The Great Wei Music Bureau

Chapter 169 Arrival in Jiankang

Last time, we talked about how Li Yi heard the name of Luo Yan from Master Kong Wen. At the same time, he also felt the mission given to him by the Heavenly Dao. Obviously, this evil monk must be eradicated. So how should Li Yi deal with this evil monk with extraordinary strength? Let's read on.

Li Yi and his companions helped Lingyin Temple clean up the battlefield, and after eating a vegetarian meal, they said goodbye and left. On the way down the mountain, Li Yi patted Yu Jiu on the shoulder and said, "I heard that you were very brave just now, and killed three evil cultivators from Shura Palace?"

Yu Jiu shook his head and said, "I am still too weak. If I could be as strong as you, I could save more people. So I want to become stronger. Please teach me more Kung Fu, Master!"

Li Yi waved his hand and smiled, "Be content. You are just a young boy. It's enough for you to be so awesome."

Jiang Hongyu nodded and said, "That's right, Yu Jiu, when I was your age, I played house."

Yu Jiu did not respond. Li Yi looked at the child, thinking that perhaps this experience had given him a different understanding. He then smiled and said, "It's good to want to become stronger, but you have to understand why you want to become stronger. If you don't understand this, it doesn't matter how strong you are."

Yu Jiu gave him a puzzled look, and Li Yi smiled and said, "Forget it, I won't talk about the big principles. It's useless to talk too much. You still have to experience it yourself."

Cui Zhi asked, "Master, where are we going now?"

Li Yi said, "Jiankang, but I have to deliver a letter first. By the way, what's the fastest way to Kuaiji?"

Cui Zhi replied: "Of course we should take the Caoqu. After passing Xiaoshan, we can directly reach Kuaiji."

Li Yi looked at Cui Zhi in surprise and asked, "You know a lot about grain transport?"

Cui Zhi smiled and said, "I came to Nanliang originally to explore the waterway. I was floating on the boat until I arrived at Linjiang. That's how I met Sister Hongyu."

Li Yi nodded and said, "Oh, then before Sister Hongyu protected you, who did Old Silver Coin send to protect you?"

Jiang Hongyu interrupted, "Pang Yue, that guy is quite good with a knife!"

"Who? Pang Yue?" Li Yi couldn't believe his ears, because he couldn't forget this Pang Yue, he was the guard commander of Yuwen Tian in Qingzhou! He asked: "Pang Yue? When did he leave?"

Cui Zhi replied, "Three years ago, it seems. I met Sister Hongyu three years ago."

Li Yi shook his head and sighed in his heart: Old Silver Coin, Old Silver Coin, you are really good at scheming! Pang Yue is actually your man, no wonder you can be in the forefront of Yuwentian's affairs, Fang Zhuo and Pang Yue were both arranged by you in Qingzhou to keep an eye on them and their son.

Li Yi thought again that Shi Yu was also specially arranged by Old Silver Coin to be by his side, and sighed helplessly. Alas, there was no way. Our Old Li has poor control over this aspect.

Li Yi gathered his thoughts and brought a few people to the riverside. Cui Zhi asked, "Young Master, it's so late, I'm afraid we can't find a boat. Why are we still coming to the riverside?" Li Yi did not answer. He jumped to the center of the river and pulled Hua Jinfan out of the sack.

The three people on the shore were startled when they heard the sound of a large ship falling into the water. Li Yi beckoned the three people to get on the boat. Jiang Hongyu took Cui Zhi and Yu Jiu to the boat and said, "You are really resourceful. I was wondering how you got my sword furnace! It turns out that you put the boat into this Qiankun bag."

Li Yi smiled and said, "Okay, Sister Hongyu, please pull up the sword furnace so I can see it. I haven't seen your sword furnace yet."

Jiang Hongyu came to the stern, stretched out her hand to hold the iron chain, then injected her own Qi base into it, and then slowly pulled the iron chain. Amid the constant collision between the iron chain and the boat board, Jiang Hongyu pulled the sword furnace out of the water.

This so-called sword furnace is actually more like a square tripod, six feet long, three feet wide, and five feet high. It is blue-black in color, without any fancy textures or reliefs. The special thing about it is that there are two holes, one large and one small, on the side.

Li Yi reached out to help Jiang Hongyu put the sword furnace on the boat, but the latter shouted, "Don't move. This sword furnace can only be moved with my Qi base!" As he spoke, Jiang Hongyu held the handle of the sword furnace and said, "Cut the iron chain now and put the sword furnace back into your sack."

