After Maxing out all Classes

The Capital of Wanderers.

This had been the capital of Big Tang, with a population exceeding 1.5 million. In terms of population size alone, it had been the largest city in the entire world, even surpassing Robb’s Westwind City and Shuangqing City.

The enormous population had brought great potential to this city, as well as the pride of the Celestial Empire.

At that time, Shang Hui had been summoned by the emperor and had arrived at the imperial palace. Due to Shang Hui and Godfather’s unique statuses, the emperor of Big Tang had not dared to neglect her. He had arranged two rows of civil and military officials for the meeting in the main hall, which had been quite an honor.

Shang Hui had walked past the two rows of civil and military officials and had come before the throne. She had respectfully saluted the emperor, saying: “Long, live, long live the Emperor!”

The Emperor’s face had shown a warm smile: “You may rise! I hear you have something interesting to present to me. What is it?”

Shang Hui had replied: “Your Majesty! What I would like to present is a steam engine. It can help us complete a variety of tasks. It has already started to be widely used in the Western world. I wish to offer it to Big Tang without charge so that our kingdom may advance by leaps and bounds with the help of this steam engine.”

“Oh?” The emperor had found it interesting: “Bring this steam engine for me to see.”

The palace guards had gone out and passed on the command. Soon, a group of laborers had carried in a huge machine.

The massive machine had looked quite heavy. It had been placed on the palace floor, and the emperor had been a little concerned that his beautiful marble floor might get damaged. However, he had thought better of it, considering his status as the emperor. If the floor was damaged, he could simply have artisans replace it. After all, there was plenty of fine marble in the Celestial Empire; he couldn’t appear petty.

Once the steam engine had been set up, not a single person among the literati or the warriors had understood what it was.

At Shang Hui’s command, the laborers had begun the demonstration.

Coal had been added, fire had been raised, gears had been connected to the turning axle, and ropes had been attached. The steam engine had started, rumbling as it turned, pulling the ropes. Then the ropes had pulled a large millstone, which had started grinding tofu.

The Emperor and a group of ministers had widened their eyes, ready to see something extraordinary, only to discover that this machine was merely grinding tofu.

One of the ministers had said in disbelief: “Ms. Shang, this machine looks impressive, but it’s just for grinding tofu? We could use an ox or a donkey to turn the millstone for that. If there’s neither, humans can do the work.”

Shang Hui had smiled: “The invention of this machine is meant to save human labor.”

The minister had looked disdainful: “Save human labor? Why use a machine for something that humans can do?”

The ministers nearby had all nodded in agreement: “Exactly! This machine only knows how to spin; it doesn’t know how to adapt. But when people operate a mill, it’s far better. You can control when to spin, when to stop, speed up, or slow down. Human intelligence is far beyond what a machine can achieve.”

Shang Hui responded, “That’s not the way to see it. Human labor has its limits. By saving manpower through machines, people can free up their hands to spend more time on more creative and artistic endeavors.”

“Pshaw! Nonsense!” the ministers expressed their boredom. “This machine is just a toy, utterly useless.”

A military official nearby quietly cautioned them: “Be careful what you say to Ms. Shang Hui. She is the woman of that…that man. If you disrespect her like this, you should worry about that man coming after you.”

The civil officials scoffed: “Since when have we been afraid? There’s no reason to refrain from speaking out for fear of a powerful adversary. We are not afraid of that man; even if the Emperor were to issue a wrong decree, we would be willing to die to speak out against it.”

The military official said nothing. Fine, the civil officials of Big Tang were famously stubborn, unwilling to give face to anyone.

Smiling, Shang Hui said to them: “It’s good that you’re not afraid to speak out, but if you insist on defending an incorrect idea, that’s a disaster.”

The civil officials scoffed again: “Where are we wrong? Your machine, what use does it have other than grinding a mill? It consumes so much coal; the loss outweighs the gain.”

Shang Hui stated, “It’s not just a machine for grinding; it’s a source of power. It could pull objects that you couldn’t move with sheer manpower. It could propel trains and drive steel battleships. It’s not a toy; it’s the future.”

The civil officials shook their heads, laughed coldly, and showed no interest: “For heavy objects, we could use thousands or tens of thousands of people. As for trains, they’re slower than galloping horses. And steel battleships floating on the sea? You’re talking nonsense. Even if you are that man’s woman, we’ll still challenge you.”

Shang Hui sighed: “Alas! I wanted to give this new technology to the state, but unfortunately there are too many frogs at the bottom of the well in the kingdom. What can be done?”

