I really became a king.

Chapter 530 Four Border Trade Cities

For the next period of time, the entire Yiwang Mansion was peaceful, and so was the entire Wild Continent.
Since the six forces reached a truce agreement, the nine borders of the western Xinjiang, a place that has been at war four times since ancient times, have truly achieved a border peace.

Both sides of the border will withdraw their main forces stationed on the border, leaving only a patrol and guard force of 10,000 to 20,000 people.

With the coming of peace on the border, border trade has developed rapidly and the four commercial cities have gradually taken shape.

Due to their special geographical location, these four border trade cities are all located within the territory of Prince Yi's Palace.

The largest one is naturally located in the Demon Realm Pass where Kongtong Mountain is located. It is the general turnover station for border trade. No matter whether it is traveling from south to north or from east to west, all the goods are circulated here.

The second one is in the Kulik area north of Hanshan Pass, the third one is on the shore of Keke Lake outside Heishui Pass, and the fourth one is in the new territory of Prince Yi’s Mansion west of the Shiwanda Mountains.

If the goods from the three border trade cities behind want to enter the heart of Middle-earth through the Demon Realm Pass, they can only enter from the Blackwater Pass.

Although Hanshan Pass in the north and Niangzi Pass in the south also allowed caravans to pass through, they were all small caravans ranging from a few to a dozen people.

Large trading companies with hundreds or even thousands of employees can only go through the Heishui Pass.

This commercial route was formulated by the Commercial Agency under Prince Yi's Mansion. Originally, according to their opinion, all caravans were not allowed to pass through Hanshan Pass and Niangzi Pass.

But after the memorial was sent to Kongtong Mountain, it was rejected by Jiang Yi.
The original intention of the Commercial Agency was not wrong. The establishment of a unified commercial route could save manpower and material resources in the Prince Yi's Palace.

After all, there are countless caravans passing through the pass every day. For safety reasons, troops must be stationed there for garrison, and officials from the Commercial Office are also needed to manage it.

If only one Heishui Pass is left, a lot of manpower and material resources can be saved.

But what Jiang Yi was considering were the numerous small vendors and the countless porters.

Especially the porters who travel alone to trade at the border. These people are basically poor. A family of four or five people, or even more, depends on one person for support.

If any accident happens on the road, the whole family will be devastated, and they may even end up having to sell their children.

Jiang Yi wanted to help to the best of his ability, such as opening Hanshan Pass and Niangzi Pass specifically for these people.

Commercial border trade is not always a smooth journey, especially in the border areas outside the three passes.

Even in the territory of Prince Yi's Mansion, there are still large and small horse thieves and bandits roaming around, who like to target weak merchant caravans, especially those lone porters and merchants.

It’s not that Jiang Yi hasn’t thought about completely eliminating these horse bandits, but it’s simply unrealistic.

Even without the bandits, they would still face robbery. In this sparsely populated grassland, killing and robbing is normal.

And since ancient times, this has been an iron rule for border trade. Countless merchants have "mysteriously" disappeared on the prairie.

Jiang Yi had neither the ability nor the intention to change the status quo and could only provide protection for them on the last leg of their journey.

The four passes under the jurisdiction of Kongtong Mountain are an absolute killing restricted area. No lawbreakers dare to kill or rob here.

As for the areas beyond the four passes, Kongtong Mountain cannot fully control them.

Therefore, the four passes of Hanshan, Heishui, Niangzi and East Demon Realm are also called the "Gates of Hell" by small vendors. Entering or exiting could mean the difference between life and death.

Generally speaking, Kongtong Mountain has gained considerable reputation because of this business policy, especially among the lower classes.

The big trading companies are also happy to see this happen.

Because once they entered Heishui Pass, they basically no longer needed any escort forces, which saved them a lot of manpower and financial resources.

Therefore, the border trade in Western Xinjiang developed rapidly, bringing a lot of wealth to Kongtong Mountain and making the economy of Kongtong Mountain extremely prosperous. Of course, all this benefited from the stable development environment of Kongtong Mountain.

The entire wild continent was calm during this period, but this was only on the surface, as undercurrents were surging in secret.

After the borders of several major border dynasties were stabilized, they began to concentrate on consolidating their secular imperial power and launched a fierce competition with the four major secular clans.

The two sides were fighting with swords and sabers, and the scene was dark and chaotic.

Perhaps sensing a certain urgency, the secluded sects in Middle-earth also began to intensify their infiltration into the secular world.

At the same time, the four secular dynasties in Middle-earth saw the brutality and bloodiness in the fighting between the border dynasties and the four secular sects.

In order to protect himself, he began to pretend to be in cahoots with the secular sects and secretly began to consolidate the imperial power.

The only exception is the Dali Dynasty.

The imperial capital of Dali still maintains a close yet distant relationship with the secular sects, perhaps due to the mediation of Queen Ye.

But Jiang Yi always felt that it was not that simple. His "royal grandfather" was extremely ambitious and was probably planning something.

The Prince Yi's Palace in Kongtong Mountain also has a "Jingqi Hall", which is exactly the same as the Prince Duan's Palace in terms of both its construction layout and the arrangement of objects.

This "Jieqi Hall" is also where Jiang Yi usually supervises the official business of Prince Yi's Palace.

Jiang Yi sat on the armchair at the top of the Jingqi Hall. In front of him was a desk full of ancient atmosphere. In addition to official documents, there was also a Qilin paperweight and a tiger-head seal on the desk.

This desk is no ordinary item. It is the same desk that was originally made entirely of Fusang wood in Prince Duan’s Mansion.

Fusang wood is inherently fire, and belongs to the same lineage as the legendary true fire of the sun.

Whether it is for practicing fire-attributed skills or forging rare treasures, it is an excellent material, extremely precious, and a genuine treasure from heaven and earth.

Even if it is a small piece of land outside, people will fight to the death.

When the seventh child Jiang Zhongshuo inherited the title and branch palace of Prince Duan's Mansion, Jiang Yi considered that these were after all the favorite things of his nominal father, Prince Duan Jiang Lie.

So he didn't take it away, but left it to the seventh child, Jiang Zhongshuo, which also completed the inheritance of Prince Duan's Mansion.

Unfortunately, Kang Jong Suk made one wrong step after another. Not only did his uncle empty out Prince Duan's mansion, he even planned to give this Fusang wood desk to Queen Ye as a gift for the change of flag.

Seeing that his former younger brother had changed his allegiance and there was no room for maneuver, Jiang Yi could only cut the Gordian knot and clean up the mess.

He also moved this precious desk into the Jingqi Hall in Prince Yi's Palace.

Perhaps because the innate martial element in his body was a big sun, the fire attribute emitted by the Fusang wood made Jiang Yi feel very comfortable, and he felt warm all over as soon as he got close to it.

In particular, the second form of his natal martial aspect, the three-legged golden crow, particularly liked this Fusang wooden desk. When no one was around, Jiang Yi would reveal the three-legged golden crow and let it stand quietly on the desk.

Not sure if it was an illusion, but Jiang Yi always felt that the three-legged golden crow was becoming more and more vivid and more and more solid.

To Jiang Yi, this desk feels very familiar, but it is different for others.

Even when they were in Prince Duan's mansion before, even though Prince Duan Jiang Lie liked this desk very much, he didn't dare to get too close to it, because the smell of fire emanating from it made people feel suffocated.

(End of this chapter)