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Chapter 225 Extra Chapter - The Ninth Holy Ruler

After Ding Shui ascended the throne, the situation in all aspects remained turbulent until Hailina of the Western Rong Empire accepted the investiture and became the new Western Rong Queen. At the same time, she formally submitted a petition to submit to the emperor, and the other major tribes did not object.

Many regions of the Tianhong Empire have only recently stabilized.

Bullying the weak and fearing the strong is sometimes not only human nature, but also applies to powerful forces and even nations. The Tianhong Empire has been terrified of the Xirong Empire for the past few decades; many people, or rather, many forces, have developed a conditioned reflex to it. If they had joined forces and won the attack earlier, the situation might have been different, but didn't they lose?
Therefore, when those who originally opposed Ding Shui, believing her to be a hen crowing at dawn and wanting to rebel, learned that the Western Rong Empire had not only compromised and submitted, but also produced a queen, they basically dared not oppose her anymore.

After all, even the terrifying Western Rong Empire compromised and submitted, relinquishing its imperial title and becoming an ordinary kingdom.

They're just stirring up trouble; they're asking for it.

So in the end, apart from a small number of those who remained stubborn and clung to their beliefs, most of the remaining areas surrendered without resistance and accepted Ding Shui's identity and rule.

What difference does it make who's emperor?
Besides, they were still royalty, so it didn't count as a change of dynasty.

In addition, another important factor was that Ding Shui's exemption from corvée labor and exorbitant taxes brought him immense popularity and support, causing the number of people willing to follow him in rebellion to drop by 90%.

Before Ding Shui restores these.

The likelihood of a large-scale popular uprising is extremely low.

After that, Ding Shui chose a different approach than usual. She didn't engage in a complete purge or immediately nationalize the land. Instead, she continued to promote commerce, establishing state-owned enterprises for minerals like salt and iron that already belonged to the state, and also setting up companies for various emerging industries with technologies unique to her.

Everything is managed and promoted by Xiao Hei.

Supply and marketing cooperatives and purchasing stations were established in various places.

In addition, there are a series of other measures, such as prohibiting land from being abandoned, and declaring land ownerless and nationalized if no one cultivates it for a year. Comprehensive new water conservancy infrastructure is being built, and paper money is being issued to revitalize the economy, while simultaneously squeezing out local landlords and powerful families.

Of course, various new rules and methods are also being promoted.

And Xiao Hei was instructed to strictly follow the instructions.

Within a few years of this operation, land prices plummeted, and a large number of local gentry and officials were arrested and their homes confiscated for crimes and other reasons.

People's living standards have improved rapidly.

The reason is quite simple!

For ordinary people, the biggest pressure throughout the year is actually the various exorbitant taxes and corvée labor. If there were no exorbitant taxes and corvée labor, and only land tax was paid, basically every family could afford it.

With all the exorbitant taxes and corvée labor abolished, and with Xiao Hei strictly enforcing the law, anyone who dared to levy taxes arbitrarily was arrested.

The powerful and wealthy exploited the people and seized land.

It's fair to say that most of it was gone in one fell swoop.

Neither exorbitant taxes nor corvée labor could be paid with grain. What could ordinary people do if they only had grain in their hands? They could only sell the grain to earn money.

Because the time for grain harvest and tax payment is relatively concentrated.

Local grain merchants would naturally try to drive down prices. Grain that could have been exchanged for one or two taels of silver would often only sell for half a tael of silver, or even less. In reality, this was exploitation and excess profit.

This is still a bumper harvest.

If there is no bumper harvest, grain production is reduced, and grain prices are extremely low, then even if all the grain is sold, it is still not enough to pay the exorbitant taxes and levies. In such cases, people can only sell their children, or even their fields and land.

This is the most standard example of land annexation.

They only pay land tax.

Many of the exploitative methods employed by powerful families became unnecessary.

This is only one aspect; what actually hit them harder were the supply and marketing cooperatives and purchasing stations established by Ding Shui, as well as the comprehensive infrastructure construction following the abolition of corvée labor. The supply and marketing cooperatives provided the vast majority of necessities for ordinary people at extremely low prices, preventing any sudden price increases.

The purchasing station buys all products from the people at fair prices.

Of course, the main purpose was to collect grain and maintain stability.

