Chapter 1 Hahaha...

"Hahahaha..." Ye Tao laughed heartily. "How amusing, why is this your responsibility to apologize for?"

Lei Huang cautiously explained his thoughts. As the Zongzong (religious leader) of the Leiyin Demon Sect, he truly understood the impact of religion on people's hearts. In the beginning, when a missionary convinced someone to join, they would likely persuade those around them to join as well, because they didn't want to appear special. In any environment, being special is dangerous. As the situation developed and most people joined, those few outside the sect would strive to persuade them to join as well. As this numerical advantage became more apparent, the methods became more extreme because they couldn't allow anyone to be special... Even though the Leiyin Demon Sect was initially a rational, membership-based religion, with its growth, it increasingly displayed the fanaticism inherent in any religion. As the most capable person to incite fanaticism among all the missionaries, Lei Huang tried hard to keep this dangerous power, which couldn't be fathomed with reason, within a certain range... namely, within the borders of Xi Ling. When this power began to enter Yunzhou, he naturally became very nervous.

After listening to Lei Huang's explanation, Ye Tao patted him on the shoulder and said, "Respected Zongzong, you overestimate the Leiyin Demon Sect's power of erosion, and you underestimate me." Ye Tao said with great confidence, "From the beginning when I proposed those ideas, I considered whether I was playing with fire, whether it would bring instability to Dongping's future, whether I was creating trouble for myself... I don't care about blasphemy. After all, although for some reason I believe that some things cannot be explained (it would be too strange for a transmigrator to be an atheist), there is at least no evidence that gods or ghosts really exist. However, if I didn't have any methods to deal with religious systems and organizations, especially methods of attack and restraint, would I dare bring up the Leiyin Demon Sect's plan?"

Lei Huang was taken aback and asked, "Do you really have a way?"

Ye Tao was amused by Lei Huang's expression and said, "Really. Don't forget, I have a pretty clear understanding of the Leiyin Demon Sect's organizational structure, and you're helping from within. Even if I didn't understand it at all, I believe I could find a way. Don't forget, I have some confidence in this sort of thing."

Lei Huang smiled sheepishly and said, "I'm relieved to hear you say that, sir. Within the Leiyin Demon Sect, I can come up with countless reasons not to preach in Yunzhou, and it wouldn't be difficult to justify. But I can't forcibly control the spontaneous preaching of the members; doing so might arouse suspicion and backfire. Especially now, with the temple being built and Sun Boping as a backer, everything looks so good, and the enthusiasm of ordinary members is astonishing. So, sir, if I don't interfere with the spontaneous preaching of the members, that should be fine, right?"

Ye Tao nodded and said, "Actually, there's no need to put on a show of resisting members entering Yunzhou. After all, there are too many merchants and travelers passing through the two passages of Zijing Pass and Changshi Pass. You can't control this even if you want to. You might as well encourage the spontaneous behavior of the members and let them run into obstacles themselves."

Lei Huang was somewhat unconvinced. He didn't know why Ye Tao was so confident, but Ye Tao certainly had the qualifications to say such things. Works like *Qun Xue* (Study of the Masses) were enough to show the depth of Ye Tao's thinking in this area. Lei Huang had encountered many problems while operating the Leiyin Demon Sect, and only when he looked back at the book did he realize that some of the viewpoints and methods in *Qun Xue* had been explained with great foresight. If Ye Tao said he could make those enthusiastic members run into obstacles, he probably could.

Ye Tao had indeed made preparations in this regard, but he hadn't expected that his preparations for spiritual civilization construction would have to be deployed a little earlier than expected due to the rapid development of the Leiyin Demon Sect. In fact, he was far more interested in things like publicity and promotion than in handling the complicated affairs of Yunzhou, second only to holing up in his studio to research various technologies and crafts and carry out various designs. However, now that the guys he had trained had also begun to show considerable skill in publicity and promotion, even the design department of Ye's Workshop in Yunzhou, which had planned the Yunzhou Road and Bridge Department's promotion project that year, could quickly come up with a turnkey service plan, from event organization to related design products, and even budgets, as long as he made a request to them, already resembling a later-generation advertising company. And Ye Tao couldn't put aside the pile of important things at the Jinglue Manor to compete with the design department for work, right? Lei Huang's worries were a great opportunity for Ye Tao to show off his skills and activate his mind.

"By the way, when are you going to let my eldest shixiong (martial brother) come back?" After chatting with Lei Huang for a while, Ye Tao suddenly asked, "The temple should be almost finished, right?"

