What is the most important thing when vying for supremacy over the world?
It is soldiers!
And what is the most important thing for amassing soldiers?
It is grain!
Especially in years of drought, grain is the absolute top priority.
With such grain seeds in her possession, Jiang Jin has already achieved half her success.
Looking again at her territory of Gefeng.
The people are optimistic and united.
The officials are upright and uncorrupted.
The soldiers are fierce and loyal.
Her power has already taken shape!
It all depends on how she defends it and expands from here.
Nan Wen was even more puzzled. "Then why do you care whether she is a member of the royal family?"
Qiu Liao smiled, leaning back gently against his chair. "I really did not want to deal with royalty before, but I realized I do not need to care about that, because she does not need to rely on her status!"
He actually did not know Jiang Jin's exact identity; he guessed she was either a princess or a descendant of a collateral royal branch.
He did not have a prejudice against the royal family, but royalty indeed came with a lot of inherent trouble.
For example, after she conquers the Yan Kingdom, many loyal subjects currently hiding in god-knows-where will inevitably run out. Crying, making a scene, and threatening to kill themselves by smashing their heads into pillars, they would force her to return the throne to the orthodox lineage.
This is absolutely something those shameless people would do.
But now he realized he did not need to worry about this. Through Gefeng, the Jiang Jin he saw was someone who would tell those loyal subjects to go to hell!
The night was deep and quiet.
Under the dim light, voices could faintly be heard from inside the clinic.
"How is it?" Luo Qingci looked at the woman lying motionless in the medical room.
Liu Mi wiped her hands, her expression rather grim.
"This probably is not the first time her right hand has been fractured. Even if it heals well this time, she will never be able to lift heavy objects again. As for whether she can do delicate needlework, that will depend on her recovery."
She knew this woman was a worker at the garment workshop. If she did not recover well, she might lose her job.
"One rib is broken, but fortunately it has not shifted. Multiple organs in her abdomen have suffered varying degrees of damage," Liu Mi added.
"Her head suffered a heavy blow, and there is a depression in her skull. I am not sure if there is internal damage or blood clots."
Because the woman's injuries were so severe, it took both Suo Qian and Mu Zhuo working together to save her life.
Liu Mi let out a long sigh and pulled back the thin blanket covering the woman, revealing her body. It was covered in black and blue bruises, with hardly a patch of good skin left.
Her abdomen in particular was almost entirely black, marked with numerous old scars.
Luo Qingci clenched her fists in silence.
Liu Mi covered her with the blanket again and pointed to several spots on the woman's head where the scalp was exposed.
"The scalp was torn off in these areas previously and did not receive timely treatment, so the hair can no longer grow back. Then there is this newly torn patch; I have applied medicine to it, but I do not know if hair will grow there in the future."
She looked at the woman's forehead, where blood was still seeping through thick layers of gauze. "A large chunk of flesh was smashed off her forehead. It will definitely leave a scar."
Liu Mi paused, then gently pulled out the woman's fractured right hand.
Luo Qingci's heart tightened. A section of the woman's little finger was missing, and looking at the scar, it seemed to be a burn?
Sure enough, she heard Liu Mi say, "Her little finger was likely chopped off forcefully with a blunt knife, and then burned with fire while she was still alive."
She lowered her head and gently placed the woman's hand back, turning and raising her eyes to look at Luo Qingci. "Can that man be sentenced? A heavy sentence!"
Jiang Jin was somewhat surprised that Luo Qingci came to find her so late. "What happened?"
Luo Qingci held the steaming cup in her hands, feeling its warmth, which finally eased the suffocating feeling in her chest.
"My Lord, what do you think women marry for? What can they gain? Is it just to become someone else's property?" She looked up at Jiang Jin, confusion in her eyes.
She too had a fiance once, and had held beautiful expectations and fantasies about married life.
But later, her father, mother, older brother, younger sister, fiance, everyone she knew and did not know were all gone, leaving behind only a barren wasteland.
Jiang Jin could not help but frown, recalling what Dong Si had told her today about a mother and son being arrested in the city. "Is the woman heavily injured?"
Luo Qingci's eyes suddenly reddened. Her Lord understood her, and understood the hardships of women.
That was why Gefeng had female soldiers, female officials, female workers, female doctors, and female scholars.
Everything was done to elevate the status of women, giving them the ability to survive so they no longer had to depend on others.
In truth, the things Jiang Jin had done were already subtly influencing the people of Gefeng step by step.
Awakening women slowly, letting them know that women are no worse than men, that women can also read and write, can work to support themselves, can become soldiers to protect themselves and others, and are not just someone's accessory.
It also made men accept that women are not their property, that women can equally earn money and support a family, and can live very well without relying on men.
However, there were still the stubbornly unyielding, especially those men who benefited from the old ways.
They were afraid, afraid that women would slip from their control, because for them, the only things they could probably control were their own wives and daughters.
Luo Qingci quickly steadied her emotions and explained the situation, especially the woman's injuries.
Jiang Jin's face turned cold.
Luo Qingci continued, "His previous wife was beaten to death by him, leaving behind a daughter who was sold while they were fleeing as refugees."
"Mu Wuniang is his second wife, whom he married five years ago. Actually, she was pregnant once before, but the child was beaten out of her."
Mu Wuniang was the beaten woman. She had no name of her own; she was just the fifth child in her maiden family.
When registering households, many women did not know what name to take, so they would use the ranking they were called by in their maiden homes as their name.
The government could not possibly name each and every one of them, so as long as they did not report a name with their husband's surname attached, it was accepted by default.
"The death penalty!" Jiang Jin said without hesitation. "Furthermore, it must be widely announced and heavily publicized, so that everyone knows about his death."
Luo Qingci was stunned. "The death, death penalty?"
She also felt that the man's death would not be enough to atone for his crimes, but in this era, the concepts of the Three Obediences and Four Virtues were already deeply rooted.
The ideology of male superiority and female inferiority was mainstream; women were considered subordinates to men, their property.
Cases of women being beaten to death by their husband's family were common, and the law would not actively pursue them. Unless her maiden family was powerful and pursued the matter to the end, her death would be in vain.
This was also one of the reasons the man dared to brazenly beat Mu Wuniang.
She actually knew that there were many men in Gefeng who beat their wives, but most did it behind closed doors and would not go too far, because in today's Gefeng, women could earn money.
"That is right, the death penalty!" Jiang Jin's voice was sonorous and forceful.
She could not help but think of the laws from before the 25th century, and sighed, saying, "There is a country where being treated violently in a family is called domestic violence."
"But this term is incorrect. Violence is violence, and it has nothing to do with whether they are husband and wife."
How ironic. If a stranger beats or kills you, it is intentional injury or intentional homicide.
But if your closest partner beats or kills you, as long as you do not die, it is a family dispute, and even the government will not care.
If beaten to death or crippled, they are sentenced to a dozen years at most, and when they come out, they are a free man again, continuing to harm other women.
She could not understand what the people who established such laws were thinking. Isn't it true that being hurt by the person closest to you hurts the most?
If you asked her, the punishment for domestic abusers should be much more severe!
And what is with this nonsense about illegitimate children having inheritance rights just because all lives are equal?
Equal?
A cheating scumbag.
A homewrecker.
Their sordid affair was illegitimate to begin with, and the product of their union should be scorned, not supported and encouraged by some so-called theory of equality. For some people, their very birth is an original sin.
She could not do anything about it before, but the current Ge Feng was her Ge Feng, which meant things would now be done according to her rules.
