Chapter 1 Establishing Changshi Pass

Taking Changshi Pass was indeed a fairly effective measure to improve the security situation around Yunzhou. With Xi Ling unable to launch proactive attacks, it was extremely advantageous to bring Mengnan Banner completely under the jurisdiction of the Yunzhou Pacification Commission. However, among the various affairs of Yunzhou discussed by Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, and Dai Yun, taking Changshi Pass had a special significance. After all, what the Yunzhou Pacification Commission had to manage now was not just the affairs of Yunzhou, but at least a large part of Xi Ling: the Leiyin Demon Sect.

With the smooth development of the Leiyin Demon Sect in Xi Ling, and as it began to become an important branch in name of the Dao Ming Sect, it aroused increasing vigilance from the Dao Ming Sect due to its strong and steady development momentum. Support for the Leiyin Demon Sect was no longer limited to money and some craftsmen, or even the more metaphysical correspondence between Ye Tao and Lei Huang, the high-ranking priests of the Leiyin Demon Sect, regarding the interpretation of doctrines and organizational development. Now, support had shifted to more practical matters: personnel, weapons, and training. Unlike the time when Zhuo Xianchen secretly led three thousand elite Imperial Guards into Xi Ling in one go, this support was more in the form of small-scale, multi-batch transportation and dispatch. In this situation, in order to protect the secret passage, it was particularly important to establish another or several parallel passages. Under these circumstances, the passage at Zijing Pass, which had a considerable number of troops stationed there and was closely watched by Xi Ling, seemed very unsuitable.

As a Pacification Commissioner with strong professional skills in engineering construction, he would naturally not simply occupy Changshi Pass, which had very problematic defensive capabilities, and be done with it. In fact, after obtaining the blueprint of Changshi Pass, Ye Tao already had a basic blueprint for reconstruction and expansion in his mind, and had already drawn it on several drawings. When Changshi Pass was really taken, and there was specific survey data, he could complete the detailed design and start construction. By then, Changshi Pass would not be the shabby look it was now, but would truly become a reliable military fortress, with enough space to store military supplies and enough space for large-scale logistical work... Having a considerable amount of experience in designing fortresses and military towns, Ye Tao decided almost from the beginning that Changshi Pass could become an important link in the future capture of Xi Ling. Changshi Pass would also be the first item in a series of Yunzhou infrastructure construction projects presided over by Ye Tao. As for the most important city project, Ye Tao didn't even know if there was a suitable location to build this city, or how big and advanced the city should be built, and how much space should be left for many years of development, even if this space seemed unwarranted now.

The attack on Changshi Pass seemed to proceed extremely smoothly. A few days after the military meeting, a test of the Blood Kirin Army's smoke agent was conducted secretly outside Suiyuan City. The results proved that the thing that some troublemaker in the Blood Kirin Army had come up with was really useful. Feng Zi’s prankster spirit was slightly activated, and he added some ingredients to the smoke agent, so that the smoke agent not only had the effect of smoke, but also had some anesthetic and hallucinogenic effects. A large number of such smoke agents were produced and burned directly in front of Changshi Pass on a super scale, and the attack on Changshi Pass became the first practical case of "biochemical weapons" in this era. And the effect was surprisingly good. In the entire attack, of the more than three thousand soldiers led by Yu Fuzhong, only nineteen were injured in the end, and none died. Among them, four people were knocked down by their own smoke because they were too excited when facing the Xi Ling soldiers who stumbled out of Changshi Pass, so they tore off the wet handkerchief that was blocking their mouths and noses.

Shiliu steadily got the opportunity to send her younger brother to the Blood Kirin Army, and after hesitating again and again, she decided to become the first Camp Commander of the Central Army Camp, building this unit with only a thousand-odd people but concentrated countless complex dozens of professional personnel from scratch. Although Yu Fuzhong didn't have much ambition, his solid military affairs ability and good reputation among the grassroots soldiers unexpectedly led to him being appointed as the commander of the eight garrison camps. And the trust he gained even exceeded this position. Yu Fuzhong would not only be responsible for the formation and training of the eight garrison camps, but even be responsible for managing the reconstruction of Changshi Pass. The right to manage the materials of Changshi Pass was also handed over to him, because from then on, he would secretly transfer a part of the military resources to the people of the Leiyin Demon Sect according to the instructions of the Pacification Commission.

