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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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When the boy pulled his hands from the water, the collective crowd let out a sharp gasp. The thick, black coal dust, the grease, and the embedded dirt that usually required hours of agonizing scrubbing with coarse sand had entirely vanished. The boy's hands were completely, immaculately clean, the skin looking healthier and softer than it had in years.
But it was the sudden, drifting scent that truly broke the dam.
As the lather dissolved, the crisp, fresh, wonderfully clean aroma of wild mint and local crushed herbs wafted through the crowded intersection.
It was not the overpowering, heavy floral scent of the aristocratic Jasmine variants, but it was a magnificent, breathable, earthly freshness that instantly banished the smell of the crowded city street.
The common people were utterly captivated. They smelled the air, they looked at the boy's pristine hands, and they finally understood. These soaps and shampoos could not only keep their families healthy and safe from the terrifying plagues, but it made their skin and hair unbelievably clean and fragrant.
The hesitation vanished, replaced by an absolute, desperate hunger for the miracle.
"I will take two bars!" a woman shouted, waving a string of copper coins.
"Give me the shampoo! My daughter's hair is plagued by lice! Three vials!" a farmer bellowed, shoving his way to the front of the stall.
The rush was immediate and deafening. Slowly, but with building, exponential momentum, the common people of Xiapi began to buy the items by the thousands. Of course, the vast majority chose to buy the cheaper, heavily subsidized herbal variants specifically engineered for the common markets, gratefully handing over their copper coins for a shield against illness.
The impact of this single morning would ripple through the centuries. Unknowingly, in the decades to come, this very moment would permanently alter the social fabric of the continent.
Soaps and shampoos, particularly the rare, perfectly molded bars infused with specific regional flowers, would evolve far beyond simple hygiene. Because of their origin as an imperial luxury, they would become a deeply ingrained part of the marriage culture of the empire.
Future historians would document how a beautifully carved bar of lotus soap, resting in a red cedar box, became an absolute prerequisite for a respectable dowry. It would slowly become a symbol of a family's purity, their prosperity, and their ability to care for a new bride. But only the future generations would know about that long standing cultural shift.
For now, the reality was raw, explosive commerce. In just a couple of hours after being introduced to the public intersections, the soap and shampoo industry became a phenomenal, unprecedented boom.
Travelers, merchants, and caravan guards who were preparing to leave Xiapi after the holiday festivities stopped dead in their tracks. Seeing the frenzy in the markets and smelling the miraculous scent on the commoners, they flooded the Ministry stalls. They bought crates of the herbal soap, packing them tightly into their saddlebags and merchant wagons.
As they rode out of the massive city gates, heading north toward the steppes, south toward the jungles, and west toward the newly conquered plateaus, they carried the miracle with them.
The phenomenon would be spread rapidly from mouth to mouth, from village to village, by the common people themselves, carrying the Emperor's gift of health to the absolute furthest corners of Hengyuan's domain.
While the streets of Xiapi were consumed by the intoxicating scent of mint and the frantic exchange of copper coins, the absolute center of the empire's power was focused on a revolution of a much heavier, darker, and more industrial nature.
Deep inside the Imperial Palace, bathed in the sharp, clear light pouring through the high paper lattice windows of the imperial study, Emperor Lie Fan stood behind his massive mahogany desk.
The desk was not covered in military maps of enemy troop movements today, it was entirely blanketed in complex, highly detailed architectural blueprints, heavy logistical ledgers, and intricate wooden models of grooved wheels and iron tracks.
Standing before the Emperor, presenting the culmination of years of agonizingly precise labor, were the three most brilliant engineering and logistical minds of the age, Minister of Work Liu Ye, the peerless mechanical genius Huang Yue Ying, and the Minister of Personnel, Zhuge Liang.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Liu Ye spoke, his voice trembling slightly with a mixture of exhaustion and profound, historic triumph. "I formally present the report. The primary wagonways rail line has been successfully laid from the outer industrial districts of Xiapi all the way to the city gates of Xiaopei."
