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Li Chang'an originally held the authority to investigate the Junshan Society. The origin of this smuggling business still stemmed from the exchange of interests among the top echelons of the Junshan Society.
In fact, the Shadow Guard's duty is to monitor the martial arts world. As long as Li Chang'an wants to do something, he can find a legal basis for it.
By mobilizing some of the local Luowang (a criminal organization) personnel, Teng Zijing should be able to uncover the Cui family's smuggling channels and facts.
Li Chang'an himself left Wang Qinian as a figurehead and went to the Western Qin Kingdom.
In the palace of the Western Qin Kingdom, Li Chang'an met Zhao Gao, Shen Wansan, Han Xin, and more than twenty other important civil and military officials of the Western Qin Kingdom.
These important officials were all talents that Li Chang'an had discovered from the bottom up, and after Zhao Gao gave them rigorous training, they are now the backbone of the Western Qin court.
The royal family of Western Qin is now nothing more than caged birds, a group of mascots.
The training center of Luo Wang has been operating for more than three years, and the trained personnel go to various places to serve in Luo Wang.
Zhao Gao bowed and reported, "Your Highness, the Western Qin Kingdom has now trained a total of 100,000 elite troops, including 30,000 cavalry and 70,000 infantry."
"The army's armor and weapons were all made according to the design and materials provided by Shen Wansan."
Although the cost was exorbitant, it was at least twice as strong as the armies of Northern Qi and Southern Qing.
Shen Wansan was a god of wealth and also worked as an arms dealer in the Ming Dynasty, so he was very knowledgeable about the production of military equipment.
"Now, the army, provisions, and military equipment have been fully prepared and are just waiting for Your Highness's order."
Li Chang'an said, "I have come here today to see your preparations in military, political and intelligence matters."
"The first step in raising an army is to occupy all the vassal states of Northern Qi in the west and quickly establish a foothold in the west."
These vassal states were all part of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Although they were not incorporated into the Northern Qi Dynasty after the fall of the Northern Wei, they were still vassal states of the Northern Qi.
"The second step could be to consider forming an alliance with Northern Qi to attack Southern Qing and seize the state that Northern Qi had occupied."
"As for the matter of the Grandmaster, I have reached an agreement with Ku He that he will no longer interfere with the rise of Western Qin."
Upon hearing this news, all the civil and military officials in the hall showed excitement!
"Congratulations, Your Highness, on becoming a Grandmaster!"
With a Grandmaster, the Western Qin Kingdom has the strength to stand alongside the Southern Qing and Northern Qi!
At the very least, Shen Wansan's vast business network in the other two countries will be secured.
At this moment, Han Xin said excitedly, "Your Highness, Northern Qi is bordered by the snowy northern barbarians to the north and by Southern Qing to the south."
"Their military strength in the western vassal states will not exceed 100,000. With the current military strength of our Western Qin, as long as the Grandmaster does not interfere, we can expand our territory by a thousand miles within a month!"
After the civil and military officials in the palace finished explaining the preparations of the Western Qin Kingdom, Li Chang'an, Zhao Gao, Shen Wansan, and Han Xin inspected the Western Qin Kingdom's armory and arms workshops.
Li Chang'an said meaningfully, "Zhao Gao, Shen Wansan, and Han Xin, the three of you will be in charge of political affairs, finance, and military affairs respectively."
"Although Zhao Gao has an overall view of the situation, you should mainly be in charge of intelligence and talent training, and let other ministers share the specific administrative tasks."
Given that Zhao Gao had once brought down the Qin state, Li Chang'an gave him a special reminder.
However, Zhao Gao, who had traveled through countless worlds, was quite self-aware. "Your Highness, rest assured, this old servant understands!"
"All the talents Your Highness has discovered are extremely gifted, making it much easier for you to handle government affairs. This old servant can finally relax."
Li Chang'an continued, "I brought a lot of intelligence data from the Embroidered Uniform Guard about the various vassal states. You should find it useful."
Upon hearing the intelligence report, Zhao Gao's eyes immediately lit up. "The burning of the Embroidered Uniform Guard headquarters was indeed His Highness's doing!"
"With this intelligence, the founding war of the Western Qin Kingdom will proceed much more smoothly!"
Li Chang'an was quite at ease handing the intelligence over to Zhao Gao, saying, "If anything major happens, the three of you should discuss it together."
"If any of you three are unsure about anything, you can send a coded message to me by carrier pigeon for my judgment."
Looking at the gleaming swords and spears in the armory, as well as the neatly arranged Ming army armor, Li Chang'an was completely relieved.
Upon arriving at the armory, one finds various siege crossbows, catapults, powerful bows, and arrows being produced and stockpiled at a rapid pace.
In the latest workshop, research and development of cannons and muskets has even begun, and Li Chang'an has provided a lot of help using the memories in his mind.
