The Empress’s Gigolo

As soon as he returned to Dayao, Ren Baqian became very busy. He even relegated the wedding that was due in two months’ time to the back of his mind.

After all, a lot of things could happen in a year.

Not to mention, the development of Dayao was gradually evolving.

The things that were happening: the situation in the Ministry of Works and the Department of Commerce, the gradual recovery of Tianjing Basin, the promotion of the Rearguard commandery members, the condition of the road building prisoners of war, and the large number of students in the academy. Even though there were robot teachers, they were lagging in certain aspects. The first batch of students, who were supposed to graduate in three years, needed an extra half a year.

This was without mentioning that the Yun Nation had just been swallowed and that the whole country had an area that was 60 percent of Dayao in size. There were more than 400 cities, countless villages, and seven to eight million people.

At present, this nation was depending on the military power of Zi Donglai to rule it, along with a few warlords who had surrendered and those who sought refuge in the Yun Nation.

Ren Baqian didn’t know what these people would do to shape the Yun Nation, but he was sure that it wouldn’t be what he wanted.

Therefore, he needed to spend a lot of time to understand the various aspects of the Yun Nation before making suggestions to the empress.

Although they were proposals, they were basically ready to be implemented.

The empress had no experience in occupying a nation, and this also applied to the senior court officials.

Although Ren Baqian was also inexperienced, he had “eaten pork even though he hadn’t seen pigs run.” Besides his experience in Tianjing Basin, he had a few thousand years of history on Earth to use as a reference.

At present, the national sentiments of the two countries weren’t important issues. Instead, the important thing was to stabilize the Yun Nation by issuing laws and regulations and implementing a new system for it.

For example, the Yun Nation was set up as a protectorate with a few prefectures under it. Each city was still managed by a warlords, and the instructions were given by the protectorate so that the people of the Yun Nation could manage themselves. However, the military and the government had to be separated. In addition to the 500 aboriginal soldiers stationed in each city, there were also city guards based on the number of people. These city guards were no longer the private armies of the warlords and were put into a separate department… This was one of a series of new policies.

As for the opinions of the warlords, they could say no, but then they would have to test whether the neck or the saber was harder.

Although this would cause fear and chaos, the Yun Nation was too big, so this was the only way to quickly integrate the Yun Nation with Dayao.

Ren Baqian expended a lot of effort on these projects during this period. Furthermore, he was also busy with new thermal power plants and light bulb factories.

Neither were difficult to build.

Ren Baqian was sometimes grateful to heaven for being able to travel between two worlds.

With regard to the development of science and technology, no matter what the problem was, he could always go back to Earth to find the answer or the solution.

The new power plants were located two kilometers west of Lan City and would supply enough electric power to Lan City after their construction.

As for the light bulb factories, there wasn’t much of a problem. Although no tungsten ore had been found, carbonized bamboo wire could also be used. The only problem was the high power consumption and the short lifespan since these light bulb could only be used for four months.

For others that could travel between worlds, this would be considered a good choice.

However, Ren Baqian had a better idea, which was to bring the tungsten from Earth..

The amount of tungsten used in a bulb was minimal, Ren Baqian could bring back one ton of tungsten in a trip, and this was enough to make more than 100,000 bulbs.

Subsequently, they could slowly look for tungsten or its substitutes.

Glass wasn’t a problem. With tungsten, the next step was to fill the bulbs with nitrogen.

Before the grand wedding, Ren Baqian was confident in changing all of Lan City into a city without night.

During this period, he seldom had time to eat lunch with the empress. Every day, someone would send lunch from the imperial kitchen to the academy. After school, he would eat his meal before working on the next job.

Fortunately, after half a month, Ren Baqian managed to deal with most of the problems that had piled up and had some free time.

The first thing he did when he had time was visit the Zhang family, whose craftsmen had joined Dayao before the attack on the Yun Nation.

“Our respects to Principal Ren!”

After hearing of Ren Baqian impending visit, all the elders were waiting at the door as they had the highest respect for Ren Baqian.

At present, Ren Baqian held many positions. For example, he was the head of the Department of Commerce and the commander of the Rearguard Commandery. However, his most well-known positions were as principal of Black Bamboo Academy and prince consort.

To them, however, Ren Baqian held an even more important position.

Whether it was the accurate clock, the powerful bombs, the continuously running steam powered train, or the legendary power plant, these represented his almost infinite field of knowledge.

