Chapter 1 A Common Market

“After many years of development, technology has advanced, and people's living standards have improved, but the demand for external resources has also increased in various countries. Yun Province does not produce salt and tea, so it must obtain them from Dongping and other places. Before Yun Province was brought under control, didn't my Dongping also lack a supply of excellent warhorses on a large scale? Chunnan has always lacked sturdy timber from the north, making the construction of palaces and ships unimaginably expensive. Beiliao will always lack grains and food, and metal ore deposits, so they have never been able to enrich and strengthen themselves through diverse development methods. These are just the broad aspects. On a smaller scale, the common people of Chunnan can now buy kitchen knives and farm tools produced by Dongping's blacksmith shops. Chunnan's silk fabrics always sell better and at higher prices than those originally produced in Dongping. Beiliao, a major cavalry power, secretly smuggles countless weapons and horseshoes with less strict controls from Dongping every year. A large number of Dongping products flow to Xiling every year, while Xiling's rich gold and silver deposits ensure that there is no shortage of currency circulating within Dongping... While needing each other, everyone restricts each other due to various reasons and concerns. When circulation grows to a certain level, intentionally or unintentionally, the need for a common market appears. Because everyone begins to realize that a unified country that can operate more efficiently is beneficial to everyone, especially to ordinary people, to those who do not occupy a monopoly position... Back then, Dongping marched all the way west due to a shortage of food supply, pushing its borders from a small area west of present-day Danyang to the Xunshan Pass, thereby obtaining a stable grain-producing area. Because it was unwilling to have the salt supply controlled by the Lu Kingdom, it spent a lot of money every year to ensure the domestic salt supply and simply destroyed the Lu and Qi Kingdoms, pushing Dongping's eastern border to the sea. After so many years of development, when Dongping possessed various resources and they interacted with each other, Dongping was able to develop to where it is today. A unified country means a unified monetary system, unified laws, unified weights and measures, and many, many unified things. However, a unified country also means that those who occupy a dominant position will ignore the differences in various regions due to unification, will ignore that rulers are still human and still make mistakes in pursuit of personal or family immortality, and will ignore the reality of constantly adjusting rules to adapt to development due to the need to establish absolute authority for a time.”

“Unification may become an optimization and integration of all the regions under its jurisdiction due to the ruler's full preparation and open-mindedness, thereby making the entire country a stronger whole rather than just a superposition of regional quantity. Similarly, unification may also become a situation of accumulating and brewing conflicts, but temporarily hiding them, but one day, the conflicts will still erupt. Isn't that how the separations and reunions of the Central Earth Continent have always been throughout history? So, which path will Dongping's unification take?”

“Why can Dongping occupy such advantages when the opportunity for unification of the Central Earth Continent arises? Because Dongping is powerful, because, in the hearts of the people, Dongping is a country that can meet everyone's needs. In my humble opinion, the needs of ordinary people can be divided into five types. Physiological needs: refer to the basic needs to maintain human life itself, including food, water, shelter, sleep, and other physiological needs. Among all needs, physiological needs are the most prioritized. If a person is controlled by physiological needs, then other needs will be relegated to secondary importance. The saying 'When clothing and food are sufficient, people will know honor and disgrace' is also the same principle.”

“Safety and security needs: After physiological needs are met, safety needs become the main needs, which is a need to be free from physical harm. Safety needs include many aspects: psychological safety, hoping to be free from the threat of strict supervision, avoiding unfair treatment, etc.; work safety, hoping for safe work, no accidents, harmless environment, etc.; occupational safety, such as hoping to be free from natural disasters, wars, bankruptcy, etc.; economic security, hoping for medical care, old-age care, and accident insurance. If this need is not met, people will feel threatened and fearful.”

“Love and belonging needs: including the need for friendship, love, belonging, and acceptance. It is the need for people to establish emotional connections with others, such as making friends and pursuing love. The need for love includes giving love to others and receiving love from others. Love does not only refer to love between the sexes, but is broad, embodied in mutual trust, deep understanding, and mutual giving, including giving and receiving love. Social needs are related to personal character, experience, living area, ethnicity, living habits, religious beliefs, etc. This need is difficult to perceive and cannot be measured.”

“Respect needs: Once people's sense of belonging is satisfied, they demand self-respect and respect from others. Internal respect factors include self-esteem, autonomy, and a sense of accomplishment; external respect factors include status recognition and attention. Meeting this need will make people experience their own strength and value, while not meeting this need will cause people to feel inferior and lose confidence.”

“Self-actualization needs: refers to the need for personal growth and development, to exert one's potential, and to realize one's ideals. This is an inner drive to pursue the limits of personal ability, to maximize one's potential, to constantly improve oneself, and to complete everything commensurate with one's ability. It is the highest level of human need.”

