Chapter 27

A war had begun.

The sunset plain was obviously the spacious area in the center of the sand table. When Lin Tuo cast his gaze again, he realized that the battle had been decided already.

The army defending the path to Kyoto collapsed, like a tide bursting a bank, flooding the mountains and plains. Behind it was the Xishu army mounted on war horses and armed with rifles and machetes.

When seeing the intense gunfire and explosion, Lin Tuo finally sighed slightly.

‘It turns out they made guns after all.‘

When he entered the sand table and talked about science, he deliberately downplayed the content of military weapons.

Unfortunately, with the evolution of society, weapons used in warfare had naturally developed in a highly similar environment.

Although he couldn’t see the exact details.

However, based on the background knowledge he had, Lin Tuo guessed that the firearms at this time may have got rid of their original appearance and could be classified as early rifles.

After the first industrial revolution, the 700-year-old country finally faced challenges outside the royal family.

Governor Xizhou…

It looked like the revolution was being lead by a feudal official. It seemed this revolution had been prepared for a long time. Perhaps it had been prepared for many years, otherwise he would not be able to defeat the Imperial Army so easily.

Perhaps, the death of the emperor itself wasn’t natural.

‘I’m afraid that Chi Dynasty will finally change to a new dynasty.’ Lin Tuo sighed lightly, faintly guessing.

After hesitating, he did not intervene in any way, but absorbed the Ether then restarted the time acceleration.

Lin Tuo’s attitude towards the civil war in the sandbox would always be the same, that is, he would never interfere unless necessary.

After all, in many cases, war was just a fierce solution to social conflict, and it was a necessary part of the evolution of civilization.

As for the Ether situation, it was normal to fall during a war. After the war, peace would naturally recover.

And just after the time acceleration was turned on, text began to pop up on the run log.

[…The Xizhou Army won a great victory in the sunset over the plains. After that, the army moved north. The government didn’t know how to react and the royal army retreated steadily backwards.]

[In the beginning of the year, the Xizhou Army arrived in Kyoto and setup encampment but did not attack. Thirty-two days later, the city gate opened wide and the city fell.]

[The Xizhou Dynasty lowered the flag of the Chi Dynasty. The Governor of Daxizhou entered Kyoto and a new dynasty was established. The Xizhou Dynasty was now the ruling dynasty.]

…

In the Taklimakan Desert, the endless and magnificent black box blocked everything.

In this early morning, while the research team was still trying new detection methods, no one knew that on the other side of this black box.. A dynasty would fall and a new one was rising.

…

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

Kyoto.

At this time, it was late February in winter.

The New Year was not far away.

If it were in previous years, this time, as the center of the Chi Dynasty, the capital of the empire should be lively.

Schools and factories were closed for the day, and on both sides of the street, shops have all kinds of festive food and accessories…beautiful.

However, this year, the whole of Kyoto was just silent.

On the street.

A depressing mood emanated.

Citizens hid behind closed doors. The few brave souls walking outside were mentally fatigued with panicked expressions. Like little beasts, any fast movement would make them nervous.

With the ringing of the bell in the city, eyes peeked out from the enclosed houses on both sides of the street.

Then, they saw a cavalry formation coming from a distance. Following the calvary was a thick infantry formation.

The soldiers had long been put on bright red uniforms, dressed completely different from those on the battlefield, with smooth leather boots, and spotless epaulettes, carrying a long spear, and walking in unison along the main road of Kyoto, heading straight towards the palace.

“Father, mother… look… a soldier…”

In the room, there were occasionally children making noises. Though, their voices would quickly be covered by their parents.

“Don’t make any noise… That is the army of the new emperor.”

“Where are they going…?”

“The palace.” The nervous parents looked at the soldiers carefully and said, “Today is the day when the new emperor enters the palace.”

…

In the northern-central part of Kyoto, there was a group of buildings that still maintained the classical style.

Unlike the modern buildings that had emerged in the Chi Dynasty, the palace still retained the old architectural style to a certain extent, with red palace walls and white jade fences.

However, today, the spacious square in front of the temple was filled with neat troops.

Although the square had been cleaned, there were still large areas of dark red stains. The corpse has long been dragged away, but the air is still full of blood.

In front of the infantry was an entire cavalry formation.

In this early winter morning, tall and strong horses draped in armor flicked their tails and spewed visible breaths.

“This is the palace. I remember when I came last time, I was greeted at the palace gate by Officer Feng. Just to visit the Emperor, I had to cross eight checkpoints, which was quite cumbersome.

At that time, I was thinking in my heart that I would definitely remove those when I came back later.”

At the forefront was a pure white horse.

As the governor of Xizhou and the leader of the rebel army, the middle-aged man had a light uniform. He wore a white gloved left hand holding a horse whip, and his right finger pointed at the palace in front of him with a smile.

