Chapter 1 The Beginning

Once Feng Zi took over, he discovered that Ye Tao had indeed put a lot of effort into publishing. The three magazines already published all had independent editorial departments. The largest, of course, was *National Geographic*. This was not only because *National Geographic* covered a wide range of content, requiring a lot of verification, but also because *National Geographic* was very experimental in printing and production, requiring a relatively large technical team to support it. In the editorial department of *Tiangong* (Heavenly Works), there were two old technicians to check the articles, and they also made printing plates for three-dimensional views, drawings, and illustrations with clear ratios. The editorial department of *Shucheng* (Book City) was the simplest, basically selected from the editors of Bao Wentang. However, these magazines had a disproportionately large operating department. Because they were launched together, the three magazines were not distributed independently, but through this operating department to coordinate the distribution and operation of the three magazines. This department seemed to be prepared for Wei Zhi. Wei Zhi, who had served inside the Ye family as an accountant for nearly ten years, was undoubtedly qualified for such a job in terms of talent and knowledge. Although she had been inside the Ye mansion and had little contact with the outside world, she was, like Feng Zi, a highly valued figure from within the Ye mansion. Who would dare to look down on her? This operating department had prepared distribution channels and various feedback figures in just over ten days, and several distribution departments in Dongping were also being prepared. Since these magazines were bound to be important national publications in the future, it was most appropriate to set up the editorial department and operating center in Danyang, but the branch distribution agencies were not the same. The farthest distribution branch was even planned to be set up in the northern grasslands. In Yuhang, the first foreign distribution point would also be established soon. However, in everyone's expectations, this foreign distribution point would probably become "domestic" sooner or later.

Ye Tao built the basic framework, but how to make this system of spreading knowledge and information bigger and stronger, and how to let the power of media penetrate the entire Dongping, was up to Feng Zi and his wife. According to general principles, Feng Zi and Wei Zhi should not be in the same institution, but should be separated to avoid corruption. However, Ye Tao knew these two people too well. Feng Zi was interested in wandering the martial world (jianghu). He didn't want to be a famous doctor or a high official. Otherwise, he would have had a very good development, whether relying on Feng Xingnan or Qu Yan. And Wei Zhi, the most beautiful of the dancers back then, was calm and peaceful. Over the years, she had sorted out the complex internal finances of the Ye mansion clearly and understandably. The funds flowing through her hands often reached millions of taels, and she knew very well that Tan Weixin and Ye Tao had absolutely no time to ask about these financial affairs, and they didn't even know the specific numbers. She wouldn't reach out for the money in that situation. It was even less likely that she would be greedy for money when it came to magazines, where the amounts involved were much smaller.

After understanding the whole process, Wei Zhi first came up with a set of proposals regarding various provisions for the operation of the entire magazine. Everyone was unsure about the distribution aspect, and there were bound to be areas to explore. However, Wei Zhi's plan directly started from personnel, performance, and finance, establishing basic operating standards, ensuring the response speed and coordination methods of all departments, while leaving a lot of room for flexibility. After Feng Zi began to take charge of the magazine, he thought of various other things, such as... broadcasting. The radio carrier wave technology was still many years away from practical use, but small-scale wired broadcasting had already entered various military camps and workshops, and it was very useful for internal notifications. And this kind of thing, if put in restaurants and taverns to create a channel for ordinary people, seemed pretty good... However, the laying of such broadcasting signal lines would probably cost a lot of money. While studying this possibility, Feng Zi began to deploy the launch and distribution of other publications.

A month after Feng Zi took over the media business, *Zhiye Jun* (Professional Soldier), a magazine for soldiers and military enthusiasts, was published as a trial issue.