As she was sighing, suddenly a young eunuch ran in from the outside, shouting, “This is bad! This is bad!”

The Emperor glanced at him: “What’s the panic? Report the matter; don’t shout and scream.”

The young eunuch had anxiously reported: “According to the news, the Warring States period in the Ghost Nation had ended several days ago. A man named Hideyoshi had unified the Ghost Nation. His confidence had inflated, and he actually had the audacity to think about conquering our Big Tang. He even brazenly said he would establish his capital in Boning Harbor. He had already sent troops to Gobang, planning to use it as a stepping stone.”

The civil officials had exclaimed, “Oh my! Oh my!”

The military officials had declared, “We should send troops to Gobang and drive those damned ghosts back to their island.”

The civil officials had hesitated, “But… the navy of Gobang is strong, and our navy is…”

At that point, Shang Hui had stood up and smiled, “Leave this matter to me. This will be a perfect opportunity to show you the real power of the steam engine.”

Three months later, along the coast of Gobang.

A large group of Big Tang civil and military officials had been standing on a cliff by the seashore, watching a battle that was taking place on the ocean.

The sea had been full of iron-clad ships from Ghost Nation, looking incredibly imposing. They had been battling against Gobang’s turtle ships!

Gobang’s turtle ships had also been formidable warships with impressive battle capabilities. However, due to the weaker national power, there had been fewer turtle ships, and they had been heavily surrounded by Ghost Nation’s iron-clad fleet. On the prow of many ships, humanoid turtles—resembling water turtles—had been energetically fighting horned ghosts.

Seeing this, Shang Hui had broken into a sweat, “What on earth is all this?”

The ministers beside her had gleefully said, “You didn’t know? People in Gobang are turtle people! When our two nations had athletic competitions in the past, people from Ghost Nation used to jokingly refer to it as a turtle-rabbit race. But now, we people of the Tang Dynasty are no longer rabbits, haha, we’re no longer rabbits! The label of a turtle-rabbit race can’t be pinned on us anymore, hahaha!”

Ignoring the tasteless joke, a civil official had turned to Shang Hui and asked, “Ms. Shang, where is that steel warship you were talking about?”

Shang Hui had smiled, “It’s coming right up!”

As she had finished her sentence, a “wooo wooo wooo” sound of a steam whistle had come from the distance. Two enormous steel ships had charged from the distant seas. Both ships had been black, with large steam wheels on the sides, rotating quickly, stirring the waters, and making the ships incredibly fast.

The Big Tang officials had gasped in surprise, contributing once again to global warming awareness.

“Such large ships, made of steel!”

“So terrifying!”

“How do these ships move?”

Smiling, Shang Hui had explained, “Inside the belly of these ships, we have installed the ‘steam engine’ that I demonstrated to you before. It turns the water wheels, and the wheels paddle through the water, making the ship move incredibly fast.”

The officials had exclaimed, “So that’s how it is! Truly impressive.”

A military official had scrutinized the two large ships for a while and couldn’t help but ask, “Ms. Shang, why are there no cannons on your ships? Um… they seem like two civilian merchant ships.”

Shang Hui had smiled, “I apologize! I couldn’t arrange for warships. My family head disagreed with sending steel warships to fight against the Ghost Nation. He said that the existing steel warships all fly the flag of the Kingdom of Gran. If I brought those over, it would drag Kingdom of Gran into the war, something he didn’t want to see. So, I could only use these merchant ships that belong to our family, under the identity of an Eastern Tang citizen, to fight in this battle.”

Upon hearing this, the faces of the people around had turned pale: “These are your family’s private merchant ships?”

“Yes,” Shang Hui had replied, “Merchant ships don’t have much in the way of weapons, so… let’s just use them to ram into the enemy ships.”

The crowd had been perplexed: “???”

The sight of them charging had been terrifying.

The people of the Ghost Nation had started shouting in surprise: “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a ship, a huge ship, a ship made of steel.”

“Ahhhhh!”

With a “crash,” one of the steel merchant ships had collided with a Ghost Nation iron-clad ship. Although the ship’s name was “iron-clad,” it had actually just been a wooden ship with some iron plates nailed onto it—calling it “iron-clad” had been quite audacious. A true steel warship had rammed it at full force, reducing it instantly to splinters.

The next day, a Big Tang minister with the surname Xu had stepped forward, proposing a policy of “learning from the barbarians in order to subdue them.” With Shang Hui’s assistance, they had fully adopted steam engines and started learning advanced science and technology, thereby embarking on a path to catch up with the world.

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