Five thousand Wushang Cavalry had been enough for him to campaign across the world, establishing a brilliant reputation for them. With the great calamity still in the future and the Wushang still whole and intact, it was difficult to imagine the flood of strength that fifty or sixty thousand Wushang would represent!
Rewards to be dispensed after daybreak… Interesting!
A curious look flashed in Wang Chong's eyes as he recalled those last words, but he quickly regained his composure.
Gao Feng, Nie Yan, and the others began to return from their duties. The serenity of the night lasted until morning.
……
The moon set and stars sank away. Dawn broke in the east, the red sun ascending over the horizon, exuding its great light. Red rays painted the lofty peaks surrounding Wushang Village in the glow of daybreak.
It was daybreak, the agreed time of their departure!
"Lord Marquis, what should we do?"
Li Siye sat cross-legged on the floor at the door to the house, his back straight, his giant Wootz Steel sword on his lap, like some crouching tiger. He had apparently not slept, and his eyes were bloodshot. It was apparent that some serious matter had been greatly weighing on his mind.
"Do we really have to leave empty-handed?"
Li Siye's face was full of struggle. The mission Wang Chong had given him had met with complete failure upon the Wushang Chief's refusal. This was an unprecedented incident in Li Siye's life.
As the agreed time of departure approached, Li Siye's heart was filled with a deep reluctance.
"Haha, let's leave! Why shouldn't we leave? Gao Feng, Nie Yan, and the others are all awake, right? It's about time. We should get ready to leave."
To Li Siye's surprise, Wang Chong had a relaxed expression upon waking. He seemed not at all downcast at the failure of the mission.
"Ah?!!"
Everyone was momentarily dumbfounded.
No one had expected Wang Chong to make the decision so easily and so carefreely. But since Wang Chong had spoken, no one dared to say otherwise. They all stood up and began to pack for their departure.
Wushang Village at dawn was peaceful and serene. No sign of last night's chaos could be seen.
Wang Chong slightly bent down and exited the house. Outside, the morning sun had illuminated the towering mountains as well as the rows of stone houses and the wide stone plaza.
Bathed in the light of dawn, the scene was as beautiful as a painting!
Truly beautiful! I hope that it can always be so peaceful and serene! Wang Chong quietly said to himself.
It was precisely because he had seen the shattered landscape that he so cherished it now. No matter what, Wang Chong hoped that this paradisiacal village secluded from the world and the Central Plains that he stood on would always be able to maintain this picturesque beauty!
"Lord Marquis!"
A voice came from behind him, breaking Wang Chong's train of thought. In a few moments, all his guards—Gao Feng, Nie Yan, Li Siye, his soldiers, and those who had been captured—had emerged from the stone house.
Last night, once everything had been taken care of, Wu Jiumei had released the captured soldiers.
"Let's go!"
Without the slightest delay, Wang Chong set off, leading Li Siye, Gao Feng, Nie Yan, and the rest toward the mountains on the west side.
He had come through the western side, and Zhang Shouzhi's group was waiting for him there. With matters settled here, he naturally had to return.
"Wait a moment. Lord Marquis, please hold."
Just when Wang Chong was about to march his soldiers out of Wushang Village, a voice came from the other end of the plaza.
With this voice came the sound of many footsteps.
Wang Chong turned his head and saw that in the blazing light of the morning sun, a group of Wushang villagers was hurrying in his direction.
The one leading it was the white-haired Wushang Chief, and accompanying him were Wu Jiumei, Huang Botian, the rest of the elders and protectors, and the other core members of the village.
Even Fang Xiaoyan was mixed into the crowd.
Chapter 711: Recruitment Successful II
Chapter 711: Recruitment Successful (II)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
"This is?"
"What are the Wushang up to?"
The soldiers were astonished. The impressive size of this group made them rather uneasy. They weren't planning on preventing them from leaving, were they?
Wang Chong silently smiled.
As expected, they came!
Wang Chong's face was indifferent, as if he had long expected this sight.
"Chief is being too courteous."
Before the Wushang Chief could come over, Wang Chong turned around and went to welcome him.
"Lord Marquis, my apologies; this decrepit one has come late. Last night, Lord Marquis disregarded past wrongs and assisted us. This great favor and kindness will be engraved in the hearts of every villager until death," the white-haired elder solemnly said.
"Chief is too polite. It was just a simple gesture."
Wang Chong waved his hand, not treating the matter very seriously. He had prepared that medicine for them in the first place.
"Big Brother, thank you for saving my grandpa."
A sticky-sounding voice came from the side as Fang Xiaoyan raised her head and gave her own sincere thanks.
When he saw this girl's sincere face and recalled how, twenty-five years later, she would be so savage, willful, and unreasonable, Wang Chong almost broke into laughter.
"There's no need to be polite. It was just a trifle."
Wang Chong patted her on the head.
With the girl's words, the atmosphere on both sides relaxed.
"Lord Marquis, our gratitude is indescribable. Yesterday, we were too rude. No matter what, I request for Lord Marquis to stay in our Wushang Village for a few more days. Lingering for a little longer will also allow us to display our gratitude as hosts," the white-haired elder said.
