Great Wei

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Great Wei (大魏)
Alias(es)	Great Wei Dynasty 22
Type	Imperial dynasty; one of the Three Great Dynasties of the Central Province 183
Location	The center of the Central Province, also called the Central Continent, in the Dust Realm 183 232
Capital	Referred to as Great Wei’s Capital or the Imperial Capital 128 281
Founder	Emperor Taizu 120 172
Age	Founded 743 years before the historical account given early in the story 22
Ruling House	The Ji imperial household 273
Sovereign	Ji Ling, the Female Emperor; her reign uses the era name Wuchang 190 261
Status	Survives its decline and enters renewed development; nationwide free schooling and standardized Treasure Notes are introduced by the finale 311

Power Progression

Great Wei’s supernatural advancement is expressed through national fortune, popular will, and the transformation of its fortune cauldron.

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Popular will acknowledged	120	The Nation-Guarding Bell tolls once, recognizing that Xu Qingxiao has won the hearts of Great Wei’s people.
Dragon of Popular Will manifests	187 190	Appears during the confrontation with Tuxie. Its emergence signals renewed national unity and a coming period of flourishing.
Great Wei Dragon Cauldron	215	Ji Ling lends national fortune to Xu’s sainthood breakthrough. His connection to popular will transforms the National Fortune Cauldron into a Dragon Cauldron—an achievement even Taizu never attained.
Dragon Cauldron strengthened by an education vow	219	Xu’s promise of free nine-year schooling increases popular will. Heaven blesses barren fields and improves the soil.
National Fortune True Dragon strengthened	243	Xu adds national fortune to the cauldron, enabling its True Dragon to batter Wang Chaoyang’s Literary Palace.
Central Continent Dragon Cauldron gestation	257	Six Great Immortal Sects pledge allegiance. Their support and fortune lost by the Buddhist Order help the cauldron form a vast purple cocoon.
Central Continent Dragon Cauldron forged	281 282	The defeated Barbarian Kingdom’s fortune completes the transformation. A Five-Clawed Golden Dragon nourishes Great Wei’s mountains, waterways, soil, and crops.
Full manifestation and Central Continent Dragon Seal	284	Xu channels the remaining power of his forty-eight Great Vows into the cauldron. Its golden dragon nearly solidifies, and the Central Continent Dragon Seal forms.

Geography

Region or location	Significance
Central Province	Great Wei occupies its center, with fertile soil and numerous established Immortal Sects 183.
Eastern borderlands	The Tuxie Dynasty lies to Great Wei’s east 183.
Northern borderlands	The Chuyuan Dynasty lies to Great Wei’s north 183.
Southern territories	Largely assimilated into Great Wei; the vassal kings’ rebellion is principally a southern problem 183.
Western frontier	Faces foreign-race states and foreign lands. The Northern Barbarians are geographically closest to this western region 183.
Imperial Capital	Seat of the court, imperial palace, ancestral shrine, and Shouren Academy. Its gates receive a constant flow of travelers and trade 128 261.
Southern Yu Prefecture	The setting of Xu’s early scholarly and political rise, and the testing ground for his waterwheel designs 57 88 90.
Ping’an County	Xu’s home county. He contributes 2,000 taels toward its development before departing for the Capital 90.
Barbarian Kingdom	Occupied following its invasion and defeat; its surrender transfers national fortune to Great Wei 280 281.

Background / History

Founding and early prosperity

Emperor Taizu founded Great Wei through conquest. Three successive Martial Emperors expanded its power abroad and subdued internal opposition, including Immortal Dao and demonic forces. Five subsequent civil emperors established stability and fostered commerce, but their reigns also elevated civil officials while suppressing military officers 22.

The founding dynasty possessed a concealed source of power: an immortal corpse that produced Realm-Breaking Immortal Pills by absorbing blood qi. Taizu benefited from these pills, but accumulated bloodshed corrupted the corpse and created a Demon Domain. He prohibited further blood offerings and established recurring suppression duties for a First-Rank martial artist 172.

Jingcheng Humiliation and the Northern Expeditions

Repeated frontier incursions culminated in the Jingcheng Humiliation. Northern Barbarian cavalry devastated Great Wei’s cities and nearly reached the Capital. The massacres emptied settlements, drove national fortune to its lowest ebb, and contributed to Emperor Jiankang’s fatal illness 22 37.