As for Xi Ling, although they were extremely angry after losing Changshi Pass, Jiang Xujing of the Zhenbei Military Division could not spare enough strength to counterattack at this time. This loss, with extremely low personnel losses and very little property loss, hid the information that Yunzhou and Dongping did not want to start a full-scale war behind it, which Jiang Xujing understood very clearly. How could Jiang Xujing not know that the more he waited, the easier it would be for Dongping to grow stronger, but the chaos in the north of Xi Ling not only involved the military power in his hands, but also made it impossible for him to organize enough military resources to guarantee the attack. In this situation, he had no choice but to write a memorial and report the truth, but he did not give any clear instructions except to order the garrison near Changshi Pass to be more vigilant.

With the official end of the military meeting, Changshi Pass was in hand, ensuring that no sudden war would occur in the four borders of Yunzhou, and various strategies for developing Yunzhou began to enter the implementation stage step by step.

For the vast majority of people in Yunzhou, the most obvious thing was the changes in the local government offices. Setting up specialized judicial and law enforcement agencies in various places? It was quite difficult to do this in this era. In this era, local affairs were still quite simple. Appointed official positions such as county military instructors, handling lawsuits was the most burdensome business, and collecting taxes and local infrastructure construction could only be regarded as routine trivial matters. Ye Tao felt that under these circumstances, it was really unrealistic to deprive the local government of its judicial power, and it would be a waste of manpower and material resources to set up new agencies to deal with it, but he still made some adjustments. For example, he issued a document clarifying the "non-torture" principle for all cases, making "presumption of innocence" possible from an operational level. Another is the establishment of the village elder hearing system. The trial of any case must have six village elders who are not related to the plaintiff and defendant to listen to the entire process. The village elders cannot influence the trial result, but if there is any question, if they cannot unanimously agree with the county military instructor's judgment, they can submit the case to a higher level. Death sentences for a series of serious criminal crimes such as murder, robbery, and rape must be reviewed by the Judicial Office under the Pacification Commission before they can be executed. This measure did reduce the efficiency of local judicial execution, but it also avoided many false confessions caused by torture and wrong sentences caused by the county military instructor's prejudice, and even created a clear result: good local officials and bad local officials, local officials who were skilled in handling cases and local officials who were clumsy in this kind of matter were quickly sorted out, and talent reserves were made for Yunzhou to completely separate this kind of matter from the local government in the near future. And for the common people, although they could not influence the county magistrate's opinion, they could watch the whole process, which was already a great progress. Moreover, Ye Tao had not announced any regulations that the observers should be isolated, subtly forming an interaction between public opinion and judicial execution. It has to be said that in this simple era, public opinion was quite reliable.

And the several important departments under the Yunzhou Pacification Commission also began to gradually improve their structure and gradually play their role. Whether it was the Command, the Manufacturing Bureau, the Commerce Bureau, or the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Bureau, as well as the many small departments directly under the Pacification Commission, a large number of talents were needed, a large number of officials with relevant experience or folk talents were needed, and it was quite difficult to establish the entire team. Recruiting talents was nothing more than recommending people, recruiting local talents, and sending people to find these roads. What Ye Tao needed was a large number of people who could do things, not a few "talented" aides. All the talents who needed the Pacification Commissioner to personally invite them were ignored by him. Ye Tao's statement was also very simple: if you want to do it, do it, if you don't want to do it, then Yunzhou can do without you.

While the institutions were being established, the visual identity images of Yunzhou's major departments were also launched one after another. The Yunzhou Pacification Commission simply used the logo designed by Ye Tao when he promoted Yunzhou, which was a city tower floating above the clouds, and began to gradually deploy this set of visual identity logos with the Pacification Commission's office in Ningyuan City as the center. The logos of the major departments under the Pacification Commission were much cuter in comparison. The logo of the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau was half a gear protruding from the clouds, while the Commerce Bureau was half a copper coin protruding from the clouds. As for the logo of the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Bureau, it was even more Q version, which was a sheep's head resting on the clouds. The little face of the sheep even had a happy smile on it. Such a mark was indeed not majestic enough, but it made people feel spontaneously: this is life.

In fact, the shape of the most core white cloud did not change at all. This was Yunzhou's core mark, but different attachments were used to give this cloud different functions. The logo of the Command was different. The other logos showed specific objects supported by clouds, while the logo of the Yunzhou Command was a shield that covered the clouds behind the shield, fully demonstrating the Command's primary responsibility of managing Yunzhou's army and maintaining Yunzhou's stability and harmony.

Such a set of visual identification marks was undoubtedly the first deployment of government-level visual images in this era, and these simple but meaningful and profound, even faintly humorous logos naturally became classic works in the field of design.