Castle of Black Iron

Yingzhou State, Taixia Country, Eastern Continent...

As the most powerful and formidable country and the core region of human civilization in this age, Yingzhou State gathered billions of Chinese population. Every Hua people dreamed for that place. Taixia State represented the top human civilization and power in this age. Each human historian would prioritize Eastern Continent——Taixia Country——Hua people when they talked about the major reason that humans could survive on after the Catastrophe.

Almost every human historian was aware that there would be no Taixia Country or humans would have been exterminated in the former two holy wars without Hua people. Anyone who had a clear recognition about this age would sigh with emotions that Hua people and Taixia Country were the masters of Iron Black Age.

In this age, the continuity of Hua people and the power of Taixia Country bore the largest hope of the survival of all the humans.

If not considering the history and legends that happened in the distant age, humans had almost 6,000 years’ recorded history. With the Catastrophe as the original point, there were more than 5,000 years on its left side while only less than 900 years were on its right side. In the recorded human history of 6,000 years, no other countries could match Taixia Country’s power and prosperity. Actually, no country or alliance that could match Taixia Country was ever described in the history textbooks of humans. All the alleged brilliant and powerful countries and alliances in the human history textbooks were like fireflies in front of the bright moon compared to Taixia Country today.

Taixia Country was so powerful and prosperous that it was out of ones’ imaginations. As a result, those who couldn’t imagine its power and prosperity could only strive to move closer to it. When the holy war was coming, they would be more anxious about migrating into Taixia Country. Yingzhou State, as a coastal state of the 72 greater states of Taixia Country had a large number of immigrants after the holy war, especially the coastal cities, which became boisterous as a result.

...

It was not Zhang Yang’s first time to come to the harbor of Fuhai City, each time he came here, Zhang Yang would feel shocked, despite he had also seen those prosperous harbors in Huaiyuan Prefecture,

Fuhai Harbor was just one of the 17 harbors in Yingzhou State. It was not the largest one as its scale and freight throughput could only rank middle places. However, Zhang Yang almost got lost when he came here for the first time.

The harbor coastline was longer than 70 miles. It had over 20,000 shipyards and docks, big or small. In the cargo berths, there were so many giant head masts. Walking in such a harbor, he felt like walking in a steel woods composed of ships and huge fleets. Right in here, Zhang Yang saw huge open-sea fleets which weighed over 1 million tons.

There were exclusive railway lines in the harbor which connected the harbor from the south to the north. It took people almost one hour from the southernmost part of the harbor to the northernmost part by commuting train.

Fuhai Harbor was very large, so was Fuhai City. After coming to Taixia Country and gathering a lot of information from all aspects, Zhang Yang was deeply impressed by Taixia Country. It was too ”huge”.

Zhang Yang didn’t know how large was Taixia Country, because the entire Eastern Continent including those black and gray wild regions on map belonged to Taixia Country. In the words of Hua people, the entire Eastern Continent was the inherent territory of Taixia Country.

In the territory of Taixia Country, the 9 immortal states were the most prosperous, followed by 36 upper states, 72 greater states. The wild places, there were many medium-sized and small states and prefectures and people agglomerations.

The basic condition to be a greater state of Taixia Country was that the state had to have at least 108 Class A cities, not to mention other conditions and requirements.

After staying in Taixia Country several months, Zhang Yang had not figured out how cities were classified in Taixia Country. He was told that even Yiyang City in Jinyun Country could barely meet the requirements on the scale of population and size of the economy to be a Class A city in Taixia Country, as to other conditions, it might not even meet.

In Waii Sub-continent, Norman Empire copied Taixia Country from all aspects such as its social systems, urban classifications and national class divisions, etc..

The founder of Norman Empire, which was well-known across Waii Sub-continent became average in Taixia Country. In the eyes of most of the people in Taixia Country who knew Norman Empire, the alleged founder of Norman Empire was just a smart guy who ruled an uncivilized place after traveling Taixia Country and learned something. There were so many similar people in other continents and uncivilized places. Even now, there were still a lot of guys who came to Taixia Country with the same thoughts and dreams. They hoped to find a shortcut on this marvelous land so that they could be rich and privileged when they came back to their homeland.

As a Hua people who lived overseas for a long time, when Zhang Yang came to Taixia Country, he firstly needed to be adapted to the inherent confidence and pride of Hua people. After Taixia Country developed greatly, those Hua people who were extremely stubborn and proud would start to call themselves God’s men.

In this age, each Hua people living in Taixia Country was qualified to be proud of that.

Take Yingzhou State as an instance. As a greater state, the distance from south to north and from east to west were both above 20,000 miles. The area of Yingzhou State alone had already surpassed the total territory of all the human countries across Blackson Humans Corridor. Plus the area of all the islands and seas under the affiliation of Yingzhou State, the size of Yingzhou alone had already been several times more than that of Blackson Humans Corridor.

Of course, Yingzhou State was also very prosperous as an upper state.

