Chapter 361 Those who are not of our kind will surely have different hearts.

On the first day of the second month in the twenty-first year of Daqian, the deafening roar of cannons once again resounded across the main island of Yingzhou.

This time, Cao Xing had brought down all forty cannons and hundreds of shells.

Then, Soga Ebi experienced the true meaning of shock and terror.

Looking at the samurai and soldiers before him, who were scurrying like rats in fear of the massive noise and the gruesome deaths of their companions, he knew he was finished.

If he had surrendered at the very beginning, perhaps he would have had a chance to obtain the status of a "Second-class Han Citizen."

He might have even become the leader of a new group traveling to Daqian to pay homage to the Emperor.

But he had chosen to be stubborn and resist, which was equivalent to cutting off his own retreat.

Soga Ebi sat motionless on his warhorse, as if he had been struck by a freezing spell.

He watched as the Xuanjia Army and naval soldiers flanked them from both sides, herding the scattered people together like livestock.

Aside from the more than two thousand killed or wounded in the two rounds of shelling, another thousand or so were killed for resisting, and a few fast runners managed to escape the encirclement.

The remaining hundred thousand plus Yingzhou soldiers all became Cao Xing's prisoners.

These included the Yingzhou Emperor, the Seii Taishogun Soga Ebi, as well as over a dozen High Monks and dozens of Daimyos.

No matter how noble their previous status had been, at this moment, they were all the same, crouching there miserably awaiting their final judgment.

Soon, a pair of boots covered with iron plates appeared in Soga Ebi's line of sight.

He looked up blankly, his mouth twitching at Cao Xing, but he couldn't utter a single word.

It was Cao Xing who spoke first.

"Are you Soga Ebi? The Seii Taishogun of the Dongying Shogunate?"

Soga Ebi had followed an embassy to Luoyang, the former capital of Daqian, and had lived there for over half a year.

It was in Daqian that he had purchased a batch of phased-out Daqian armor and weapons by bribing officials.

After returning to Dongying, he used this superior equipment to arm his family's forces.

Since then, the Soga clan had been unstoppable, conquering everyone and becoming the universally recognized leader.

He had even forced the Dongying Emperor to appoint him as the Seii Taishogun, granting him nominal command over the nation's military power.

Hearing Cao Xing's question, Soga Ebi nodded and replied in extremely stiff Mandarin,

"I... I am So... Soga Ebi."

Cao Xing walked around him twice and then shook his head.

"Boring, truly boring. I thought you'd have three heads and six arms, but you're just another shorty."

After saying that, he scanned everyone crouching there before finally turning his gaze toward the Dongying Emperor.

"Except for that midget Emperor, who is to be sent back to Daqian, send everyone else to the mines for me..."

After thinking for a moment, he added,

"Tell the brothers to move faster, or our spoils of war will all run away."

The soldiers naturally understood what Cao Xing meant and cheered as they went to escort the prisoners.

With these hundred thousand plus prisoners, the progress of the mining operations indeed sped up significantly.

Without the protection of the men, the remaining elderly, weak, sick, and disabled became like lambs to the slaughter.

Countless people were sent to the mountains to work as forced labor under the threat of whips and steel blades.

Only the young women who were still fertile and the ignorant infants were spared.

Of course, there were also a very few submissive people who knew Mandarin, and Cao Xing was not stingy in granting them the status of Second-class Han Citizens.

These people put on the clothes of overseers and, with long whips in their hands, immediately turned into demons and began to lash their former compatriots.

By the fifth month of the twenty-first year of Daqian, all the nations and forces across Dongying had been wiped out.

The two gold mines and one silver mine found according to the map provided by Gao Yuan also began to operate at full capacity.

As the first two waves of immigrants arrived, the entirety of Dongying began to enter a brand-new era.

With the help of cement, two ports were being built, and the Dongying capital of Kyoto was also being reconstructed.

Everywhere was a scene of prosperity; the immigrants who had been allocated farmland and women were overjoyed and worked even harder.

After unloading the immigrants and a large amount of supplies such as high-quality seeds and farm tools, the massive fleet began its return journey with hulls full of gold and silver.

With this gold and silver injected into the national treasury, Gao Yuan could continue with infrastructure construction while supporting the army's two-front offensive.

The development of Jiangnan would continue, cement roads would continue to be built, and schools would continue to be established.

Dongying had just been pacified and needed a large amount of resources for development, while Taiwan and Weng Prefecture were also in the investment phase.

Money was needed everywhere!

Knowing her man's tendencies, at the end of the twenty-first year of Daqian, immediately after the first two batches of Treasure Ships full of gold and silver arrived, the Empress issued an order.

"No matter what, the national treasury must maintain a reserve of one million guan."

As one of his women, Yang Xin carried out the Empress's supreme directive very well.

This resulted in Gao Yuan having no money to spend after planning several water conservancy projects, such as dredging major river channels and clearing and deepening lakes.

Fortunately, the third and fourth batches of transport ships were about to return.

With a stable and sufficient supply of gold and silver, Gao Yuan had more confidence in everything he did.

In the Southwest region, Gao Yang had already broken through several provinces and was only about a hundred li away from the Mughal capital of Delhi.

In the Northwest region, the two great commanders joined forces, with two peerless generals as the vanguard; those Western Liang warlords were simply no match for them.

There is a saying that during the Three Kingdoms period, Guan Yu attacked Xiangyang and beat Cao Ren so badly he didn't dare leave the city, eventually flooding the seven armies, beheading Pang De, and capturing Yu Jin, yet he ultimately lost Maicheng; the main reason for this was the resource investment.

At that time, those in power in Shu Han Dynasty were unwilling to give Guan Yu too many resources, resulting in Guan Yu having only over thirty thousand troops, including recruited bandits.

Whether true or not, Gao Yuan agreed with this point, so since he had given Yue Fei and Gao Xianzhi a free hand for the western expedition, he would provide sufficient resources, satisfying their needs for money, grain, military supplies, and personnel as much as possible.

Therefore, even if his own Jiangnan development project had to stop due to a lack of funds and grain, he would never send one grain of rice less to the Northwest.

And Yue Fei and Gao Xianzhi also did Gao Yuan proud; although the Anxi Army Corps was still just a skeleton and Yue Fei had only brought the Iron Pagoda and the Fourth Division of the Beiwei Army, the two still achieved many victories.

From the spring of the twenty-first year of Daqian to the end of the year, the two had already captured three provinces, crushed over twenty thousand enemy troops, and captured tens of thousands of qiang people.

Gao Yuan did not exterminate these qiang people but instead ordered a swap, migrating all these qiang people to the hot Indian Peninsula to live among the Han immigrants.

As long as these qiang people could accept Sinicization and live peacefully, Gao Yuan didn't mind accepting them.

Meanwhile, those Indians who had lived in the prosperous tropical regions for generations were naturally transported thousands of miles to the cold and desolate Western Liang region to be used as laborers for the construction of the Great Northwest.

Of course, Gao Yuan was not so kind to these foreign races who, in later generations, repeatedly caused trouble on China's borders and even actively invaded.

Except for the young women, the rest were basically destined to work until they died.

Regarding Gao Yuan's arrangements, not only did high officials and great scholars like Song Yehong and Zheng Ting oppose them, but even Zhao Xiyao raised some objections.

However, Gao Yuan brushed them all off with the excuse that "those who are not of our race are bound to have different hearts."

The world was not yet unified, and he hadn't even become the Governor of Asia yet; he had no time to waste on such trivialities with these people, so he left it all to his beautiful wives to worry about.