Chapter 1 When Day Was About to Dawn

When day was about to dawn, Blindman Bei found Zheng Fan.

His face showed no signs of fatigue.

The two sat in the courtyard, each on a stool, with a small table between them. On the table were four bowls of white rice porridge, a dish of pickled ginger, a dish of pickled mustard tuber, and two salted duck eggs.

The two tacitly picked up a salted duck egg each. Blindman Bei peeled the entire egg and put it into his porridge bowl, while Zheng Fan knocked a hole in one end of his egg, peeled it open a little, and used his chopsticks to slowly dig out the egg to eat.

It could be said that the inn had been extremely busy all night, and this busyness continued until now.

But even though everyone had been dormant for half a year, when they really got going, they were still well-organized.

"My lord, this world is indeed different from what we imagined before, and it can be said to be much more interesting."

"Mm."

Zheng Fan knew that he was giving him a report, so he wasn't in a hurry and just waited for Blindman Bei to speak slowly.

The information came from the interrogation of the young master last night, plus the intelligence obtained by Blindman Bei and Xue San. As for Fan Li, he should still be in the barbarian merchant caravan at this time, and he shouldn't be back in a short time.

Blindman Bei should have already made his own summary. To be honest, Zheng Fan was really afraid that Blindman Bei would really bring over a stack of copied documents for him to review.

He really liked this way of reporting while eating breakfast.

"My lord, don't dislike me for being long-winded. I'll start from the details and slowly explain."

"Okay."

"The place we are currently in is called Tiger Head City. The scale of the city is not large. Strictly speaking, it is a satellite city. The entire area where the northern part of the Yan Kingdom borders the desert, including Tiger Head City, belongs to the Northern Feng Prefecture, which is about the same as a province.

"The Yan Kingdom has seven prefectures. In addition to Northern Feng Prefecture, there are also Leisha, Tiancheng, Xiahui, Sanshi, Huwei, and Yinlang. The capital of the Yan Kingdom is located in Tiancheng Prefecture. It can be said that Tiancheng Prefecture is a bit like the capital region.

"And Northern Feng Prefecture is basically the northern frontier of the Yan Kingdom. A hundred years ago, this was the area where the Yan Kingdom and the barbarians fought.

"However, first, because the barbarians split themselves and the royal court declined and no longer had the ability to summon, they could no longer gather together to launch large-scale offensives. Second, because of the rise of the three national powers of Daqian, Dachu, and Dajin, the Yan Kingdom had to shift its focus to the Central Plains.

"Therefore, in the past hundred years, although there have been occasional small frictions between the Yan Kingdom and the barbarian tribes, there have been no more large-scale battles involving more than ten thousand people.

"Tuman City is the largest city of the Yan Kingdom on the edge of this desert. It was formerly called Tuman City (Slaughter the Barbarians City), but later, because of the tacit peace between the two sides, the name of the city was changed.

"This city is also the capital of Northern Feng Prefecture and is a large city. Tiger Head City, where we are located, is one of the defensive system cities built relying on Tuman City, but because it is the closest city to the desert, trade is relatively developed during peacetime.

"In today's world, the Yan Kingdom, the Jin Kingdom, the Chu Kingdom, and the Qian Kingdom are the four great powers of the world. There are also some other small countries that exist as vassals of the four great powers.

"The official system of the Yan Kingdom is a bit complicated. Its political system is actually more like the Eastern and Western Jin Dynasties. It is a co-governance of the world by the monarch and the great families. The royal family is more like the most powerful family among the aristocratic clans, that is, the leader of the aristocratic clans.

"And the Daqian and Dajin adopt the imperial examination system, and the emperor and the scholar-officials co-govern the world.

"As for the Dachu, it is a relatively ancient aristocratic system."

"In that case, aren't the Qian Kingdom and the Jin Kingdom a bit more advanced?" Zheng Fan asked.

"My lord is wise."

After first offering a basic phrase, Blindman Bei continued:

"In theory, the aristocratic system, the aristocratic clan system, and the imperial examination system should be a process from backward to advanced, but the development of a country must not only consider its own factors, but also take into account the historical process.

"After the founding of the Yan Kingdom, because it had long faced the threat of the desert barbarians, in order to unite its strength, it had to delegate the power belonging to the monarch. Only then did it form the current situation of parallel aristocratic clans.