Many things could only be discovered long after the event. Last night, even with Wang Chong's help, eight villagers who had suffered early breakouts had died on the Night of the Lunar Eclipse before they could receive Wang Chong's medicine.
The symptoms of their illnesses had been exactly the same as everyone else's.
Just thinking about the fact that four or five thousand villagers had had flare-ups of their disease on the Night of the Lunar Eclipse left them shivering in fear. If not for Wang Chong, last night would have been an unimaginable tragedy.
It was not one bit excessive to say that Wang Chong was the savior of the Wushang. No matter how they repaid it, it would never be enough.
When they thought about the cold, harsh, and disaffected attitude they had treated Wang Chong and Li Siye with during the day, even the Wushang Chief couldn't help but feel ashamed.
"Haha, I appreciate Chief's kindness, but there's no need for a prolonged stay. We have some other matters to attend to, so we must take our leave."
To the surprise of the Wushang, Wang Chong waved his hands and refused them.
So surprising was this answer that the Wushang Chief and the elders were momentarily at a loss for words.
"This… Lord Marquis, I will not hide the truth from you. This decrepit one has a request of you. The pills that Lord Marquis used last night are extremely important to us. Does Lord Marquis have any more? In addition, Lord Marquis mentioned rock salt yesterday. Might I ask what was meant?"
The Wushang Chief had a rather awkward expression, but despite his embarrassment, he still managed to get the words out.
"To tell the truth, I only had one hundred of those pills, and all of them were used last night. As for the rock salt…"
Wang Chong smiled and he gave the Wushang elders a profound look.
"Wushang Village is cut off from the world, neither trading nor communicating with it. Although everything else can be cultiva
ted, and vines can also be used as a substitute for food, the three meals of a day can't escape salt. How has Wushang Village resolved this problem?"
"This…"
The Wushang Chief paused in hesitation, unable to speak.
This Young Marquis of the Great Tang Empire was far more perceptive than he had imagined. This land of steep mountains was nothing but rock and completely unsuitable for planting crops.
Thus, the Wushang ate vines, sealwort, and other such plants. This led their bodies to be much stronger and hardier than those of ordinary people.
But the only thing that they could not use ordinary methods to resolve was the salt that Wang Chong spoke of.
Consequently, the Wushang did not eat the same salt as ordinary people. Rather than sea salt, it was rock salt, salt that they found in a certain area of the mountains.
The rock salt there had been discovered by the Wushang's ancestors, and generation after generation of the Wushang had partaken of that salt.
"Haha, is Chief unwilling to say it out of fear that the Imperial Court will seize it for the common good and regulate it?"
Wang Chong grinned, at a glance seeing through the Wushang Chief's apprehensions.
For dynasty after dynasty, salt and iron had always been monopolized by the Imperial Court. 'Iron' here did not refer to the metal, but to the minting of coins. No dynasty would allow the common people to mint coins as they pleased.
Such a policy would lead to monetary chaos.
As for salt, just as Wang Chong said, it was indispensable for one's daily meals. The Imperial Court had at first implemented this policy to prevent a surge in the price of salt for the sake of private profit. If the common people could not eat salt, they would revolt.
There was precedent for this in history.
Of course, it realized in the future that the salt business harbored enormous profits.
Although Wang Chong didn't know when the Wushang made their way into this valley, it was around one thousand years ago, precisely the period in which the Western Han Dynasty controlled salt and iron.
No matter how little Wushang Village communicated with the outside world, they probably understood. It was clear that if their salt deposit were discovered, the court would seize it.
"Haha, blessings come with disaster, and disasters hide in blessings. Has Chief heard of this saying? For every generation of Wushang Village, everyone will start to feel aches all over their body at the age of three. As they grow older, the frequency of the aches will increase, as will the pain. Have the elders ever thought about why this is?"
A light breeze ruffled Wang Chong's sleeves. As Wang Chong smiled at the Wushang elders, he seemed to be implying a deeper meaning.
Other people didn't know of Wushang Village's secrets, but as the commander of the Wushang Cavalry, Wang Chong was well aware. The Wushang spent their entire lives accompanied by this severe pain. Their skin would turn black and their bodies would convulse in unbearable pain.
And when Yin energy was at its strongest, particularly on lunar eclipses, the breakout would be extremely harsh. Not even when Wang Chong had recruited them had this changed.
Later on, Wang Chong had recruited all the most brilliant herbal masters and martial experts of the world, including the finest doctors of Ü-Tsang, Mengshe Zhao, the Turkic Khaganates, and Goguryeo, as well as all the other foreign countries. Together, they spent eight years researching and experimenting, finally producing a medicine that could cure the Wushang of their lifelong misery.
This was the pill that Wang Chong had given them!
This was also why Wang Chong had come to Wushang Village with such confidence in his success.
The only problem was that this pill was very hard to refine. In the time available, Wang Chong had only been able to produce around one hundred, and they had all been used on the Night of the Lunar Eclipse.
The Wushang Chief felt his heart thump as he felt a strange sensation. The youth before him was at most seventeen or eighteen, young enough to be his grandson.