After a pause, he said, “By the way, where is Officer Feng? I really miss that guy.”

Aside, a Xizhou army general replied:

“When I took over the palace before, the former queen led a small group of people hiding near the throne. A fight that seemed to last forever broke out… Officer Feng was part of it.”

“Oh? Is he dead?” Governor Daxizhou raised his eyebrows.

“Yes.”

“It’s really strange, I never thought he would do something like that. Knowing him, I thought he would have been the first to surrender.” Governor Xizhou said in surprise.

“General… Your Majesty, the situation at the time was a little abnormal.

According to what we know, the attitude of the group of people in the inner temple was a bit… weird.

Their bodies were sifted by bullets, but they didn’t seem to feel pain…”

“People like that exist?” Governor Xizhou frowned, with some doubts in his heart. After thinking about it, he didn’t immediately investigate it. After all, at this moment, the diehard loyalists had already been wiped out.

He had more important things to do.

Looking at his watch, Governor Xizhou immediately led the crowd to dismount. A group of Xizhou officials and generals marched into the palace gate.

“The hour is almost here. Follow me into the palace.”

…

Just outside the Royal Palace.

Because it was winter, the trees around the courtyard were bleak and not very beautiful. There was still some unmelted snow on the ground and you could see footprints along the snow.

At the center was a statue more than ten meters high.

It was carved from white jade and had the appearance of a young man.

Wearing a classical robe, holding a pointer in his hand, with a peaceful face, he stood proud on the palace square, looking far away, as if overlooking the entire empire, his eyes are deep, seeming to hide infinite wisdom.

“Lin Sheng…” Seeing this statue, Governor Xizhou paused for a while and uttered the name softly.

Yes, this was the statue of Lin Tuo, not Lin Sheng.

After he left the country more than two hundred years ago, the monarch ordered the statues of the saint in cities across the country. This one was made by the chief craftsman of the dynasty.

For two hundred years, Lin Sheng’s image had already become a spiritual brand.

If you were to make an analogy, you could compare him to Confucius on Earth.

The emperors of all dynasties were nominally protégés of saints.

“Now this land is mine, nobody will be able to take it away from me. Not even Lin Sheng.”

Muttering softly, Governor Xizhou looked away and stepped forward.

Several nearby officials who accidentally heard this had their hearts beating hard, but they dared not to say anything.

…

Passing past the statue you were greeted with the main hall.

It was also the place where a cluster of ministers were called to discuss state affairs.

At this moment, many people were already waiitng in the hall.

Those were all ministers from various departments in the country. They were not many, but not a small amount either. Among them were new faces and old faces.

Seeing them, Governor Xizhou suddenly squeezed a bright smile on his face, as if the spring breeze had turned to rain, and smiled, “Thanks for waiting everyone.”

The ministers hurriedly saluted in unison, “Your Majesty.”

As a result, the smile on Governor Xizhou’s face became brighter.

Striding to the emperor’s throne, he took a deep breath, turned around and sat in the dragon chair. Proudly waving his hand, he spoke as if he was a great sage.

“You don’t need to be so cautious. I have been in Daxizhou for decades and I am not used to the etiquette of Kyoto. Let’s get to the point.

The war has been won, and the next step is now to calm the people.

I invited you all to come today to agree on how to restore stability our country as soon as possible…”

…

In the palace, the discussion proceeded step by step.

This so-called agreement by the Governor of Xizhou was more persuasion than anything else. The whole process was him unilaterally issuing orders to the heads of various departments.

Guarded by the army outside the palace, thousands of rifles were aimed at any troublemakers and everything naturally went smoothly.

So, from time to time, you could see officials walking out of the palace, trembling, and crossing the square.

…

When the sun rose, the cold feeling in the palace dissipated. In the hall, apart from the Governor of Xizhou, there was only one person left.

This person was a somewhat special official.

The dean of the Kyoto Research Institute was the top scientist of the empire.

On the day when the city was breached, the dean took poison and killed himself in order to never part with the old dynasty.

In terms of rank, the deputy dean was now the new top scholar of the Empire.

“The old dynasty was strong because of science, and I also know the importance of science. I started from Xizhou and came here all the way. I killed many people along the way, but I did not kill any scholars.”

“Your Majesty is kind.”

The Governor of Xizhou smiled even more when he heard the words, and promised for a while, probably because he would continue to serve the new dynasty.

The Governor of Xizhou suddenly thought back to his soldier’s report.

Not knowing why, he felt that the person in front of him probably knew something.

Hearing the situation, the chief scientist was stunned. With a momentary hesitation on his face, he sighed.

“Your Majesty, I do know what happened…At that time, they should have activated the Imperial Seal.”

“Imperial Seal?”

“Yes. That is the result of a scientific research project with the highest level of confidentiality in the country.”

After a pause, he added, “The Imperial Seal is the same apparatus that controls human hearts.”