The Daoist Soldiers of Taichu Palace are no longer what they used to be. Officially registered in the Daoist Soldier General Hall are one hundred thousand Daoist Soldiers, initially with several hundred Dao Foundation Captains. Each Daoist Soldier costs one hundred taels of Immortal Silver per year; Dao Foundation captains cost one thousand taels, and Dharma Image captains cost ten thousand taels.
But decades ago, Wei Yuan developed the Template Dao Foundation and prioritized training the template for Taichu Palace, resulting in fifty thousand templates being trained among the one hundred thousand Daoist Soldiers. Even though Yan Shi reduced the Template Dao Foundation's remuneration to eight hundred taels, the overall military expenses still skyrocketed several times, beginning to crowd out resources from other areas.
