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Chapter 498 - 275: Marquis Liang Also Serves as Liang State Governor

Chapter 498: Chapter 275: Marquis Liang Also Serves as Liang State Governor

The operations of the Liang State Governor proceeded smoothly, and he assumed his post almost three months later.

After gaining this official position of Liang State Governor, the original resistance in the Liang State decreased by ninety percent almost instantly. Some areas didn’t even resist at all and sent letters from afar to declare their allegiance.

Subsequently, Jiang Lu arranged for personnel to go and implement reforms, and he diversified, suppressed, and absorbed these forces, ultimately consolidating them under his control.

Once the entire Liang State became his personal territory, he also began corresponding modernization reforms in industries, agriculture, etc., continuously undergoing various changes.

Within just three years, he had increased the overall productivity by several dozen times.

Now, Jiang Lu was also in command of a hundred thousand Sun and Moon Daoist Soldiers, and, of course, apart from him, the strengths of his subordinates had also undergone tremendous changes.

Especially the few who initially followed Jiang Lu, they also had fifty thousand Daoist Soldiers under their command.

Gu Shanhai’s status also rose with the tide, practically getting whatever he wanted delivered to him immediately, allowing Gu Shanhai to thrive in his study of military tactics.

Altogether, the Daoist Soldiers in the entirety of Liang State amounted to at least five hundred thousand, a terrifying rate of expansion that was a byproduct of the modernization reforms.

And naturally, Gu Shanhai was the one leading all of this. In a world with Transcendents, implementing such reforms was relatively simple, because the higher-ups were all powerful individuals. Once an order was issued, no one dared to disobey openly while complying secretly.

What’s more, the five hundred thousand Daoist Soldiers were not even at their limit. The reason they did not continue expanding the army was out of concern for drawing attention from other state warlords.

Indeed, it had already become an era divided by warlords.

Two years ago, after a year of entanglements among various powers, the position of state governor had finally become one that could potentially lead to the downfall of Dalong.

Nowadays, the authority of a state governor combined administrative, judicial, fiscal, and military powers in one, with the right to appoint officials independently, akin to a small imperial court.

This significantly weakened the influence of Dalong’s imperial authority; local power had completely lost control.

If not for everyone still needing to save some face, keeping the Dalong Emperor in place, they would have already entered a full-blown conquest scenario.

The reason Liang State kept a low profile was because it was accumulating strength. Although it currently had only five hundred thousand Daoist Soldiers, if a battle were to arise, they could rapidly train another five hundred thousand within a month. However, this would push Liang State to its limits.

Indeed, a small Liang State, being able to support a million Daoist Soldiers, was unimaginable to other states.

The main reason was that productivity had increased, so many problems were no longer issues.

The reason they did not deploy a million Daoist Soldiers now was that the last person who had possessed a million Daoist Soldiers had already met his end.

Although five hundred thousand Daoist Soldiers in a small Liang State might surprise others, it wasn’t conspicuous enough.

After all, this was just Liang State. In some larger states, warlords dominated with tens of millions of Daoist Soldiers—that was the true level of a dominant warlord.

It was a situation that had bred a group of monsters.

When fighting alongside barbarians before, it hadn’t been this terrifying, because at that time, there were still imperial constraints on the influential families and military commanders. Now that they were on their own, naturally, they became a bit more unrestrained.

This was tough on the common people at the bottom, as these costs were spread among them. Otherwise, wouldn’t the higher-ups be making something out of nothing?

Life in Liang State was considerably better, with modernized agriculture and industrial reforms boosting productivity. As long as one was willing to work, there was at least no worry about food or starving to death, and every year there was a substantial surplus of money and grain.

Gu Shanhai had once discussed with Li Yu that Liang State was developing well. Currently, military forces weren’t openly hostile, so they could use commerce and economic means to squeeze and invade other states. However, the results weren’t very favorable because commerce wasn’t well-developed and merchants were still considered a lower class and were not respected.

The phrase "competing with the people for profit" hindered the development of commerce, making life for the merchants not so great. In fact, many people within Liang State itself had quite a few complaints about this.

However, it wasn’t without benefits. Li Yu, seizing this momentum, incorporated many large merchants and, under Gu Shanhai’s leadership, formed the embryonic form of a state enterprise, taking commerce firmly into their hands. This was followed by unified purchasing and selling, deeply manipulating the influence of influential families and market prices.

There was an advantage to this: there was no need to worry about fluctuations in grain prices, because the seller was the official force of Liang State.

Of course, to prevent the outflow of strategic resources like grain, one needed to show local identification, and every household had a fixed quota they couldn’t exceed, among other rules.

At least, many modern systems could crush this ancient transcendent world.

These systems, however, couldn’t be directly and rigidly applied. Everything was predicated on increasing productivity to match the conditions. If it were simply copied and implemented, it might succeed, but there was a greater chance of ruining oneself.

"Teacher, look..." Jiang Lu hurried over.

"Can’t you be steadier? You’re an adult now," Gu Shanhai chided Jiang Lu, who was now a bona fide major warlord, yet still so frantic.

"Let’s talk about being steady later—the court has appointed me as Marquis," Jiang Lu hurriedly placed a decree on the table.

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