Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

Chapter 70 Struggle to Take Jian'an City

Although the combined area of ​​Dongying Town and Xiyu Town is quite small, even if Mo Yuming did his best to transform these two towns into a castle, it would only be a small castle at best.

However, many of Mo Yuming's secrets are hidden beneath that surface, and they must not be known to outsiders.

Therefore, the best solution is to prevent outsiders from entering, but this place is a necessary route between the two states, with hundreds or thousands of people passing through every day, and perhaps even more in the future.

Mo Yuming knew that banning passage would surely incur divine wrath and public resentment. Banning travel was clearly not feasible; the only solution was to find an alternative route so that merchants would no longer need to take a detour.

Geographically speaking, building a bridge between the cliff of self-sacrifice and the slope of certain death would be the most suitable option.

This place is the narrowest point between the two continents in the entire canyon, apart from the two towns, with a distance of only about fifty feet between them.

Although it is nearly ten times wider than the span of only a few feet between the two towns, it is still within an acceptable range.

With the resources and technology that Mo Yuming currently controls, he is fully capable of building a bridge in this seemingly insurmountable place.

After all, in a place where there are no overloaded trucks, it is not difficult to build a small bridge that can only accommodate a few horse-drawn carts.

Therefore, Mo Yuming decided to build this bridge at the same time as the auction house. Since his thousands of soldiers had nothing to do all day anyway, he might as well give them something to do.

They are not good enough for the technical work of construction, but they can handle ordinary moving and odd jobs.

Therefore, Mo Yuming summoned General Jiang and ordered him to make arrangements to divide his officers and soldiers into several groups. Apart from the soldiers who took turns to train, the rest of the soldiers took turns to go to the construction site to carry out construction.

For the construction of the auction house, Mo Yuming only needed to hand over the designed blueprints to the craftsmen. However, for this intercontinental bridge, Mo Yuming had to personally supervise its construction on-site.

In this world that values ​​martial arts over literature and emphasizes mystical techniques and formations, no one has ever thought of building such a long bridge. Naturally, the technology in this area is as backward as a toddler learning to walk.

Therefore, Mo Yuming had to do it himself. Fortunately, this strange world possessed materials beyond imagination.

Since there was no reinforced concrete, they used the local tempered steel mixed with tough iron, and had the blacksmiths forge it into iron chains to replace it.

This iron chain is extremely flexible, like a nimble snake, and has extremely high tensile strength.

Mo Yuming once conducted an experiment and found that this iron cable has a tensile strength several times higher than that of high-strength steel wire ropes on Earth, and it is also easier to process and uses more common materials.

Mo Yuming used local materials, first securing one end of eight iron chains, each about the thickness of a finger and fifty feet long, firmly to the rocks of the Death Slope with iron anchors.

Next, Fengye, with the traction rope, flew across the canyon like a bird and jumped to the Wushuang Hotel on the other side. Then, using the traction machine that had been set up there beforehand, he stretched all eight iron cables across at the same time and tightened and secured them in sequence.

Although each iron chain is only as thick as a finger, its strength is in no way inferior to that of a steel cable as thick as an arm on Earth, so there is no need to worry about its strength.

Next, carefully polished stone slabs are laid on the iron chains. Each stone slab has eight grooves pre-carved into its bottom, like a nest tailor-made for the iron chains, which can be perfectly embedded in them.

Interlocking buckles are installed between adjacent stone slabs. Once all the stone slabs are laid, they are securely fastened with iron locks, making the entire bridge surface tightly connected as one, like an indestructible Great Wall of steel.

To ensure the bridge's sturdiness, Mo Yuming installed ten cables on the rooftops at both ends of the ten-zhang-high bridgehead, which, like giant steel dragons, tightly held the bridge in place.

With such a solid main structure, the bridge is basically safe and sound.

In less than two months, a brand-new iron chain bridge, resembling a giant steel dragon, lay across the continent. Mo Yuming even gave the bridge a name: "Bridge of Resurrection."

Because this bridge connects the cliff of self-sacrifice at one end and the slope of death at the other, both of which are considered desolate and dangerous places by the world, the existence of this bridge has given them a glimmer of hope.

The bridge is named "Resurrection Bridge" to capture this sentiment. And these two places, which the world considers barren wastelands, are, only known to those who have jumped into the abyss from them, as not dangerous dens, but rather places of unexpected joy and hope.

