300: Chapter 301 Upgraded Road, A Broad Road to Heaven

Wang Baobao's orders spread throughout the military camp.

The Mongol soldiers shrugged, indicating they did not care; as long as there was a war to fight and meat to eat, it was fine. As for women, the higher-ups would definitely just turn a blind eye.

On the side of the Korean army, there was a chorus of wailing.

They wailed because they lost the benefits outside of "military merit," but they were glad that there was finally a reason to restrain those lawless soldiers, avoiding bigger trouble that might annoy their new masters.

For a time, within Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures at the western end of Honshu, apart from routine material confiscation and alert patrols, it was truly much quieter.

Only the "viewing mound" on the coast, built from the corpses of 100,000 Japanese, mud, and lime, exuded an eerie atmosphere under the wind and sun, seemingly demonstrating against Takamagahara.

Meanwhile, Kyushu Island across the strait was a scene of bustling activity.

There were no mountains of corpses, no smoke rising to the sky, and no clamor from soldiers looting.

What there was, was strict military discipline.

And strings of prisoners tied together with ropes were being loaded onto ships; the men would be sent to Siberia to plant potatoes and undergo labor reform.

Most of the women were young and beautiful. Now that the Ming Kingdom's national power was flourishing, its population did not quite match its vast territory.

Some would be sent to China.

Some would be settled locally. With this one battle, Kyushu Island became empty. As the Ming Auxiliary Army stationed themselves there and these fertile lands were planted with Ming seeds, the population of Kyushu would welcome a new wave of growth.

Speaking of which, the Azure Dragon Army did not seem very interested in these things, because they had higher pursuits.

That was the fourth level of the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art and the first level of the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth Mind-Cultivation Technique just passed down by the Ming Emperor.

This was because the great ming code explicitly stated that the descendants of the Ming Central Army—the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise armies—must maintain pure Chinese lineage.

Those who took foreign women as wives had to withdraw from the Five Armies.

However, from beginning to end, only those who died in battle existed; there were no voluntary withdrawals.

These 1.8 million Ming Five Armies soldiers, all of whom Cultivated the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art and began to Cultivate the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, were the core strength of the Ming Army.

Lu Chen, who passed down the precious manuals, no longer cared about these things and was just floating in mid-air, overlooking the undulating mountains and primitive hills beneath his feet.

The Azure Dragon Army and the Auxiliary Army had already taken major strongholds such as Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima according to his instructions.

But these strongholds were like scattered pearls, isolated by poor roads and steep terrain, making communication and material mobilization between them extremely inconvenient.

"Roads, they must be built."

Lu Chen muttered to himself, his voice dissipating in the wind.

He turned a blind eye to the "military discipline" problem on Wang Baobao's side.

It was better to come to Kyushu and do some real work.

For example, being an infrastructure maniac once again.

He extended a finger and tapped lightly on the rugged ground below.

"Lin!"

"Hum—"

Invisible ripples spread out.

"Lie!"

The xuanyuan sword appeared!

Earth suppresses the prison!

The earth began to tremble, as if it had come alive.

The originally steep slopes visibly became gentle, deep ravines were filled with soil, and protruding rocks sank into the ground. A wide and flat roadbed, like a paintbrush sketching on a canvas, instantly extended from the coast into the interior.

Earth and stone rolled, but there was no dust; everything was precisely controlled under a silent, great power.

As soon as the roadbed was formed, Lu Chen changed his incantation.

Mysterious Gold Splitting the Air was activated.

A stone mountain in the distance shook violently, and sheets of stone slabs with uniform thickness and standard dimensions were cut down, as if operated by an invisible assembly line, flying automatically and accurately paving the newly leveled roadbed.

"Click, click..."

The stone slabs were joined seamlessly, flatter than what the most experienced craftsmen would spend months laying. The seams even shimmered with a faint metallic luster, as if welded together by some force.

A roadbed and road surface alone were not enough.

The Cangming Sea-Overturning Scripture drew in nearby water sources, or condensed water vapor directly from the air, washing the stone road surface and taking away floating dust. At the same time, drainage ditches were quietly shaped on both sides of the roadbed to ensure the road surface would not accumulate water.