After the abolition of corvée labor, comprehensive infrastructure construction was launched, including water conservancy projects, road construction, and housing construction. This meant that those who participated in labor received wages, and with wages, they had money to spend. When wages were not low, and the price of grain sold by supply and marketing cooperatives remained relatively stable or not high, it was only natural that many people who did not own land or had been renting land would choose to stop renting land and instead go to work.

The population is quite large now.

But it wasn't excessively high.

Furthermore, Ding Shui only promoted various advanced agricultural tools on state-run farms and did not sell them at low prices. As a result, the serious consequence of this situation was that the powerful families who held large amounts of land had no one to help them farm.

Land left uncultivated is utterly useless.

Not to mention, Ding Shui had previously stipulated that if a certain piece of land remained uncultivated for a year, it would be considered ownerless and directly reclaimed by the state.

In such circumstances, local powerful families had no choice but to either find ways to cause trouble, reduce land rent, or even spend exorbitant amounts of money to hire people to help them farm.

Those who caused trouble basically all had their homes raided.

The rest can be easily calculated to be unprofitable. So in the end, most of the powerful families had no choice but to sell their land in order to minimize their losses. The land in Dingshui was consolidated and designated as a state-owned farm once a certain number of acres were collected, and then mechanized farming was implemented.

In addition, those grain merchants who wanted to hoard and speculate also went bankrupt on a large scale. After all, they wanted to ensure food security, so how could Ding Shui let them go?

In addition, there were many other merchants such as salt merchants...

They all basically have similar endings.

After their exorbitant profits disappeared, the cost of living for the vast majority of ordinary people decreased. They went from simply surviving to having the means and ability to enjoy life a little more. For example, they could think about eating more, eating better, or buying clothes or a bar of soap for aesthetic reasons.

In addition, Xiao Hei's guidance led to a clean and efficient administration.

It would be difficult for people's living standards not to improve.

However, at this time, many aspects still depended on Xiao Hei, and on Ding Shui's ability to continuously materialize things through the Illusionary Realm of the Great Void.

Therefore, Ding Shui's main direction going forward is...

We must strengthen the foundation and gradually stabilize and sustain the current somewhat superficial and unstable prosperity.

She also took a pregnancy pill.

At the same time, taking advantage of the properties of the Pregnancy Elixir and the opportunity to assess and promote officials nationwide without gender restrictions, they successfully obtained blood samples from tens of thousands of outstanding men and women, which were successfully integrated into the gestation sac after contact.

Whether it's the Pregnancy Pill for Women or the Pregnancy Pill for Children, during the first three months after taking it, when you come into contact with bodily fluids containing other people's genes, you will automatically absorb the superior gene fragments in them, modify and improve your original genes, thereby making the genes of the child conceived in your body more perfect and powerful.

Theoretically speaking, the more genes you are exposed to, the more high-quality genes you will acquire.

The smarter and stronger the child will be.

This kind of elixir is a genius's creation tool; it would be such a waste to just use it to have children.

In addition, Ding Shui also needs an excellent successor.

So it was only natural for her to choose to do it.

With the genetic supplementation from tens of thousands of outstanding men and women from all over the country, Ding Shui's daughter was naturally exceptional. So outstanding that after she turned five, Ding Shui felt it would be a waste of her talent to raise her as an emperor, so he later changed his original plan.

I plan to do it while I'm still alive.

Try to develop a relatively comprehensive system.

Afterwards, Ding Shui did not prevent her daughter from learning other knowledge that interested her, except for teaching her some imperial arts. This directly led to her daughter's outstanding performance in many aspects. She could learn something quickly and master it in no time. With a little effort, she could innovate. However, she did not have much interest in scientific research.

His main strength lies in his exceptional artistic talent.

Painting, calligraphy, embroidery, music, sculpture, and so on.

He was proficient in almost everything, like a founding father.

It's clear that having good genes and being intelligent is one thing, but which direction one puts their efforts into is another. However, this is normal; it's impossible for all people with good genes to develop in the same direction.

In response, Ding Shui could only continue to improve the system.

Furthermore, he had Xiao Hei construct several illusory miniature worlds within the Realm of Illusion, allowing his daughter to experience the life of an ordinary commoner in these illusory worlds whenever she had free time. He even deliberately arranged for her to experience being bullied by powerful figures and harmed by officials, implying that in an absolutely corrupt environment, no matter how clever a person is, it is useless.