Lei Huang was stunned again, seemingly unable to shift from Ye Tao's rapid topic change. He said, "When I left, only the four corner towers of the temple still had roofs to be built, and the rest were being painted."

Ye Tao said with relief, "That's good. Then quickly let my eldest shixiong come back. The new city is about to enter the detailed design stage, and I have to leave for quite a while. I'm really not at ease without eldest shixiong to preside over it."

Lei Huang was surprised and delighted and said, "New city?"

Ye Tao smiled and nodded and said, "I'm going to Danyang this time to ask His Majesty for funds. He himself said that he was willing to allocate expenses for the new city. Then I won't be polite. Moreover, it seems that His Majesty intends for me to go to Chunnan with the envoy. I'll probably be gone for about four months."

In fact, Ye Tao had far more things to worry about than just the new city. At least, the design and construction of the new city would take a lot of time, and there was not so much time pressure for Ye Tao. It was already mid-April, and Ye Tao had to leave Yunzhou for Danyang no later than mid-May, and then meet up with Consort Lian, Chang Ling's, family visit mission, and go to Chunnan together. Then, depending on the situation, he would stay in Chunnan for a while, take a boat back to Yicheng, and then return to Yunzhou. Before he left, he had to arrange the work after his departure. Fortunately, this time Tan Weixin resolutely didn't want to go to Chunnan, and Dai Yun also had no interest in Chunnan, so the two of them could bear most of the political and military affairs. But the manufacturing and design aspects were not something that these two incomparably powerful great women could handle. In particular, the design that Ye Tao was working on was really quite a headache.

Ye Tao was researching a series of textile machines, especially wool textile machines. Yunzhou didn't have much area to grow cotton, but the large amount of wool produced by the many tribes on the Benlang Plain every year was truly there. Due to the backward production technology, the waste was heartbreaking. But when Ye Tao really started researching this technology, he found that it was quite difficult to make comprehensive changes. He was naturally not trapped in the spinning link. In fact, spinning was the easiest link in the entire process for him. He even came up with a loom that could display simple patterns, and now there are many technicians who are studying how to come up with more patterns. What really gave him a headache was the carding and combing of wool.

The reason why looms are relatively simple is that the working object of the loom is a line that has a regular pattern to follow, and the strength, thickness, etc. of these lines all have approximate data for reference. But how to turn a pile of wool into these lines is a bit troublesome. The entire research process was like a brainstorming test for Ye Tao. All kinds of strange ideas kept popping up, constantly being rushed out by the on-call technicians, and constantly being rejected... The current plan is based on two discs as the core, and new ideas have already popped up in Ye Tao's mind: discs, clamping pieces, pliers, and comb teeth can be combined in a more unique way.

While Ye Tao was constantly envisioning new mechanical solutions, he was also striving for coordination between machinery and labor, and he also had to consider the cost and reliability of the machine, the difficulty of operating and maintaining the machine, and also consider using various methods to prevent workers operating the machine from being injured... Moreover, all of this was carried out in a purely mechanical environment, without electricity, without a highly reliable high-temperature steam engine, only stable and reliable clean energy: wind.

This was completely different from the continuous innovation of Ye's Workshop on the basis of traditional technology, and it was also different from the semi-mechanization of papermaking and printing, and the difference between slightly improving smelting techniques was even greater. This was Ye Tao designing in a field he was not familiar with. He could find all the information he needed, understand all the technical aspects he had to understand, and he had to summarize the laws from various abstract aspects, find feasible methods, and then turn these methods into precision-operating machines. This was what he was good at as an excellent industrial designer, but it was really difficult to get these things out in a very limited technological environment, but it was also very challenging.

What was even more difficult was that after he completed the design, the technicians of Ye's Workshop had to accept a full challenge to them. They had to turn these designs into products in a short period of time, and build windmill workshops, new dyeing workshops, and scouring and dyeing finishing workshops, and complete installation and commissioning. All the projects must be completed in the autumn of this year, because autumn is the season for shearing sheep. If they want to start producing wool fabrics this year, they must follow this schedule. What motivated everyone was, in addition to the huge bounty offered by Golan, the Director of the Agricultural and Pastoral Affairs Bureau, which represented the entire prairie tribe, there was also a piece of slightly dim wool fabric, about four chi long and three chi wide, completely made of handmade combed and spun wool, which was placed in the middle of the factory building occupied by all the craftsmen participating in this project.