Plot to usurp

  Witnessing the refugees who were traveling together being slaughtered by the Jin Yiwei cavalry, an old man in a thatched hut by the side of the road trembled with fear, his face growing increasingly pale. He unconsciously raised his hand to stroke his wildly racing heart, and shook his head gloomily.

  The old farmer sighed helplessly and turned his head to say to his eldest son:

  "This world is so unfair, it's impossible to live! Let's go to the mountains too! At worst, we'll be eaten by those monsters, which is still better than being slaughtered like pigs and dogs for no reason!"

  Cultivate the spirit, nurture the body. Lin Xu, who came from a humble background, had no opportunity to cultivate refined and elegant tastes in his previous life. His predecessor, Huo Shan's divine infusion gave him a vast amount of knowledge, but not subjective memories, which could not change his inherently lazy personality.

  Lacking the leaders' personal hobby of researching names, Lin Xu simply named the new city in the plan "Jiufeng Town" lazily according to geographical signs. At the same time, he began building the first building in the center of the town, a temple dedicated to the god of Huo Mountain. The mountain god temple, which can be said to be built entirely with divine power as capital, is undoubtedly a big brother among illegal buildings due to its scale. Lin Xu's pirated reference objects were the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, as well as the Confucius Mansion and Confucius Temple in Qufu, which are collections of the essence of the three existing palace-style architectural complexes.

  This mountain temple located in Jiufeng Town has a building area of nearly 300,000 square meters, and the total land area is several times that.

  Those new immigrants who moved to Jiufeng Town for the first time when they worshiped at the Mountain God Temple, no one didn't walk out with their legs trembling. This is not because their emotions were too excited, but because they were scared by the grand architectural layout of the Mountain God Temple.

  In a remote mountain temple, without reporting to the imperial court for approval, privately adopting such a usurping palace-style building system is undoubtedly an action of pulling out the tiger's whiskers. If the Qin imperial court in Xianyang knew about this matter, even if the emperor was dull and incompetent, he would not be able to sit still on his dragon throne. The enraged officials would cut off several thousand heads with one breath, and it's unlikely that this matter could end peacefully.

  Someone who slightly understands the pros and cons, after visiting the Mountain God Temple in Jiufeng Town, realizes that they have boarded a pirate ship.

  Everyone in the world is rushing to seek benefits! Lin Xu understood that it's not enough for others to know they've been deceived, but rather to make them willingly acknowledge and accept it, that's the real skill.

  All the residents who were recruited to settle in Jiufeng Town would first be taken to this magnificent mountain temple, built by Lin Xu, to burn incense and thank the gods for their blessings. After a brief tour, they would be told that this place was a feng shui treasure land bestowed upon humanity by the Mountain God of Huo, and therefore they no longer needed to pay imperial taxes from then on. The only requirement was that every household must worship the Mountain God morning and night; those who refused would be asked to leave with a pat on their backs. Additionally, they were warned that there were many wolves and leopards in the mountains, so they should be careful on their way.

  When the situation is unclear, a quick knife can cut through the chaos and not lose its cleverness. Lin Xu's method was extremely simple, without considering whether these residents were truly faithful or not. For anyone who settled in Jiufeng Town, the primary condition was to invite a mountain god idol back home for daily worship.

  Human habit is one of the most easily overlooked great powers in the world. Habit is powerful enough to change many seemingly unshakeable things. Even so-called nations are, after all, just a group of people with similar living habits and similar values who like to live together in clusters.

  Lin Xu's long-planned new city plan is proceeding in an orderly manner, and attracting refugees to settle down is not a one-day effort. This matter cannot be rushed. Later, his energy shifted to other aspects again.

  The previous four halls and five officials of the underworld, under the name of Tao He, provided Lin Xu with a batch of ghost soldiers and corresponding equipment for no reason. This sponsorship did indeed solve Lin Xu's urgent need, but to rely on this to restore the actual control of the Mountain God Temple over Huo Mountain, with a military strength of only about two thousand people, is simply like a fool talking nonsense!

  The autumn wind was bleak and the flags were fluttering. On this small hill with a slope of more than 40 degrees, the foundation of the stone wall and the thick elm stakes formed a palisade that had become the last obstacle between the attacking and defending sides.

  "Kill! The general has given an order, behead one level and get a reward of one guan of money! Kill!"

  Drawing his sword and pointing it at the stronghold, a leading Qin soldier shouted out the pre-battle rewards, and then, like wolves and tigers, the Qin soldiers loudly roared forward and launched an attack on the simple stronghold.

  Behind the stockade on the half-hillside, one after another of crudely-made bamboo bows were stretched open, and simple arrows made from sharpened bamboo sticks dipped in oil poured down like a heavy rain.

  For a time, the mournful cries of the wounded, the low moans of the dying, and the dense, tearing sound of arrows filled the air.

  As the Qin army approached the camp wall, the battle quickly entered a stage of close combat, and the warriors on both sides of the attack and defense had their clothes and armor stained with each other's blood into a dazzling deep red color.

