Chapter 791: Mortals

Inside the room, Shen Shuibi and Bai Di faced each other.

Most of Shen Shuibi's energy was focused on the documents in her hand, which were important data sent for processing, requiring physical certificates and seal verification.

In addition, a large amount of less formal intelligence was transmitted via Divine Ability, with a constant stream of information flashing before her eyes every second.

However, even so, she was able to converse freely with Bai Di, clearly stating her commands and what she needed Bai Di to do, as well as his compensation afterwards.

Compensation was certainly necessary; one couldn't just make the horse run without letting it eat grass.

Of course, Li Qi received no compensation, because he was the one providing it and was the actual leader of this war, which was the inherent duty of the Shaman God Mountain direct lineage, as this was a Shaman Dao war in itself.

Moreover, these expenses were actually paid by Li Qi himself.

Shaman God Mountain usually did not levy taxes or distribute any private income, so naturally there was no 'public property' to speak of, unlike the Human Dao, where everyone would contribute money to establish a 'public fund' from which resources would be allocated.

Shaman God Mountain did not engage in such practices, but when they encountered major collective events like this, everyone basically paid out of their own pockets, responsible for their own share.

The extraterritorial battlefield was an exception; it involved too much, making self-funding impractical, so resources were allocated through 'Alliances,' just like Li Qi before, and the 'Alliances'' resources were pooled by the Shamanes themselves.

Li Qi hadn't contributed before because Zhu Fengdan had provided it.

However, for this current war, Li Qi was paying out of his own pocket, fortunately, he was quite well-off and could afford it.

Shen Shuibi naturally wouldn't be frugal in such matters; neither she nor her husband valued external possessions much, and if there was nothing urgent, these profits would generally be distributed among Mount Luofu and the members of the merchant association, but now they were needed.

"The specifics have been made clear, so go and do it," Shen Shuibi said to Bai Di. "This matter is very important, which is why I'm telling you in person. There's a Spiritual Artifact over there that can obscure Karma; take it with you to prevent yourself from being divined or calculated."

"Yes," Bai Di stepped forward and picked up the Spiritual Artifact. It was a compass, likely an item from their inventory.

Although the couple wasn't particularly skilled in Artifact Refining, they still had some reserves.

Bai Di said nothing more, simply picked up the compass, bowed slightly, and then left the area.

He did have many doubts, but those were not to be spoken now; he would address them upon his return.

After all, Baiyue was his birthplace, and... he also didn't particularly approve of the Human Dao's methods, which was why he had returned this time, even if he might face the danger of death.

But then again...

What was there to fear when following the Dao? If he were to choose to do something he didn't want to do out of cowardice, his Dao Heart would probably shatter.

Just like when he resolutely left his home, abandoning the straightforward path of Shaman Dao, and chose the Martial Dao.

And just like, after countless twists and turns, he finally realized... what he pursued was not purely 'Martial'.

Compared to other Martial Artists, he was not pure at all.

Those Martial Artists would give up everything for 'Martial'; everything they did was so pure, so sincere, sincere in heart, sincere in intent, only then could the Martial Dao Divine Intent become more refined.

But he couldn't do it.

After an unknown period of struggle, he transformed from that handsome, white-clad swordsman into his current weathered appearance, only then did he discover what he truly desired.

Martial was merely a means; what he pursued was to eradicate injustice.

Bai Di left the area and quickly rushed to the front line; he had been in White Snake Prefecture until now, and at last, he was heading to the forefront of the battle.

Clutching the sword in his hand, the Qi around him surged.

Now, the Human Dao was the injustice.

——————

Meanwhile, in Great Deer Kingdom, in a small village by the Li River.

Some minor officials were here supervising corvée labor and tax collection.

A few minor officials pompously addressed some farmers before them: "The front line is tight right now, almost out of food! The village elder has ordered that within two days, each household must hand over thirty stones of grain as military provisions!"

Hearing this, the farmers looked bitter and exchanged glances.

Thirty stones per household, that was no small sum.

One stone was about sixty catties, so thirty stones was eighteen hundred catties, enough food for a family to live sparingly for a year.