*Zhiye Jun* was different from the previous magazines. Although Ye Tao had never said how to do advertising better, nor had he explained things like soft advertising and hard advertising, Feng Zi, who had a considerable understanding of the design and publicity departments in the Ye's workshops, had amazing imagination in this regard. He drew inspiration from the advertisements of Rujia Chain on the maps attached to *National Geographic* and made full use of it in *Zhiye Jun*. In Dongping, it was perfectly legal for ordinary people to store weapons and armor at home, and many people even had the habit of collecting them. In magazines like *Zhiye Jun*, it was perfectly normal to introduce weapons and armor. There were quite a few weapon and armor manufacturers in Dongping, including large manufacturers that provided large-scale armaments for the military, and small workshops that customized armor for generals, aristocratic children, and collectors. In the first issue of the magazine, *Zhiye Jun* dedicated a column to introduce light infantry armor and weapons produced by several different workshops in the country, each with key information such as the manufacturer, production time, and price. The most fascinating part was the horizontal evaluation of light infantry armor... The selected models and workshops had to pay an advertising fee in addition to providing armor for evaluation. The light infantry armor produced by several workshops had different focuses and had their own advantages and disadvantages. These armors were not the models equipped by the Dongping army, so it was not considered leaking state secrets. Data such as weight, wearing comfort, movement flexibility, movement restriction, armor plate configuration type, anti-chopping and anti-blunt weapon impact performance on the front, side, and back, and the complexity of wearing and removing were listed and compared. The most enjoyable thing was the chopping and blunt weapon impact tests. Several models of armor already had many owners, but no one was willing to torture the armor like this.

In the comprehensive performance comparison of this evaluation, the winner was actually Tiexin Fang (Iron Heart Workshop) opened by the Shi family. The light infantry armor produced by Tiexin Fang drew on many advantages from the designs of armor produced by other companies. This armor also adopted a frame structure, but compared to the light infantry armor used by the Blood Kirin Army, the structure was simpler, focusing on the protection of key parts rather than being comprehensive. Moreover, the outer layer of armor plates was not made of a single type of armor plate. The shoulders and chest were made of forged armor plates, which were also uneven in thickness, strengthening the protection of key parts while reducing some weight. The abdomen and back were made of insect-like overlapping armor plates to increase flexibility. The ribs used chain mail, which did not affect the lateral flexion of the body. The waist, crotch, and legs used their own innovative design, with a certain degree of elasticity, but only limited bending as a whole. The buttocks and the back of the legs also used lightweight but highly protective chain mail. The most surprising thing was that the entire set of armor could be worn extremely quickly. After the personal adjustments were made, wearing and removing only required unscrewing four protective rings. Wearing and removing together took less than a minute, and the physical exertion was not severe. This armor, due to its unremitting efforts to reduce weight and strengthen the protection of key parts, had a very good balance between weight and protection. Light infantry armor had always had some shortcomings in the protection against blunt weapons, and this armor had elastic strips of metal and leather mixed with the parts of the shoulders, hips, back, and body, suspending the armor and the body at a certain distance. On the one hand, the armor had better heat dissipation and less physical exertion, and on the other hand, the response to blunt weapons was better than other types of armor.

When the result came out, the Shi family was stunned. They only submitted the armor for testing and paid the advertising fee because of their consistent efforts to keep up with the Ye family's various steps, to maintain a good relationship with the Ye family, and to have more exchanges. They never expected to overwhelm the weapon workshops of the Internal Affairs Department, the Ye family, the Gao family, etc. in the evaluation. Their armor had only been used on a small scale to arm a few trespassing clan soldiers of the Shi family in the south and for military training for the tenants at home. However, people from the Ministry of War, the Blood Kirin Army, the Tianxuan Army, and the Forbidden Army Command immediately came to verify the protective performance of the armor again. Even more surprising was that the cost of manufacturing this armor by the Shi family was relatively high because they had to purchase several materials from outside. If they could reduce this cost, the unit price of the armor would be greatly reduced.

The Ye family and the Internal Affairs Department immediately decided that they could provide materials at cost price under certain conditions, and the Ministry of War immediately placed an order for 10,000 sets of armor and announced that this armor would not be allowed to be sold to other countries. The Ministry of War's idea was that now that the equipment and training of the major military groups had been improved, the local garrison troops in various places, although their training had not been relaxed, were increasingly far from the standards of the main military groups in terms of equipment, especially in terms of protection. In this way, it would be less reassuring to use the local garrison troops as auxiliary combat forces in future battles. They would first try to re-equip the Danyang garrison, and if the effect was good, they would further carry out re-equipment on a national scale. The Shi family naturally could not eat such a large order, nor did they dare to eat it alone, but the first batch of trial equipment armor was given to them as a reward. The Shi family also needed to take this opportunity to expand production capacity as soon as possible and improve production efficiency and average quality level.

The Shi family rejoiced. With this opportunity, they finally stepped into the ranks of industrial and mining magnates from an agricultural family.