Bringing the Railway to Daming

Singularity Publishing House.

Those who frequent the "novelists" circle in the Ming Dynasty know that the owner of this strangely named publishing house is the Ningguo Duke's Mansion. Not only does it have a powerful background, but it also wrote three novels that pioneered the "wuxia" genre, namely "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils," "The Legend of the Condor Heroes," and "The Return of the Condor Heroes," a decade or two ago.

Therefore, today, novelists in the Ming Dynasty consider it an honor to become a contracted author with Qidian Publishing House.

However, Qidian's contracted authors are divided into two categories. One category is freelance creators, who decide what content they create themselves, and the publisher will recommend and print their work based on its popularity.

Another type is the commissioned writer, who creates novels according to the publisher's requirements, even if the general content is already determined.

Publishers usually give these kinds of novels strong initial recommendations, and only reduce the level of recommendation if the response is not as expected after release.

As for the profit sharing between contracted authors and publishers, it is all based on the novel, and it varies from novel to novel.

However, to prevent authors cultivated by the publishing house from being poached by other publishing houses at high prices, a separate personal contract was signed, stipulating that the author's books must be published by Singularity Publishing House for several years.

Overall, authors who join Singularity Publishing House have a very promising future and good earning potential.

Therefore, although many authors have joined and left over the years, Singularity Publishing House still has more than 300 signed authors. It should be noted that these authors are all quite famous, so this number is quite large.

At least no other publishing house in the Ming Dynasty has signed more authors than Qidian.

Recently, Singularity Publishing House issued a "call to action," summoning all the authors of the assigned topics to the capital...

The outer city of the capital.

There is a group of buildings with a plaque that reads "Singularity Publishing House Headquarters".

This building not only occupies nearly ten acres, but its main building is a five-story reinforced concrete building, and there are several three-story pavilions around it. There are basically no buildings below three stories.

There is a spacious conference hall on the second floor of the main building.

On the second day of the ninth month of the ninth year of Yongle, more than one hundred creators of Qidian propositions who had come to the capital by invitation of the "summoning order" gathered in this meeting hall.

The conference hall was filled with rows of seats with long tables, each served with tea and snacks. The creators of the assigned topics were talking in hushed tones.

"Brother Wang, do you know why the publishing house has summoned us here?"

"They summoned all the authors of the exam questions at once—this was unprecedented. How was I supposed to know?"

"Could it be that they're going to discuss our compensation? I've heard that the publishing industry is very competitive these days, and many small publishing houses in Jiangnan have gone out of business and closed down. Will Qidian lower our compensation, or even lay off staff?"

"Brother Zhang, don't overthink it. Once the people from the publishing house arrive, you'll know why."

"My extended family of over ten people almost all rely on my royalties for a living, so it's hard not to have all sorts of wild thoughts."

"More than ten people? Brother Wang, you paid extra taxes and took two concubines, and now you complain that your household is too large?"

"Uh...that's not what I meant."

Of the more than one hundred authors, apart from a few who were talking about other things, most were discussing the purpose of the gathering, and there was all sorts of speculation.

The authors only quieted down when the editor-in-chief, editors, and other staff from Singularity Publishing House arrived at the conference hall.

Then, Kan Jinhui, editor-in-chief of Qidian, announced loudly: "Fellow contracted authors of our company, before today's meeting, let me introduce someone to you all, this gentleman next to me—the Duke of Ningguo!"

Liu Kuan, Duke of Ningguo?
The hundreds of authors were quite surprised to see the seemingly ordinary-looking old man in his early fifties on the stage. They never expected this famous and legendary figure to appear here.

It should be noted that although Qidian Publishing House was founded with funding from the Duke of Ningguo's mansion, Liu Kuan had never visited it even once in the past few decades.

After regaining their senses, the authors immediately stood up, bowed, and said in a disorderly manner, "Greetings, Duke Ningguo!"

Liu Kuan smiled and bowed in return. After everyone quieted down, he said, "Today I am here as a novel enthusiast to exchange ideas with you all. I hope you can help me create some novels on assigned topics."

"Therefore, you need not take my Duke status too seriously. Just treat me as a novel enthusiast."

Everyone laughed upon hearing this—they knew that these words were just for show, and anyone who actually overlooked Liu Kuanguo's status would be incredibly foolish.

