Chapter 445 – Home
Tong: "I see."
Tong received all the reports from Tian Yu and Xu Huang. Both of them had captured two of the most important cities of Goguryeo, which would cripple their economy and growth. However, they had not dealt the finishing blow to the country as they had not defeated their main army and captured the king yet.
Tong: "Where is the Goguryeo king?"
Jia Xu: "He retreated north. We lost him."
Tong: "You lost sight of an entire legion!? Are your wings for a decoration?"
Xu Huang: "My apologies, your majesty."
Not only they lost trace of their monarch, Jia Xu and Xu Huang violated Tong's primary policy, so they had to get punished for this.
Tong punished Xu Huang by temporary demoted him to a new position, the governor of Gungnae. As for Jia Xu, he got demoted to the vice governor of Gungnae to assist Xu Huang.
Tian Yu's post changed to Pyongyang, and he also inherited Xu Huang's legion to maintain order in Lelang Commandery.
Gan Ning was summoned back to Xiangping to manage a newly found navy force, and he had to train the transferred batch of graduated soldiers from Ye this year. Once they had been trained enough, Gan Ning would get promoted to a grand commander of the navy.
For now, the conflict on the north was over. However, Tong would need to deal with this country later.
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At Xuchang, Cao Cao visited Pu Jing's metallurgy factory, which was working on their new weaponry.
He picked a long metal pipe and turned to the designer of this metal tube.
"What's this?"
Pu Jing rolled his eyes, "Gun chamber."
"What's it for?"
"Come with me."
Pu Jing led Cao Cao and his followers to an archery range, where they had transformed it into a shooting range for another weapon.
The former premier took a long weapon with the same long tube that Cao Cao had picked.
It was a harquebus or arquebus, a Spanish rifle from the 15th-century.
Currently, Pu Jing was planning to develop rifles and replace the cold weapons with these guns!
In his thoughts, by being the first to employ a battalion of musketeers, they could overthrow Tong's kingdom with ease, even though they were at a disadvantage in both human assets and soldiers.
Pu Jing aimed the harquebus at the scarecrow and pulled the trigger.
*BANG*
The preload ball hit the scarecrow's chest.
Cao Cao observed the weapon with a frown, "That's it?"
Pu Jing snorted, "This is the magic weapon that Tong used when he debuted into our politic world. He fought Yuan Shao with something more advanced than this."
"Oh?"
Cao Cao was interested. He took the harquebus from Pu Jing and learned how to shoot.
20 Minutes later, Cao Cao fired a gun for the first time.
*BANG*
His bullet missed the target.
"Lame. Bows and crossbows are more reliable."
"It takes a couple months for an uneducated peasant to master this weapon, but you need years to train a body of a bow user. Crossbows also require the user's strength to reload."
"Repeating crossbows are still usable."
"True, but the firepower is lacking. They are only useful against random bandits, but they can't even penetrate this thing."
Pu Jing pointed at a steel plate armor, which he had bought from a scavenger merchant, who looted this from dead bodies from the battlefield in Yi Province.
It was Tong Army's standard armor other than the imperial lamellar armor, which Tong treated as inferior armor type.
For demonstration, Pu Jing took a repeating crossbow and fired at the steel plate mail.
*TINK*
It could not penetrate the steel plate.
Then, Pu Jing reloaded the harquebus and aimed at the plate mail.
*BANG*
The steel plate dented, but the bullet failed to get through the thick metal.
Cao Cao frowned as he inspected the armor.
"What's this?"
"Zhang Tong's armor."
"Oh? So, he's wearing this to battles?"
"No, all of his soldiers are."
Cao Cao's face changed. So far, he only heard intel reports from Tong's battles, but he had never seen this armor's performance in real life.
One thousand words could not be compared with real experience. Seeing with his own eyes, Cao Cao was alarmed by Tong's kingdom's technology difference.
They had to develop a more advanced weapon fast, or Tong would destroy their alliance soon.
Also, Cao Cao was worried about Pu Jing's hidden secret.
"When will you be able to give my men more cultivation manuals?"
Pu Jing rolled his eyes, "I already gave them to Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan. I'm out of lifespans."
"Then, get more lifespans."
"Impossible. I can only get enough for one person a year. If you want more, ask your cousins to buy you one or two."
Pu Jing lied. He could easily cultivate 400,000 year-worth of lifespan each year, which translated to 2 people. However, he did not need so many immortals in this world since he wanted to be the only immortal alive.
Thus, he shoved the responsibility to someone else.
Cao Cao groaned, "Fine! Have it your way! How long will we be ready to mass-produce a weapon to overcome this armor!?"
It was the turn for Pu Jing to frown. He wanted to build modern bullets and guns, but he lacked mercury. Furthermore, for the sake of mass-producing muskets and advanced rifles, Pu Jing needed steam engines and elite gunsmiths.
It was a long road before they could reach that level. Pu Jing estimated that they required at least 10 years with their personal assets and workforces.
"This weapon will be our general's assets for now. We need more time to research and mass-produce this," Pu Jing noted his requirements and passed it to Cao Cao, "I need these. Provide them for me."
"…"
Cao Cao glared at this untrustworthy strategist. He snorted in frustration, but he took the notes anyway.
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April 1st, 194 AD.
<<Ding>>
<<Bo Cai has donated 50,000 lifespans to the clan>>
<<Cai Yong has donated 50,000 lifespans to the clan>>
<<Ding Yuan has donated 50,000 lifespans to the clan>>
<<Zhang Jiao has donated 50,000 lifespans to the clan>>
<<Kong Rong has …>>
It was a new custom of Tong's clan. All angels and demons in the clan had to contribute 100,000 lifespans a year, so Tong and others could use this available fund to use several core system skills, such as [Create Food], [Firearm Creation], and [Private World] of Li Feihong. As for the leftover, they could keep it for emergency usage in the future.