Normally, various taxes and levies were already considerable; land rent alone took away forty to fifty percent of the harvest, and households with adult males had to pay three bolts of silk and three catties of cotton annually. Besides these taxes, there were also salt officials, iron officials, and labor officials who collected taxes on goods, and since this place was near the Li River, there were also water officials who collected fishing taxes.

Crossing bridges required road taxes, there were taxes on fields, taxes on urban areas, head taxes, and miscellaneous taxes, such as taxes on harvests, charcoal, fish, and firewood, all taxed at one or two tenths. The most outrageous was 'harvest,' meaning if you picked up a sparrow in the mountains, you had to pay a tax of one sparrow leg.

Many of these taxes were collected only in copper coins, not grain, so farmers had to sell their grain for money. To sell grain, they had to go to the city, where commercial taxes included transit taxes, residence taxes (market stall fees), and entry taxes (like the value-added tax Li Qi paid when selling goods). There were also brokerage fees, pawn taxes, and contract taxes for various miscellaneous matters.

Besides taxes, there were also various 'corvée duties,' such as household duties, labor duties, general corvée, and various construction duties, all requiring time to perform and with self-provided dry rations, as no food was supplied.

Farmers toiled hard all year, and eight or nine tenths of their harvested grain went to various taxes, levies, and corvée duties, leaving them with little surplus.

If it weren't for the extremely high yield of spirit rice, which could easily produce a thousand catties per mu, and even more with a little care, probably no one could survive under such a heavy tax burden.

And now, with an additional military tax, it was even more impossible to live.

But they said nothing more to the minor officials, merely nodding.

They couldn't say much; these officials had very powerful inherited cultivation methods. Someone who didn't want to pay before had already been beaten to death, and the government didn't even care; in fact, the government even intended it.

In the current state, everything served the war, and military matters outweighed everything else, thus far outweighing the lives of these farmers.

It's just that... the farmers weren't without options.

If they couldn't produce it at home, they could just borrow it.

There were many places to borrow from, such as... local landlords, and those Schools, many of whom were moneylenders.

Although the interest was a bit high, it was better than being beaten to death for not being able to pay taxes.

Zhang Haoming was one such farmer.

Haoming, meaning 'good life,' was a very common name; farmers' names were generally more direct, and for Haoming, who came from generations of farmers, this was even more so.

However, despite being named Haoming, he had never encountered anything good in his life.

He was already over fifty, a man nearing death, and at this moment, he was hunched over, his face full of worry, pondering how much to borrow and how much to repay.

Thirty stones; if he borrowed all of it, he would have to repay at least sixty stones. Would next year's harvest really be enough to repay it?

If he didn't borrow, how many things did the family still have that could be sold?

It seemed there wasn't much left, only a daughter...

Perhaps she could be married off for some bride price. That old bachelor at the east end of the village still had some savings, and he was quite diligent and hardworking, but he had a lame leg and was old, already thirty, so no one was willing to marry him...

Zhang Haoming didn't feel there was anything special about marrying off his daughter; everyone did it. The only problem was, if she was married off and all the grain went to military taxes, what about his youngest son's bride price?

Fortunately, his older sons had all married a few years ago, otherwise he really wouldn't know what to do.

Ah, what a worry.

He smacked his lips, hands behind his back, and returned home.

His home was very dilapidated, with the constant creaking sound of a weaving machine; that was his old wife and several daughters-in-law weaving cloth.

Such primitive weaving machines were still in use, but they had to be combined with corresponding cultivation methods.

Weaving machines without cultivation methods were too slow; although usable, they couldn't compete with others.

Zhang Haoming sat in the courtyard, looking at the rape and spirit rice in the fields outside.

Only these two crops, because his cultivation method only allowed him to grow these two.

Farming also required the cooperation of cultivation methods: how to plant, how to read the weather, how to judge the soil, how to use Qi to stimulate seeds to sprout, how to combine with mountain Qi to adjust the terrain to suit different crops—all required guidance from cultivation methods.

Without these corresponding cultivation methods, you couldn't even be a farmer; you couldn't grow anything, or if you managed to grow something, it would be completely inferior to others' yield and quality.

Therefore, cultivation methods were extremely precious, almost exclusively passed down within families or certain small groups, such as within a village or a specific surname.

This also led to a situation where a certain village would only grow one type of vegetable, unable to grow others; the village to the east would only grow radishes, while the village to the west would only grow cabbage, with various boundaries strictly enforced.