When encountering a small river, the water flow automatically separated, revealing the riverbed; earth and stone surged, sturdy bridge piers rose from the ground, and huge stone beams spanned across them. A stone bridge was completed in the blink of an eye.

When encountering dense forests, the Azure Emperor Longevity Scripture brushed past gently; the trees blocking the way either moved aside automatically or dissipated into pure wood-attribute energy, not even needing to be uprooted. The vegetation on the roadside was also constrained to prevent them from encroaching on the road surface.

Occasionally, Lu Chen would also use the Lihuo Heaven-Burning Scripture, not for destruction, but to treat certain special soil types with high temperatures, making them harder and more stable.

Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth.

The power of the Five Elements operated freely in his hands, as if directing his own arms.

This was not Mortal engineering; this was immortal art, it was Dao magic, it was dimensionality reduction strikes.

Lu Chen's figure flashed continuously over Kyushu Island.

From Fukuoka to Saga, from Nagasaki to Kumamoto, from Oita to Miyazaki, and then to Kagoshima at the southernmost tip...

Roads of bluestone slabs, ten zhang wide, straight and flat, comparable to the highways of later generations, spread across the land of Kyushu Island at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Cutting paths through mountains, building bridges over water.

This massive project, which would take years or even decades for Mortals to complete, was as easy and relaxed as a sandbox game in Lu Chen's hands.

The soldiers of the Azure Dragon Army, those Auxiliary Army troops, and the few Japanese women hiding in the distance and peeking, were all stunned.

They watched that figure flickering in the air; every time he raised his hand, every time he waved his sleeve, it was accompanied by the rumbling of the earth and the changing of the terrain.

Mountains bowed, rivers changed course.

The steep mountain roads that originally required days to detour were pierced through in a straight line.

The turbulent rivers that originally required ferries were crossed by sturdy stone bridges.

Efficiency?

The word efficiency did not exist, because this simply did not conform to common sense.

A short ten-plus days passed.

Inside Kyushu Island, a road network connecting all major cities had already taken shape.

The bluestone road surface shone with a warm luster in the sun.

On both sides of the road were neat drainage ditches and constrained vegetation belts.

Standing on the city walls of any occupied city, one could see one or several straight roads extending into the distance, magnificent in scale.

But this was not over yet.

Lu Chen's figure appeared at the northernmost tip of Kyushu Island, the Kanmon Straits facing Honshu Island across the sea.

On the strait, a magnificent cross-sea bridge also made of giant stones already stood there.

"Rumble..."

At the northern end of the Kanmon Straits Bridge, the road continued to extend northward, cutting through the rugged terrain of Yamaguchi Prefecture like cutting tofu, pointing directly at the area where Wang Baobao's army was located.

The mountains, forests, and hills along the way automatically made way before the road.

Wang Baobao's troops, who were camping on the outskirts of a town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, suddenly felt a slight tremor from the ground.

"What's going on? An earthquake?" A Mongol chiliarch asked suspiciously as he walked out of the tent.

Then, he and all the surrounding soldiers stared blankly at the horizon in the distance.

A gray "ribbon," wide beyond belief, was extending toward their camp at an incredible speed; wherever it passed, all obstacles vanished.

"What... what the hell is that?"

"A road! It's a road! Someone is building a road!"

"Who? Who is so fast?!"

Exclamations rose one after another.

Wang Baobao also heard the news and walked out of the main military tent. Seeing this strange sight, he was stunned for a moment, then rubbed his chin, a wry expression on his face.

He knew who did it.

Except for that divine Emperor, who else had this heaven-reaching ability?

Not long after, the ten-zhang-wide bluestone road was paved directly to the edge of his camp, then made an elegant turn and continued to extend toward Hiroshima.

A messenger rode a fast horse, galloping along the newly paved stone road, his speed many times faster than on the dirt road.

Twenty days to build a thousand-mile thoroughfare.

For Lu Chen, it was nothing more than a simple task.

Japan's Kyushu, which had suffered from the ravages of war, had unexpectedly become the first place in the world in this era to possess a network comparable to the highways of later generations.