Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 238 Prison Peak

It was already evening when Murong Ruyan received Zhang Chengdao's message.

Two months is neither a long nor a short time. Logically speaking, it is a reasonable amount of time to "suppress the rebellion." However, Heshilie suddenly did not fight a siege battle like in the past. Instead, he would shout "Thunder God, help me!" in front of each city, and the general on the other side would be struck by lightning and killed, thus taking the city without bloodshed.

Later on, there was no need to shout "God of Thunder, help me!" The noble families in the Guanzhong region were counting down the days until Heshilie arrived. As soon as he arrived in a city, the city would open its gates, and even the challenge was skipped.

Similarly, the territories controlled by powerful families such as the Li, Wang, Du, Yang, Chen, and Pei, which had been established for over a thousand years, shrank more and more, until finally they were all huddled in the last city, where they were suddenly wiped out by Heshilie.

It is worth mentioning that some of these noble families who once dreamed of establishing a nation were so foolish as to send assassins to kill Heshilie Tudi, hoping to quench their thirst with poison and that killing Heshilie Tudi would solve everything.

Putting aside the fact that He Shilie Tudi is now a cultivator at the second level of Qi Refining, even a Grandmaster might not be able to kill him. Just the fact that He Shilie Tudi is backed by the White Stone Immortal Sect and the White Stone Immortal Zhang Chengdao seems to be something they are burying their heads in the sand.

I don’t know whether I should praise them or not, but at least they weren’t stupid enough to send someone to assassinate Zhang Chengdao.

The assassins were sent by the Du and Chen families. He Shilie originally intended to detain both families together, but Murong Ruyan, who always avoided holding grudges, wiped out dozens of people from both families, saying it was a pity that it was an accidental killing.

The cause was that these two families, knowing their warriors had failed, felt guilty. So, even after the Li and Wang families confessed and accepted their punishment, they still attempted to take innocent civilians in the city hostage to blackmail Heshi Lie Tudi.

After enduring two months of hardship, these aristocratic families were not fools. They had long since seen through the ways in which the White Stone Immortal Sect governed the region, and of course they knew what He Shilie and the others cared about. Therefore, their purpose in taking the people hostage was to pack their valuables and escape from the White Stone Immortal Sect's rule.

The neighboring country is Jinsha Kingdom, which had many dealings with the former Zhou Kingdom. As powerful families in the Guanzhong region and border areas, the Du and Chen families naturally amassed wealth through various means and engaged in smuggling. It was not impossible for them to seek a way to Jinsha Kingdom, especially since the Guanzhong region had not been completely taken back by Heshilie before several passes leading to Jinsha Kingdom in the Western Regions were strictly controlled by the Li family.

Unexpectedly, in order to gain merit and atone for her crime, Li, who had originally agreed to flee to Jinsha Kingdom with Du and Chen, turned around and betrayed the Du and Chen families. When Murong Ruyan and Heshilie suddenly arrived, dozens of people from the Du and Chen families were huddled in a fortified village and refused to come out. On the other hand, several members of the Du and Chen families, who were acting as "death warriors," remained in a small town and threatened Heshilie to suddenly open the gates and release them, or else they would massacre the people in the town.

On the one hand, He Shilie was still somewhat hesitant to act rashly, intending to slowly wear down the enemy before making his move. However, he did not expect that Murong Ruyan, who disliked being threatened, would immediately have Tang Xiaoyu subdue the "death warriors" from the Du and Chen families, and then use heavenly lightning to blow the fortified village to pieces, leaving no survivors, their deaths extremely gruesome.

Afterwards, he said, "I wanted to force them out, but they all stubbornly stayed in the fortress like turtles. I didn't control the lightning very well, so of course I accidentally injured them!"

Heshilie wisely did not expose this.

It's as if the Second Senior Sister who precisely killed every defending general a while ago, without even accidentally hitting the bricks on the city wall, wasn't her.

Although everyone tacitly and deliberately ignored the matter, they grew increasingly fearful of Murong Ruyan.

Besides the Du and Chen families, there were also members from the Li, Wang, Yang, and Pei families. The Li family had the most members, over three hundred, while the Wang, Yang, and Pei families combined only had a little over two hundred. However, at Murong Ruyan's insistence, these families were implicated, resulting in a massive group of over a thousand people being sent to the Xiangwu City teleportation station. No wonder Murong Ruyan wrote to Zhang Chengdao asking what to do. These thousand-plus people were first led by Murong Ruyan and teleported in batches to the Chang'an City teleportation station, and then Pei Zhao, the temporary station manager, teleported them little by little to Baishi Mountain.

The whole process took a whole day, from morning till night, before we finally settled this group of people down.

Their lodging was located on an unused main peak in Baishi Mountain. Originally, it had no name, but Zhang Chengdao gave it a special name, "Zhenyu Peak," because of this group of people. He also buried a bamboo fence around the mountain and set up access restrictions to create a natural barrier that prevented the group of people from coming out.

However, Zhang Chengdao, who had no manpower available for management, had to add another heavy burden to Ye Chengyu, who was relatively less busy than Xu Ying and the others, and ask him to help manage Zhenyu Peak.

Zhenyu Peak was carefully selected by Zhang Chengdao. He managed to squeeze twelve mine shafts into it, but even so, he couldn't assign all of the more than a thousand people to work. Xu Ying thoughtfully suggested, "Sect Master, you might as well select some people with lighter crimes who are easier to manage and send them to Lingyao Peak and Linggeng Peak. I heard that these two peaks are also short-handed and need more labor."

This suggestion did serve as a reminder to Zhang Chengdao.

Not only these two peaks, but also those engaged in logging, blacksmithing, smelting, and even the planned printing house specifically for printing books within the sect, continued to have manpower!
While these prisoners were not in charge of management, their work still met the requirements of "labor reform."

Zhang Chengdao nodded and said, "That makes sense. It is indeed necessary to distinguish between those who commit serious crimes and those who commit minor crimes. Moreover, if you learn a skill, you can make a living normally even after you have finished serving your sentence."

While wanting cheap labor was one aspect, what truly convinced Zhang Chengdao to send these people to work in the Baishi Mountain mines was the concept of "labor reform."

As the saying goes, "You don't know the cost of firewood and rice until you're in charge of the household," and "You don't know the hardship of labor until you've done it."

Those who eat meat are often considered base, and this is often the case.

Punishment is never the goal, but a means.

Of course, even after these people finish their sentences, there will definitely be a lot of people who are dissatisfied, but that's okay. The purpose of making them mine or do manual labor was to ensure that they could survive on their own after serving their sentences. It's a safety net. As for whether they will go astray in the future...

Then see you at Zhenyu Peak.

Zhang Chengdao couldn't be happier to have more cheap labor available, as these were natural cattle and horses that could be used without any moral burden!

(End of this chapter)