Sima Yi: "I just got the cultivation manual, and I don't have enough lifespans. Do I have to contribute?"
Tong: "No. But you will have to do it next year."
Sima Yi: "Right. Got it."
Zhang Jiao: "Is it enough? Do you need more? I have two wings, and I can easily get 400,000 a year. I can put more if you want to."
Tong: "You keep the rest, father. Donating 50,000 to the clan already consumed 100,000 years of your lifespans. Everything you have is your profit."
Zhang Jiao: "You look troubled, though."
Tong: "We're fine. Don't worry. The kingdom's future is great!"
Zhang Jiao: "If you say so. Well, I forgot to tell you this. Hua Tuo visited us in Julu. I told him to visit you in Ye, but he refused."
Tong froze. I had been a while since he last saw his father-in-law.
Now that Hua Shi passed on, Tong was afraid if he should meet Hua Tuo or not.
Tong: "Is he mad?"
Zhang Jiao: "More like self-blaming. You should visit this old coot when you're free."
Tong: "Got it."
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Medusa took a million lifespan from the clan chat to supply her [Create Food] and [Firearm Creation] budget. She was relieved that they finally got something in return after investing in all officers for a long time.
She smiled as she glanced at her system skills.
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<<Firearm Creation>> Level 10 (MAX)
Create a firearm or a bullet once a day.
Upkeep: 5,000 lifespans a year.
<<Firearm Cost>>
A bullet of any size: 1
A pistol: 20
A shotgun: 50
A sub-machine gun: 200
A rifle: 1,000
An automatic rifle: 5,000
A sniper rifle: 10,000
A .50 Cal rifle or a higher caliber: 50,000
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This skill was expensive, and it was impossible to sport every soldier with automatic rifles since the cost was usually ten times higher than the listed prices.
After all, Medusa was required to summon her souls to use this ability to cheat the daily usage, and it cost 10 times higher than the list as a penalty.
So far, Medusa chose to create basic guns, such as pistols and shotguns for Tong's men. Now that Medusa had more funds, she had to make a tough decision if she wanted to get everybody a gun, or she could create a rifle battalion as a special force.
As she could not make this decision alone, she consulted Tong when they were alone.
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Upon hearing the trouble of Diaochan, aka Medusa, Tong answered without hesitation.
"Create one M4 every day. Don't bother using your soul to create more unless it's emergency."
"Are you sure? Won't it take long to assemble a special force like this?"
"Just use your daily right to create something. I need about 50 of M4 for all our important officers for now. Since it cost 5,000 a piece, we can get about 200-300 every year. When we have more immortals in our force, our tax income should be higher, and we can mass produce these."
"Alright. But what about our factories? How are your factories?"
Diaochan referred to Tong's steel factories, where Te Langpu had finished installing steam engines.
"We're using them to create cannons and steel armors instead of guns. I think we can chug about 10 cannons a day now."
Their military technologies were progressing step by step. They were grateful that Te Langpu contributed a lot these past years despite his obnoxious behavior.
But there were problems. These technologies and blueprints of cannons should have been leaked to the other warlords, and Tong believed that Cao Cao and Sun Fang should have about the same cannon models by now.
In the future war, it would be an exchange of firearms instead of melee warfare.
With this cheating skill, Tong and Diaochan were confident that they had the upper hand. All they had to beware of was immortals and their strength.
"I think you should participate next time."
"… I know."
Tong leaned over to Diaochan, planning to kiss her.
At that moment, Dong Bai, aka Friday, burst into the room.
"HEY, MOM! IT'S MY TURN TODAY!!"
Diaochan grinned, "Whoops. Well, can we 3P today?"
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April 15th, 194 AD.
Tong, Friday, Medusa, all concubines, and all children journeyed to Julu to pay respect to the father of the emperor, Zhang Jiao.
Julu City celebrated and welcomed the emperor's visit as they knew that this territory was Tong's true home. After all, this was where everything began.
Tong walked toward Zhang Jiao and hugged him without caring about the world.
"I'm home, dad."
"Hahaha! Welcome home!"
All Tong's wives and concubines greeted their father-in-law and introduced themselves. The first princess, Zhang Min, also greeted her grandfather.
As the family gathered, an old man with the odor of herbs and medicine observed them from afar, hiding among Zhang Jiao's retainers.
Unfortunately for him, Tong spotted the old man.
He walked toward him and cupped his fist, bowing at his father-in-law.
"This unfilial son greets father-in-law."
Hua Tuo closed his eyes to hide his tears. He nodded without saying anything.
He lost his wife to bandits, and he lost his only daughter when he was traveling the land. He regretted not being with his family when he could.
Now that he saw Tong's sad face. He could barely hold his tears.
Unbeknownst to Hua Tuo's feeling, Tong waved his hands and called Zhang Min over.
"Minmin, come here!"
The 13-year-old girl ran toward Tong.
"Yes, your majesty!"
"Don't use honorific here. Greet your grandfather. He's the father of your mother."
Zhang Min widened her eyes and looked at Hua Tuo.
Hua Tuo was also surprised. He opened his eyes and looked at the little girl.
Upon seeing Zhang Min's face, he could not withhold his tears anymore. Her face was a copy of her mother, and it resembled Hua Shi in her youthful days.
The girl did not understand what had happened. Innocently, she kowtowed to Hua Tuo, "Zhang Min greets grandfather."
Hua Tuo wailed and hugged his granddaughter.
His family was still there with him. He was not alone.