But for some reason, he could not see through this youth. The Wushang Chief had never found a young man to be so unfathomable.
And what confused him most of all was, how did he know of the rock salt?
This youth was covered in layer after layer of befuddling fog that no one could see through.
"Lord Marquis's meaning is…?"
The Wushang Chief frowned, his face pensive.
"Hah, Chief, some salt can be eaten, and some salt can't. Not all salt in the world can be casually consumed, at least, not in the way Wushang Village consumes it," Wang Chong indifferently said.
Rock salt actually contained poison, with many of its components being toxic. It had to undergo special processing and refinement.
This wasn't the case for just rock salt. Sea salt also had to undergo special processing. And consuming industrial-grade salt might lead straight to death.
With the memories from that other world, Wang Chong could treat this all as common sense. But the Wushang were clearly not aware of this.
The Wushang began to consume this poisonous rock salt as children, and those poisons would gradually accumulate, seeping through their bodies. At the age of three, these symptoms finally began to manifest.
The most obvious symptom was that at three years old, a child would begin to convulse and feel aches over their body. As the poison continued to accumulate, it would seep into the flesh, hair, skin, and bones, all the way down to the bone marrow. As a result, even though Wushang Village had so many experts, few of them could live past the age of fifty.
Even fewer could live to seventy or eighty. Of the fifty or sixty thousand Wushang, they only had twenty to thirty elders.
And if the Wushang were so unlucky as to encounter a lunar eclipse, just like last night, they would experience grievous casualties.
This was the Achilles' Heel of the Wushang, the price the Wushang had to pay for their power!
"Lord Marquis means that all this is because we eat rock salt?" the Wushang Chief asked.
"Haha, don't eat the village's rock salt. This is my advice to Chief and the elders, for the sake of Wushang Village, for the sake of all the villagers. Of course, whether you believe is up to Chief and the elders," Wang Chong said.
His expression was calm and relaxed. There were some matters for which pushing them too fast would have the opposite effect. If he were too direct, it might result in a backlash.
Thus, although Wang Chong wanted to help the Wushang, this was all he could do. Any more would be superfluous.
Buzz!
With Wang Chong's words, the Wushang Chief and the elders exchanged glances. In the past, there had been many explanations for why the villagers were afflicted by this disease, like curses, hereditary problems, or environmental factors.
None of them had expected Wang Chong to claim that all this was because of that ordinary and unremarkable rock salt they consumed every day.
This was like saying that a person bled because they had taken an extra breath of air.
But from another perspective, Wang Chong had no reason to deceive them. Such an action was meaningless, and for a marquis, it was also very lacking in propriety.
Chapter 712: Recruitment Successful III
Chapter 712: Recruitment Successful (III)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
"Many thanks, Lord Marquis!"
Although he was still a little doubtful, the Wushang Chief courteously gave his thanks. Whether or not this was all caused by the rock salt, his greatest concern and the more pressing task lay elsewhere.
"In addition, in addition… Although Lord Marquis has said that there is no more of this pill… can this decrepit one ask if Lord Marquis can tell us the recipe for this medicine and allow us to make it ourselves?"
It was the greatest taboo to ask a medicine master for the recipe of their pills, and the great clans would also rarely divulge their preciou
s recipes. The Wushang Chief had just wanted to make an attempt, but to his surprise, Wang Chong's reply was extremely straightforward.
"Okay!"
Wang Chong smiled, apparently having already predicted the Wushang Chief's question. Without the slightest hesitation, he began to recite a large list of ingredients.
"The refining of this medicine isn't very difficult, but the ingredients are rather troublesome. It requires mansha fruit of at least thirty years of age, sixty-year Goguryeon ginseng, one-hundred-year purple coral obtained from the seabed, three-hundred-year sandalwood pith, Arabian dates, pomegranates from the Western Regions, palm tree leaves from overseas ground into powder…"
Wang Chong gave out seventy or eighty different kinds of ingredients, and as the elders of Wushang listened, their faces grew more and more unsightly, their complexions ghastly pale by the end.
If it were possible, they had planned to take Wang Chong's recipe and make the pills for themselves. But none of them had expected the recipe to be so complicated and troublesome.
They had not even heard of many of these things, much less seen them. Moreover, Wushang Village had been cut off from the outside world for many years and didn't have any wealth to speak of. Even the simplest ingredients, the dates and pomegranates, were enough to make them despair, let alone the other ingredients.
Wang Chong's bright eyes could clearly see the reaction of the elders, and he was not at all surprised. In truth, he was not making things difficult for them by giving them a fake recipe. On the contrary, Wang Chong had stated nothing but the truth. Each ingredient he had given was a true component of the pill.
The Wushang had been troubled by this ailment for so long that it was very difficult to treat. A normal recipe would have been useless. Wang Chong had to use his status as Grand Marshal of the world to gather a great number of experts and doctors, and they had needed eight years to develop a cure.
The immense time needed and the number of people participating meant that the final recipe required a large number of ingredients. It was also because the participants in this project were not solely the Tang, but the Tibetans, Mengshe Zhao, Goguryeons, Turks, Arabians, and even Characenians, that the ingredients were so varied and scattered all around the world.
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