The concubine-born Emperor Wu Yuan succeeded Jiankang and became known as the Martial Emperor. Over fifty years, he personally led seven Northern Expeditions. The campaigns reclaimed territory and restored some national dignity, but ultimately exhausted the accumulated savings of five generations and left the population impoverished 22 128 172.

Ji Ling later reveals that the first three campaigns sought revenge, while the remaining four fought over Realm-Breaking Immortal Pills. Tuxie and Chuyuan had obstructed Great Wei’s experts, allowing the Barbarians to obtain pills from the immortal corpse 172.

Ji Ling’s troubled succession

Ji Ling inherited a dynasty short of money and effective imperial military control. Regional vassal kings, foreign states, and members of the Great Wei Literary Palace had already established covert dealings with rival powers before her accession. The late Martial Emperor left intelligence documenting these connections 172.

Xu Qingxiao’s rise supplied the court with both a reformer and a new source of popular legitimacy. His waterwheel project, merchant policies, and School of the Mind disrupted entrenched interests, making him a target for domestic factions and foreign pressure 88 143 171.

Western pacification

A coordinated campaign demanding Xu’s dismissal expanded from the Twelve Foreign Races to 121 nations. Ji Ling rejected the demand, appointed Xu Regent Minister, and entrusted him with military authority. After repeated warnings, Xu declared war 169 172.

Great Wei assembled 5.7 million soldiers against the Chen Kingdom. The campaign included civilian deaths and threatened mass slaughter; after fifteen cities fell, Chen surrendered and other states sent envoys to submit. Tuxie also sought peace 185 188.

The Inn Negotiations imposed tribute, garrisons, Great Wei officials and academies, military reductions, and trade privileges upon the foreign states. Tuxie agreed to a billion-tael payment. Great Wei then used neighboring states and internal rivals to compel remaining holdouts to submit 189 190.

Scholarly secession and imperial consolidation

The Great Wei Literary Palace’s planned departure threatened the dynasty’s national fortune, morale, and connection to Sage Zhu’s legacy. Ji Ling supported Xu as the potential new Sage who could offset that loss 191 208.

Xu attained Half-Saint status through popular will and Great Wei’s national fortune. The Literary Palace subsequently established the Haoran Kingdom, while Great Wei commissioned a new Xu Sage Literary Palace and elevated Xu to hereditary King of Pacification 215 219.

A later succession crisis centered on Ji Yuan, the Martial Emperor’s surviving son. Taizu’s Long Saber recognized his imperial blood, but his attack on Chancellor Chen Zhengru and alliance with vassal kings intensified the conflict. Ji Ling eventually imprisoned him and ordered action against the vassal kings’ fiefs 261 273.

Barbarian defeat and worldwide deterrence

The Northern Barbarians invaded with support from Tuxie and Chuyuan. Xu counterattacked using the Divine Martial Cannon, defeated the Barbarian Kingdom, and resisted the rival dynasties’ demands that Great Wei withdraw. The kingdom’s surrender completed the Central Continent Dragon Cauldron 277 280 281.

The cannon’s appearance made Great Wei a target for international pressure. Xu initially concealed the limits of its arsenal, then revealed a much larger stockpile and proposed a military parade to deter war. The court later approved selling cannons to major powers in exchange for resources, using arms distribution to balance rivals rather than launch a world war 286 302 308.

Government and Institutions

Imperial administration

Institution	Function or significance
Sovereign and Chancellor	Ji Ling rules the dynasty. Chancellor Chen Zhengru prioritizes Great Wei’s survival rather than allegiance to the emperor, officials, or Literary Palace alone 208.
Six Ministries	Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Punishment, and Works administer recruitment, finance, ceremony, defense, law enforcement, and construction 125 192.
Embroidered Guard	Openly conducts inspections throughout the country 141.
Black Cloud Pavilion	Covert intelligence organization with spies and undercover agents answering directly to the emperor 141.
Eight Gates Capital Troops	Capital military force placed under Xu’s command alongside his judicial and censorial appointments 156.
Gathered Worthies Hall	Recruits useful talent beyond the traditionally educated scholarly class; operational by the first imperial examination 192 208.
Heavenly Craft Pavilion	Develops practical inventions. Its early work includes a gear-driven farming implement 192 208.