"This kind of system is actually not suitable for central centralization, especially when expanding abroad, it is often constrained, just like Sun Shiwann (derogatory name for Sun Quan, ruler of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period).

"Therefore, even though the Yan Kingdom has had nearly a hundred years of peace with the barbarians, and even though the Yan Kingdom possesses the Yan Kingdom cavalry that other countries fear so much, it still cannot unify from north to south in the same way as in our familiar historical pattern.

"But it is precisely because of this system in the Yan Kingdom that it is extremely united internally when facing the oppression of the Qian Kingdom and the Jin Kingdom, because the aristocratic clans in the Yan Kingdom are clear that once the Jin Kingdom or the Qian Kingdom destroys the Yan Kingdom, their good days will be over.

"At the same time, although the Jin Kingdom and the Qian Kingdom have the imperial examination system, because they have been established for a long time, the scholar-official class has become too powerful to get rid of, becoming a parasitic class no less than the aristocratic clans, a bit like the late Ming Dynasty. In fact, they have also lost their enterprising spirit and ability.

"The nobles of the Chu Kingdom only know how to live in luxury and pleasure. There is still a large area of barren land in their own backyard that has not been developed, so unless another country takes the initiative to cause friction, they rarely wage foreign wars.

"There has not been a large-scale war between the four countries for nearly fifty years, and they have entered an era of four-way balance."

"Oh, is that so."

"In addition, my lord, there is another very interesting thing. An interesting piece of information can be obtained from the county government documents stolen by Xue San, that is, there are also existing great empires in the West. The exchanges between the two sides are quite close. Western envoys often pass through the desert to enter the Yan Kingdom, and then from the Yan Kingdom to other countries. It can be seen that the exchange between the ancient East and West in this world is much more frequent than in our previous world history."

This was popularizing geographical knowledge. After Blindman Bei finished speaking, Zheng Fan also finished his first bowl of porridge.

When Zheng Fan picked up his second bowl of porridge, Blindman Bei began to report on another aspect, that is, the power system of this world.

"The interesting thing about this world is that it has cultivators, magic, battle qi, and martial artists. It can be said that the types are quite rich.

"That Young Master Wang, oh, his name is Wang Fuqi. He is a collateral disciple of the Wang family in Northern Feng Prefecture. This time he came to Tiger Head City specifically to travel, saying that he wanted to experience the desert customs. The Wang family is a small family in Northern Feng Prefecture.

"The West mainly cultivates magic and battle qi, while the East cultivates immortality and martial arts. They are all divided into nine ranks, with nine being the lowest and one being the highest.

"Probably, the guard you killed last night, my lord, wasn't even considered a ninth-rank, or rather, he was about to reach the ninth-rank, that is, he could use a little bit of internal force.

"The wife of the city patrol captain I met yesterday told me that her husband was still half a step away from entering the ninth-rank martial artist realm, but crushing a blind man to death would still be as easy as crushing an ant.

"This Wang family also passes down martial arts, and Wang Fuqi is indeed much more respected than ordinary people, but he is just a collateral descendant, and the guard is also a non-ranked character.

"Oh, right, the strange mount you saw at the entrance of the inn earlier should be a pixiu beast.

"Legend has it that the mount of the founding emperor of the Yan Kingdom was a pixiu. After establishing the Yan Kingdom, the Yan royal family has relied on the bloodline of that pixiu for reproduction and cultivation, creating a large number of hybrid species, but even the lowest-level hybrid pixiu beast can only be owned by people of status.

"Officials released from the capital are probably assigned one, and perhaps some elite cavalry teams will have more."

In fact, for ordinary people, this world is only limited to the acre of land in front of them. Sometimes they can't even remember the reign year, and they just repeat the process of eating the last meal and thinking about the next.

The inn had been open for half a year, but they knew nothing about this power system, which was enough to show how narrow the sky for the common people really was.

"These things aren't new anymore." Zheng Fan put some pickled mustard tuber into his bowl, ate the remaining porridge, and then put down his chopsticks.

After stretching, he continued to say to Blindman Bei, who was sitting in front of him:

"Magic, battle qi, martial artists, cultivation - these kinds of things have already been written and drawn to death. But just like watching the news about war-torn areas on TV and feeling the same way as you do when you actually come to a war-torn area are completely different, I'm actually a little excited now."