Ye Qingmei's treasury contained no firearms, partly due to current technological limitations and partly because she herself was unwilling to develop them.
Moreover, in the past, whenever humans showed any signs of inventing firearms, the temple would send messengers to intervene in time.
After all, the artificial intelligence in the temple claims to control the direction of human history for the overall benefit of humanity.
In Li Chang'an's opinion, this was utter nonsense.
Li Chang'an has always believed that human development does not require the intervention of gods or immortals.
Does the intervention of the temple guarantee the prevention of human destruction? Not necessarily.
Without the intervention and control of the temple, would humanity necessarily be destroyed? Not necessarily.
Therefore, what belongs to the human world belongs to the human world, and what belongs to the heavens belongs to the heavens.
The overall interests of humanity should be left to humanity as a whole to choose.
The right way is to destroy everything, or to let it escape into outer space and develop freely.
Afterwards, Li Chang'an went to check on the army's training.
The mid-level officers in the army have basically all undergone training by the Luo Wang (a military organization), and they are all commanders discovered by Li Chang'an.
Even Han Xin couldn't help but marvel at the high quality of the officers and generals in this army!
For three whole days, Li Chang'an examined all the key aspects related to launching the uprising.
He personally recruited the key talents of the Western Qin state.
His greatest impact on this world lies here.
This is also the wealth he has accumulated over the past ten years, so of course he has to examine it carefully.
"The three of you, you may raise an army immediately after I leave!"
Zhao Gao asked, "Your Highness, should the name of the Western Qin state be changed?"
Li Chang'an smiled and said, "There's no need to take a new one, Qin is fine as long as it's good!"
"Great Qin! That sounds much more imposing than Great Qi and Great Qing!"
Soon, this new nation will stand alongside the Northern Qi and Southern Qing in the world!
The border between Nanqing and Qinghai.
Fan Xian also received intelligence from the Surveillance Bureau that his background was now known to the world.
He truly had no idea who had revealed his true identity.
Just as they entered the country, Chen Pingping's 500 Black Riders arrived.
Before long, ten palace guards, whose cultivation was no less than Gao Da's, also came to protect Fan Xian.
This was an eye-opener for Yan Bingyun and Guo Baokun; this was the honor bestowed upon a prince!
With such strong protection, even assassins would be unable to succeed.
But to their surprise, an assassin actually dared to kill Fan Xian.
There were more than a dozen experts in total, half of whom were at the eighth rank.
Although they were all fearless, they were quickly wiped out by the inner court guards and the Black Riders.
What Fan Xian least expected was that this assassination attempt had already occurred six times!
Fan Xian knew that Li Yunrui was constantly sacrificing lives to express his hatred and irreconcilable enmity towards Fan Xian!
"I never imagined that the revelation of the illegitimate prince's identity would bring such great risks!"
"Dean Chen is right. For every person who loves my mother, there is just as many who hate her!"
"I need to be extra careful after returning to Beijing this time. Although I have more people protecting me, it is still more dangerous than when I first entered the capital."
Fan Xian knew that the murderers who killed Ye Qingmei, the Empress and Empress Dowager's maternal clan, had all been wiped out by Chen Pingping and Fan Jian.
However, some forces remain hidden in the shadows and have not yet been discovered.
The most troublesome ones are people like Li Yunrui, who, although he didn't take action back then, still hates Ye Qingmei to the bone.
Fan Xian knew very well that the deep-seated hatred between him and Li Yunrui was irreconcilable.
Through intelligence gathered by the Surveillance Bureau, Fan Xian also learned that Li Chengze was the one truly aligned with Li Yunrui.
Therefore, Fan Xian is destined to become an irreconcilable enemy of Li Yunrui and Li Chengze!
Unlike the original series, the conflict between Li Chengze and Fan Xian was not as intense because Fan Xian was not designated to control the Imperial Treasury.
Because Fan Xian would not be in charge of the Imperial Treasury, he did not obtain any clues about Li Chengze's smuggling activities through Shen Zhong, and Li Chengze did not send anyone to ambush the delegation.
After inspecting the Western Qin Kingdom, Li Chang'an rushed back to the caravan day and night.
He had only been back for a few days, and the convoy had just left Cangzhou, when Teng Zijing returned.
After nightfall, Li Chang'an summoned Teng Zijing and Wang Qinian to his tent.
"Teng Zijing, how's the investigation into the Shijia Town matter going?"
Teng Zijing said excitedly, "Your Highness, according to the intelligence data of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, I have investigated all the land smuggling channels of the Cui family."
On the night the Embroidered Uniform Guard headquarters was burned down, Li Chang'an did manage to have the Shadow Guards retrieve a considerable amount of intelligence data.
Li Chang'an, of course, had no interest in some of the old archives and the dossier of the Northern Qi Dynasty.