Lie Fan's dark eyes locked onto the heavy bamboo scroll resting on the desk. He reached out and unrolled it, his gaze sweeping over the meticulous data.
"The rails have been comprehensively tested over the past week," Huang Yue Ying added, her sharp, intelligent eyes tracking the Emperor's reaction. She stepped forward, pointing a slender finger at a specific diagram showing a cross-section of the track. "We utilized the reinforced timber ties set into a bed of crushed gravel to prevent sinking in the autumn mud. The iron rails themselves were forged using the new continuous pour method developed in the capital foundries. We have stress tested them to ensure they do not fracture under shifting temperatures."
Zhuge Liang gently closed his white feather fan, his melodious voice filling the quiet study. "But the true victory lies in the weight distribution, Your Majesty. We ran several types of test convoys on the rails. We loaded specialized, flange wheeled wagons with raw iron ore from the mines, then we ran tests with massive shipments of grain, and finally, passenger carriages loaded with heavily armored infantry."
Lie Fan looked up from the scroll, his heart beating with a fierce, visionary anticipation. "And the time? How long did it take to move those loads from Xiapi to Xiaopei with the help of the wagonways rail?"
Zhuge Liang smiled, a rare, incredibly bright expression of pure intellectual satisfaction.
"The results are staggering, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang reported proudly. "Because the friction of the iron wheels against the iron rails is a mere fraction of the friction of a wooden wheel dragging through mud or dirt, a single draft horse can pull three times the weight it normally could. Furthermore, the convoys are no longer hindered by weather. Rains that would typically turn the trade roads into impassable quagmires have absolutely no effect on the rails."
Liu Ye placed a definitive, summarized ledger on top of the blueprints. "Overall, Your Majesty, the travel time for heavy freight from Xiapi to Xiaopei is faster compared to using normal roads by thirty to forty percent. And that is simply our initial, cautious testing speed. With further refinement to the wheel bearings and better bred draft horses, we project we could cut the travel time by half."
Reading the absolute, irrefutable numbers on the parchment, Lie Fan nodded his head slowly.
A brilliant, wide, and intensely proud smile broke across the Emperor's face. He looked at the three visionaries standing before him. The military conquests had secured the borders, the soap had secured the health and the treasury, but this... this would secure the eternity of the empire.
A thirty to forty percent increase in logistical speed meant that armies could deploy to quell rebellions before they even sparked. It meant that a famine in the south could be relieved by grain from the north in a matter of days. It physically shrank the massive, sprawling continent into a tightly bound, easily manageable web.
"This is not just an engineering success," Lie Fan praised them, his voice rich and booming with absolute authority. "This is the very artery that will keep the heart of Hengyuan beating for a thousand years. You have done spectacular, world altering work."
Lie Fan stepped out from behind the heavy mahogany desk, walking around to stand directly in front of the three ministers.
"Your efforts shall not go unrewarded," Lie Fan declared. "The funds pouring into the treasury this very morning from the soap monopolies provide us with an unprecedented surplus. I am awarding your project an immediate, massive influx of manpower and raw resources. You shall have unrestricted access to the steel foundries and first priority on draft animals."
Liu Ye, Huang Yue Ying, and Zhuge Liang instantly brought their hands together, bowing deeply. "We thank Your Imperial Majesty for your boundless generosity!"
"Furthermore," Lie Fan announced, his tone shifting into the crisp, decisive cadence of supreme bureaucratic restructuring. "This project has outgrown its status as a mere experimental endeavor. I am formally establishing the 'Wagonways Department' as an entirely independent, highly funded bureau operating strictly under the Ministry of Work."
Lie Fan looked directly at Liu Ye. "Minister Liu Ye, you shall oversee its integration into your ministry. Madam Huang Yue Ying, you shall serve as the Chief Engineer of the department, with absolute authority over the mechanical designs. And Kongming, you shall manage the continental logistics and route planning."