The suffering that must be endured will still be endured.

The smarter and more insightful you are, the more pain you experience.

After all, intelligence is not the same as power.

In this situation, no matter how much her daughter's interests leaned towards art, she wouldn't become a foolish ruler who was ignorant of the people's suffering and lacked empathy, nor would she be blinded by officials, coupled with a well-established system.

As long as you don't do anything reckless or silly.

There's nothing wrong with him being a wise and benevolent ruler during a prosperous era.

Later, her daughter, the Nine Palaces Empress, did not disappoint Ding Shui's expectations. Although she was sometimes unprofessional, she did a good job as an emperor, and the government was relatively clean and efficient during her reign.

Most importantly, she didn't have Xiao Hei's help.

In terms of cultivating successors, she basically chose a similar path to Ding Shui, such as using the fertility pills left by Ding Shui and selecting blood samples from outstanding men and women across the country to improve the child's genes.

Another example is using the Reincarnation Bead left behind by Xiao Hei.

To prevent children from being unaware of the hardships faced by ordinary people.

At the time, both Ding Shui and Xiao Hei thought that using a virtual world to cultivate successors was a good method.

Furthermore, Xiao Hei also considered that after it left this world, the power of faith could not be absorbed by it across countless worlds, as it was not yet that powerful.

It would be a waste to just ignore it.

So they collaborated with Ding Shui to create dozens of different illusory miniature worlds and refine them into Reincarnation Beads, using the power of related faiths as energy, specifically to cultivate royal successors, to ensure that they would at least not be too bad in nature.

The effect was clearly quite good; starting with the Ninth Empress, seven consecutive empresses were all wise rulers.

However, the power of faith dwindled over time, and the remaining fertility pills also had an expiration date, gradually becoming ineffective. By the time the ninth empress ascended the throne, the legacy left by Ding Shui had completely vanished. The illusory miniature world within the Reincarnation Pearl had essentially collapsed due to insufficient power of faith, and the remaining dozens of fertility pills had also completely decayed over time.

As a result, the ninth empress had to find a man herself, rely on luck to have children, and after giving birth, she was unsure of her children's talents. At the same time, she had to find ways to send them to the common people to experience their hardships.

But in this case, one must completely conceal their identity.

They would undoubtedly be afraid that they might encounter danger.

How could they possibly see the real world, or truly suffer, if they didn't completely hide their identities?

Even if you are killed inside the Reincarnation Bead, nothing will happen.

In the real world, we can't really let them get killed.

Therefore, from this point on, the education of heirs undoubtedly fell into a rut. In addition, the talents of heirs were uncertain. In the past, regardless of the heirs' hobbies, they were at least known to be intelligent.

It's hard to say what will happen if we try to have natural pregnancies now.

Whether it's a family or royalty, the worst thing is not having a capable successor. If they want to maintain their power without a capable successor, they have to force some fools to the forefront. If these fools have self-awareness and can smoothly transition the family business, and there are also capable successors among their descendants, then things are alright.

If you lack self-awareness, you'll just be fooling around.

Meanwhile, no suitable successor has yet emerged from the descendants.

That would mean we're truly doomed.

The ninth empress, with exceptionally superior genes, was dissatisfied with all her children, finding them all lacking in intelligence. Most importantly, each of her children had a clearly identified father, and the families behind those fathers quickly seized the opportunity to manipulate the succession struggle.

It stabilized the royal succession for nine generations.

The problems began to appear in this generation.

The newly enthroned ruler was no longer exceptionally outstanding, but rather the best among the worst. In other dynasties, she might have been considered a wise ruler, but compared to her nine predecessors, she was only regarded as a mediocre ruler by later generations.

After that, each generation was worse than the last, until the last empress was murdered during childbirth.

Ultimately, he was usurped by the one-word king.

The vassal kingdoms that had initially declared their submission were already restless due to the instability within the Tianhong Empire. Once the One-Word Parallel King completely usurped the throne, and no one intervened to stop him or kill him, the vassal kingdoms knew that the being their ancestors feared had truly departed. Therefore, they naturally rebelled and declared independence.

At the same time, we should try our best to erase the history of that year.

This plunged the world into chaos.

The nine virtuous empresses, who together maintained the longest golden age of over three hundred years, have now become nothing more than historical legends.