Chapter Summaries

The Human Reform League expanded farming and seafood production in Hudou Island and the Zhoushan Islands as Zheng Sen inspected the changes. The chapter left the League building up food processing and strategic supplies, including saltpeter.

• Liu Laogen's family harvested rice with help from Hu You and the agricultural station, and Liu calculated the value of their surplus harvest and a shared pedal-powered thresher.
• The chapter explained how Zheng Sen's League used Crystal Coins pegged to industrial goods instead of Sui copper coins.
• Zheng Sen inspected East Blue Seafood Company's canning factory, tasted its Spanish mackerel, and ordered Qin Mo to charge the can to his personal expenses.
• Zheng Sen rebuked Wang Xiaochui for suggesting the can could be given to him without payment, insisting that League property could not be used for personal gain.
• Zheng Sen visited the salted-fish factory and a third factory processing a fin whale, whose parts could supply food, oil, leather, fertilizer, and other products.
• The chapter described the League's composting plant and its nitrate beds, which supplied saltpeter while electric-arc nitric acid production remained impractical.

Zheng Sen inspected the Seafood Company and East Blue Salt Company, assessing their production and surplus capacity, then toured Zhoushan’s glass factories. The chapter ended with him restricting mirror sales to prevent enemies from obtaining materials for telescopes.

• Zheng Sen inspected the Seafood Company’s four factories and estimated that its annual canned fish output would reach about 2,000 tons, with excess capacity based on the Controlled Area’s current population.
• Zheng Sen learned that East Blue Salt Company had stored 573 tons of snow salt and considered its production capacity alongside the company’s salt exports and purchases of raw materials and refugees.
• Zheng Sen arrived at Zhoushan Great Island on September 27 and ordered Gu Yuanzhao to transfer 300 people from the refugee camps to the glass factory to prepare for increased crystal coin production.
• Longsha showed Zheng Sen the five glass factories, which produced coins, household glassware, bottles, optical instruments, and mirrors.
• Zheng Sen kept glass mirror sales small and secret because he feared enemies could use large, thick mirrors to make telescope lenses.

Zheng Sen inspected Zhoushan Building Materials Company and Zhoushan Steel Plant, reviewing production limits, strategic raw materials, and new manufacturing methods. He left Longsha’s projects advancing, including a planned water-powered workshop system, and went to inspect the Cannon Casting Area.

• Longsha reported that the cement, lime, red brick, and pottery factories had limited output, and Zheng Sen told him to discuss the fuel shortage with Bai Yulou.
• Longsha described the steel plant’s iron sources and production, and Zheng Sen ordered Hao Jian to increase imported Pyrite while Gu Yuanzhao arranged strategic reserves.
• Zheng Sen inspected standardized crucible steelmaking and praised the female officers for recording data and applying scientific methods.
• Longsha showed Zheng Sen a wind-powered stamping machine that produced modular steel plate armor, and Zheng Sen asked about its protection against arrows.
• Longsha explained that a reservoir and channel system would store seawater pumped by windmills to power hydraulic equipment, and Zheng Sen estimated it would be completed by year’s end.
• Zheng Sen headed to the Cannon Casting Area, recognizing cannons as decisive for naval warfare and coastal landings.

Zheng Sen inspected Longsha’s Equality 1-75 cannons and learned how she used Current Drive to produce hard materials and cut rifling. He planned new shells and stronger combat training as the Human Reform League prepared for resistance from martial arts masters.

• Engineer Corps soldiers poured Ductile Iron into molds to cast cannon barrels using water-cooled cores.
• Zheng Sen reviewed the Equality 1-75 cannon’s specifications and asked Longsha how she cut its rifling.
• Longsha explained that she used Current Drive to smelt hard materials, and Zheng Sen ordered two heavier types of Explosive Shells.
• Zheng Sen considered how martial arts masters might counter artillery and noted that Qin Mo and other secretary officers had advanced in the Scientific Martial Way.
• Zheng Sen described the twelve-volume Science Dao Grasping Things Record and concluded that traditional martial arts masters might struggle to adopt its materialist teachings.

