36 Stratagems

  No matter what kind of person, they can all be bought, the key is to see if you can hit their sweet spot and find the bottom price in their heart. Another thing is that the buyer needs to consider whether he can afford the cost of successful buying. For this point, even saints and sages cannot be exempt.

  For example, Wen Tianxiang, who wrote the famous phrase "leave my loyalty to shine on history", was a man of unyielding integrity and national pride that shone for centuries. Even Kublai Khan couldn't buy him off. The reason was that the price offered was too low, and it didn't move Wen's heart at all. What use are wealth, women, or high office to someone who can be bought with such conditions? If Kublai Khan had agreed to restore half of the Southern Song dynasty and sign a peace treaty, promising not to invade the south during his lifetime, then Wen Tianxiang would have been moved. With such conditions, it's no wonder that anyone has a price, the key is whether the buyer can afford to pay the high price that makes the other side unable to refuse.

  The backbone of Gongmo's life-long pursuit, apart from practicing the teachings of their ancestors Mozi, adhering to the creed of universal love and non-aggression, they mainly focused on the study of their own techniques.

  There's no doubt that Lin Xu's generous move had deeply moved them, as they flipped through the technological materials far beyond this era, the Mo family's disciples were so excited that they even came together for a collective midnight oil study session.

  While studying materials, they discussed technical details with each other all night and as a result, everyone had panda eyes the next day.

  With this good start in front, no matter how outrageous Lin Xu's requirements are later on, the Mo disciples will not easily refuse him. This is called taking advantage of someone's weakness.

  Soon, Lin Xu abandoned the traditional woodblock printing technology that was still mainstream in this era with the help of Gongmo's complete technical system. Then, he skipped the primary development stage of wooden movable type and clay movable type, and directly completed the research and development of copper movable type printing technology. When the first sheet of paper using copper movable type showed clear printed characters, a cheer erupted from the workshop.

  As expected, the main technical obstacles were cleared, and the popular version of teaching materials for JiuFeng Town residents, as well as the corresponding literacy textbooks, were printed simultaneously. Everything was going smoothly as planned by Lin Xu.

  In his high school days, Lin Xu was also once obsessed with the internet, fantasizing about flying swords and immortal heroes who could enter and exit the heavens. It wasn't until Lin Xu himself became a deity that he understood that standing at different heights meant having completely different perspectives.

  Life is short, and humans don't live for more than a hundred years. How can beings like us understand the gods who watch over the changing tides of history? What kind of thoughts do they have?

  To a layman who is not well-versed in the subject, science and faith are two completely different things. However, the vast majority of scientists on Earth have religious beliefs, in other words, they believe in God.

  The essence of science lies in the fact that any theory must withstand experimental verification, and this experiment must be able to be repeated for validation. As long as the objective conditions involved in the experiment do not change, simply replacing the experimenter does not affect the final result of the experiment. In other words, science is a collection of many objective laws. On the contrary, religious beliefs are largely determined by the will of God himself, which is a typical example of subjective factors determining results.

  Suppose a devout believer and a skeptical guy who doubts the existence of gods, both pray to their respective deities in times of great danger, hoping for help.

  If God treats both of them equally, unless the premise is to give the non-believer a long line to catch big fish, then this god's brain must have gone into the water.

  In the eyes of a deity, a person's wealth, power, appearance and ability are not important. The only criterion is whether he is pious or not. Based on this starting point, the treatment of pious believers and non-believers is naturally different. In summary, whether a prayer can be answered depends entirely on the will of the deity, rather than any objective law.

  In a small square in Jiufeng Town, hundreds of young men brought their own stools and cushions or simply squatted on the ground, quietly listening to the teacher's lecture in front of the blackboard.

  "Now, I'd like to talk about the key points of soil moisture conservation in mountainous terraced fields and dryland farming. First, proper tillage of the land can partially solve the problem of soil water evaporation..."

  This pedagogue who speaks eloquently in front of everyone, seemingly a scholar with a keen mind and strong character, is actually not a professional from the field of education, but rather a volunteer borrowed by Lin Xiang from Huang Shiran. After a short period of intensive training, these borrowed personnel are already capable of handling the daily tasks of imparting knowledge. In the future, after the pedagogues trained by Jiufeng Town have completed their training, these people will return to Jiangjia Village to engage in work similar to what they do now, which is also one of the cooperative projects agreed upon by Lin Xiang and Huang Shiran.

  "Alright, class dismissed. We'll be discussing the key points of fertilization tomorrow afternoon, so everyone remember to arrive on time."

  As the teacher announced the end of class, the farmers who came to listen every day also dispersed in groups of three or five. Although the clear bell had rung, some clever and smart people stubbornly refused to leave. They went forward to surround the teacher, asking questions and continuing to ask about various difficult problems that they did not understand during class.

