Chapter 321- God
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
The next day, Song Jia returned to the Lord's Manor.
Under the leadership of Song Jia, the sect was doing great.
Of course, compared to Wudang, Quanzhen, etc big sects during the Song and Ming Dynasties, she was far off.
Firstly was that there was only 1 sect cultivation technique. She didn't have any other secret manuals that she could take out.
Secondly, the number of experts in the sect were too rare. Apart from Song Jia, there wasn't another expert and were all just students. Even Song Jia herself, because she cultivated for too short a time, wasn't famous in the field.
Thirdly, the potential of the disciples were horrendous. After the system released the potential system, Song Jia checked out the stats of the disciples and found that the number of A rank students were very lacking.
The only talented disciple was Cui Tianqi.
The difficulty of running a sect didn't seem to be less than the difficulty of running a territory.
To be a good sect leader wasn't easy.
As the history in the game pushed through the the Spring and Autumn Era, martial arts wasn't that famous yet. When it reached later into the game and with Tang and Song Dynasties, the various sects would all appear in the wilderness.
At that point, the battles of the underworld would truly begin.
Hence, Song Jia had to grab this precious opportunity to raise the strength of Donglai Sword sect. If not, when Wudang, Shaolin, etc. famous sects appeared, Dongli Sword sect would never get famous.
The problems that she faced were also something that Ouyang Shuo temporarily had no idea how to solve. When Li Feixue followed Mu Lanyue to Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo had wanted her to move to the Dongli Sword Sect.
Unfortunately, she was reliant on Mu Lanyue and wouldn't leave her.
Song Jia also had ideas and turned her sights to boxing master Lin Yue. He was running the dojo and was normally very low profile.
She wanted to invite him to become an elder at the sword sect and set up a hall naming it Baji Hall which he would be in charge of.
Hence, she would get both an expert and a secret manual.
The terms she handed out were great; she was also very confident.
The first time she went over, however, she was directly rejected.
Song Jia wasn't one to give up easily and she was thinking about how to persuade Lin Yue, she even asked Ouyang Shuo to help her out.
Ouyang Shuo was half a disciple of Lin Yue so he knew his personality. He was a resolute person who definitely wouldn't because of him asking change his mind.
Thinking of the past, Ouyang Shuo had invited Lin Yue to join the army and was similarly rejected.
The matter was delayed all the way until now and there was still no change.
Ouyang Shuo had hinted to Song Jia about the weakness of Lin Yue. Because of his illness, he was a little low on self esteem.
A person without any goals was real scary, how would one convince him? Any title or credit would not be able to tempt the current Lin Yue.
However, if one was able to find a treasure that was able to cure him, with his character, such a great help would naturally cause him to agree to anything.
Upon hearing Ouyang Shuo's plan, Song Jia was happy but also worried. She was happy that she found a direction to work towards, but worried that the medicine was hard to search for.
As for the secret manuals, Ouyang Shuo regretted selling all of them. He could have at least kept a few.
If he wanted to buy them back today, the price would be too huge.
After the auction, the super trading platform had many secret manuals that appeared. When Ouyang Shuo sold his, it was around 700 gold, earning him a lot.
The players that sold this time were worse. One book sold for 1000, making the adventure mode players furious, but they had no choice but bear the pain and buy it.
If Ouyang Shuo guessed correctly, the mysterious seller would be Feng Qingyue from Swordsman County. This young lady was really able to keep patient, waiting for a whole half a year.
After this sale, Swordsman County would probably earn 70-80 thousand gold at once.
Starting from yesterday, large amounts of men and resources, under the coordination of the Combat Logistics Department and the Household Registration Department, had started to gather at the Beihai Harbor. The boats coming to and from the river passage were endless.
Hearing that the Lianzhou marquis was about to travel, many sharp Chamber of Commerces quickly came along and said that they were willing to arrange a group to follow him.
When Ouyang Shuo heard the news, he shook his head in amusement.
As expected, merchants had an adventurous spirit. They knew clearly that an unexplored island had shocking wealth, resources, herbs, and many treasures for them to discover.
If there was no army protecting them, the Chamber of Commerces wouldn't dare to venture out to sea.
