Blue Silver Village

Biodata

Geography and Layout

• Valley setting: Sheer cliffs surround the settlement. After its fortification, entry requires passing through the gate or climbing the cliffs 26.
• Defensive wall: Built across the valley entrance. Zhang Sheng’s plan called for a wall approximately ten kilometers long, at least three zhang high, and one zhang wide 26.
• Streets: Neatly arranged and unusually clean, with Blue Silver Grass planted around homes and along roadsides 21 26.
• Commercial and snack streets: Busy trading areas whose food attracts both nearby residents and travelers from farther away 26 30.
• Zhang Family Estate: Zhang Sheng’s residence, the village’s largest and best-known property, with guards stationed at its entrance 31 49.
• Training ground: Used by Zhang Sheng’s young guards and Lan Yun; later serves as the site of his cultivation demonstration for the Zhangsun siblings 22 45.

Governance and Community

Zhang Sheng financed the village’s development but refused the chief’s position because its duties would interfere with his cultivation. The villagers instead chose Uncle Dashan, who managed daily affairs while Zhang Sheng retained ownership and directed major projects 20 21 25.

• Inclusive naming: Zhang Sheng rejected “Zhang Family Village” because its residents had different surnames and a clan-based name could cause divisions 20.
• Public order: The defense team can detain and fine people for fighting inside the village 30.
• Improved housing: Zhang Sheng’s assistance enabled residents such as Uncle Dashan and the hunter Old Uncle Chen to live in substantial houses they could not previously afford 20 30.
• Daily meals: Residents customarily eat three meals a day, a practice Old Uncle Chen explains to the visiting scholar 30.
• Settlement policy: Zhang Sheng welcomes population growth and later instructs Uncle Dashan to register escaped canal laborers who wish to settle permanently 38.

Economy and Resources

Blue Silver Grass

Blue Silver Grass gives the village its name and serves as its public symbol. Residents regard it as both attractive and auspicious; outsiders also take specimens home, although they discover no special uses 20 21.

• Seed production: Zhang Sheng’s Martial Soul converts other grass seeds into Blue Silver Grass seeds, with a documented limit of one hundred per day 21.
• Slow reproduction: Each resulting plant produces only one replacement seed for the following year, preventing rapid natural spread 21.
• Surveillance: Zhang Sheng can monitor the village through its grass, initially using this ability to watch for leaks about the refined salt 21.
• Martial Soul growth: The planted grass supplies faith energy to his Martial Soul, allowing it to evolve slowly 21.
• Outside income: The unusual plant becomes known in the surrounding area and brings additional income to the village 21.

Defenses

Guards and Village Defense Team

Zhang Sheng’s personal guards are distinct from the hundred-member village guard recruited after the bandit attack 23 25.

• Training support: Zhang Sheng plans intensive training supplemented with medicinal herbs for the selected village guards 25.
• Gate security: On-duty defense teams question unfamiliar arrivals and warn visitors not to cause trouble 34 49.
• Fortification labor: Villagers build the wall with assistance from captured bandits 25 26.
• Zhang Sheng’s intervention: His Blue Silver Sword Qi destroys the black-clad force seeking the salt recipe, although stray attacks also pit the village wall 35.

Education

The village school is funded by Zhang Sheng and teaches local children, with free lunches provided to pupils 31.

• Recruitment: An advertised teaching position offers five hundred wen per month 30.
• School management: Fang Xuanling accepts a teaching post and responsibility for school affairs; Zhang Sheng raises his salary to five strings of cash per month 31.
• Teaching materials: Books supplied by Zhang Sheng include Hundred Family Surnames and Mathematics 31 32.
• Curriculum: Fang Xuanling admires the school’s range of practical subjects and begins questioning whether classical learning alone is sufficient preparation for government 32.
• Fang Xuanling’s departure: He leaves after the school term to pursue his ambitions beyond the village 33.

History

Growth and Renaming

Over three years, Zhang Sheng transformed an impoverished mountain settlement by investing his growing fortune in its residents and infrastructure. Better living conditions attracted people who could no longer support themselves in their hometowns, and the expanding population supported a local marketplace 20.

After choosing Uncle Dashan as chief, the villagers proposed naming the settlement “Zhang Family Village” in gratitude. Zhang Sheng instead suggested Blue Silver Village, explaining that Blue Silver Grass would be planted throughout it as its defining symbol. The villagers accepted the name 20.

Bandit Attack and Fortification

Constable Yu warned that mountain bandits would attack over rumors of a treasure and that the county would send no reinforcements. Zhang Sheng suspected the magistrate of arranging the attack to seize his property. Before preparing the defense, he allowed residents to choose whether to stay or leave, ordering those who departed never to return 21 22.

The defenders used a horse-tripping rope and an ambush to break the attack. Zhang Sheng’s guards, Lan Yun, and the villagers killed or captured every bandit, allowing none to escape 23.

News of several hundred bandits being defeated spread through the greenwoods and drew strangers to investigate. Zhang Sheng responded by strengthening security, recruiting a paid village guard, and beginning the wall project. Two years later, the settlement had become a fortified town whose prosperity Zhangsun Wuji compared to a medium-sized county seat 25 26.

Visitors and the Canal Levy

Zhangsun Wuji and Zhangsun Wugou explored the village, met Zhang Sheng on the snack street, and stayed as his guests. After leaving, they remarked on the residents’ unusual vitality and deep respect for him 27 28.

When officials announced the Grand Canal labor levy, Zhang Sheng urged residents to pay the ten-string exemption fee and offered advances to anyone unable to afford it. The defense team escorted the payments to the county office 29.

The village’s reputation also attracted the traveling scholar Fang Xuanling. After experiencing its food, housing, and hospitality, he applied to teach at its school and became its administrator 29 30 31.

Conflict over Refined Salt

After the refined-salt secret leaked, thirty or forty armed riders claiming to represent the imperial court arrived and demanded the production recipe. Their leader threatened to seize the villagers if Zhang Sheng refused. Zhang Sheng killed the attackers with Blue Silver Sword Qi and sent the surviving leader back with a warning 34 35.

The incident persuaded Yuwen Chengdu to advise the Yuwen family against further conflict. County magistrate Jia Shiren likewise ordered his subordinates not to interfere in village affairs 36 37.

Refuge for Escaped Laborers

Escaped Grand Canal workers reached the village in rags, reporting withheld food and pay and widespread deaths. Despite the danger of harboring fugitives, Zhang Sheng and Uncle Dashan provided clothes, meals, and lodging 37 38.

Pursuing soldiers withdrew after learning that General Cheng feared offending the settlement. Zhang Sheng then proposed registering willing refugees as residents, hoping that gradual population growth would eventually turn Blue Silver Village into Blue Silver City 38.

Renewed Military Interest

Cheng Jingmin manipulated Murong Yun into investigating the salt-making method with five hundred soldiers. Jia Shiren later reported that an elite force of five hundred had disappeared at Blue Silver Village 39 48.

Zhangsun Wugou subsequently remained at Zhang Sheng’s home to cultivate under his guidance, with an arrangement to become his junior sister resolving her brother’s concerns about propriety 44 46 47.

Yuwen Chengdu eventually visited in person. The defense team admitted him after questioning, and he toured the village before calling at the Zhang Family Estate. There, he apologized for the Yuwen Clan’s earlier attack 49.