Not to mention that he had scored victories over them in wine making, dying cloth, and forging steel.

It could be said that Ren Baqian was far ahead of them in many fields. They were a family of craftsmen who controlled most of the 360 trades, whereas Ren Baqian was the supreme master above them.

Moreover, it wasn’t only in one profession, but in many, many fields.

In their eyes, these things interested them and mattered more than being a prince or whatever else.

This was because these things were the foundation of their profession.

“We shall talk inside.” As Ren Baqian and the crowd went inside the mansion, he could hear the sound of iron being forged.

“I heard that your recent achievement was pretty good.” Ren Baqian sat down with a smile. Although he was here to learn more about the Zhang family’s situation, he was very concerned about their progress in making clocks.

Every month, they would make some clocks, put them up for sale in the shop owned by the imperial family, and reaped a hefty profit.

This type of accurate time measuring instrument was very attractive to everyone, especially the senior officials of the imperial court.

How could anyone show his status if he didn’t have glass windows, glass cups, a clock in the hall, and spices when cooking? It would be a joke.

In a short span of over one year, these senior officials had become his loyal customers.

The Zhang family didn’t only make clocks, they also did research and development to advance their technology.

“Bring it to me.”

Soon after, a fist-sized clock was placed in front of Ren Baqian.

Seven or eight old men sat there stroking their beards proudly. Although the clock mechanism wasn’t that complicated, it wasn’t simple either. Limited by the current technology, it was due to the skills of these craftsmen that they were able to make such a small clock.

It was definitely not possible for other people to do it.

Ren Baqian held the clock in his hands. It was the size of a fist, two fingers thick, and had a metal frame. It was a table clock except that the glass face wasn’t installed yet.

That’s right, the Zhang family considered this to be a pocket watch that could be carried around.

Currently in Lan City, they could see the clock tower by lifting their heads, but outside of Lan City, they still had to look up at the sky to know the time.

With this thing around, everyone could see the correct time.

To Ren Baqian, however, it was only a table clock.

If it was more durable, it would be fine to put it in the chest pouch to use as a shield…

It was still too big though.

“It’s well made, but I hope you can make it even smaller.” Ren Baqian fiddled with it for a while before handing the clock to a guard. He planned to show it to the empress later.

In the past, the empress would have been amazed by this thing.

However, the empress had seen many things and expanded her knowledge.

It was no longer easy to surprise her.

In a way, Ren Baqian felt some regret.

A senior member of the Zhang family said, “Sir, we are working hard to make it smaller, but it’s hard to achieve in a short time.”

Ren Baqian nodded in agreement.

They changed the conversation to other topics. Ren Baqiawn got to know their current situation and learned that there were more than 1,000 people from the Zhang family in Lan City, which wasn’t a small number.

Although there were about six or seven thousand of them, many were in trading, chariot manufacturing, textiles, and other industries that weren’t useful in Lan City. As a result, they stayed put in the Yun Nation and serves the people there.

The Zhang family resided next to Jing Street and didn’t encounter much trouble as a result.

The only drawback was the lack of materials in Lan City. It was incomparable to the Yun Nation, where the market was more advanced.

Yet, as the Yun Nation became more integrated with Dayao, this aspect would start to get better.

“Sir, we would like to make more contributions. Our expertise isn’t limited to making clocks and forging steel,” the Zhang family members said in unison.

“Of course! I do not intend to leave so many of you idling here. In fact, many places really need your people.” Ren Baqian laughed. This was also part of his plan when coming here.

It was a waste for a family of craftsmen like them to do so little.

Their morale was boosted by his words.

They had been here for one and a half years, they were limited by their status as outsiders, and being confined to such a small area wasn’t what they wanted.

In that case, they might as well go to Great Xia.

Based on the words of Ren Baqian, they could finally involve themselves in more industries.

…

“Well, you can send a few smart members to enroll at the academy next year,” Ren Baqian said after telling them about his arrangements for the Zhang family. “No more than three can be selected.”

The academy couldn’t only accept aboriginals.

Since he was enrolling his disciple to the academy next year, he would simply start a class for non-aboriginals.

Besides the Zhang family, he could also enroll some from the Jing Tribe.

“Thank you very much, Sir.” Everyone was overjoyed.

Hearing this roused their spirits more than anything else.