In Li Qi's era, this was already the case, which is why a person like 'Cabbage Head' existed.

The only universally applicable crop was spirit rice; spirit rice was the top-tier seed developed by the Human Dao's farming families. Almost any cultivation method could activate spirit rice seeds, and it didn't even require a cultivation method; even using physical methods to germinate them would produce sprouts, and the yield wouldn't be low.

But none of those were Zhang Haoming's concerns; he had long grown accustomed to everything around him.

This world was just like this: minor officials would bully people, daughters could be sold, and sons were the most important things in life.

Worried about how to handle the military tax, he looked back at his home.

His old wife knew nothing, understood nothing, only knew how to weave, work, and cook. All the major and minor decisions in the family were made by him alone.

His sons would probably argue over this matter; how much each family should contribute was a big issue.

He thought it over repeatedly, unable to make up his mind.

But looking up at the village entrance, there were already many people, carrying baskets and carrying poles, ready to borrow grain.

Borrowing grain was a daily occurrence, very common, and everyone was familiar with it.

Zhang Haoming, this old farmer, didn't feel anything was wrong, but in reality, someone had already summarized it long ago.

The saying goes, 'In February, sell new silk; in May, sell new grain. Curing a wound before your eyes, but gouging out the flesh from your heart.' Farmers, in urgent need of paying taxes, had no choice but to sell their products or borrow at double interest, eventually being forced to sell land and children to repay debts.

It is said that harsh and tyrannical governance, untimely levies, land rent, taxes, corvée, military service, and intermittent disasters like floods, droughts, frost, hail, and locusts plague them. Even if there is a good harvest, public and private debts, competing and plundering each other, mean that grain has not left the threshing floor, and silk has not left the loom, yet it is no longer their own. What they eat is husks and is insufficient, what they wear is coarse cloth and is incomplete. It is simply that they have served the fields for generations, not knowing what other way of life there could be.

The government levied large amounts of labor and money from farmers under various pretexts, but in reality, the minor officials, who were of the same social class as the farmers, treated these official positions as lucrative opportunities to get rich.

As for the officials, they didn't care about any of this. Officials were almost all cultivators; their responsibility was to the Baiyue Kingdom Lords, who gave them their official positions and salaries, not the farmers. For the Baiyue Kingdom Lords, they also didn't want to improve any of this; they only wanted to maintain the status quo, because if they truly made things better, their Dao Foundation would instead be shaken.

Therefore, the cultivator officials above were unwilling to prevent 'natural disasters,' and the minor officials below were even less willing to provide relief, leading to 'natural and man-made calamities' often occurring simultaneously. Furthermore, because farmers were usually exploited and plundered too severely, they completely lost the ability to cope with any sudden disaster, and were even more powerless to compensate for their losses. In such circumstances, naturally, even a small 'natural disaster' could escalate to an unmanageable degree. Yet, they were always very resilient; every time such a thing happened, they could exert all their strength to survive, just like locusts, which, at the brink of death each winter, leave behind eggs, and come spring, they emerge again in endless cycles, repeating their former lives.

This repetition was the Dao Foundation of the Baiyue Kingdom Lords; he needed a stable, unchanging country to become his Dao Foundation. However, true 'stability' is not stagnation; stagnation is decay, and such a Dao Foundation is unreasonable.

If a person were to be a farmer for a thousand or ten thousand years, he would most likely go berserk.

As the saying goes, 'flowing water does not rot, and a door hinge does not get worm-eaten.' The Dao Foundation is also like this. So how can one achieve 'flow' while remaining unchanged?

The Baiyue Kingdom Lords provided an excellent answer.

That is... Reincarnation.

Endless Reincarnation, just like the passage of time: generation after generation of Mortals die, and generation after generation grow up, ensuring fluidity under time, while the constantly repeated tragedies guarantee stability.

Zhang Haoming smacked his lips.

Forget it, I'll marry off my daughter. The bride price can be dealt with later; first, solve the immediate problem.

But just as Zhang Haoming stood up, he saw a light land in the distance, striking the landlord's house where he usually borrowed money.

He immediately ducked down.

That was the light of a Divine Ability!

Could it be that the war had reached them!?

No way!?