The Immortal Seeker: Legend of Bronze Mirror

Jiangning Prefecture, Yihe Hall.

Since the year when Xu Qing was reborn, Xu Qing deliberately had Yihe Hall adopt local and foreign orphans.

Up to now, it has been the fifth year since Xu Qing's rebirth, and in a little over two months, it will be a full six years.

When he was reborn, the bronze mirror judged his lifespan to be only three years. Later, he acquired some Holy Virtue, and extended his life twice, each time by about a year.

This year's the seventh of July marks the lifespan limit determined by the bronze mirror, and it cannot be increased anymore.

This year, two great battles occurred.

One was the Battle of Changbai Mountain, and the other was the Battle of Taihe Mountain.

The Battle of Taihe Mountain happened not long ago.

These two battles essentially established the future power dynamics of the realm.

Now it is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, and after this month, it will soon be a new year.

The orphans before him were all from the first batch adopted by Yihe Hall. There are both boys and girls, and they have mostly learned to read and write. As for advanced studies, it depends on their talent.

However, there are many opportunities in Jiangning Prefecture nowadays. As long as one can read and write, and is willing to work hard, providing for oneself is not a problem. If a man is diligent, he can even marry and have offspring.

As for the girls, they have all learned sewing at Yihe Hall, and since they can read and write, being affiliated with the Xu family, marrying into an ordinary family is no issue.

But today, they all gave up the opportunity of becoming ordinary people.

In a certain sense, they are all Xu Qing's household children. Xu Qing avoided signing slave contracts with them and promised them freedom upfront.

These are the ones who chose to stay.

Regarding their loyalty, it goes without saying.

By staying, they need to assist Xu Qing with some rather difficult tasks that test their willpower, even without guaranteed rewards.

Because Xu Qing needs them to venture into various industries and become his eyes and ears.

In fact, among them, there is also an invisible test—whether they can be led by Xu Qing into the dream realm.

So, after these people scattered, those who could truly enter the dream realm with him were the real secret agents Xu Qing cared for. Compared to ordinary people who received Xu Qing's kindness, these orphans are more likely to "be forever mindful" of Xu Qing.

This is also related to Feng Wu often appearing to bestow kindness on behalf of Xu Qing.

Xu Qing's time is limited; more often, it is Feng Wu, as his primary wife, who builds relationships with the orphans of Yihe Hall.

Feng Wu, in a way, is Xu Qing's stabilizing "Empress Lü," with her background and skills helping her fulfill this role.

Su Lianqing leans more towards being a "Chen Ping," specializing in handling shady matters for Xu Qing. Shady matters, often seen in historical records, refer to some secretive and unspeakable affairs primarily related to political conspiracies.

Hence, Su Lianqing's role is very akin to "Chen Ping."

As for Xu Qing's external "Xiao He," it is naturally Yan Shan.

Xu Qing raised his wine cup and bid farewell to each of the orphans,

"I hope everyone stays healthy and lives a long life."

After a privately held farewell feast, each orphan who participated in the banquet entered a new phase of life. The oldest among them was only fourteen or fifteen years old, and the youngest was only eleven or twelve.

Of course, in the folk, men and women marry early, and people aged fourteen or fifteen could already be parents.

In fact, there had already been reports of child labor in South Zhili.

Due to the popularity of Immortal Coal, some noble households required people to clean the soot from chimneys. The size of adults is unsuitable for such work, which is why impoverished families would have their children do such tasks.

Upon hearing this, Xu Qing spoke of the harm in it through the newspaper and strictly prohibited the use of child labor in Jiangning Prefecture.

But in reality, it's difficult to stop these practices.

Coal merchants, aiming to sell more coal, often touted the benefits of Immortal Coal while intentionally overlooking its drawbacks.

Even if common people knew, they are willing to trade their health for money to survive.

It's better than selling children during a famine, or even worse, exchanging children as food.

"In years of great famine, people eat each other," that is truly tragic.

For many ordinary folks, being able to earn money through hard work, acquire some property, and have children to carry on their lineage, it seems like a legendary "Era of the Yellow Heaven."

Xu Qing also understood that merely shouting slogans is useless; he must accept these problems and resolve them through continuous development, after which new problems will arise, repeating in cycles, leading history to advance through twists and turns.

On the other hand, the production capabilities of the Great Yu Dynasty are much better than those of the Middle Ages, but the population is several times larger.

When the population is well-utilized, it is wealth; when not, it becomes a burden.

Therefore, extensively developing industry and commerce can solve part of the problem, but to fundamentally address it, external expansion is inevitable.

In a world where only the fittest survive, not expanding externally means internal consumption.

The Central Plains civilization itself expanded outward.

Ritual and law are needed for stable governance, while expanding territories is inherently ingrained in its essence.

The core of the Great Yu people, from top to bottom, is about farming and developing, then expanding and growing one's family business.

The seemingly unreasonable systems designed by the Grand Ancestor of the dynasty become quite reasonable when viewed from the perspective of a landlord.

This mindset is top-down; the presence of numerous landlords exacerbates issues of land consolidation...

Xu Qing is attempting to reverse this trend.

He has already laid much groundwork and has gathered a basic foundation.

With long-term subtle influence, some successes will inevitably emerge.

In Xu Qing's view, for reform to succeed, the focus should be on cultivating new interest groups. Without these foundations, the death of a person will lead to the cessation of their reforms.

Saving the world is merely a slogan; attracting a select few to form a new interest orientation and contending with the original meat-eaters for benefits is the only way to genuinely benefit the world.