After the Beihai Shipyard stopped making Mengcheng Warships, they used their spare time and built a batch of large merchant ships. Their random act today certainly came in handy.
Ouyang Shuo ordered Zheng Dahai to sell all the merchant ships to the Chamber of Commerces. Purely based on that, the shipyard earned 20 thousand gold and made the first profit of the shipyard.
As worldwide trading proliferated, the future shipyard had huge potential. Ouyang Shuo told Zheng Dahai to split the shipyard into two. One part was to build warships and the other was for merchant ships.
Apart from the Chamber of Commerces, the military also started to move.
Receiving the military order, the Guards regiment temporarily stopped their training at the special forces camp and returned. They reached Beihai City first and made use of these two days to get familiar with the Dragon Head. It was their first time following their lord on a long journey, so the colonel Wang Feng was careful and didn't dare to be careless.
What he was worried about was that some soldiers would be seasick and affect their combat strength.
As for the Beihai Naval fleet, they were already prepared.
Just as everyone was getting ready for the long journey, Ouyang Shuo instead went to the Mazu temple.
With the spreading of the Mazu faith, more and more people started to swarm and visit the Mazu Temple. The Culture and Education Division had specially recruited a bunch of faithful believers to help to take care of the daily duties of the temple.
The abbot chosen was a 40 year old lady, and she looked very kind. Seeing the Marquis personally visit, she immediately came forward to welcome him.
Ouyang Shuo went to pray to Mazu, after which he said, "Abbot, I’m here to bring the Mazu Statue out to sea."
The Mazu Statue in his words wasn't that real statue in the temple but another that he asked someone to carve.
Although his statue couldn't be compared to the real one, as it was strengthened by the incense, there was a bit of god power added to it. It shall follow them out and spread the Mazu faith, which was the secret weapon that Ouyang Shuo planned to use to affect Qiongzhou Island.
The abbot said sincerely, "Marquis is trying hard to spread the Mazu faith around; Mazu will definitely protect you and ensure you have a safe journey!"
Ouyang Shuo nodded.
What was next was welcoming the statue.
It wasn't a small thing; there was a full process. If not, one would be insulting the god.
The abbot hosted it and respectfully moved the Mazu statue out of the temple, with the temple maids protecting it all the way until the Dragon Head. On the Dragon Head, there was a specially-built temple room which would be the temporary place for the statue.
Not only that, the Mazu temple also sent out 4 nuns to go out to see with them. They would be in charge of the future workings of the Mazu Temple on Yazhou.
Ouyang Shuo definitely wouldn't think that his actions in future days would bring how much trouble for the territory.
Mazu and the various gods on Qiongzhou Island's battle of faith had started. The battle between gods was sometimes more cruel than the battle between people.
Gaia 2nd year 1st month 18th day
Ouyang Shuo brought some of the maidservants from the Lord's Manor and rushed to Beihai City.
The current Beihai Bay was filled with people. Numerous sailors, artisans and coolies hired by the Chamber of Commerces were hauling resources onto the boat.
On this trip, apart from the Guard’s regiment and Beihai Naval fleet, there were 1000 men following. Ouyang Shuo was prepared to directly build the new territory.
After the turreted boat was completed by the shipyard, there would be a second and a third batch of migrants.
The Dragon Head was docked in the harbor; the giant boat was standing out amongst the fleet.
As there were many Chamber of Commerces that joined in, the fleet was huge, there was 1 large turreted boat, 30 Mengcheng Warships, and 20 merchant ships.
"Such a huge boat!" The maidservants were shocked, and seeing that they were setting it out to sea, they were all excited.
Ouyang Shuo smiled and brought them on board. At this point, the Guards regiment had already boarded and were in position.
At 10 AM, the fleet set off.
Yazhou was 2155 nautical miles away from Beihai City. The fleet was traveling at 14 knots, with the speed buff from the Mazu temple, the 30% increase in speed made them reach 18.2 knots.
When the winds were strong, they could reach 26 nautical miles per hour.
Under normal circumstances, they could travel 400 nautical miles in a day. Hence, if things went smoothly, they just needed 5 days to reach Yazhou.