Chapter 513
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Chapter 513: Emperor Xia
In the fifth year of the Xia calendar, a huge stone pillar twenty meters high stood in the capital of Xia, engraved with the laws of Xia Kingdom. It took three years just for this project.
"Just this Xia Law Stone should be enough to fill several pages of textbooks for future generations."
Lin Jiang looked at the massive stone pillar, a wicked smile on his face. This was Lin Jiang’s mischievous side. In fact, Xia Kingdom could already produce relatively crude paper based on Lin Jiang’s guidance, rendering this unnecessary.
However, Lin Jiang insisted on creating this stone pillar, intending to give future students more homework. Additionally, it would support more historians and archaeologists.
Lin Jiang’s mischievousness didn’t stop there. For instance, he had people record the history of Xia Kingdom. He liked to cast large cauldrons, engrave them, even with some martial arts techniques, and then give them to some tribes. There were many similar actions, and surely future students of humanities would appreciate him.
In the sixth year of the Xia calendar, Lin Jiang led a group of tribal chiefs to start the sacrifices. Xia Kingdom didn’t worship gods but only honored the heavens, the earth, and ancestors. They set several days each year for worship, and all tribes were required to comply.
At the same time, strict rules were set to forbid certain evil rituals, such as those primitive worship brought by conquering tribes. No matter what they worshipped, it was all forbidden. Those who broke the rules would be punished by death.
In the eighth year of Xia Kingdom, the population exceeded 100,000 people. The population was growing rapidly, and no longer mainly through conquering other tribes. Natural reproduction became the primary way of population growth.
This was thanks to the rapid development of agricultural technology in Xia Kingdom. Lin Jiang never forgot about this progress. Food had always been the biggest obstacle to population growth. In this era, there were no high prices for houses or rights for women. Xia Kingdom’s people didn’t have much to do at night, so having children became the greatest joy. It was common for a family to have three to five children, and even ten or eight was not unusual.
However, Lin Jiang felt that population growth was too slow and Xia Kingdom’s territory was too small. They needed to find a way to expand, preferably to include all the previous cultivation world’s territories.
To provide motivation for expansion once again, Lin Jiang designed a set of noble titles based on the noble ranks of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, totaling six levels from highest to lowest: King, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron.
Each noble level had different powers and statuses. For example, a Baron, the lowest rank, could have a certain amount of land, wear certain clothes, and have a number of guards, while a Viscount would have more privileges than a Baron.
These powers and statuses were one of the sources of motivation for worldly people to strive for. Many were willing to go to great lengths for these things.
The noble titles were initially rare, with only a few Barons being appointed by Lin Jiang, and no Viscounts, as Lin Jiang wanted nobility to be scarce. Something rare is considered valuable, and if it becomes too common, it loses its value.
The nobles’ rank is determined by their power, including how much land and population they control, and how much tax they can contribute to the capital city. This drives both the common people and the nobles to expand.
Of course, Lin Jiang strictly forbids internal takeovers. If discovered, he immediately strips them of their noble title, enslaves them, confiscates their land, and forces them to expand externally as their only way out.
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"Greetings, Your Majesty."
In the summer capital, twelve young men bow to Lin Jiang.
In the past twenty to thirty years, Lin Jiang has trained hundreds of warriors. These twelve are the best among them, all possessing the strength of an Innate Martial Artist.
Each of them is stronger than the leaders of the tribes outside. They can easily take on a hundred opponents.
"Has the captain of the guard explained the mission clearly?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Very well, today you shall carry out the mission. I hope you will return triumphant."
Lin Jiang said to the twelve people that they should explore the outside world, heading north.
They were all talented in both literary and military skills. Lin Jiang asked them to bring enough paper and pens to record everything they saw and heard along the way. When they returned, these records would be compiled into a book, titled "The Classic of Mountains and Rivers." Lin Jiang didn’t mind adding some elements from the cultivation world.
Lin Jiang gave them a deadline of ten years for their mission. When they returned after ten years, they would be rewarded with titles, land, slaves, and people.
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
The twelve people all bowed together.
