t simply sell the armor upon returning. It would have to go through multiple intermediaries for sure. Military armor was such a vital item that any powerful figure in any court would want to stick their hands into the trade.

Fortunately, since the border troops had to defend against the foreigners, there was a limit to how much exploitation a military equipment was subjected to. The kind of rampant, practically unchecked corruption that Western Jin was drowning in was ultimately in the minority.

Wei Yuan returned, “I can offer you twenty taels per set.”

Hsu Su almost thought he had misheard.

“Twenty taels,” Wei Yuan repeated, then pointed to the two boxes of loose parts and said, “These two boxes of loose parts are a bonus. Once you return, you may find your own craftsmen to forge them and complete the armor according to this design. I’m currently only selling the chestplate and the backplate, and they are worth twenty immortal silver per set.”

Hsu Su was both surprised and delighted. He had examined the loose parts as well, and while the craftsmanship was exquisite and the workmanship superb, his own craftsmen were certainly capable of recreating them with comparable quality. A rough estimate suggested that crafting all dozen or so loose parts would cost only about one and a half taels of immortal silver. Once he brought them back, they would yield about double the profit.

In fact, the associations’ craftsmen could also craft the chestplates and the backplates—they could even produce them at a higher level of quality and beauty—but a complete, seamless armor plate like this required a massive amount of labor. Even a craftsman who had attained great completion in the Body-tempering stage would need roughly over ten days to forge just one plate, and there was no chance they would be able to forge dozens of them with such precision that they fit together seamlessly as if they were a single block of steel.

Hsu Su bowed deeply and said, “Thank you, Realm Lord! How many sets of armor do you have?”

“How many can you take with you?”

Hsu Su picked up a neatly stacked pile of armor plates and weighed them in his hand. He then answered, “We have nine wagons in total. At most, we can haul away two thousand sets.”

Wei Yuan nodded. “Two thousand sets it is. We’ll have them delivered first thing tomorrow morning.”

Hsu Su was taken aback once more. A skilled craftsman would likely need one or two months to forge a single set of armor like this. Qingming had only been established for a few months—there was simply no way they could already have one or two thousand skilled craftsmen in their halls, right?

But upon further reflection, Hsu Su recalled that Wei Yuan seemingly had the full backing of the Palace of Absolute Beginning. While it was difficult to imagine his sect sending over several thousand craftsmen to assist him, it certainly wasn’t impossible.

So, Hsu Su said, “Since I’ve only brought an exploration caravan this time, our transport capacity is limited. Next time, we’ll send a proper caravan boasting ten times the carrying capacity. No matter how many sets of armor you have here, the Six Realms Merchants’ Association promises to buy it all at the price of twenty taels per set!”

This time, it was Wei Yuan who was surprised. “Is the border army so short on armor?”

Hsu Su chuckled. “You may not know this, Realm Lord, but there is always more demand for military equipment than supply. Since we have no shortage of men, the number of troops we can field depends entirely on the amount of armor and weapons available. So no matter how many you have here, we can take it all!”

Wei Yuan’s heart leapt at the prospect. Iron forging machines weren’t difficult to build, and once they were installed with specially designed hammerheads and molds, they could produce an endless stream of chestplates and backplates. Once the realm had gained a couple more batches of Dao Foundation stage cultivators, Hsu Su wouldn’t be just contending with a few thousand or tens of thousands of cuirasses—the number could easily reach a hundred thousand or even two hundred thousand!

Wei Yuan didn’t know how much a craftsman normally charged to produce a cuirass like this outside, but here in Qingming, molten steel was currently in abundant supply, and the Dao Foundation stage cultivators worked for free because the labor was meant to solidify their Dao Foundation and strengthen their will. After all, why would they need to get paid to cultivate?

In fact, the most expensive part of this cuirass was the small amount of immortal silver mixed into the molten steel to enhance its toughness and provide a slight resistance to Dao energy. Wei Yuan estimated that each cuirass cost only one tael of immortal silver, and six qian[5] of it was the immortal silver added for reinforcement.

As for the dozen or so loose parts—many of which were so small and intricate that they could only be crafted by hand—factoring in all expenses, they cost roughly one tael of immortal silver as well. Given that the vast majority of craftsmen in the realm were mostly self-taught, it was difficult enough for them to meet their own needs. That was why Wei Yuan decided to slash the price by three taels and offload this portion of the business.

After returning to his quarters, Wei Yuan rummaged through his belongings until he unearthed an exquisite jade box. He then asked his master to engrave three words—Virtue Bears All—on the box with his sword qi to give it an outstanding appearance. He then carefully placed three catties of nether soil inside the box, topped it with flowers, and sealed the lid properly. Only then did he send it to Yu Zhizhuo.

Senior Uncle Yu was both an outstanding genius and a hard worker. Now, it was time for the cattle to receive its fodder.

1. The pixiu ([pʰǐ.ɕjóʊ]; Chinese: 貔貅) is a Chinese mythological hybrid creature, depicted as a winged, lion-bodied beast with the head of a Chinese dragon. Pixiu are regarded as powerful protectors associated with good fortune and are found in tomb-guardian sculpture, decorative arts, and Chinese folk religion. ☜

2. Duke of Zhou (11th c. BC), son of King Wen of Zhou 周文王[Zhou1 Wen2 wang2], played an important role as regent in founding the Western Zhou 西周[Xi1 Zhou1], and is also known as the "God of Dreams". ☜

3. Note: Not Palace of Absolute Beginning; the royal palace. ☜

4. Refer to chapter 252. ☜

5. 1 tael is equal to 10 qian, so 60%. ☜