Scholarly authority

• Great Wei Literary Palace — Sage Zhu’s Lineage sought influence over state affairs and demanded exclusive reverence for Sage Zhu. Successive emperors tried to curb it, culminating in an effort to separate Confucian officials from the court’s civil–military structure 191.
• School of the Mind — Xu’s teaching becomes officially recognized orthodox scholarship and enters the imperial examination curriculum 190.
• Imperial examinations — Xu serves as chief examiner for Wuchang’s first imperial examination. Its opening question, “Strengthening the Nation,” tests practical national-development thinking 191 209.
• Shouren Academy — In the finale, the Great Wei Academy opens under this name, offering all subjects nine years of schooling without fees 311.

Centralization

• Ji Ling orders investigations of vassal kings, confiscation of their fiefs, and their imprisonment during the internal-unification crisis 273.
• The later Grace Extension Edict permits concubine-born sons to inherit regional princely and marquisate lands and titles. Princes and marquises respond by voluntarily surrendering military tallies, though the edict does not completely eliminate vassal influence 311.
• Xu proposes a Sword of Execution, an intelligence and enforcement force loyal solely to the sovereign. Its intended duties include exposing corruption, suppressing factions, and pressuring vassal kings; palace eunuchs are considered as recruits 141 143.

Economy and National Policy

Agriculture and infrastructure

• Waterwheel Project — Initially faces resistance over a proposed fifty-commandery rollout costing at least 500 million taels. Construction begins in twenty-five commanderies within five days, with fifty targeted by month’s end 125 161.
• Harvest gains — One poor prefecture quadruples its first-season harvest. Early reports suggest nationwide output may triple, but that figure is still an estimate 202.
• Grain management — Gu Yan proposes reserves, government purchases, and measures against idle farmland to stabilize supply and prices 202.
• Roads and bridges — Xu advocates an official road network to speed commerce and prevent merchant control of grain markets. Completing the network is expected to take at least ten years 227.

Reform programs

The Great Wei Prosperity Strategy becomes national policy after the western war. Xu later expands these aims through the Nation-Pacifying Strategy 190 275.

Priority	Documented measures
Agriculture	Expand cultivation, improve irrigation, investigate better rice varieties, and fund useful agricultural tools 202 275.
Military strength	Improve soldiers’ living conditions, expand the army, and introduce service terms that create a trained reserve 192.
Industry and invention	Establish the Military Works Camp and Heavenly Craft Pavilion for equipment and useful technology 192.
Trade and finance	Organize state-linked merchants, compete in overseas markets, and establish the Great Wei Money House 143 192 275.
Talent and education	Recruit by practical ability regardless of background, age, or sex; provide universal nine-year schooling 192 219 311.
Public welfare and order	Strengthen enforcement against crime and corruption; propose support for newborns and the elderly, partly linked to participation in public works 192 275.

Commerce, treasury, and currency

• Imperial Merchant system — Merchants purchase rank and status without receiving governmental authority. The arrangement secures cheaper waterwheel materials while drawing powerful commercial interests into a state-supervised structure 143.
• Postwar wealth — Gu Yan reports approximately 420 billion taels in treasury gains, including valuables requiring sale. Fixed annual income reaches 80 billion taels, with a projected rise to 100 billion if agricultural improvements succeed 190.
• Great Wei Gazette — Sells six million copies daily by the foreign-impeachment crisis. Poverty, low literacy, and local imitation limit further growth; it also becomes an instrument for mobilizing public opinion 169 185.
• Great Wei Money House — Officially issues standardized gold, silver, and copper Treasure Notes in the finale. Major powers and nations worldwide are required to recognize their value 311.
• Cannon exports — Approved as a means of obtaining gold and supplies, balancing foreign powers, and promoting Treasure Notes as an international currency 308.

Military

Five Great Military Camps

Army	Documented significance
Emperor’s Army	The strongest of the five; its tally is held by Ji Ling 172.
Qilin Army	Prince Huaining relinquishes its tally during the Prince Huaiping affair, strengthening imperial authority 109 172.
Black Tortoise Army	Ji Ling secures its tally before entrusting the western war to Xu 172.
Northern Liang Army	Recovering its tally is a condition of Ji Ling’s bargain with the King of the Great Wilderness 172.
Great Wilderness Army	Half its tally initially grants one year of temporary command. It leads the assault against the Chen Kingdom 172 185.

