Of course, before that, Xu Mochen still had to solve one problem: where to get the funds needed to establish a Soul Guidance Steam Engine manufacturing plant. Although the Sun Moon Royal Group was the most powerful group in the Sun Moon Empire, manufacturing Soul Guidance Steam Engines fell under the category of heavy industry, and the two most notable characteristics of heavy industry were high investment and slow returns. It would be difficult to recoup the funds in the short term.
Given the Sun Moon Empire's need for rapid development, Xu Mochen had no intention of building just one or two production lines. Add to that the cost of training the Soul Engineers and workers needed to manufacture Soul Guidance Steam Engines, and it was clear that, for the time being, the Sun Moon Royal Group would have to shoulder the entire burden of producing them.
It was undoubtedly a heavy burden, but Xu Mochen had a way to manage it. He still had an ace up his sleeve for raising funds: the Sun Moon Royal Bank.
As for the Sun Moon Empire's financial system, rudimentary forms of currency had begun to appear among the tribes even before the empire was founded. However, the tribal currencies were crude and primitive at first, usually made from whatever materials were available locally. For various reasons, including their poor circulation, they were never officially adopted on a widespread scale.
Only after the Sun Moon Empire was established, in order to facilitate trade among the people of the Sun Moon Continent, did the empire officially begin issuing gold, silver, and copper coins. This currency system had continued to the present day.
After the Sun Moon Empire was founded, many merchants, concerned for the safety of their money, reached an agreement with the emperor. They chose to deposit their funds temporarily in the imperial treasury, paying the emperor a set fee each year for safekeeping.
But the merchants soon realized that, although their gold was deposited in the treasury, the early imperial treasury was poorly regulated, and the emperor could use its funds at will. As a result, the emperor would freely dip into the merchants' deposits, then make all sorts of excuses—or simply refuse to return the money—when they tried to withdraw their assets.
So, seeking another way, many merchants joined forces to establish dedicated deposit institutions and treasuries, and jointly hired armed guards to protect their assets. Later, as the economy developed, more and more treasuries began pooling funds and issuing loans for commercial investment, collecting interest in the process. That was how the Sun Moon Empire's money houses came into being.
The founding of the first official bank could be traced back to the year 2746 of the Sun Moon calendar. At the time, the Sun Moon Empire was swept up in a great wave of ideological liberation. As the economy boomed and productivity improved, the owners of the major money houses soon realized that simply safeguarding people's assets and issuing commercial loans could no longer meet the needs of the modern economy.
So the major money houses began expanding their operations while also introducing a range of services, including asset-backed pawning, commercial contracts, interest on deposits, and exchanges between gold, silver, and copper currencies.
From that point on, the Sun Moon Empire's major money houses began transforming, eventually becoming banks. After years of development, the Sun Moon Empire had formed a financial network led by four major banks: the Sun Moon Royal Bank under the Sun Moon Royal Group, Nebula Bank under Nebula Group, Soaring Dragon Bank under Soaring Dragon Group, and Xiali Bank under Xiali Group.
However, Xu Mochen did not intend to simply withdraw money from the Sun Moon Royal Bank. The sum he needed was considerable, and withdrawing too much would affect the bank's other financial activities. So he planned to establish a new financial infrastructure: insurance companies, trust companies, leasing companies, and a securities exchange.
This time, however, he did not intend to do it alone. Instead, he decided to join forces with the other three major banks. This was not merely because Xu Mochen wanted the Sun Moon Empire's financial system to develop as a whole rather than letting one player dominate. More importantly, the plan involved a wide range of financial services.
For the Sun Moon Empire's industrialization to advance rapidly, the other groups had to gather more capital. That way, they would have more money to buy the industrial equipment he manufactured and invest in industrialization themselves.
After handing Kong Dehan and the others all the blueprints and design concepts for the upcoming Soul Guidance Steam Engine derivatives, Xu Mochen returned from the Sun Moon Royal Soul Tool Research Institute to his study in the imperial palace. He was cultivating as he waited for someone to arrive. The cultivation he had done over the past few days had loosened the bottleneck in his level; he would likely reach level twelve within the month.
However, Xu Mochen knew that to reach level twenty-one, he would have to complete the trial Purple Imperial Chaos Dragon King had set for him. And completing it would be no easy task. At the very least, it was unlikely he could accomplish it before next year.
That was just as well. Xu Mochen was in no hurry to cultivate right now; he needed to prepare for the series of industrial developments ahead. Before that, though, he had also realized that Soul Masters played an irreplaceable role in the development of Soul Guidance Technology.
Even if Soul Guidance Steam Engines and their related products went into production, their key components would still need to be made by Soul Engineers or Soul Master technicians. Without enough of them, rolling out Soul Guidance Steam Engines and their subsidiary products on a nationwide scale would inevitably prove extremely difficult.
But the number of Soul Masters the Sun Moon Empire could currently put to work in industry was nowhere near enough to help the empire industrialize quickly. So the best solution for him was to have more ordinary people become Soul Masters. There was no need to improve the quality of their Martial Souls; they only had to possess Soul Power. Nor did they need much of it. A few levels, a dozen or so, or even twenty or thirty at most would be enough.
