Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1159 The Current Situation in Edo

"That Xu Fu, actually used us as sacrifices?" Ii, who was deeply hurt and almost lost his life, was extremely angry. Although he was less than 40 years old, he was born into a cattle-raising family and was already a powerful figure in the shogunate. In the past, he could tolerate being threatened, but now someone came to "protect" him.

Although it was not real protection, but more like surveillance than protection, this minimal protection also made him feel relieved.

Titus was very sensitive to changes in his surroundings. He could sense that the guy next door had let go of his emotions, as if he had broken some rules:
"What kind of days have you been through?"

"Someone is watching me! They're controlling me!"

"How do they control you? How do they monitor you? How many people do they have?"

"Everywhere! Anyone around me with unknown origins could be a spy. Ten years! Everywhere! Everywhere! Do you know how I've been spending these ten years?!"

"I don't know, but I can kind of understand it."

Aurora is not his mother tongue, and the two sides only use Aurora as an intermediary language for communication. When expressing emotions in a language other than the mother tongue, it is usually discounted. But this strong emotion has penetrated the barrier of the mother tongue and is expressed directly.

His whole body was numb.

"Even though I'm your observer, I can understand your strong unwillingness. If you can explain it in more detail, I might be able to help you with some guidance from the perspective of an observer."

"Why would you care about that?"

"What I care about is how this mechanism works. Because you can monitor everyone at one time, or you can monitor some people all the time. But no one can monitor everyone all the time, because monitoring itself requires 'people' to carry out. So if he monitors you, there must be a reason."

"No, no, no! You may have made a mistake. Not only me, but all the warriors around me were under surveillance. As long as we disobeyed an order, our heads would be screwed off and thrown out like a scrapped screw. As far as I know, I was the only one who escaped, and that was because the adults of Zhendan were present. In Xu Fu's eyes, we are no different from spare parts and can be replaced at will. Even those peasants seem to be more important than us."

"Farmers are more important than you? Are they?"

"Yes. Xu Fu was very caring towards the peasants. He distributed the shogunate's land to the landless peasants for cultivation and arranged work for them during the slack season so that no one could rest. Everyone worked very hard, but we haven't seen anyone starve to death for a long time."

"But I see that everything around here is in a state of desolation." Titus saw it at a glance - after docking at Edo Port, the place looked like it had been hit by a meteorite, with ruins everywhere and not even a single person in sight.

Only the empty concrete buildings on the street remained intact, but they were also charred black by the smoke and fire. As for the wooden houses behind the concrete buildings, they had already turned to ashes.

He had heard a briefing on Edo before the operation. It was said that Edo was a large city with a population of 900 million, and its appearance should be no less than any other large city in the world. It was only 50 years older than Yujing, and its scale was even larger and more prosperous than many cities in Rome.

Titus originally came here with the intention of visiting, thinking that maybe he could eat nourishing beef right away - but now, let alone beef, he couldn't even see a stray dog, and it was impossible for him to make his own health-preserving soup. Also, he wanted to visit because Shangluo mentioned that he wanted to burn the city to ashes, and he wanted to see if he could get some souvenirs. But there was no need to burn it here, because there was nothing here except ashes.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?"

“There was a fire here.”

"Isn't it normal to encounter fires? Where can there be no fires? I know that the houses in Edo are made of wood, so they can be burned down. Not only fires, but also earthquakes and tsunamis can easily destroy houses. It's just a matter of rebuilding a house after it's destroyed. Why is it abandoned like this?"

"Because Xu Fu thought it was not worth it. It was not worth it - God, our history, our culture, our life, in his eyes, there were only three words 'not worth it'. Xu Fu hated merchants. He thought Edo Castle was a city built by merchants and should have been de-urbanized long ago. It was not demolished before because the cost of demolition was not worth it. Now he is destroying Edo and abolishing the city because it is not worth it." He believes that there is no need to maintain the existence of Edo Castle, and there is no need to rebuild it. Edo Castle should be de-urbanized and return to its original wasteland. "

"What about the people? What about the people who live here? Weren't there originally 900 million people here?"

"In Chiba. To the east of Edo Castle, Xu Fu established the 'Chiba Industrial City'. He believed that business was the least important of the four classes of people: scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans. Japan already had enough scholars and farmers, but lacked industry. So he took advantage of the fall of Edo Castle to reorganize the Chiba Industrial City and enclosed a square area in Chiba City with a huge city wall. He let everyone live in solid houses, so they no longer had to worry about earthquakes, tsunamis and fires."

"Isn't this great? I've been there to visit."

"No, we can't go. Xufu prohibits anyone from moving across regions. I can only stay in Edo."

"But isn't Edo gone?" Titus asked in surprise, "It was clearly him who ordered the destruction of Edo Castle."

"Edo is indeed gone. But he didn't give me the order to move, so I could only wait in Edo Castle. It's that simple - without his order, I dared not move at all. You have seen the consequences of moving. If the royal division hadn't been there, my head would have been screwed off like a screw."

"Then it seems that Qianye is Xu Fu's treasure. What is in Qianye?"

"There are his assembly lines. Xu Fu likes assembly lines. There are also his chariots, his crossbows, and the super crossbow-class battleships used to launch the crossbows. He wants to use the super crossbow-class battleships to hunt dragons. Those battleships are all in the port."

"Then why didn't Xu Fu deploy those warships?"

"Because... I don't know either. Xu Fu was preparing for a war, and I thought he was preparing for this war. It wasn't until he sent me out with the only remaining shogunate warships that I realized that it was not the war Xu Fu was preparing for. The war he was preparing for might be related to the iron tower."

"Iron Tower? You mean the red and white one in the east?"

"Yes. He said that the tower can receive information from the enemy across the ocean. He said the enemy is coming soon, and all of us must obey his orders and be prepared."

(End of this chapter)