Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

Chapter 190 The Wu Heng Family's Treasure Trove

The entire city lord's mansion was built in the western part of the city. The mansion faced west, and the main gate only had one large door facing west. The entire castle was ten feet high and didn't even have a single window.

The castle, stretching over a hundred zhang in both length and width, resembled a giant cube built of stacked stones. Surrounding the city lord's mansion was a military camp shaped like the Chinese character "回" (hui). The outermost layer of the camp consisted of barracks five li long on each side, also entirely constructed of massive stones, three stories high and eight zhang tall. With two rows of barracks, totaling over ten thousand rooms, the camp was relatively spacious enough to house one hundred thousand soldiers.

The second level, a hundred feet away from the barracks, is also a ring of square stone houses, just like the first level. However, this ring of houses only has two floors and is mainly used for the generals to live in and store military supplies.

The distance between the second ring of military camps and the city lord's mansion is two miles wide, with ponds and trees and flowers along the way, which finally adds some greenery to these aesthetically unappealing giant stone boxes.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth floors of the city lord's mansion mainly housed the enormous wealth amassed by the Wu Heng family through years of extortion and levies. The fourth and fifth floors were where Wu Heng and his wives and concubines lived.

The first floor served as the government office, while the second and third floors housed the main hall for receiving subordinates and entertaining nobles, as well as guest rooms and recreational areas. The entire castle had only one main gate, one zhang wide and two zhang high, for entry and exit. Although this gate was not small, it was rather inconspicuous compared to a house that was over a hundred zhang wide.

The castle's main source of light comes from the huge central courtyard, which is over twenty zhang (approximately 63 meters) long and wide, providing ample light for the castle. The staircases connecting each floor's rooms are also located within the courtyard, and each floor has a surrounding corridor that connects the various rooms.

"Truly worthy of being one of the ten great cities of the Great Red Kingdom! This city lord's mansion is much larger than the one in Shangyuan City!" Sun Min exclaimed.

"It's not just that the houses are much bigger, the wealth amassed is also much greater!" Mo Yuming turned around and pushed open the door behind him, only to find the entire room filled with all sorts of rare treasures. The restrictive magic arrays throughout the castle had long been removed, so the doors to these treasure vaults could be opened easily.

"The gold coins in this room alone could probably last our Great Xia Empire for several years!" Jiang Yuheng exclaimed in surprise. As the leader of the entire Great Xia Empire's army, he was very clear about the current expenses of the Great Xia Empire's military. The amount that surprised him was not too many.

"No wonder Wu Heng built his castle like this; he's a miser! Although he's much wealthier than Lord Liao, his taste is far inferior. In Wu Heng's eyes, nothing is beautiful except money; he doesn't even bother to pretend."

"These eight floors are mainly filled with gold and silver jewelry. I wonder what's on the seventh floor?" Everyone followed Mo Yuming to the seventh floor with curiosity, and after the door to the seventh floor was opened, everyone exclaimed in surprise again.

The entire room, which was hundreds of feet wide, was filled with all kinds of minerals and magic crystals. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was piled up like a mountain!

"Haha, our army can upgrade its equipment again. Wu Heng is such a benevolent benefactor, how can we thank him enough!" Mo Yuming and the others laughed heartily.

"Let's go up to the sixth floor and see what other surprises await us."

Everyone followed Mo Yuming to the sixth floor, their spirits high. Upon opening the door, they were astonished. The treasures inside were somewhat haphazard: mainly weapons, elixirs, and herbs. These items occupied more than three-quarters of the room. The remainder consisted of martial arts manuals, combat techniques, maps, notes, and various other books.

"These weapons are only slightly better than our standard weapons in terms of workmanship and design, and they also use higher-grade and more abundant elemental ores, but that's about it. If our weapons factory were to refine them further, they would be on par with his collection!"

Qi Feng looked through the rows of weapons displayed on the shelf and said.

"We can't do that with the standard weapons we equip our soldiers with. Although it doesn't cost much to process them one more time, it would take the weaponsmith half again as long. This would greatly reduce production output, so it would be a losing proposition."

Our soldiers are already unique on the entire continent in being equipped with Xuan Iron magical artifacts. You should be content!

Jiang Yuheng said.

"I was just saying that. After all, the soldiers' cultivation level is only so high. Even the best weapons won't be able to bring out their full potential in their hands. It would be a waste for them to have the best weapons."

"These weapons can be registered and used as rewards for soldiers who have made meritorious contributions and have the ability to use these high-level Xuan Iron treasures."

"There are quite a few pills, but they are all ordinary pills, with no high-grade pills. However, these basic Spirit Gathering Pills can be used by cultivators who are preparing to break through the bottleneck of the Earth Rank and reach the peak of the Human Rank."

For those of us with cultivation levels above the Earth Rank, these profound techniques wouldn't be of much use. It would be much better if they were mid-level or high-level Spirit Gathering Pills. Everyone here could use them.”

"I wonder where he collected so many profound martial arts manuals, it's just a pity they're all beginner level!"

"Secret manuals of profound martial arts are extremely rare, and most of them are owned by powerful families, making them difficult for ordinary people to see. A large portion of these are likely combat technique manuals possessed by the Wu family. It's a pity that despite having so many resources, the Wu family has few outstanding descendants."

"Su Yangyan and the others should arrive in Zhongyuan City tonight, right? After these resources are registered, some of these profound martial arts manuals that are highly applicable should be selected and distributed to the military camps first, so that the soldiers can choose to practice them," Mo Yuming said.

"The area under the jurisdiction of Zhongyuan City has a population of ten million, nearly ten times that of Shangyuan City. It governs nine counties, of which only three have been recovered by our army. Next, our soldiers need to press on and recover all counties as soon as possible, and complete actual control before the surrounding forces begin to take action."

If any forces show any signs of aggression, strike them hard and make them pay the price. Mo Yuming and his group left the treasure room and went to the reception room on the second floor to discuss their next move.

"Taking over such a large city, our manpower is indeed somewhat stretched. We estimate that we will need to leave at least 10,000 elite troops stationed here until Su Ce's National Security Bureau is established and on track before they can be withdrawn. With 10,000 troops stationed in Shangyuan City, the remaining 10,000 supply troops will be basically useless in these smaller battles. What we will have left are only 10,000 cavalry and nearly 20,000 infantry. Distributing 30,000 troops among six counties is indeed a bit too few. In principle, each county should need at least 10,000 troops."

Jiang Yuheng analyzed.