Muhetaer received Huizhen’s telegram and finally believed this beeping thing could truly transmit messages across a thousand li.
Despite having undergone training, he still couldn’t help but have his expression change slightly. How terrifying was this?
This meant that while they still knew nothing about the Hua Kingdom, they had already seen them clearly through this device. Information that would take them one month, two months, or even longer to transmit could be known by them instantaneously.
Muhetaer could no longer sit still and immediately returned to the royal city to report.
Wu Liang watched him leave. Along with Muhetaer, quite a few people checked out and left. Go ahead, be alarmed, be in awe, accept our embrace.
Our Majesty is broad-minded, merely wanting children away from home to be safe and smooth, and also wanting people of foreign lands to experience the beauty of our Hua Xia.
To build relay stations, they must ensure smooth road traffic, so the first priority was ensuring road safety.
Preventing traveling merchants from being arbitrarily robbed and murdered by bandits—only then could merchants conduct business with confidence and boldness, and travelers have the courage to venture outward.
Through years of bandit suppression work, within Central Plains territory, larger-scale bandit groups had all been exterminated. No bandit gang exceeded twenty people.
A few lawbreakers gathering together to rob and plunder was unavoidable.
After the large bandit nests were eliminated, local areas strengthened public security construction, plus the court’s various policies benefiting the people. Except for a few truly vicious individuals who preferred getting something for nothing, merchants liked to travel in groups and had the ability to resist these small bandits.
For a time, Hua Kingdom’s commerce flourished, north and south interconnected. Large numbers of merchants went north or south. Aristocratic families who had fled south over ten years ago to avoid war turmoil, due to strengthened north-south exchanges, no longer wholeheartedly wanted to return home but began to slowly accept southern customs and settle down in the south.
The new technologies and knowledge they brought caused agriculture, handicrafts, and commerce in the south to develop rapidly.
The oldest of the new generation born after migrating south were approaching fifteen, and those born in the year the Hua Kingdom was established were also eight years old. They had lived in the south since childhood, receiving northern education from their families, then entering schools and receiving the court’s new-style education.
They were the new generation, just like Wu Liang and these people graduating from schools—their thinking had slight differences from their predecessors.
Now, the place with the most serious bandit problem was this Silk Road.
This was the most important purpose of their relay station’s existence—ensuring the safety of Hua Kingdom merchants and travelers.
Wu Liang’s reactions all fell into Yuan Li’s eyes. He looked at Wu Liang’s resume again and again, finally saying to his subordinate, “Recruit this person.”
The subordinate received the order and personally made a trip to the Western Regions.
Although the Investigation Department had the same rank as the Six Ministries, because it reported directly to Her Majesty and had special functions, it could recruit officials ahead of the Six Ministries.
The Investigation Department’s officials came in two types, open and covert. Those like Yuan Li who could stand in the sunlight and openly reveal their identities belonged to the open category. There was also another type—they needed to hide in the shadows with other positions. In the future, they might transition from covert to open, or they might remain hidden in the shadows their entire lives until they aged and died. In the future, their files would be made public, and only then would the world see their achievements.
Yuan Li believed Wu Liang had great talent for being a covert investigator. Being just a relay station commissioner was beneath his abilities.
Wu Liang was an ambitious person. Being able to become an Investigation Department covert investigator meant he had one more path for advancement, so naturally he was willing.
He immediately agreed to take the position. From then on, his intelligence would be divided into two parts: one sent to his direct superior at the Western Route Army, one sent to the Investigation Department in Luoyang.
Because of the relay station’s opening, the Western Qiang all returned to allegiance to the court, and with the Western Route Army and Western Liang providing protection, merchants and travelers on the Silk Road grew increasingly numerous.
Camel bells rang continuously. Large quantities of Western Region gemstones, spices, copper coins, and silver coins flowed toward the Central Plains.
The Central Plains’ silk, cotton and silk cloth, glass, porcelain, and so on also flowed in large quantities toward the Western Regions. The royal courts of various nations that had been vigilant toward the Hua Kingdom discovered that Zhao Hanzhang truly only protected merchants and travelers, and after the bandits settled down, didn’t deploy troops to harass them.
The royal courts of various nations were the first to enjoy the Hua Kingdom’s exquisite silk and porcelain. Because commerce was active, their people’s income also increased, bringing increases in their tax revenue as well.
Finally, they were willing to open their hearts a little and gaze at the embrace Zhao Hanzhang extended.
The relay stations, as the first station of communication, were the first to report this change upward. So Zhao Hanzhang once again formally dispatched an envoy delegation, still with Zhao Xin as chief envoy and Zhang Shi as deputy envoy, to visit the Western Regions nations.
This time, the delegation traveled very smoothly. They visited various nations all the way and were treated as honored guests. In just two months they visited twelve countries.
The entire journey was safe, and every day they could use the telegraph to report safety to Luoyang.
The telegraph seized during the last visit to the Western Regions was also returned.
The Western Regions nations already knew this device could transmit messages across a thousand li, but they didn’t know how to use it. To compete for this item, they fought several battles privately and accidentally destroyed a small country.
Finally, several countries sat together and had craftsmen dismantle the thing, wanting to study it. In the end, they discovered that after dismantling it, not only did they not understand it, they couldn’t reassemble it either.
The telegraph became a pile of scrap metal. When the delegation came on this visit, the country that had captured Zhao Xin and Zhang Shi and made them slaves for half a year returned the item to show goodwill.
Zhao Xin acted as if he couldn’t see it had become scrap metal and hugged the thing into his arms, his face full of gratitude as he thanked the king for returning it.
The king was somewhat embarrassed and quickly said, “It’s just that the people below didn’t store it properly, and the thing broke.”
Zhao Xin indicated it didn’t matter—the main thing was that the king had this intention, which was enough.
Hearing this, the king immediately expressed that he was very interested in this device that could transmit messages across a thousand li and didn’t know how it transmitted information.
Zhao Xin lowered his eyes in thought for a moment, then raised his gaze with a smile and said, “This was made by our Majesty’s Imperial Husband, using heaven and earth to transmit information—it belongs to celestial sound. This subject is ignorant and doesn’t understand the principle, but there are professors at the Imperial Academy. If the king wants to know the detailed theory, why not send intelligent people of great wisdom to the Imperial Academy to seek the way?”
Hearing this, the king’s eyes brightened greatly. He couldn’t help but sit up straight, urgently asking, “We foreigners can also study?”
Zhao Xin smiled, “Her Majesty is broad-minded and views the people of the world as her own children. If the king sincerely seeks the way, there is nothing our Majesty would not agree to.”
The king’s heart stirred. All the countries Zhao Xin visited had their hearts stirred.
So before Zhao Xin had finished visiting all the Western Regions nations, some countries had already submitted diplomatic letters to the Hua Kingdom, wanting to send students to study in Luoyang.
Zhao Hanzhang gladly agreed.
The king didn’t know that Zhao Xin had brought several telegraphs with the delegation. When he reached Kucha, he gave one to the Kucha King to thank him for agreeing to let the Hua Kingdom build a relay station in Kucha.
This was a state gift. Of the dozen or so countries along the Silk Road, only five countries could receive this gift.