Lie Fan turned, walking back to the massive map of the unified continent pinned to the wall of the study. He reached out, his finger tracing a bold, invisible line across the central plains.
"Your job is to immediately begin building the wagonways connecting the entire network of major towns and cities here in the central mainland," Lie Fan ordered, his voice painting a picture of an industrialized future. "I want arteries connecting Xiapi, Luoyang, Chang'an, and Ye City. Once the central heartland is entirely bolted together with iron, you will expand the network outward."
He dragged his finger westward, toward the jagged peaks of the Qinghai Plateau, then swept it south toward the jungles, and finally east toward the coastal ports.
"You will connect the western, southern, and eastern domains to the lands outside of the mainland. We will drive spikes through the mountains of Liang Province, and we will lay tracks through the swamps of Jiaozhi. Only when the major provincial capitals are entirely connected will you begin phase three, constructing the capillary lines from each major town to the minor towns and farming villages around them."
The three brilliant minds listened to the staggering, continent spanning scope of the Emperor's mandate. It was a project that would take decades, a multi generational labor of iron and sweat that would permanently alter the landscape of the earth. But looking at the map, they could see the perfect, unassailable logic of the design.
"We understand the roadmap perfectly, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang said, his mind already calculating the millions of tons of crushed stone required for the track beds. "The mainland first, the frontiers second, the minor towns third."
"But your mandate does not end with merely laying tracks," Lie Fan added, turning back to face them, his dark eyes locking specifically onto Huang Yue Ying.
"The Wagonways Department has a secondary, equally critical job," Lie Fan instructed, his visionary mind projecting far beyond the simple horse drawn carts of the current era. "You must begin developing much more advanced wagonways. The tracks we laid to Xiaopei are a prototype. I want them stronger, wider, and capable of bearing impossible loads."
He tapped the wooden model of the flanged wheel resting on his desk.
"And you must design advanced carriages and wagons," Lie Fan challenged the mechanical genius. "The current wooden carts are too heavy, their axles too prone to snapping under sustained speeds. Research new alloys for the undercarriages. Design aerodynamic passenger cars that do not catch the wind. Engineer better suspension systems so that delicate cargo, and traveling diplomats, are not shaken to pieces."
Lie Fan leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk, his presence overwhelming the room with the sheer force of his ambition.
"I want them to ride faster," Lie Fan demanded softly, yet the words carried the weight of a thunderclap. "Thirty to forty percent is a magnificent beginning. But I will not be satisfied until a message sent from the eastern shores reaches the western deserts faster than a bird can fly. I want the tyranny of distance entirely eradicated from my empire. Do you understand?"
Huang Yue Ying's eyes burned with an intense, incredibly fierce intellectual fire. To be given unlimited resources, absolute authority, and the mandate to push the boundaries of mechanical science to their absolute limits was the dream of any engineer.
"We shall eradicate distance, Your Majesty," Huang Yue Ying promised, bowing deeply alongside Liu Ye and Zhuge Liang. "The carriages will be redesigned. The tracks will be perfected. We will make the empire move faster than the wind."
"Then go," Lie Fan smiled, standing tall and proud. "The treasury is yours. The iron is yours. Go and build the future of Hengyuan."
As the three brilliant minds retreated from the imperial study, their arms filled with ledgers and blueprints, Lie Fan turned back to the massive map of the world.
He could hear the distant, joyous cheers of the common people in the streets, marveling at the scent of mint and the gift of health. He could hear the muffled, frantic calculations of the Ministry of Revenue, hauling in the wealth of the nobility. And soon, he would hear the rhythmic, metallic clattering of iron wheels on iron tracks, echoing across the plains, binding the world together in an unbreakable web of commerce and speed. The chaos of the warlords was nothing but a memory.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0