Chapter 522 — The Star Beast's Rigorous Interrogation

The court historian recorded that in the winter of the Gengchen year the earth shook in the capital: Jade Mountain at the Grand Academy sank seventeen zhang into the ground, and the Crimson Flame Dongxiao opened for eight hundred li, a sight of extraordinary splendor. But the cause of that quaking the historian did not record; he merely applied the oblique brush of the Spring and Autumn Annals and noted that Shen Mu, Grand Libationer of the Academy of the Heavenly Sage, had been remiss in his teaching, and was punished by the Emperor with the forfeit of two years' salary and a demotion from the fourth rank to the junior fifth. Yet by the account of those in the palace, the Emperor had been startled from sleep that morning by a tremendous roar and had hastened out to see for himself; and when he saw that the place of the blast was Jade Dragon Lake, that countless red dragon carp had been blown belly-up until the water was white with them, and that the lake had grown several times wider and several times deeper than before, he flew into a thunderous rage on the spot. It is said the Emperor's own hand was wounded, and that he clamored for someone's head.

At the time he stalked the mountain with a blade in his fist and murder in his reddened eyes, and found no trace of that someone; he found only the Dragon Qilin and the Box, both asleep. So he kept his watch, blade in hand, beside the Dragon Qilin, and only when noon came and no one appeared did he let the matter be. Other rumors say that the man in question fled a thousand li at first light, and that at noon the Dragon Qilin woke, mounted the Box, and gave chase, and that it took two days and two nights to run him down.

Still other rumors say the Emperor went to the barracks and paced a long while beside the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon, and at last sighed: "His merits outweigh his faults; his crime does not merit death.

Let him be demoted and fined. " And with that he set down his great saber and turned and walked away.

Of course, these are all rumors and cannot be verified; the court historians do not record rumors for which there is no evidence. More than ten days later, Shen Mu raised the Boundary Between Life and Death in Crimson Dragon City in the Wasteland; a long river spanned the void, and Crimson Dragon City became the link to Fengdu, and for a time there was uproar beyond measure.

Crimson Dragon City had originally been the property of the Shen family, and most of the shops in the city belonged to the Church of the Heavenly Sage, which carried goods from Jingping out to sell in the Wasteland, and carried Wasteland goods out to sell in Jingping. This place was the first stop on entering the Wasteland, and the cultivators who came to the Wasteland for training all chose to lodge here; in those days the number of cultivators in Crimson Dragon City swelled violently and prices soared, and Si Yunxiang and Xue Hu'er were delighted beyond measure.

After several more days officials of the Ministry of Revenue came to the Wasteland saying they had come to collect taxes, and Shen Mu drove them off; they went weeping to Emperor Yanfeng.

Yanfeng was caught between laughter and tears: "The Wasteland is not within Jingping's borders. You go there to collect taxes, and if he does not kill you, that is his courtesy to me.

By the Wasteland's rules, you deserve to lose your head. Do not make a fool of yourself; the Wasteland is not our territory.

" "Your Majesty, Grand Libationer Shen is bleeding money! The trade of Crimson Dragon City alone is a fortune! " the Minister of Revenue protested loudly.

"And this time Your Majesty means to lay roads linking the Western Lands with Jingping, and the route passes through the Wasteland, and through Crimson Dragon City besides! The two roads the Grand Libationer has planned both run through Crimson Dragon City! Crimson Dragon City will surely become the Wasteland's foremost town, the richest under heaven! Your servant believes the Grand Libationer harbors private motives, and would use the court's money to pave the roads of his own homeland!

" Yanfeng, helpless, fixed him with a long and meaning-laden look: "The Western Lands he conquered himself.

How much in military pay did that spare us? How many soldiers were saved from death? " The Minister said, "But the cultivators who go to Crimson Dragon City to train are mostly our own people of Jingping, and they spend their coin there. If we do not tax it, that place will become a state within a state, and Jingping's wealth will surely drain away!

In the long run, how is that to be borne? Jingping will be left with no money to spend!

" Yanfeng laughed in exasperation: "Daoist Yuanfeng, you are a master of reckoning out of the Daoist school; how is it you do not understand? " The Minister, perplexed, said, "Your servant is dull. Pray instruct him.

" Yanfeng smiled: "The cultivators who go to Crimson Dragon City spend Jingping's Dafeng coin, and if that coin is to be spent at all, it must buy Jingping goods, and so it must come home to Jingping.

" The Minister frowned: "And if the Dafeng coin circulates in the Wasteland and never comes back to Jingping?

" Yanfeng smiled: "If the Dafeng coin can stand in for gold and silver and circulate through the Wasteland, so much the better! For the coin is minted by the court, and the Wasteland has no right to mint coin of its own.

Would the court not then hold in its hand the coinage of the Wasteland?

However much wealth the Wasteland holds, would it not all be reckoned by the court? Once the Dafeng coin replaces gold and silver, the court can use Dafeng coin to buy up mines and rivers in the Wasteland, and to unify the Wasteland with Dafeng coin; that day is within sight! " The Minister of Revenue was struck dumb. Yanfeng tossed the memorial aside, rose to his feet, and looked out, his gaze far-reaching: "Without spending a single soldier, with only the Dafeng coin, we can win this rich land of the Wasteland; what a bargain is that? You, sir, are too rigid.

You take it for a bad thing that Jingping's wealth flows into the Wasteland, never knowing that to conquer by coin is the highest art of war.

In the way of governing a state one must not haggle over every penny; one must see far, see decades and centuries hence. The Grand Libationer wants to make money, and that is small money; I want to make money, and what I earn is the realm itself: to take all without bloodshed, to order the world and succor the people, to unify by economy! " The Minister of Revenue bowed in utter submission: "These words of Your Majesty may serve as a warning to later generations. " In Crimson Dragon City, Shen Mu watched the cultivators come and go through the streets in endless throngs, and the caravans streaming in without cease; Jingping's cultivators and caravans made Crimson Dragon City more clamorous than ever. "If Jingping's Imperial Preceptor leads the women cultivators of the Western Lands to lay the road as far as this, opening the way between the Western Lands and Jingping, the people of the Wasteland will no longer live so bitterly. " Shen Mu made his reckoning: a month or more had passed since Jingping's Imperial Preceptor had taken the Heavenly Works Hall of the Ministry of Works to the Western Lands, and by now they should have turned much of the desert to green, which the Qingxuan Water Dragon Pearl, one of the four great spirit treasures of the Western Lands, could accomplish. And by opening rivers and drawing the meltwater of the snow mountains into the desert, the vegetation could be made dense.

If the Heavenly Works Hall could split open the great mountains in the desert's south and draw the cloud vapors of the Southern Sea northward, then the desert's water would flow without end, and there would be no need to fret over rain or snow.