  If strictly followed the pre-Qin era, by Shang Yang formulated Qin Guo military merit system, soldiers on the battlefield to get an enemy's head can be credited with promotion to Gong Shi rank, and so on, without military merit can not be enfeoffed, this is the fundamental plan of the great Qin Empire. Alas, wind blows rain goes, with the recent decline of the Great Qin Empire, the officialdom has become corrupt to the point where honest people cannot stand in the official circle, this military merit reward system that was once strictly enforced and never discounted has finally been abolished.

  Similar to this expedition to suppress the bandits who occupy the mountain, the soldiers who participated in the war could only get a reward of about one yuan, and many times they couldn't even get one yuan.

  If the insufficient and privately minted coins were deducted, the soldiers would hardly get 500 taels of silver. Despite this, the Qin army still yearned for the reward for beheading enemy soldiers on the battlefield.

  At this time, the common people are living in a state of utter misery, with countless honest families being driven to ruin by the government's exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies. Some have fled their homes or turned to banditry. Even if it was just a shortage of 500 half-tael coins, which is almost equivalent to the annual savings of a middle-class family, how could these soldiers, most of whom came from poor backgrounds, not be moved?

  "Oh, soul return! Oh, soul return!"

  Not far away, this battle between government soldiers and bandits was indeed fierce and explosive, but someone was busy secretly taking advantage of the situation.

  On a small hill over ten miles away from the battlefield, a banner with strange symbols was waving desperately. Lin Xu's incarnation was muttering to himself as he jumped up and down in the forest, never stopping for a moment. This energetic display was enough to rival those professional spirit mediums who jump into trances.

  "Hah! Hah! Hah!"

  As a gentle rustling sound like a breeze blowing through the treetops, one after another, virtual shadows emitting red light floated in from the distant battlefield. Immediately, these virtual shadows were wrapped in white light emitted by Lin Xu's hand-held banner, transforming into twisted characters fixed on the banner surface, flickering with a faint glow.

  The old saying goes that one kind of rice can raise a hundred kinds of people. The same principle applies, even to the dead, where the quality of different souls is as different as heaven and earth, with the best being the military soul.

  Ordinary people living in the mundane world are different from those practitioners who try to transcend the cycle of life and death. When facing death, they still have a deep sense of confusion and fear in their hearts, unable to let go of various entanglements and attachments until death, and can be said to die in a state of utter chaos. This leaves their souls with many impurities. In contrast, soldiers who are accustomed to life and death on a daily basis can at least clear their minds of all personal thoughts and desires at the moment before death, devoting themselves wholeheartedly to the battlefield. Their souls are thus sublimated, becoming an unyielding and eternal military spirit that remains even after death.

  If one had to make an analogy, the souls of most ordinary people are like bricks and tiles that can be picked up with a bow, numerous and very cheap, but unfortunately rough and loose in texture, really not suitable for major use.

  The relatively precious military soul is like the crystal clear natural crystal mined from deep mines, with a hard and transparent texture, the only drawback is that it is difficult to obtain.

  Compared to the yin souls that are born from the evolution of ordinary human souls, the number of military souls that are naturally generated is extremely small. Moreover, not every soldier who dies on the battlefield has the qualification to become a military soul. If one does not burn their soul to the fullest in intense battle, releasing all private thoughts and removing impurities, then after death, they will only become a yin soul of slightly better quality than an ordinary person.

  After a good deal of trouble, Lin Xu had exhausted his mental energy and was drenched in sweat. He finally managed to settle the matter of the thief who had stolen half of the military souls on their journey. Panting and counting the military souls in his hands, he couldn't help but feel delighted and muttered to himself:

  "Haha, 105, today's harvest is really good."

  "Alas!"

  Deep in the mountains of Huo, in the new temple of Shanshen in Jiufeng Town, Lin Xu opened his eyes. He had just retrieved the excess divine consciousness from that transformed body that secretly collected military souls on the battlefield. At this moment, Lin Xu's low sigh carried a hint of melancholy.

  From the start, Lin Xu was determined to cultivate a powerful army to suppress the arrogant Huo Mountain demon tribe. He also looked down on ordinary yin souls. At great expense, he created hundreds of avatars, each with different identities, to go out and search for vengeful spirits in the surrounding counties of Huo Mountain. The avatars held shoddy mass-produced soul flags and roamed around, waiting for opportunities to collect martial souls and vengeful spirits that could appear at any time and place in this chaotic world. Despite their efforts, the total number of souls collected by the many avatars was only just over three digits.

  Alas, Lin Xu's helpless sigh was because, at this speed of development, when would they be able to gather enough troops to form the lower-ranking Yin Bing?

  Like the heavenly gods serving in various departments of the Heavenly Court, the terrestrial gods guarding a region also have a strict hierarchy system, with difficulty increasing by about tenfold for each promotion.

  For example, in the initial stage of the Mountain God, the recruitment quota for subordinates was a whole number of 10,000. When the former Mountain God Huo went to an irreversible gathering, he took away 8,000 people directly. The ghost soldiers and other irregular personnel who stayed behind in the mountain temple were exhausted over the next three hundred years. Until today, Lin Xu, who started from scratch, wants to cultivate a full-fledged army of 10,000 yin soldiers. Even if he racked his brains, it would still be an unattainable goal!