Lin Jiang ordered food and wine to be brought over. At the same time, better equipment was provided. Their weapons were upgraded from bronze to iron, and even steel. They were also given armor. There was no iron armor available at the moment, but plenty of leather armor. Strong bows and crossbows were also prepared.
Over the years, Lin Jiang had not encountered any demon races or cultivators in this land. Mortal warriors were the strongest creatures in this world. With their current strength, conquering the world would not be difficult.
Of course, the condition was not to encounter someone like Lin Jiang – a person who had survived from the era of cultivating immortality. Lin Jiang predicted that a group of former cultivators with golden cores or limited lifespans might have awakened by now. They might run into them.
Among these people, some must have practiced martial arts or even tempered their bodies intentionally. With their strength, they might not be easy opponents to defeat.
After practicing, twelve people rode horses away. Over the years, Lin Jiang greatly developed animal husbandry, and now he had many cattle and sheep. Lin Jiang specifically chose a group of excellent horse breeds and trained them into warhorses.
In the tenth year of summer, Lin Jiang ordered the construction of Xia Palace, the palace of Xia Kingdom, which was personally designed by Lin Jiang.
It’s not that Lin Jiang started indulging in enjoyment. After all, in the past twenty or thirty years since Lin Jiang’s birth, he didn’t even touch women. He didn’t have much need for material enjoyment either, as even the top enjoyment of this era couldn’t compare to the ordinary rich people in the cultivation era. He had already experienced what he should enjoy.
Building Xia Palace was partly due to Lin Jiang’s perverse taste, wanting to give future students something to do. Secondly, it was to give the people of Xia Kingdom a cultural sense of belonging. The capital was already the center of economy, politics, and culture, and these luxurious buildings were one of the manifestations of culture.
Of course, Lin Jiang was also afraid of some future generations claiming theft of the country. If someone said Lin Jiang was a thief and Xia Kingdom belonged to them, it wouldn’t be good. In case such a thing happened, Lin Jiang would personally lead an archaeological team to excavate Xia Palace to show them.
Xia Palace’s design was not luxurious but magnificent. There was plenty of land, and Lin Jiang tried to use stone materials as much as possible to ensure it could last for thousands of years. Maybe by then, there wouldn’t even be a need for archaeology, and it could be turned into a museum. Lin Jiang hoped that there wouldn’t be an entrance fee for Lin Jiang then.
The thousands of acres of Xia Palace were a very large project. Besides the technical staff, Lin Jiang used slaves for labor. There were plenty of slaves now. After the titles were granted in Xia Kingdom, there was sufficient motivation for expansion. Many primitive tribes were annexed in recent years, and those small tribes couldn’t support so many slaves, so they were sold.
Of course, Lin Jiang wasn’t a cruel and bloodthirsty person. He had promised that after Xia Palace was built, all these slaves would be promoted to commoners.
In this regard, Lin Jiang was very kind. The memory of his slaves had no rights. Even the memory of the Shang and Zhou dynasties was a large-scale human sacrifice, but Lin Jiang had already enacted laws to prohibit it. There had been no large-scale slaughter of slaves in Xia Kingdom yet, and Lin Jiang could not control the occasional one or two incidents.
Lin Jiang was not an engineer, but he could work as a supervisor. Sometimes he even helped with heavy work that many people couldn’t do, like lifting a massive stone that several slaves couldn’t lift together. Lin Jiang could lift it by himself, making him seem even more mysterious and impressive to the people of Xia Kingdom.
Of course, Lin Jiang wasn’t there to do hard labor. He only did it occasionally to maintain his air of mystery.
"A pyramid can make historians debate for hundreds of years whether it was built by aliens. So, I will build a Xia Palace and let them debate for thousands of years. That seems fair, right?"
When Lin Jiang thought about his masterpiece, he couldn’t help but feel proud. In the future, he believed he could support the entire world of historians and archaeologists on his own. He would be their provider.
In the thirteenth year of Xia’s calendar, Lin Jiang received news that a tribe of Xia Kingdom had failed in an expansion attempt. They had encountered a huge tribe with a population of over ten thousand in the northeast of the capital. This news immediately caught Lin Jiang’s interest.