Li Yi shook his head and said, "No, put it on the boat first."

Jiang Hongyu shouted, "You are crazy! If I put this sword furnace on the boat, the planks will collapse!" Li Yi said with an "oh" and put the sword furnace into the sack.

Cui Zhi said: "Sir, there are government officials on the canal. If we go by water, we can't take this boat. Besides, we don't know how to sail, so..."

Li Yi smiled and said, "I know. It's okay. As long as you know the way, I will steer the boat while Yu Jiu drives it."

Yu Jiu, who was standing by, exclaimed, "Sir, this is a sailboat, and there are no oars, how can I steer it? You really think highly of me, but I can't do it!"

Li Yi knocked on Yu Jiu's head and said, "What era is it now? You are still using oars. Don't you know that technology is the primary productive force? Just burn the boiler."

Yu Jiu asked in confusion: "What does burning the boiler mean?"

Jiang Hongyu interrupted, "You don't want to use the air base to push Hua Jinfan away, do you? This method is feasible for a small boat, but the air base cannot push such a large boat! Even if it can be pushed, it will be exhausting to push it to Kuaiji!"

Li Yi smiled and said, "It uses gas, but it's not gas-based, it uses steam. You two don't have to worry about it. Yu Jiu and I are working hard, which is also a kind of practice."

When Yu Jiu heard the word "cultivation", he said excitedly: "Young Master, you want to take me to practice, great, great!"

Li Yi patted the main mast and said, "You two go and have a rest first. Yu Jiu and I have to modify this Hua Jinfan so that we can deceive the government officials on the canal." After that, he used the Vajra Power to cut the two masts into several sections.

Jiang Hongyu watched Li Yi and Yu Jiu doing carpentry work and went over curiously. Cui Zhi was not interested in these things, so she went to the cabin to see what Youwei had moved.

Due to time constraints, the guards did not have time to empty the place, but all the things with words and gold and silver jewelry were gone. Cui Zhi began to clean up the messy cabin, and heard the sound of ding-dong outside. It was Li Yi and others who were modifying the ship...

The next day, Cui Zhi was awakened by a shaking and cheering. She looked out the window and saw that Hua Jinfan had actually started moving! She ran to the modified and reinforced bottom cabin and saw Yu Jiu burning the sword furnace with despair. There were dozens of copper pipes on the furnace, and another four copper pipes extended to the bottom of the ship.

Cui Zhi asked: "What is this?"

Yu Jiu replied with an unhappy look on his face: "Young Master said this is called a simple steam engine, and the ship is driven by it. He said he would take me to practice, but the result is that he asked me to burn the furnace here!"

Cui Zhi did not understand the concept of steam engine. She heard it as righteousness and thought that this thing was powered by Li Yi's righteousness. Cui Zhi ran to the stern and looked at Jiang Hongyu who was excited and Li Yi who was holding the boat. She asked, "Sir, how can you use righteousness to do such a thing? It's such a waste!"

Jiang Hongyu looked puzzled and asked, "What is righteousness? This boat is propelled by steam, so how can righteousness be used?"

Li Yi waved his hand and said, "Maintaining the durability and airtightness of the talent condensate consumes talent. It doesn't matter. For me, consuming talent is not a problem."

In this way, Li Yi and his party drove the modified Huajinfan into the Caoqu and headed towards Kuaiji. The journey was relatively smooth and it took only two days to reach Kuaiji.

Yu Quan, then Minister of Punishments of Southern Liang, took leave to return to his hometown to handle the funeral of his mother. Li Yi sneaked into Yu's mansion under the cover of night and handed him the letter from the empress dowager.

After finishing this matter, Li Yi and his party set out from Kuaiji and went upstream along the Yangtze River to Jiankang. During this period, in addition to maintaining the simple steam engine transformed from condensed gas, Li Yi has been following the practice method taught by Jingling Sanren to improve his control over spiritual power.

It took three days to get from Kuaiji to Jiankang. When approaching Jiankang, Li Yi began to plan how to deliver another letter, which was the handwritten letter from Empress Dowager Xiao to her brother, Pingzhong King Xiao Yongrong.

The Prince of Pingzhong was placed under house arrest in the Prince of Pingzhong's Palace by Emperor Liang and was guarded by the Imperial Guards. No one was allowed to visit him without the Emperor Liang's explicit decree, so it was a bit troublesome to deliver this letter.