Zheng Sen inspected Zhoushan Shipyard, where Bai Yulou was building three Science-class warships, and saw how their design and modern artillery would strengthen the East Sea Fleet. On the return trip, Qin Mo tested a radio telegraph, and Zheng Sen returned to Hudou Island to plan the next stage of work with Hao Jian.

• Zheng Sen visited Zhoushan Shipyard and asked Bai Yulou about the progress of three Science-class warships under construction.
• Bai Yulou explained the ships’ design, armament, and long-range tactics, and estimated that they would be completed in November.
• Zheng Sen reviewed the available cannon and shell production and judged that the East Sea Fleet could defeat any opponent with fewer than two hundred warships.
• Qin Mo received and decoded a message from Zhoushan using a radio telegraph, then sent a reply.
• Zheng Sen returned to Hudou Island and summoned Hao Jian to arrange the next stage of work.

The Human Reform League strengthened its forces and established control over the East Blue as the East Sea Fleet set out to confront an approaching Dongming Sect fleet. The two sides met in the waters east of Zhoushan, where Shan Meixian and her party faced the League’s armed fishing vessel.

• Hao Jian relocated nearly twenty thousand refugees, and the Human Reform League expanded its population and military forces.
• Bai Yulou reorganized the East Sea Fleet and ordered the Guerrilla Detachment to investigate the Dongming Sect fleet approaching from the east.
• Tian Xingbei’s armed fishing vessel intercepted the Dongming fleet and warned it to leave League territorial waters.
• Shan Meixian, Shan Wanjing, and the Shang Elder came on deck as Shang Ming armed the sect members and prepared to confront the fishing vessel.

Tian Xingbei’s fleet crushed the Dongming Sect’s ships with cannon fire, forcing Shan Meixian and the surviving crews to surrender. Bai Yulou arrived, defeated Shan Meixian and Shan Wanjing, and ordered the prisoners divided between Zhoushan and Ryukyu.

• Shan Meixian challenged Tian Xingbei’s blockade, but Tian Xingbei ordered the artillery to fire after Shang Ming attacked him.
• The cannon strikes killed Shang Ming and Elder Shang, wrecked the Dongming Ship, sank one ship, and forced the remaining Dongming Sect ships to surrender.
• Tian Xingbei held the prisoners until Bai Yulou arrived with reinforcements four hours later.
• Shan Meixian tried to ambush Bai Yulou during the prisoner transfer, but he repelled her attack and knocked her unconscious.
• Bai Yulou also knocked out Shan Wanjing and ordered the women sent to Zhoushan and the men assigned to the Redemption Camp for transport to Ryukyu.
• Bai Yulou kept Shan Meixian and Shan Wanjing for the voyage to Ryukyu.

Bai Yulou investigated Shan Meixian’s Heavenly Demon Great Law and asked Longsha to determine why it required virginity for perfection. Longsha’s experiments found that Yuan Yin was a soul-based memetic structure linked to spiritual-sexual maturity, and the chapter ended with her explaining how it affected True Qi cultivation.

• Bai Yulou sailed toward Liuqiu with Shan Meixian and Shan Wanjing as prisoners.
• Bai Yulou made Shan Meixian circulate the Heavenly Demon Great Law and learned its force-field techniques through her body.
• Bai Yulou confirmed Shan Wanjing had not cultivated the Heavenly Demon Great Law and sent Longsha a telegram about Yuan Yin.
• Longsha tested the Heavenly Demon Great Law with six secretary officers, three virgins and three non-virgins.
• Longsha concluded that Yuan Yin was a soul-based memetic structure that changed after sexual activity and that its absence helped practitioners cultivate single-polarity True Qi.

Bai Yulou’s Guerrilla Detachment captured Dongming City on Liuqiu after bombarding its defenses and defeating the Dongming Sect. Bai Yulou ordered the surrounding villages and tribes brought under the Human Reform League’s control, while the League assessed the city’s population, industries, and wealth.