Blindman Bei nodded in agreement. He was also excited, and so were his colleagues.

At this moment, Blindman Bei, who had just finished a bowl of porridge, spoke while changing to another bowl of porridge:

"My lord, there are two things in front of us now. One is to find a way back."

"The first one can be removed." Zheng Fan said without hesitation.

Although he was afraid of this strange world, Zheng Fan really didn't think about going back. He came to this world through euthanasia, and he had no relatives in the previous world. He had also been tortured by illness for several years. When he left, he had nothing to worry about, so there was no such thing as finding his way home.

Blindman Bei didn't seem surprised by Zheng Fan's response at all, but the right to choose was with Zheng Fan, and he had to say what he had to say, so he continued:

"The second thing is that according to the plan you instructed earlier, we need to expand our strength."

Right now, what everyone had was an inn, and only an inn.

In the previous half year, the development of the inn from its establishment to the present had actually been in a stagnant state.

Because at this scale, the money earned was enough for a decent life, and by taking care of the relevant government offices and gangs, they could get a certain amount of protection and be in a very safe position.

It wasn't that Feng Siniang and the others didn't have the ability to run the inn better, but there was no need. As stowaways in this world, they had no backing and no foundation. Taking the inn to this point was considered good. If they expanded further, they would probably be targeted by wolves.

Of course, the reason why they were no longer worried now was first, because Zheng Fan's awakening had determined the route, and second, they themselves were already showing a tendency to become wolves.

"First of all, what we need to do is money and influence." Blindman Bei said slowly, "This is the initial stage. In this initial stage, money and influence are separate.

"Because at this time, having money without influence is too dangerous."

"Tell me the specifics," Zheng Fan reminded.

He knew that among these seven demon kings, Blindman Bei was more like a wise man.

"Starting from small to large, since we are now in Tiger Head City, then I will make our next plan with Tiger Head City as the core.

"We will first create a force of our own in Tiger Head City. Under the premise that the conditions for rebellion are not yet ripe, our power development can only take the dark side, which is also what our group of people is good at.

"First, control the small gangs in Tiger Head City, and then gradually become the largest gang force in Tiger Head City, recruiting a group of subordinates who can be used to run errands, at least so that we don't have to do everything ourselves like last night. At the same time, we also need to further improve our relationship with the official forces in Tiger Head City. This is the first stage of the Tiger Head City strategy.

"In the second stage, we can form our own bandit team in the desert, robbery, protection fees, primitive accumulation, and at the same time, it is best to be able to collude with the official forces in Tiger Head City and have a channel for dividing the spoils.

"The third stage is to form our own caravan through the previous primitive accumulation and the relationship with other large forces that we have established in that process and whitewash ourselves.

"Once these three stages are successful, the Tiger Head City strategy will also be successful. At least, we have gained a foothold in Tiger Head City in this world, and the next development needs to be re-planned."

Finally,

Blindman Bei added:

"Please correct me, my lord."

Zheng Fan shook his head and said very honestly: "I have no other opinions. I think your plan is very good. You have to eat one bite at a time. Mm, that's the principle."

"My lord is wise."

"............" Zheng Fan.

This flattery is too stiff.

"If there's anything I can help with, you can tell me directly, although I............"

"What your subordinate needs is trust from you, my lord!"

"Ugh............ I trust you very much!"

Zheng Fan said very seriously.

Blindman Bei shook his head and said, "No, my lord, you don't."

"I really, really trust you!"

"No, my lord, you don't."

"You're very smart, I believe in you!"

"No, my lord, you still don't."

"I really trust you!"

"Still............ don't."

"I'm very relieved to leave things to you."

"No, my lord, you don't."

"I beg you, I trust you!"

Zheng Fan's voice was about to go hoarse,

The next moment,

Three pieces of pickled mustard tuber floated up from the dish and landed in Blindman Bei's porridge bowl.

Blindman Bei smiled,

He took a bite of porridge with the pickled mustard tuber,

And said very contentedly:

"Your subordinate thanks you for your trust, my lord."

"Mm."

Zheng Fan nodded politely. He felt that he should keep a little distance from this somewhat strange blind man now.

Blindman Bei put down his porridge bowl, took out the handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe his mouth, and said softly:

"I've finished licking, you guys continue."