On the imperial throne, Ye Chen looked at all the changes before him without a flicker of expression.
Clearly, he had known about these effects long ago.
After the Longevity Elixir was produced, the first person Ye Chen rewarded was Long Yu, the current leader of the Brocade-Clad Guard.
As his most loyal personal guard, Ye Chen naturally would not play favorites.
Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, twenty years went by. It was now the 144th year of the Yanhuang Calendar.
Over those twenty years, the Yanhuang Empire had grown increasingly prosperous.
The imperial capital was the center of the entire empire and was incomparably flourishing.
Standing atop the palace walls, Ye Chen clasped his hands behind his back. Dressed in a simple black silk robe, he gazed down at the bustling imperial capital in silence.
"This is the empire I built with my own hands—a golden age.
"Now that the realm is at peace, the people's hearts have returned, and the education system is complete, the empire has accumulated enough talent over the past twenty years. Next, it is time to begin the First Industrial Revolution."
As his voice fell, Ye Chen's gaze pierced the endless void and crossed the sea, as if he could see that land of Huaxia.
According to the fleets he had sent out over the years, some of them had successfully reached the opposite shore—the Chinese mainland.
Based on the messages sent back, Huaxia should currently be in the latter period of the Ming Dynasty. It probably would not be long before the Ming Dynasty disappeared.
According to the course of history, the Qing Dynasty would come next. He planned to wait until the empire completed the Industrial Revolution, then cross the sea and head to Huaxia.
When the time came, he planned to personally destroy the Ming Dynasty—or the Qing Dynasty—and then merge Huaxia into the Yanhuang Empire, before sweeping across the entire world.
His ambition could be seen from the fact that he had named the empire the Yanhuang Empire.
Although he knew that remnants of the Deno Galaxy's forces remained in Huaxia, he was not worried that they would obstruct him.
Because, constrained by the angels' existence, they simply did not dare interfere with dynastic changes among mortals.
In this regard, the angelic civilization's Justice Order could be said to be good. At the very least, it was extremely friendly toward civilizations like Earth that had not even managed to enter the starry sky.
The Justice Order was like a double-edged sword. It was highly beneficial to low-level civilizations, which did not have to worry about being snuffed out in their infancy while still weak. But to powerful civilizations, it was a shackle.
It tightly locked down the advancement of higher civilizations. In the end, this became the true reason the Justice Order would collapse in the future—especially for madmen like Carl, who loved stirring up trouble.
The first grand court assembly after the New Year.
The Star Palace.
"Bow!!"
"Greetings, Emperor."
"Raise the cry!!"
"Rise!!"
"Thank you, Emperor."
After the formalities were completed, the court assembly officially began.
Ye Chen looked at the assembled officials and said solemnly, "My ministers, the empire is now stable and the realm is unified. In this region, apart from a few scattered tribes remaining deep in the mountains, every other part has returned to Yanhuang.
"At the same time, it has been more than twenty years since the education system was fully established. The empire's illiteracy rate has now fallen greatly, while its pool of talent continues to grow..."
"Although the empire is now wealthy and powerful, its people live in peace, and its national strength has reached its peak, let me tell you this: the empire is still far from being strong enough. The current peak is merely a beginning in my eyes."
Listening to Ye Chen's voice, the ministers below could not help but wear proud expressions, sharing in his glory.
But when they heard what Ye Chen said afterward, they froze. They had not expected that such a powerful empire was still far from strong enough in Ye Chen's eyes—and that it was merely a beginning.
At this thought, everyone looked up at Ye Chen seated above them, waiting for his next words to point them toward the way forward.
"Minister Zhao."
"Your servant is present."
"Over the next few years, the empire will undergo earth-shaking changes. Did you complete the project I instructed the Academy of Sciences to research ten years ago?"
As he spoke, Ye Chen looked solemnly at Zhao Ximing, the dean of the Imperial Academy of Sciences below.
After the education system had been fully established, the first batch of graduates emerged. Ye Chen selected a large number of talented people from among them and sent them into the Academy of Sciences, forming the foundation of the research corps and beginning to build an industrial system.
This laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution that would come in the future.
Over the years, the textbooks used in the empire's education system had all contained modern knowledge that Ye Chen purchased from the system with Civilization Points, then rewrote according to the circumstances of the Yanhuang Empire at the time.
Thus, the first educated people in the empire were all Ye Chen's students—the emperor's personal disciples in the truest sense.
The first batch of students were the seeds of the Yanhuang Empire. After a century,
one gave birth to two, two gave birth to three, and three gave birth to all things. Over the course of several decades, they spread throughout the entire empire, causing the empire's illiteracy rate to fall year by year.
Upon hearing Ye Chen's words, Zhao Ximing immediately replied in a clear voice, "Reporting to Your Majesty, after ten years of work and using the materials Your Majesty provided, we have completed a comprehensive construction plan.
"The empire's first railway and first train are now nearly complete."
That was right. Ye Chen planned to begin building the industrial system with transportation. If he wanted the empire to develop rapidly, transportation was indispensable.
As for why he did not simply spend some Civilization Points to exchange finished products from the system for the Academy of Sciences to study, there were two reasons.
First, he was poor. As the empire developed toward the industrial age, it would need to exchange countless technical documents in the future. With his current Civilization Points, he simply did not have enough.
Besides, he wanted to save up and exchange for the information on that ultimate weapon capable of suppressing an entire nation.
Second, the empire was currently at the transition point toward an industrial system. Cultivating the empire's scientific foundation was the most important thing, and there was no need to force premature growth.
Haste made waste. Sometimes, forcing growth could bring temporary benefits, but the harm it caused could last ten thousand years.
If he did that, the people of the empire would become overly dependent on him. It would also stifle the empire's creativity and confine the research thinking of its talented people. It could be said to bring nothing but harm.
Therefore, Ye Chen exchanged large amounts of foundational scientific materials and research documents, allowing the people in the Academy of Sciences to study, think, and figure out how to build and complete these things themselves. In this way, he cultivated their scientific thinking and creativity.
Thus, as generations of researchers continued to advance one after another, the empire would have more and more scientific talent in the future, and its scientific thought would flourish increasingly.
Besides railway transportation, he would next lay extensive cement roads throughout the empire to improve transportation efficiency.
Cement roads had existed in the empire for a long time, but they had only been laid between the major cities. As for why they had not been built on a wider scale, the main reason was that the empire had no money.
Poor, poor, poor!!
Since the founding of the Yanhuang Empire, the word "poor" had permeated the entire nation. Sometimes, Ye Chen wished he could split a single coin into ten pieces and spend it.
After the empire was founded, Ye Chen devoted his energy to education, as well as figuring out how to increase the empire's population and provide food and housing for its people.
After all, a nation's population was the most important thing. Without a sufficient population, wanting to develop would simply be a joke.
According to current statistics, the Yanhuang Empire now had a population of twenty-three million.
From fewer than a million people at the beginning to more than ten million now, Ye Chen had worked himself to the point of vomiting blood every day just to feed so many people. Day after day, he handled all kinds of imperial affairs until late at night, concentrating single-mindedly on figuring out how to keep these people alive.
At the same time, he had to personally train officials and civilize the local natives.
It could be said that if not for the astonishing self-healing ability the system had given him, he probably would have died from overwork.
Now, all he wanted to say was that being an emperor was damn exhausting. He really wanted to quit.
Unfortunately, as the empire he had nurtured with his own hands grew increasingly prosperous, the lives of tens of millions of commoners rested entirely on his shoulders. Whenever he thought about quitting, he felt an immense sense of responsibility.
Or perhaps it was that he could not bear to let go.
After all, he had already been exhausted for nearly decades. If he gave up now, would all his earlier suffering not have gone to waste?
And so he endured it bit by bit, enduring for a hundred years. By then, the thought of quitting had completely vanished from his mind.
He had grown accustomed to the exhaustion—or rather, without realizing it, he had already become a qualified emperor.
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