• Bai Yulou’s ships bombarded Dongming City, killing and scattering its defenders before five hundred Marines landed and broke through the gates.
• Combat Soldiers defeated the Dongming Sect’s ambushers, and Bai Yulou killed the sect’s upper ranks as his forces cleared the city.
• Shan Meixian persuaded many low- and mid-ranking sect members to surrender, and the battle ended with six League soldiers killed and twenty-seven wounded.
• Bai Yulou ordered the navy to take over Dongming City and the Marines to sweep nearby villages and tribes and publicize League policies.
• Bai Yulou examined the Dongming Sect’s ironworks, shipyard, workforce, and extensive stores of metal, grain, cloth, and timber, and concluded that immigration to Liuqiu should increase.

Bai Yulou continued consolidating the Human Reform League’s control over Great Liuqiu, establishing Tamsui City and organizing settlement, recruitment, and sanitation efforts. After distributing supplies and malaria medicine in Black Ox New Village, he inspected nearby villages and returned aware that much work remained.

• Bai Yulou renamed Dongming City Tamsui City, established Liuqiu Prefecture and Danshui County, and arranged for prisoners and their families to return to Hudou Island.
• The first refugees from Hudou Island arrived at Danshui Port, and technical soldiers arrived to establish Danshui Steel Plant as Bai Yulou recruited fifteen hundred Combat Soldiers.
• Bai Yulou visited Black Ox New Village with Shan Meixian and her daughter, reminded Zhang Xin to ensure villagers boiled their drinking water, and urged him to persevere in his duties.
• Bai Yulou delivered weapons, supplies, mosquito coils, and Po Zhang Dan to Zhang Xin, explaining the medicine’s use against malaria.
• Bai Yulou inspected nearby villages, found their sanitation and living conditions poor, and sighed that the road ahead was long and burdensome.

Bai Yulou explained his land-tax plans and revolutionary goals before inspecting the ironworks and arranging new steel and cement facilities. After Zheng Sen arrived with refugees and engineers to take charge at Tamsui, Bai Yulou sailed to Keelung to search for coal, leaving the expedition anchored offshore for the night.

• Bai Yulou explained to Shan Wanjing how land rent and limited farmland kept farmers poor, while Shan Meixian challenged his plan to tax land and resist landlords.
• Bai Yulou declared that the realm belonged to the common people and that he sought to overthrow the Azure Emperor, leaving Shan Meixian and Shan Wanjing affected by his words.
• Bai Yulou inspected the former Dongming Sect ironworks, where Hu Dali described plans for blast furnaces and cement production; Bai ordered preparations for a coke oven and another blast furnace.
• Zheng Sen arrived at Tamsui City with fifteen transport ships, two thousand refugees, and four hundred engineers, then accepted responsibility for the city as Bai prepared to explore for coal.
• Bai Yulou sailed northeast toward Keelung with soldiers, officials, Shan Meixian, and Shan Wanjing, and anchored near the coast to land the following day.

Bai Yulou established a stockade at Keelung and led soldiers inland to locate its coal deposits. He began planning a Keelung industrial base, while the expedition’s next steps remained focused on exploiting the region’s mineral resources.

• Bai Yulou landed at Keelung and spent four days building a stockade with the expedition team.
• Bai Yulou led fifty combat soldiers south from the stockade and carved a fifteen-meter-wide road through the forest using his Martial Arts.
• Bai Yulou found coal-bearing soil and identified the Keelung Coal Mine as a source of fuel and coking coal.
• Bai Yulou planned a coking plant near Keelung and a copper smelter near the Jinguashi Gold-Silver-Copper Composite Mine.
• Bai Yulou considered nearby iron deposits that could supply a steel mill in Tamsui City.

The Human Reform League expanded its northern foothold on Yuzhou Island and continued bringing refugees into its camps. Yao Bo’s family endured quarantine and learned about the food, rules, and basic education awaiting them as immigrants.