According to the novel Douluo Continent I, the only successful case of an ordinary person becoming a Soul Master was the auspicious disciple Tang San had taken on, Jixiang. But Tang San had managed it using the Mysterious Heaven Skill he had brought from Blue Star, a special acupuncture technique, and a Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King! And even with Tang San's mastery of the Mysterious Heaven Skill, the odds of success had only been eighty percent!
Thinking of this, Xu Mochen felt a twinge of helplessness. To be honest, although he had also come from Blue Star and his Smart Brain contained a vast store of knowledge, centuries upon centuries of technological advancement had brought gene serums, mechanical prosthetics, and all kinds of superweapons. The ancient martial arts and cultivation methods of Blue Star had long since been discarded and lost. No matter how extraordinary his Smart Brain was, it could not have stored knowledge that had vanished into the river of history.
And a Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King was even more out of reach! The Sun Moon Empire did have such precious treasures, but they were rare among the rarest. Even their owners were usually reluctant to use them for themselves. Expecting them to hand one over so an ordinary person could take a chance? They'd have to be out of their minds!
But speaking of gene serums, if he could truly figure out the source, nature, and production of Soul Power, then study the Sun Moon Continent's unique medicinal knowledge and combine it with some pharmaceutical methods from his previous life, he might be able to create a serum that could give ordinary people Soul Power.
Even if he succeeded, though, their Soul Power would only allow ordinary people to operate and manufacture some Soul Tools with low Soul Power requirements. As for combat strength? Sorry, but although the serum could give ordinary people Soul Power, it could not change the fact that their Martial Souls were trash. Soul Masters with Soul Power and Trash Martial Souls would be somewhat physically stronger than before, but their combat strength would not increase by much.
Without outside assistance, they might not even beat a Soul Master of the same level with a low-tier Martial Soul in a one-on-one fight. After all, the other person's Soul Power was something they had genuinely possessed from birth, and even a poor-quality Martial Soul was better than a Trash Martial Soul. But that was fine. It would be enough to give them Soul Power; their lack of combat strength could be made up for later by equipping them with Soul Guidance Weapons.
Looks like it's time to find some more books on the subject. But if I really want to carry out this plan, I'll probably need the help of the distinguished person my great-uncle mentioned. Just as Xu Mochen sat quietly in thought, a figure appeared soundlessly at the entrance to the study.
"Finally here?" Xu Mochen showed no surprise. He waved a hand and asked, "Senior Mo, have you finished gathering the intelligence I requested?" The figure who had arrived was none other than Mo Wuying, commander of the Shadow Guard.
He took a thick stack of documents from his Storage Soul Tool and respectfully handed them to Xu Mochen. "Your Highness, Crown Prince, I have prepared the latest information on the Ten Great Families. These are the reports I have gathered and compiled over the past several days." Xu Mochen rose, took the documents from Mo Wuying, and began reading them carefully. The more he read, the darker his expression grew.
According to the reports, some members of the Ten Great Families had ties to underground organizations and criminal gangs in the Sun Moon Empire's gray and black markets. Their dealings appeared to be limited to occasional, restrained transactions, but the possibility that these family members were collaborating with hostile forces could not be denied.
Fortunately, this behavior was limited to some members of the Ten Great Families. None of their senior leaders had yet been directly implicated in colluding with unknown forces, and that was not what made Xu Mochen angry.
What truly enraged Xu Mochen was the monopolistic practices carried out by these prominent families in collusion with several other large groups! Aside from the Xu and Kong families, both of which belonged to the imperial house, the Sun Moon Royal Group, and the Nebula Group led by the Ye family, the other seven families and their affiliated megagroups had all participated to some extent in plans to monopolize the market!
More importantly, even though he had formally proposed antitrust laws and government intervention in the economy just over ten days ago, many senior figures in the seven major groups were now secretly bribing members of the imperial National Congress, hoping to obstruct the antitrust law he was about to enact!
The seven major groups had already joined forces with several large companies to monopolize certain industries. Fortunately, most pillar industries related to the people's livelihoods had not yet fallen under their collective control. That was largely thanks to the fact that he still had the Sun Moon Empire's largest group at his disposal: the Sun Moon Royal Group.
The Sun Moon Royal Group controlled many industries vital to the nation, including the largest banking and financial institution, the most extensive private landholdings, the greatest number of forests and mines, the largest light and heavy industrial companies, and countless other natural resources, advanced Soul Guidance Technology, and industrial infrastructure.
This meant that, if the imperial house wished, it could easily break the seven-group alliance's monopolies across numerous fields. As for openly taking on the national armed forces? Sorry, but the emperor of the Sun Moon Empire also served as the empire's commander-in-chief. He also had the Shadow Guard, the empire's highest intelligence agency, which was not subject to the National Congress. Did the seven major groups really think their small private security forces—with their numbers and weaponry strictly limited—could stand against the imperial house? Dream on.
Of course, although the emperor was commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he had no authority to deploy troops against the seven major groups at will without legal approval from the National Congress and the courts. But if the seven groups dared to launch an open armed rebellion, the imperial army stationed in the Ming Capital would have every right, under emergency military regulations, to suppress them without approval from the National Congress or the courts.
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