  This course was unpopular at first, and Lin Xue had to order compulsory measures to force people to attend classes. However, when the farmers who were forced to come discovered that what the teacher said was not empty and useless theories, but practical knowledge. Later, through their own practice in the fields, they verified the correctness of this knowledge, and no one needed to force them again. Now, the farmers voluntarily run to listen to lectures every afternoon after work, and then go home for dinner.

  Farmers also need to learn from their masters, and over time, this has become a social phenomenon that the residents of Jiufeng Town are no longer surprised by.

  As the crowd watching the lesson dispersed, Lin Xu swayed the fan in his hand and walked away with a satisfied smile, apparently this teaching plan went very smoothly.

  Since Lin Xu mysteriously arrived in this strange and wonderful world, he has been working hard to live a good life. Lin Xu is not a dreamer with great ideals, nor is he an idealist who wants to start a cultural renaissance or industrial revolution. No matter what means he takes, the starting point of Lin Xu's actions is only to improve the unit production capacity within his jurisdiction, in order to maximize the population that can be accommodated.

  There is no stability without farmers, no strength without workers, and no wealth without merchants. The improvement of agricultural production technology can quickly release more human resources, and only by growing more grain per unit area can labor be transferred to other industries.

  In a social environment where most people can't even afford to eat, talking about economic development, planning to sell luxury goods, or even promoting democracy and freedom is not only an empty and illusory castle in the air, but also a ridiculous farce.

  Only when the problem of eating is no longer a trouble for ordinary people, can the towns with a large number of non-agricultural population have the objective conditions to take shape, and these towns will become the most reliable source of incense for gods.

  It goes without saying that the population density of isolated villages surrounded by vast farmland and towns where every inch of land is precious are not comparable. Perhaps for heavenly gods, this point is negligible, after all, their sources of faith are extensive and not limited to a single region. However, terrestrial gods with relatively narrow regions of faith must pay attention to this point. As a terrestrial god, Lin Xu was no exception.

  On this day, Lin Xu was in the side hall of the Mountain God Temple in Jiufeng Town, savoring the four Longfeng Tuan tea cakes that his ally Huang Shiran had specially sent someone to deliver, which were said to weigh one catty and sixteen taels.

  Due to the stringent material selection and extremely difficult processing technology, this expensive luxury is only affordable by emperors and high-ranking officials. Although it's said that one tea cake costs as much as two taels of gold, gold has a price, but tea cakes are priceless; they're often something you can't buy even with money.

  Normally, Longfengtuan tea is a rare commodity that is priceless and unavailable. Ordinary people have only heard of its name and never had the chance to see it.

  The Longfengtuan tea was certainly a rare treasure, but for Lin Xu, who was used to drinking clear tea, the drink that filled his senses with strong spices and barely had any tea flavor was really not something he dared to compliment. He could say responsibly that the taste of this tea was really nothing special, at least people from the other side of the earth would probably have a similar opinion when they tasted it. While Lin Xu was secretly complaining about this flashy but useless tea cake, his subordinates who were sharing the expensive goods with him were excitedly sipping their tea and eating their tea snacks, drinking the murky tea liquid that filled their cups with its strange fragrance.

  "Bang——"

  It was a low and incredibly long-lasting impact, followed by a massive earthquake that seemed to exceed the range of any biological sensory organ.

  For all the ordinary objects living on this piece of land, there is no difference between now and the countless years that have passed. Even humans who claim to be the spirits of all things have not noticed the magnificent appearance of a catastrophic change in heaven and earth. However, in Lin Xu's perception as a god with a divine position, what just happened was like a terrifying despair similar to the collapse of heaven and earth. It was an irresistible great power, and even if he had long been a golden body of a god, Lin Xu was still an insignificant small ant in the face of such a strong and overbearing power.

  Suddenly a loud crash sounded in his ear, Lin Xu's face turned pale instantly, and then he jumped up from the chair violently.

  Lin Xu looked around suspiciously and asked his subordinates in a nervous tone:

  "......Did you guys feel it?"

  At the sound, several deputy generals present were stunned, looking at each other in confusion, and couldn't understand what Mountain God was doing. Only the most senior deputy general Zhang Xin and Wang Liang, who plucked up their courage to speak at this time:

  "Old master, what do you feel?"

  When Lin Xu heard this, his heart couldn't help but sink suddenly. The fact that even two seasoned generals couldn't feel the huge change that had just occurred seemed to indirectly prove that this unknown change came from an even more secretive layer of change.

  The more Lin Xu thought about it, the more he felt his heart racing, and in the end, he couldn't help but wave his hand and say:

  "Never mind, I didn't say anything."

  Before his words had fallen, Lin Xu had already driven the fastest Flowing Light Teleportation, and without looking back, he went straight in the direction where the shockwaves were constantly coming from. Today, he must personally verify with his own eyes what kind of terrifying power could create such an unimaginable change in the world.

  PS: This weekend for three days, crabs will be updated three times a day. Everyone please throw all the votes you have! Also, this book is already thick enough, everyone can start killing.