• Tamsui City received thousands of immigrants, while the Human Reform League’s forces grew to 7,000 soldiers and established East Sea Prefecture on Yuzhou Island.
• Hao Jian’s pirate group held Yuzhou Island as a strategic base, where the Northern Detachment of the East Sea Fleet and an Army battalion were stationed.
• Yao Bo’s family arrived at a refugee camp after fleeing Gaomi, had their hair removed for disease prevention, and began a ten-day quarantine before their planned transfer to Great Liuqiu Island.
• Yao Bo’s family joined other refugees for a filling meal, and Yao Damin said he would accept hard work or military service rather than return to starvation and danger.
• Army propaganda officers gave the refugees textbooks and began lessons in literacy, daily knowledge, and the Human Reform League’s system.

Fang Dayong and the refugees learned literacy and hygiene as the Human Reform League prepared to resettle them in Great Liúqiú. After the lessons changed their views on hair removal and sanitation, 2,400 refugees departed south aboard a transport fleet.

• Fang Dayong learned Simplified Chinese Characters and helped tutor the camp’s children.
• Huang Feihu taught the refugees how to prevent parasites, malaria, and other diseases, explaining why keeping their hair short and the camp clean could save lives.
• Fang Dayong accepted the reasons for hair removal and urged the refugees to do the same.
• After quarantine, the refugees moved to a temporary resettlement camp and worked for their daily food.
• On February 17th of Daye 13, a fleet arrived in Tianheng City, and 12 Transport Ships carried 2,400 refugees south.

Fang Dayong and the immigrants traveled through Hudou Island to Keelung, where officials resettled them and organized relief work. Wang Yaoxin led Hegu Village residents in building a road and a small bridge, and the chapter ended as villagers prepared for spring planting and house construction in the rainy season.

• Fang Dayong arrived with the immigrant fleet at East Salt Town, rested overnight, and continued south three days later to Keelung Port.
• Keelung staff assigned Yao Bo’s family and other immigrants to settlements and selected 322 young adults for the coal company.
• Wang Yaoxin announced a food-and-wages work relief plan and led Hegu Village residents in building a road from Keelung City.
• Fang Dayong helped make wooden molds for reinforced concrete pipes, which Wang Yaoxin’s crew used to build a small river crossing.
• Wang Yaoxin and the villagers completed the 5.7-kilometer road by the end of March, and Wang Yaowu began organizing spring plowing and house construction.

Wang Yaoxin and the villagers of Hegu Village cleared land and built homes under the Governor's Mansion's cooperative system. With their new settlement underway, Ma Gong introduced fast-growing Zhan cheng rice as a way to quickly cultivate the reclaimed fields.

• Wang Yaoxin asked Fang Dayong about the cooperative's funds, while the chapter described the Governor's Mansion's system for preventing powerful clans and corruption in villages.
• Wang Yaoxin led the villagers in cutting timber, burning and clearing the slope, and building fifty-three log houses as they opened more than 1,300 mu of land in a month.
• After seven villagers contracted malaria, they recovered with treatment using Artemisinin and Barrier Breaking Pills.
• Wang Yaoxin proposed slowing house construction to prepare the fields, and Yao Bo worried that May was too late for spring plowing.
• Ma Gong reassured Yao Bo and Fang Dayong that Zhan cheng rice could mature in as little as fifty-five days, and explained its potential for multiple harvests and food security.

Hegu Village developed its farmland and communal life while Ma Gong used radio news and scientific propaganda to promote the Human Reform League’s ideas. As rice production and immigration plans expanded across Great Liúqiú, Zheng Sen prepared to settle the Jianan Plain and raise the League’s population.