• Ji Ling eventually grants Xu all five tallies so he can distribute tens of thousands of Realm-Breaking Pills to the military camps 302.
• Great Wei’s two original First-Rank martial experts alternate Demon Domain suppression and recovery, severely restricting their availability for ordinary crises 172 201.
• Six Immortal Sects’ allegiance adds six First-Rank experts to Great Wei’s support. With Xu’s advancement, the court counts three First-Rank cultivators alongside those six sect experts 257 286.
• An agreement among the Three Great Dynasties restricts First-Rank martial artists from waging war unless national survival is at stake 172.

Strategic weapons

Weapon	Documented capability or stockpile
Divine Martial Cannon	Xu’s first completed model is a near-First-Rank weapon capable of twenty shots. Its battlefield use demonstrates that cannon fire can deliver overwhelming power without a hidden First-Rank cultivator 261 280.
Initial four-cannon display	Only one is First Rank; the three additional cannons shown to intimidate rival dynasties are Second Rank 280 286.
Expanded arsenal	Xu later privately reveals 1,500 Divine Martial Cannons, 200 Immortal Gold Cannons, and 10 Celestial God Cannons 302.
Military parade	Planned as an international deterrent, including demonstrations against the Demon Domain Sea 302 308.

National Artifacts and Fortune

Nation-guarding artifacts

• Taizu’s Long Saber — The founder’s weapon, containing national fortune and immense power. It protects Xu during an attack, recognizes Ji Yuan’s imperial blood, and helps Ji Ling awaken the spirits of former emperors 120 195 261 283.
• Nation-Guarding Bell — Forged by Fifth-Generation Emperor Wen to guard the dynasty and represent its people’s hearts 120.

Bell tolls	Meaning
One	The people have pledged their hearts.
Three	An age of prosperity.
Five	Great Wei’s greatest golden age.
Seven	Great Wei has surpassed every dynasty, ancient or modern.
Nine	World unification, or the birth of a Sage in the present age.

The bell’s stated meanings are recorded together 120.

Central Continent Dragon Cauldron

• Its completed form produces spiritually enriched crops and water, awakens dormant dragon veins, and improves the population’s health 281 282.
• Its gestation is initially expected to take ten to fifty years and depends on peace, political stability, and prosperity. War or severe turmoil could collapse its cocoon 257.
• Lin Zhen later clarifies that successfully suppressing an invasion or expanding territory can accelerate completion 260.
• Continued peaceful, just, and prosperous rule may eventually grant the Son of Heaven’s True Edict, allowing commands over gods, ghosts, and demons. This is a potential benefit, not a power already confirmed as obtained 282.
• Wang Chaoyang and allied powers attempt to claim its fortune through a grand vow. Ji Ling and Xu prevent that bid, with Xu ultimately wielding the cauldron against Wang 282 283 284.

Foreign and Institutional Relations

• Tuxie Dynasty — Eastern rival that historically needed Chuyuan’s cooperation to withstand Great Wei. It supports destabilizing forces, later pays a billion taels in peace concessions, and subsequently seeks access to Great Wei’s cannons 172 183 189 286.
• Chuyuan Dynasty — Northern rival that supports Great Wei’s enemies while pursuing its own balance-of-power interests. It joins pressure for cannon access and plans resource-seizing campaigns after obtaining the weapon 172 183 297 307.
• Foreign-race and tributary states — Former dependents whose growing strength encourages secession. Defeat subjects them to tribute, garrisons, officials, academies, and commercial privileges for Great Wei 134 189 190.
• Northern Barbarians — Responsible for the Jingcheng Humiliation and a later invasion. Their kingdom is defeated and occupied; its fortune passes to Great Wei 22 277 280 281.
• Six Great Immortal Sects — Pledge full allegiance while retaining internal administration. Their commitment restores authority to the emperor and provides unconditional support when Great Wei requires it 257.
• Seven Stars Dao Sect — The sole Great Immortal Sect that refuses allegiance. Its leadership opposes Xu; after he kills Daoist Qingjing, surviving disciples must abandon their cultivation and sect identity 257 285.
• Great Wei Literary Palace / Haoran Kingdom — Former scholarly institution whose secession threatens national legitimacy and fortune. It establishes a separate kingdom and seeks influence through the spread of Sage Zhu’s Lineage 191 219.
• Buddhist Order — Seeks a foothold in Great Wei as a route to influence across the Central Continent. Xu’s victory in its doctrinal debate strengthens Great Wei, while hostile Buddhist leaders continue participating in schemes against it 225 257 260 283.