It is said that the Southern Liang Dynasty was different from the Northern Wei Dynasty. Except for the 70,000 naval forces under the command of Shouyang King Xiao Yonghui and the 50,000 Jingzhou troops under the command of Xiangyang King Xiao Yongwei, all the elite troops in the country were mobilized by Emperor Liang. These two princes were good brothers who helped Xiao Yongming fight for the throne. One was his brother and the other was his half-brother.

The military power of the Northern Wei Dynasty was dispersed because most of the generals who helped the Tuoba clan conquer the world were Xianbei people. The Xianbei people did not like centralized power, and did not want to hand over their troops to others. Later, Empress Dowager Xiao implemented reforms, which centralized the dispersed military power.

When Li Yi saw the city of Jiankang, he stopped the boat and went ashore. He put Hua Jinfan and Jiang Hongyu's sword furnace into the sack again, and several people walked into Jiankang.

This capital of the Southern Liang Dynasty is very different from the Shangjing City of the Northern Wei Dynasty. After all, this city can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. Although it has experienced several wars in the middle, its heritage has always been there.

The walls of Jiankang City were built of bricks, which were naturally stronger than the walls of Shangjing made of rammed earth. But on the other hand, this also restricted the development of the city. After all, the cost of expanding the city was higher.

Therefore, in addition to the main city surrounded by city walls, Jiankang also has an outer city, outside the outer city there are city walls, and there are several citadels for defense.

The capital of Southern Liang was a prosperous city with 280,000 registered households and a population of nearly two million. Although it did not look as grand as the capital city of Shangjing, it was actually not small in scale. Take the main roads running through the north and south for example. The Imperial Road in Jiankang City was not narrower than the Suzaku Street in Shangjing.

There are many merchant ships parked at Jiankang’s wharf all year round. The saying “Thousands of sails pass by the side of the sunken boat, and ships from Dongwu are moored at the door” is definitely not an exaggeration!

The convenience of water and land transportation naturally drove economic development. Food from the surrounding areas was continuously transported here. The handicraft industry in the city was developed and commerce was even more prosperous.

It can be said that: the market is open and the people are welcome, and the market is full of people. To put it bluntly, the rich people in Jiankang are definitely richer than the rich people in Shangjing.

In addition to economics, culture is also a must. In this regard, Jiankang is even more talented. Not to mention the clans that migrated south during the Five Barbarians' Invasion, the Wu and Yue regions alone can be said to have produced many talents. Confucian and Taoist masters are everywhere, and those who practice both civil and military are as numerous as stars. This is a good example set by Emperor Xiao Yongming, who practiced both Confucianism and martial arts.

Although the state religion of Southern Liang was Buddhism, the royal family attached great importance to Confucian etiquette, and the orthodoxy of Confucianism and Taoism in Southern Liang also came from this. Not only did the literati take pride in this, they cursed the Northern Wei Dynasty as Suolu all day long, and they looked down on the Xianbei people from the bottom of their hearts.

Clans that migrated from the north lived together with local clans from the south in the inner city of Jiankang, which resulted in the city's architecture taking into account both the north and the south and having a unique style.

The Southern Liang Palace was located in Taicheng, the core of Jiankang City. Taicheng was also called Jiankang Palace. In addition to the palace, there were also government offices and the East Palace. The Prince of Pingzhong's Palace, where Xiao Yongrong was imprisoned, was not in Taicheng, but in the Weicheng to the north of Xizhou City, very close to the Imperial Guards camp. This was enough to prove how much Xiao Yongming feared the former deposed prince.

Li Yi and his companions entered Jiankang City and found an inn to stay in. He told the others not to go out and wait until he finished his business before joining the delegation. Then Li Yi went out alone to gather information and check the location, preparing to sneak into the Prince of Pingzhong's palace at night.

But this time it would definitely not be as easy as sneaking into Yu Mansion, after all, the guards were the most elite imperial guards of Southern Liang. The defenses around Prince Pingzhong's Mansion were strict, and ordinary people would not approach at all. If they approached rashly, it would only arouse the vigilance of the imperial guards, so Li Yi watched from the window on the second floor of a teahouse.

Although the palace is not big, it is still a palace. Although Xiao Yongming put Prince Pingzhong under house arrest, he still did a good job on the surface. Prince Pingzhong and his wife just couldn't go out, but they still had fine clothes and delicious food, and dozens of maids and servants served them. In Li Yi's opinion, it would be nice to be such a prince.

After looking for a long time, he could not find any flaws. If he wanted to know the details, he had to find another way. Li Yi reached out his hand to call the know-it-all's partner, and spent money to get some useful information: