Inside the imperial study.
The Minister of Revenue knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face.
“Your Majesty! I… I am incompetent!”
He cried as if his heart was being torn apart.
Ying Zheng sat on the dragon throne, rubbing his temples.
“What now?”
“Has the treasury been robbed again?”
“No! No, Your Majesty!”
The Minister of Revenue raised his head, his old face flushed the color of liver.
“It’s money! There is too much money!”
“The treasury is already full! Now all the gold and silver from the Six States, and all the Western Region jewels, are piled outside the palace gates!”
“Even copper coins have formed three mountains! After the recent rain, the bottom layers have started growing green mold!”
He wailed loudly.
“Food is also about to burst the granaries! If this continues, it will all rot in the fields!”
“I truly don’t know where to put it anymore! Please, Your Majesty, think of a solution!”
The civil and military officials in the hall looked at each other.
Finally, all eyes turned to Wang Jian.
The old general crossed his arms, turned his head away, and began stroking his beard, whistling.
His expression clearly said: Don’t look at me. I only handle war, not spending money.
Ying Zheng sighed.
Money rotting from excess.
What a pleasant kind of trouble.
At that moment—
“Your Majesty!!”
A figure covered in black soot staggered into the hall.
It was Gongshu Chou.
The chief engineer who had unified the Mohist and Gongshu factions was covered in oil and ash.
“Your Majesty! The ‘Heart of the Fire Dragon’ is complete!”
His voice was hoarse but filled with excitement.
“As long as we have enough materials, we can produce one hundred units within a month!”
Ying Zheng’s eyes lit up.
“Good!”
“When can the thousand iron-armored ships begin construction?”
The excitement on Gongshu Chou’s face instantly collapsed.
“Your Majesty… we cannot build them.”
He dropped to his knees with a thud.
“The iron ore needed for shipbuilding, and the black stone required for the ‘Fire Dragon Heart’—none of it can be transported here!”
Meng Tian stepped forward.
“What happened?”
“Is the transport capacity insufficient?”
“No, General Meng!”
Gongshu Chou looked like he was about to cry.
“It’s the roads! The roads have all collapsed!”
He pointed outside the hall.
“After the golden rain, the common people have become incredibly strong. What used to take ten men a day to mine can now be done by one man in half a day.”
“A carriage that used to carry one thousand jin now dares to carry ten thousand!”
“All the official roads from the mines to Xianyang have been crushed into muddy pits!”
“Wheels get stuck and cannot be pulled out, and over a thousand horses pulling carts have already died from exhaustion!”
As soon as these words fell, the entire hall went silent.
Production had become too strong, and logistics had collapsed.
What kind of situation was this?
At that moment, a mocking voice sounded.
“Your Majesty.”
The newly appointed Confucian scholar, Doctor Kong An, stepped out from the ranks.
He was a clan member of Kong Fu, his face carrying innate arrogance.
“This is not the fault of the roads, but a warning from Heaven!”
His voice was not loud, but carried a tone of judgment.
“The steam engine, the ironclad ships—such ingenious yet unnatural creations, go against the harmony of Heaven.”
“Now that the roads have collapsed, it is the earth’s meridians crying out—this is the spirit of the land weeping to His Majesty!”
Kong An straightened his back, as if he himself embodied heavenly principle.
“I implore Your Majesty to burn these demonic inventions, dismiss the craftsmen, and restore rest to the people, returning to ancient ways!”
“Otherwise, when the earth dragon turns, it will be too late for regret!”
The moment he finished—
Pa.
A soft sound.
A square wooden block flew through the air and struck Kong An squarely on the forehead.
It knocked all his remaining words back down his throat.
Ying Ziye was sitting on the steps, boredly stacking wooden blocks.
He did not even look up.
He simply picked up another block and weighed it in his hand.
“If the roads are broken, fix them.”
“Is the earth’s meridian your relative?”
“Made of tofu?”
His childish voice echoed through the hall.
Kong An clutched his forehead, his face turning deep purple.
“You! Insolent brat! How dare you insult me!”
“I…”
Ying Ziye completely ignored him.
He jumped down from the steps and walked with his short legs to the massive map in the center of the hall.
He picked up a wolf-hair brush and dipped it in ink.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Several thick black lines were drawn across the map.
From the iron mines in the west to the coal mountains in the north—all were connected directly to Xianyang.
“Dirt roads are too slow for horse-drawn carts.”
Ying Ziye tapped the map with the brush handle.
“So we build railways for the ‘Fire Dragon’ and let it run on its own.”
Rail… way?
Everyone was stunned.
Li Si was the first to react, his voice even changing pitch.
“Ninth Prince! Absolutely not!”
“Iron is a national strategic material—used for weapons and armor! How can it… how can it be used to pave roads?”
“This… this is even more extravagant than the wine pools and meat forests of Jie and Zhou!”
Wang Jian also widened his eyes.
Pave roads with iron?
This kid really dares to think!
Ying Ziye turned around.
He pulled out a neatly folded silk scroll from his robe.
Rustle.
He spread it on the ground.
There was no text.
Only two illustrations.
On the left: a hundred foaming dead horses beside a lonely cart stuck in mud.
Below it read:
【Horse carriage: transport capacity 1 dan, consumes 10 horses, road destroyed.】
On the right: a long “iron centipede” made of many connected carriages, spewing black smoke as it raced forward.
Below it read:
【Iron rail vehicle: transport capacity 100 dan, consumes 0 horses, road undamaged.】
Simple.
Brutal.
Ying Ziye pointed at the silk scroll.
“Who said we’re using good iron?”
“We take the worst iron sheets, wrap them around wood, and make two parallel rails.”
“Then let the Fire Dragon carriage run on them.”
He grinned.
“Capacity: 100 times.”
“Loss: zero.”
One hundred times.
Zero loss.
Those two words struck everyone’s hearts like thunder.
Li Si stared at the scroll, mouth open, unable to say a single word.
He wanted to refute it.
But the image was too impactful.
Those brutally simple numbers left him speechless.
Ying Zheng stepped down from the dragon throne.
He stared at the words “100 times capacity” on the silk scroll.
His body trembled slightly.
Extravagant?
Wasteful?
His Great Qin had already seized the weapons stores of the Six States and discovered countless new mines.
What they lacked least… was iron.
“Granted!”
Ying Zheng’s voice rang out like thunder.
He stepped on the map and pointed toward the east.
“Not only connect the mines!”
“Use the finest iron—pave it!”
“From Xianyang all the way to the Eastern Sea!”
“I will ride this iron dragon to see the ocean myself!”
“Your Majesty is wise!!”
All officials knelt, their voices shaking the hall.
A never-before-seen mega-project was about to begin.
The entire court was swept into a frenzy of ambition for the future.
At that moment—
“Report!!”
A shrill cry came from outside the hall.
A blood-soaked messenger was carried in by guards, barely able to stand.
His armor was shattered, half his body drenched in blood.
“Your Majesty…”
He struggled to raise his head, eyes filled with terror and bloodshot panic.
With his last strength, he pulled out a blood-soaked bamboo tube.
“The Eastern Sea… ghost ships…”
“The Dragon King of the sea… is enraged…”
“It demands… three thousand… boys and girls… as sacrifice…”
After speaking—
His head tilted.
He died on the spot.
The atmosphere in the hall instantly froze.
A chill surged from everyone’s feet straight to their skulls.
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