Empire Tavern is booming, and Immortal Brew is a smash hit too. Every tavern is raking in money hand over fist.
Ian Song didn’t build Empire Tavern just to make money. Right now, paper sales alone are topping a hundred million cash a month. The papermill has already expanded twice just to keep up with demand from all over the Shenzhou Continent.
The papermill’s profits alone are enough to cover all expenses for Qi’s three prefectures and support a standing army of one hundred thousand.
So the real reason Ian Song opened Empire Tavern was to collect intelligence. Once Empire Tavern caught fire in Qi’s three prefectures, it started expanding outward, popping up everywhere.
In just a year, Empire Tavern has spread all across the Shenzhou Continent.
At first, Empire Tavern ran into big trouble trying to open in the Zhao Kingdom, since Ian Song had turned fifty thousand of their troops against them. The Zhao king couldn’t forgive or forget that, so he ordered that Qi paper and Empire Tavern were banned from entering the Zhao Kingdom.
When Ian Song got the news, he immediately ordered everyone to pull out of the Zhao Kingdom.
That was one setback for Ian Song, but the Zhao king was thrilled. The night after Qi withdrew, he even celebrated with three of his concubines.
But some things just can’t be banned.
For scholars, paper is easy to write on and cheap. Once you’ve used white paper, who wants to go back to bamboo slips? Silk is way too expensive.
After Qi withdrew from the Zhao Kingdom, Ian Song issued a new order: no more paper or Immortal Brew would be sold to the Zhao Kingdom.
To break into new markets, Ian Song had given away plenty of Immortal Brew to high-ranking nobles in every kingdom.
If you’d never tasted Immortal Brew, regular wine seemed fine. But after you tried Immortal Brew, ordinary wine tasted like dishwater.
Soon, after all the gifted Immortal Brew ran out, Zhao’s nobles found themselves unable to buy more—and their resentment toward the Zhao king started brewing.
As for the scholars, when they couldn’t get paper, they started grumbling about the Zhao king too.
In other words, the Zhao king had managed to offend both the scholar and noble classes at once.
Three months after Qi withdrew from the Zhao Kingdom...
The famous General Ian Song invented something that sent women into a frenzy—perfume.
Five months after the withdrawal, General Ian Song invented another miracle—glass mirrors.
Eight months after the withdrawal, General Ian Song came out with refined salt.
Perfume, glass mirrors, and refined salt all exploded in popularity across the Shenzhou Continent, and every kingdom accepted them.
But while everyone else in the Shenzhou Continent was enjoying these things, only the Zhao Kingdom was left out.
Ian Song made it clear: any merchant who dared sell these products to the Zhao Kingdom, or secretly sold to Zhao citizens, would be banned from doing business with the Qi Kingdom forever.
Perfume and glass mirrors were things that drove women wild.
Refined salt let nobles and officials leave coarse salt behind—it was a true status symbol.
Resentment against the Zhao king kept building in every social class, and finally, in the eleventh month after Qi’s withdrawal, the Zhao king’s own brother led a coup, killed him, and took the throne.
The new Zhao king’s very first move was to send a negotiating team to the Qi Kingdom.
After ten days of talks and paying twenty million cash in signing fees, paper, Immortal Brew, glass mirrors, perfume, and refined salt finally appeared in the Zhao Kingdom.
On Qi’s side, after a year of saving up...
With just three prefectures, the Qi Kingdom was now rich beyond imagination—total assets had already passed five billion cash.
Over the past year, besides inventing new things, Ian Song also trained up a cavalry unit—the Wolf Cavalry. There are only a thousand of them, but every single rider is an elite, personally drilled by Ian and given powerful cultivation techniques. Each one has combat power at least equal to a peak Postnatal expert.
On top of that, more than a dozen martial prodigies in Qi have already reached the Innate Realm.