Yingzhou State was divided into 7 prefectures, which included over 130 class A cities, over 1,000 cities below class A and tens of thousands of towns, large or small. 17 years ago, the state government roughly calculated the total population of Yingzhou State based on the consumption of common salt. According to the investigation, about 6.7 billion Hua people were living in Yingzhou State. Therefore, more Hua people lived here.

But it was just a state. We can imagine how prosperous and powerful was Taixia Country.

After coming to Yingzhou State, Zhang Yang firstly bought a map of the full territory of Taixia Country which was about 4 square meters. It was a mini version. On the map, Zhang Tie recognized that the distance from the southernmost part of Taixia Country to its northernmost part was 380.000 miles, excluding the grey regions.

It meant that it would take a person at least half a year by train straightly from the southernmost part to the northernmost part of Taixia Country at the speed of 100 km/h including using 2 hours to add water and coal each day. Actually, many people had tried it. Zhang Yang was told that it would take a person at least 20 months to finish the complete travel from the southernmost part to the northernmost part of Taixia Country.

However, on the map, Zhang Yang found that the distance between the easternmost part and the westernmost part of Taixia Country was even about 1/3 longer than that from the southernmost part to the northernmost part.

Curiously, after coming to Taixia Country, Zhang Yang had felt reassured. He had never felt that reassured when he was in Blackhot City. When he returned to Huaiyuan Prefecture, he felt a bit reassured; however, he didn’t become reassured completely. The moment he stepped on the land of Taixia Country and knew that billions of Hua people with the black hair and eyes were living here had Zhang Yang recovered his composure completely. Meanwhile, all the disordered sounds that had been restless in his heart over 2 decades disappeared along with his concerns about coming to a strange place.

Zhang Yang realized that Taixia Country was the very place for Zhang’s posterity to root and sprout and the place for Zhang clan to find and develop its everlasting undertakings.

As Zhang Ping, Zhang Tie’s uncle said, this was where they should go.

...

Zhang Yang was waiting nearby the dock ”Tiger 08” with some attendants. After receiving the message, Zhang Yang knew that those steamers whose weight ranged from 30,000 to 50,000 tons would finally be anchored at the dock nearby ”Tiger 08”. In this harbor, different tons of ships would anchor in different docks. Docks were different in water depths and docking facilities. In the dock region named as ”Rat”, there were super huge steamers which weighed over 1 million tons while those huge steamers which weighed over 500,000 tons would basically anchor in dock region named as ”Ox”.

It took Zhang family over 2 months from Waii Sub-continent to Yingzhou State of Taixia Country by airship last year. Although the airship was fast and comfortable, it could not hold too many passengers or items in such a long-distance flight. Therefore, Zhang Yang decided to evacuate people in batches last year. The second batch of people would arrive today. They were taking a huge 36,000-ton open-ocean steamer which was bought by Jinwu Corporation from Zhang’s Milky Way Shipyard. After bumping 9 months on the seas, the Safety&Tranquility steamer finally sent a message to Zhang Yang last day and told him that they would arrive at Fuhai Harbor of Yingzhou State this morning. Therefore, Zhang Yang waited here with some attendants.

Besides some reliable backbone personnel from all departments of Jinwu Corporation and their relatives, there were some items that Zhang Yang had people bring from Huaiyuan Prefecture, including some key equipment of his dad’s airship manufacturer. After all, they were all valuable belongings. Zhang Yang had them packed and transported here.

After waiting for more than 2 hours on the dock, Zhang Yang still didn’t see Safety&Tranquility yet. However, other huge steamers docked near the dock ”Tiger 08”.

The moment those huge steamers docked had the passengers pushed onto the deck and cheered. For them, it was really like getting rid of bitterness and reaching the bank of happiness. Everything here was fresh and nice to those people.

Watching those people, Zhang Yang recalled the scene when he came to Yingzhou State for the first time.

At this critical moment, those who could come to Yingzhou State by steamer were at least not poor. This could be judged from their clothes.

...

”Dad, what’s that?” a little girl of about 11 years old in a beautiful skirt raised her head while pointing at that object in the sky when she passed by Zhang Yang.

”Young lady, of course, it’s an airship! When we settle down, the master will consider adding the airship as a traffic tool for sure. It’s said that Taixia Country is so large. It’s very inconvenient for us to travel without an airship!” a fat woman told the little girl, ”I’ve not imagined that young lady could speak Hua language so well only after learning it two years!”

”No, Lisa, that’s not an airship. It doesn’t have air sacs...” The little girl exclaimed.

”What?”

Some raised their heads out of curiosity and became stunned at once. They then shouted, ”How come is it flying in the air without air sacs?”

After hearing their exclamations, more people stopped walking as they all raised their heads and watched the sky, including Zhang Yang.

There was indeed an over 200-m long object hovering in the sky at about 1,000 m in height. That object was different than the airship in shape. Additionally, it didn’t have air sacs or wings. Looking from the ground, it was completely a ship. Being different from common boats, it was floating in the sky.

After coming to Yingzhou State many months, it was Zhang Yang’s second time to see such an airboat. When he saw it for the first time, he also became dumbfounded; however, at this moment, he had almost been used to it. However, he was still very interested in it as he was deeply shocked by the power of civilization of Taixia Country.