Time flowed on, flying swiftly by.
In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.
Autumn gave way to winter, and silver frost covered the vast land, adorning mountains and valleys and outlining a magnificent painting...
In Zichuan City, Lin Changge had spent the past half year completely transforming the former Zhao Household residence into the Lin Household's ancestral grounds!
He had also built a Hall of Meritorious Deeds within the Lin Household's new ancestral grounds.
The names of the clansmen and armored guards who had fought and died for the Lin Household were all recorded in the Hall of Meritorious Deeds. As long as the Lin Household's legacy endured, they would be honored with incense offerings and remembered by future generations!!
The establishment of the Hall of Meritorious Deeds had further strengthened unity within the Lin Household.
Besides strengthening unity within the Lin Household, Lin Changge had not neglected the governance of Zichuan City and the lands beyond it over the past half year, either.
Within a thousand li of Zichuan City, there were seven towns and several hundred villages!
After the Song Household took a five-hundred-li sphere of influence, the Lin Household currently controlled four towns!
Those four towns were Qiao Town, Iron Rock Town, Sacrificial Water Town, and Clear Spring Town...
Of the four, only Qiao Town was the largest in scale and had the most industries, with a population of over forty thousand! That was nearly a third of Zichuan City's population.
The other three towns were all very small, each with a population of only around twenty to thirty thousand.
To govern the four towns more effectively, Lin Changge had used a quarter of the Zhao Household's accumulated resources to build a dirt road connecting them over the past half year!
With the dirt road built, travel and transport between the four towns and Zichuan City had become several times more efficient!!
The Lin Household could now use the network of dirt roads to dispatch its armored guards to any of the towns in the shortest possible time...
Besides building roads and bridges and developing trade, Lin Changge had personally assembled a legion of ten thousand and a force of five hundred heavy cavalry!
He was essentially putting his plans into effect step by step, following the ideas Lin Xiye had originally provided.
Encouraging clansmen to have children, searching for infants and children with Spirit Roots, infiltrating certain factions through marriage alliances... Lin Changge was doing all of it.
But he also knew that some things could not be rushed; they had to be done bit by bit, accumulating slowly!
Other things had to be left to chance, such as descendants with Spirit Roots being born into the clan, or finding infants and children with Spirit Roots... These were all highly random matters that could not be forced.
In the Lin Household residence in Zichuan City, Lin Changge sat at his desk, dealing with a mountain of Lineage affairs as he gazed at the wind and snow filling the sky outside.
Now, Lin Changge not only had to manage the Lin Household's internal affairs, but also the affairs of a city, four towns, and more than fifty villages!
Although the entire five-hundred-li sphere of influence around Zichuan City now belonged to the Lin Household, disputes still frequently broke out among the villages and the Households in the towns, just as before.
Faced with this situation, Lin Changge had to find a way to resolve it!!
Following Lin Xiye's wishes, he intended to bring all the villages and ancient towns within the Lin Household's sphere of influence together into a single whole, with the Lin Household at its core!
Only then could he make the Lin Household's economy more prosperous and enable the lands within its sphere of influence to support a larger population.
The Lin Household's current economic situation was already quite dire.
The half of the Zhao Household's accumulated resources had long since been exhausted by Lin Changge's efforts over the past six months...
He had done far too much during that time! And some of those things had been necessary!
Whether assembling a legion of armored guards, building roads and bridges, or comforting the clansmen, all of it required vast sums of wealth.
Although Lin Changge had personally led his clansmen to plunder the accumulated resources of the immortal cultivation Households in Iron Rock Town, Sacrificial Water Town, and Clear Spring Town after moving into Zichuan City, it was still a cup of water on a burning cart of firewood in the face of the Lin Household's enormous current expenditures.
The Lin Household's entire remaining fortune now amounted to just five thousand taels of silver...
Those Lineage assets could keep the Lin Household running for another half month at most.
At the thought, Lin Changge's face filled with worry.
The dwindling Lineage assets were only a minor matter... The Lin Household's industries were currently spending more than they earned.
On this plane, the currencies commonly used in the secular world were copper coins, silver, and gold!
One tael of gold was worth ten taels of silver.
One tael of silver was worth a hundred copper coins.
Just as Lin Changge was racking his brains, desperately trying to think of a way to turn the Lineage's finances around, a young man in luxurious robes suddenly rushed into the Lin Household's main hall.
A trace of excitement showed on the young man's face, as though he had encountered some tremendously joyful news. When he saw Lin Changge, he even forgot to pay his respects and spoke impatiently instead.
"Patriarch, fifty li outside Clear Spring Town, Elder Lin Mo discovered a large silver mine!!"
"According to the survey, the mine is twenty li long and ten li wide."
"Its depth is still unknown for now..."
"But according to Elder Lin Mo's preliminary assessment, if it is fully mined, our Lin Household can obtain at least ten billion taels of silver!!"
Hearing the young man's words, Lin Changge's eyes lit up as he sat in his wooden chair!
Ten billion taels of silver... That was equivalent to one billion taels of gold!
Even the Zhao Household's accumulated resources from four hundred years, when converted, were worth at most five hundred million taels of gold.
That silver vein was worth at least twice the Zhao Household's accumulated resources!!
With that wealth, all of the Lin Household's financial crises would be completely resolved, and it could even develop further...
"Come! Take me to inspect it immediately!"
"Make sure to send more men to guard that silver vein..."
As Lin Changge spoke, he immediately set aside everything he was working on and hurried out of Zichuan City through the wind and snow.
"Yes, Patriarch!!"
The young man did not dare defy Lin Changge's will. He had returned to the Lineage this time precisely to report the silver vein.
Soon, Lin Changge left Zichuan City in an imposing procession with a large contingent of armored guards, riding a horned beast...
Clear Spring Town was not very far from Zichuan City, and with the dirt road connecting the two built over the past half year, Lin Changge reached the silver vein in just one day and one night!
The silver vein lay within an abyss... Its discovery by the elder named Lin Mo had been a complete accident!
Seeing that the patriarch had come in person, a plain-looking middle-aged man in coarse cloth hurried forward to greet him.
The middle-aged man was none other than Elder Lin Mo, who had discovered the silver vein.
Yet at this moment, there was not a trace of joy on his face. Instead, he spoke in a grave tone.
"Patriarch, we've now largely finished surveying this silver vein."
"The silver reserves in this vein are twenty times greater than our previous estimate!!"
"Two hundred billion taels of silver. Patriarch, you should know very well what that means..."