Once the main construction is complete, the subsequent decorative construction will be a piece of cake.

Mo Yuming handed over the blueprints designed according to the ancient covered bridge styles on Earth to the craftsmen, requiring them to strictly follow the blueprints in the construction, and then he no longer had to do everything himself.

The supplies for thousands of soldiers, the construction of the auction house, the bridge, and the city walls and fortresses all required a massive investment of funds.

Mo Yuming has very few magic crystals left, and his main source of income is currently the Wushuang Hotel.

The Wushuang Hotel has been open for more than three months and its operations are gradually improving.

However, after more than half a year of fighting two battles and being blockaded by the Yan Kingdom and the Long Kingdom, the number of customers is very small. Only a handful of merchants choose to do business in Wushuang City, so the occupancy rate of the hotel is less than 30%.

The regular restaurants in the main hall were doing decent business, but far from being bustling. The VIP rooms on the second floor were almost empty. This was mainly due to the fact that the unique features of Wushuang City were not yet known to the public, and wealthy merchants and tycoons who came and went were extremely rare.

The dismal business left Mo Yuming struggling to make ends meet, often feeling that his income was insufficient to cover his expenses. Only about forty merchants rented Mo Yuming's commercial space, less than one-tenth of the total, and business was lukewarm at best.

If it weren't for Mo Yuming's implementation of preferential policies such as rent reductions, many business owners would probably have already turned away.

Therefore, the underground shopping mall is currently unable to bring Mo Yuming any return.

After the Bridge of Resurrection was completed, the shops in Yingdong Town and Yuxi Town instantly became deserted. Traveling directly between the two continents via the Bridge of Resurrection saved nearly three hours compared to before, so no one wanted to take the old route anymore.

As a result, the merchants who were still holding on in the two towns were completely hopeless and had no choice but to shamelessly beg Mo Yuming to buy their shops.

Mo Yuming, being a magnanimous man, offered a fair price for the acquisition. For those shops that still wanted to develop in the area, Mo Yuming rented them spaces in the underground mall at more favorable prices, without deliberately making things difficult for them because of their previous lack of cooperation.

Therefore, all the shops in Yingdong Town and Yuxi Town were successfully acquired by Mo Yuming.

With new merchants moving in, the underground shopping mall has taken on a somewhat fresh look.

But this had little effect on Mo Yuming.

Therefore, Mo Yuming had to find other ways to raise funds. For example, he asked Huang Xiaoxiao to arrange for people to open a direct-sale store in the underground shopping mall to sell some gold and mineral stones that Mo Yuming brought from the valley at low prices.

However, business in underground shopping malls is generally sluggish, so the benefits they bring are only a drop in the bucket.

After discussing with Huang An, Jia Shan and other people with business experience, everyone agreed that the most important thing to make Wushuang Castle's business boom was to find a way to increase the turnover of people.

To increase foot traffic, the primary task is to lift the blockade of Wushuang City by Jian'an City and Gu'an City.

The vast majority of merchants traveling to and from Wushuang City come from or pass through these two cities to enter Wushuang City.

The situation is better in Gu'an City, because the road into Yingzhou forks outside Gu'an City. Unless you are a merchant going to Yan Kingdom, you can choose not to enter Gu'an City and take the fork in the road to bypass Gu'an City and go somewhere else.

Merchants from Yingzhou can also detour to enter Wushuang City.

But this doesn't work in Jian'an City; merchants going anywhere must pass through Jian'an City.

However, it is basically impossible for Mo Yuming to resolve this issue peacefully.

They killed the commander of Jian'an City and occupied the western part of the town.

This was undoubtedly a huge slap in the face to the city lord of Jian'an City.

Given the character of the city lord of Jian'an City, he would never forgive Mo Yuming, let alone lift the blockade and sanctions against Wushuang City.

Since they are irreconcilable enemies, it would be better to strike first and eliminate them! After much thought, Mo Yuming concluded that the only solution was to control Jian'an City and seize the initiative.

However, trying to attack Jian'an City, which was defended by tens of thousands of soldiers, with only a few thousand hastily assembled soldiers would be like throwing an egg against a rock, a suicidal act.

Therefore, outsmarting the enemy is the only viable option.