• Hegu Village cleared more than one thousand mu of farmland and continued collective farming until each household had a house and each person had ten mu.
• Ma Gong brought Zhan cheng rice, agricultural equipment, and a radio, whose broadcasts prompted discussion of industrial production, medicine, and political news.
• Fang Dayong and Ma Gong denounced religious claims to choose an emperor and defended the Human Reform League’s Scientific Way.
• Wang Yaoxin’s workers continued clearing trees as explosions marked repairs to the northern tributary of the Tamsui River for inland shipping.
• Liuqiu Prefecture’s population reached sixty-seven thousand, while expanding Zhan cheng rice cultivation was expected to provide food for a much larger population.
• Zheng Sen ordered Hao Jian to increase immigration from the northern coast and Jiangnan, aiming to grow the League’s population to three hundred thousand and settle the Jianan Plain.

Bai Yulou inspected Zhoushan’s shipyard and arsenal, then launched a campaign to seize Yuhang and Kuaiji Commanderies. The Human Reform League captured both commandery seats in a single day, and Bai prepared to block a Sui counterattack from Wu Commandery.

• Longsha showed Bai Yulou the shipyard’s cement transport ships and new firearms, including rifles, a Gatling machine gun, shotguns, and mortars.
• Bai chose Yuhang and Kuaiji as targets and sent the Guerrilla Detachment and Zhoushan Detachment toward their commandery seats by transport ship.
• Liu Pingdong’s forces landed at Yuhang, used howitzers to kill Governor Li Xian and Commander Bao Changji, and captured the city after breaking through its gate.
• The Human Reform League defeated the garrisons at Yuhang and Kuaiji, capturing thousands of Sui soldiers while suffering comparatively few casualties.
• Bai ordered the Guerrilla Detachment north along the Grand Canal toward Wu Commandery to block a Sui advance against the newly captured territories.

After the Human Reform League captured Yuhang, Lu Guangwei struggled to defend Wu Commandery while Yang Guang refused to send reinforcements. Bai Yulou reorganized the new territory and sent Yu Gu’s Guerrilla Detachment north, where it built a river fort near Wu Commandery and left the Sui defenders unable to intervene.

• A messenger told Lu Guangwei that Yuhang had fallen and Governor Li and General Bao had died, but Lu Guangwei dismissed his account of thunderbolt weapons as nonsense.
• Lu Guangwei ordered county towns to strengthen their defenses and notified Shen Faxing and Yang Guang, who ordered stronger defenses but sent no troops.
• Bai Yulou reorganized 1,572 captured soldiers into the Yuhang Corps, planned further recruitment, and sent Yu Gu’s Guerrilla Detachment north with four battalions of Marines.
• Yu Gu ordered Huang Yingqi’s 3rd Marine Battalion to build a river fort at Xifeng Slope near Wu Commandery, while Zhou Yong and Lu Guangwei watched from the city wall without daring to attack.
• Yu Gu’s forces completed the fort in less than three days, cutting off waterways south of the Grand Canal and preparing to establish more strongholds around Taihu Lake and the Songjiang River.

The Human Reform League began imposing land and social reforms across Yuhang Commandery and Kuaiji Commandery, while rival powers investigated its strength and ambitions. After a month of reform campaigns, more than half the new territory was reorganized, and the League’s policies stirred an uproar beyond its borders.

• Song Lu and Song Shidao recognized that the League had bought Linyi Rice to cultivate its seeds, then sailed toward Yuhang to investigate.
• Kou Zhong’s newly renamed Young Marshal Army considered seizing Donghai Commandery for its salt profits, and Xu Ziling volunteered to scout League territory.
• The League sent Qin Mo, Propaganda Officers, and Army battalions to reorganize Qiantang County, beginning with military control of its county seat.
• Qin Mo’s team exposed Zhu Ganglie’s crimes, executed him and seven other murderers, and introduced land distribution and the Acre Tax in Zhu Family Village.
• Qin Mo, Bai Yulou, and Huang Dabiao expanded reforms across the occupied counties, completing preliminary reforms in more than half the territory within a month.
• The League’s policies became known outside the occupied territory and caused a tremendous uproar.