Furthermore, even disregarding Liu Kuanguo's status as Duke, he is still the owner of Qidian Publishing House, which means he is the boss of these people. How could they be neglected? But then many people began to think about this: Duke Ningguo wants them to help him create assigned novels? Could it be that he is going to give them some inexplicable assignments to make things difficult for them?
These authors all knew that Liu Kuan was the founder and pioneer of science in the Ming Dynasty, but they did not know that the outlines, detailed outlines, and even some content of several novels such as "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" came from Liu Kuan. Naturally, they were worried that Liu Kuan, an "outsider," would come up with some inexplicable propositions.

After making some simple opening remarks, Liu Kuan quickly got to the point.

"Which of you are skilled at writing historical novels, that is, legends and historical romances about kings and generals? Please raise your hands so I can see."

After a slight hesitation, the authors began to raise their hands, eventually reaching over thirty people, almost one-fifth of the authors present.

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "When you write historical romances and legendary stories of kings and generals, you must only use official history as a reference, and you must have mixed in a lot of unofficial history, legends, and even your own fictional plots, right?"

A well-known author of the assigned topics, named "Jin Ruyu" (pen name), sitting in the front row, said with a smile: "Just as the Duke of Ningguo said—we are creating novels, so we must focus on being interesting and dramatic. If we completely respect the official history, wouldn't it become a history book?"

Liu Kuan said, "Although you have added a lot of fictional content, you still largely respect the true historical facts. For example, Yue Fei was killed by Qin Hui, so no matter what twists and turns there are in the story, his final fate was still to die unjustly, right?"

The authors, including Jin Ruyu, did not know why Liu Kuan asked this question, but they all nodded and said, "That is indeed the case."

Liu Kuan smiled and asked again, "Have any of you ever thought about changing history?"

Changing history?

Many authors were stunned.

After regaining their senses, someone frowned and asked, "May I ask, Duke Ning, how can history be changed? History consists of things that have already happened, the facts are there for all to see—for example, Yue Fei was killed by Qin Hui, even in historical novels, it would be impossible for him to live, right?"

Others chimed in, "Yes, if history is changed, wouldn't that be utter nonsense?"

Another person said, "Most readers of historical fiction novels have some knowledge of history. If the history is changed too drastically, I'm afraid the readers will criticize it."

"Besides, history is something that has already happened, how can it be changed? That doesn't make sense!"

These authors have almost all received formal schooling and studied mathematics, so even as novelists, they adhere to basic logic in their storytelling and do not write haphazardly.

Faced with these authors' questions, Liu Kuan showed no anger whatsoever, and his smile remained unchanged.

Once everyone had quieted down, he said, "Normally speaking, history consists of things that have already happened and cannot be changed."

"But if any of you here were to go back to shortly after the Jingkang Incident and meet Yue Fei, wouldn't you use your knowledge of history to change the fate of Yue Fei and others?"

The more than one hundred authors present felt as if they had been struck by lightning, their eyes wide open.

They immediately became incredibly excited and started buzzing with discussion.

"We've gone back to the Jingkang era?!"

"My God, is that even possible? Why have I never thought of this before?"

"Going back in time? That's an incredible idea!"

"Reversing time and returning people to the past—in stories of gods and demons, even top-tier beings like the Three Pure Ones might not be able to do that, right?"

"Just because the Dao Ancestor couldn't do it, it can't happen?"

"If I could go back to the Jingkang era, I would definitely change Yue Fei's fate, and even bring that treacherous Qin Hui to his end sooner!"

"Tch, Brother Qu, you're so weak you can't even kill a chicken. How could you possibly defeat Qin Hui? You'd be better off assisting Yue Fei, driving the Jurchens back to Liaodong, and recovering the lost territories of the Han people!"

“You all oversimplify things. Why was Yue Fei wrongfully executed? It was because he wanted to welcome back the ‘Two Emperors.’ How could Emperor Gaozong of Song be willing to do that? Even without Qin Hui, as long as Yue Fei did not change his mind, Emperor Gaozong would still have him killed.”

"So, if I really went back to the late Northern Song Dynasty, I would follow the example of our founding emperor, raise a righteous army, recruit famous generals and fierce warriors from the early Southern Song Dynasty such as Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, conquer the world myself, first destroy the Jin, Western Xia, and Tubo, then destroy the Song Dynasty, and establish a new dynasty..."

"Shh, you can't talk about things like that, Brother Zhang, be careful what you say."

"..." (End of this chapter)