Ian Song is sure that if he unleashed this unit, even an army of a hundred thousand couldn’t pin them down—any one wolf-rider could take on a hundred foes.
A thousand Wolf Cavalry together are way more than just the sum of their parts.
Inside the military operations conference room.
In the past year, Ian Song also carried out a major reform in the Qi Kingdom, splitting military and civil power by founding the War Ministry and the Government Ministry.
The War Ministry handles war and defense; the Government Ministry runs administration and management.
That’s why civil officials like Shen Du and Sean Song aren’t present for this military meeting.
Ian Song pointed his teaching stick at the map on the wall and said, "Here’s my plan: we’re going to take Shunhe Prefecture and Longan Prefecture."
Shunhe Prefecture is territory of the Yan Kingdom; Longan Prefecture belongs to the Zhao Kingdom.
"Grand General, isn’t it risky to take on two kingdoms at once...?" General Gu Min asked, worried.
"No need to worry," Ian Song said, totally confident.
Ian Song just smiled. Besides training the Wolf Cavalry this year, he’d written a standard soldier training manual and handed it to General Victor Zhao and General Gu Min for joint training of the rank-and-file.
With every meal hearty and filling, after a year of drills, the regular soldiers were brimming with energy and several times tougher than before. Thanks to the continent’s rich spiritual energy, they were now even stronger than modern special forces.
Honestly, these troops could be called the Shenzhou Continent’s number-one regular army—no other nation lets its soldiers eat their fill like this.
Suddenly Ian Song’s face turned serious: "General Victor Zhao, I order you to lead twenty thousand troops to attack Longan Prefecture. I want you to take the city within ten days—any problems?"
General Victor Zhao grimaced. "Grand General, could you lend me five hundred Wolf Cavalry? With them, I could take Longan Prefecture in eight days, tops."
The Wolf Cavalry aren’t just regular horsemen. Besides raw power, they’re experts in assassination, stealth, recon, disguise, and even basic medicine.
Victor Zhao had been eyeing the Wolf Cavalry for ages, so he jumped at the chance to ask for five hundred.
Of course, Victor Zhao got cultivation training and pills from Ian Song before the Wolf Cavalry did, so he’s already reached the Innate Fourth Layer. General Gu Min, being older, only hit the Innate First Layer, even with Ian Song’s help and several power-boosting pills.
"Five hundred?" Ian Song sneered. "You’ll get at most a hundred."
"Ah, thank you, Grand General!" Victor Zhao quickly bowed in thanks.
"Gu Min, listen up!" Ian Song called.
"I’m here!" General Gu Min replied.
"I’m ordering you to lead twenty thousand troops to attack Shunhe Prefecture. You’ll also get a hundred Wolf Cavalry. Clear?"
"Rest assured, Grand General! I’ll take Shunhe Prefecture within ten days!" Gu Min promised.
"Good, it’s settled. Tomorrow, you each lead your troops out!" Ian Song waved, ending the meeting.
"Grand General, what about me? You didn’t forget me, did you?" Bruce Meng asked, sounding anxious.
Ian Song looked at Bruce Meng. "General Meng, you’re guarding Qi’s lifeblood now. Your mission is way more important than theirs!"
"Understood, sir!" Bruce Meng nodded, a bit helpless. Now, not just the papermill, but the distillery, glassworks, perfume factory, and salt fields are all under his watch.
After handling military affairs, Ian Song headed straight back to the Grand General’s Residence.
The Grand General’s Residence was finished three months ago, but Ian Song only moved in a month back.
In the rear courtyard, Lily was sparring with Prince Daniel Jiang. Thanks to Ian Song’s training, Daniel’s personality had changed a lot. Six months ago, Ian Song formally taught him cultivation.
In just half a year, Daniel had reached the peak of the Postnatal Realm.
Ian Song also taught him the Nine Transformations of the Soaring Dragon and the Thirty-Nine Whirlwind Forms, boosting his agility and combat skills.