“My Dongping has an increasingly vast territory and abundant products. As long as you are willing to work hard, you can naturally ensure that you have no worries about food and clothing, and can meet the people's survival needs. Dongping has strong military power, relatively clean governance, smooth channels for the upper echelons to hear the lower echelons, and an open atmosphere of speech, which can ensure the people's need for safety and security. Within Dongping, the four classes of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants are equal. It does not look down on scholars like Beiliao, nor does it discriminate against merchants and poor people like Chunnan. Even people from large clans, most of them do not have tempers so bad that no one wants to associate with them. At least, when I was insignificant, I experienced that most people were still reasonable. As for later... Needless to say, when I was respected... And the most important point is that as long as you have a skill, no matter where you are, no matter what your identity or profession, as long as you put in enough effort, you can naturally gain recognition and achieve much higher achievements than mediocre talents, and achievements commensurate with your abilities. In other countries, such a situation is sometimes unimaginable. It is these things that make Dongping a country that our people are proud of and that people from other countries yearn for.”

“And Dongping, it is precisely because it has realized such an opportunity, and its own strengths, that on the one hand, it is constantly preparing for war, strengthening intelligence work, and integrating various domestic resources to prepare for the inevitable dynastic wars. On the other hand, it is also constantly strengthening its cultural governance to form Dongping's dominant position in cultural dissemination and to win the victory on the cultural and spiritual level. This is because the development of the country has reached a point where there is a special need for cultural governance. This need includes two levels. One is the need to establish a strong cultural environment to ensure that Dongping will not be affected by its cultural weakness after the conquest. The other aspect is to seek the legitimacy of Dongping's unification of the continent and conquest of various countries in terms of cultural governance. Pang Daren's compilation of *The Millennium Genealogy* is just one part of it. Indeed, Chunnan's cultural governance is at its peak, but is it really beneficial to completely learn from Chunnan? If we completely use the set of dividing the four classes of people, dividing the barbarians and the Central Plains, instead of treating all the people on the land with an equal attitude, then we are not strengthening Dongping's core competitiveness, but weakening it.”

“So, what can we provide to the Yun Province tribes? Not privileges, not monetary bribes, only equality.” Ye Tao finished what he wanted to say and breathed a sigh of relief, "As for the construction costs that need to be paid, I don't think that's a problem either. Yun Province's products and development potential are far richer than imagined. And there are many ways to solve the investment problem."

Ye Tao's long speech was extremely shocking to the ministers present. They naturally had no way of knowing that Ye Tao and Tan Weixin were both deeply influenced by the grand historical perspective in modern society. Countless historians have summarized and organized various historical views from the vast sea of volumes, and they can fully absorb various nutrients from the vast sea of historical readings. Ye Tao's words not only absorbed many of Huang Renyu's "Grand History" viewpoints, but also integrated many comparative historical methods popularized by the Western historian Toynbee in *A Study of History*, and even added Maslow's hierarchy of needs when explaining the needs. No matter which statement it was, it had once attracted the attention of millions of people and aroused countless discussions and controversies. And this time, when it was thrown out all at once, the reaction was conceivable. As for the reasons for preparing for war and developing cultural governance, the advantages and disadvantages of unification, and the concept of national core competitiveness, were all put forward from a macro perspective, that is, from the perspective of the so-called "Grand History," which made people feel like they were revealing a heavenly secret and suddenly seeing the light. Just by these words, regardless of whether Ye Tao prepared in advance, or was forced by Pang Rong's previous suppression, sarcasm, and difficulty, he had undoubtedly made Ye Tao, the youngest guy in the Diligent Government Hall meeting, be regarded as a grandmaster without any reluctance. And this grandmaster is probably not just standing on the shoulders of giants, he is simply using a large group of giants to pad his feet.

Ye Tao did deeply strike at Pang Rong, but he also completely dispelled Tan Xiaopei's various doubts. Tan Xiaopei had no intention of letting this dispute continue, nor did he want Ye Tao to offend all the civil officials. He already had a lot of content to digest today. He cleared his throat, drew everyone's attention back, and said, "This matter is settled. All the clauses presented by Ye Tao are approved, and the news will be immediately sent back to Yun Province to reassure the tribes. As for the detailed rules for implementation, if everyone has any ideas, go back and draft some clauses today. The revisions to those documents should be enough in a month, right? Let's end here today."

Tan Xiaopei did not stay long. When all the ministers stood up and everyone's salute was not even half finished, he said "Be at ease" and immediately walked out of the Diligent Government Hall while whispering to Zhuo Mang. Ye Tao knew that he had offended many people today. Looking at Pang Rong's ashen face and the red, angry faces of several censors with higher ranks opposite him, he shrugged helplessly. After bowing to say goodbye to several old acquaintances, he hurriedly walked out of the Diligent Government Hall.

"Young Master Ye," a cordial voice sounded before he had taken a few steps. "Young Master, His Highness invites you."

Ye Tao turned his head and saw that it was a guard beside Tan Weiran.