Negotiations

Founding a nation in Baiyue?

Li Qi immediately realized the other party's purpose.

Just as he had said before, the symbolic meaning of many things carried power. For example... the Great Deer Kingdom had once been the Great Lu Marsh, the place where the ancient Sacred Emperor abdicated. Though the ancient Sacred Emperor had only been fifth rank at the time, that symbolic significance alone was enough to draw contention from both humans and shamans.

It was like becoming an official. Did becoming an official change your strength in any way?

The answer was that an ordinary person remained ordinary after becoming an official. Yet a mere "title" was enough to suppress others, even make them willingly work for you.

Likewise, driving a nail into Baiyue and directly founding a nation there were vastly different matters.

This was granting the Sky Swallowing Demon Lord the authority to "create a nation."

Authority meant ounces, taels, catties, jun, and stones; thus it was called weighing things and applying them evenly, knowing lightness and heaviness, judging and balancing. It could weigh light and heavy. Measure meant zhang and chi; it could measure length and shortness. All things had to be weighed and measured before they could be known.

Where there were things and affairs, weigh them, and then one knew lightness and heaviness; measure them, and then one knew length and shortness. So it was with all things, but all the more so with the heart.

There was a saying: "The nine hexagrams of the Book of Changes end with Xun, thereby exercising authority. Authority is the great use of the sage. To speak of authority before one can stand is like wishing to walk before one can stand—few would avoid falling."

So-called "power" was, in truth, the ability to determine weights and