Chapter 230- Storm
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Nora
Gaia 1st year, 9th month, 15th day. Beihai Naval Fleet's 1st unit reached Xila Lake.
Tianfeng City, meeting hall.
Ouyang Shuo gathered all the important officials and generals and appointed Zhao Dewang as the city magistrate. He also appointed the Internal Affairs Director, the Financial Director, and the Material Reserves Director.
Beihai Naval Fleet's 1st unit broke away from the fleet and became known as the Xila Sailor unit, under the jurisdiction of Tianfeng Town. The original major Zhou Feng kept his position in the unit.
Based on the Administration Director Pu Zhidao’s introduction, there were water strongholds in the lake where water bandits entered and left.
Hence, their first mission would be to clear the water bandits from the lake. Xila Lake was vast and big, and the water bandits were familiar with the environment. Clearing them out wouldn't be an easy matter.
Zhao Dewang’s first task after his appointment as the city magistrate was the establishment of a naval port and a shipyard. Apart from that, there was the more difficult task of building a road from Tianfeng City to Shanhai City. Ouyang Shuo wanted to name this road Tianhai Road.
The Tianhai Road would be 300 kilometers long. It would require a largest investment and consume the most time out of all Shanhai City projects till date. To increase the construction speed, both cities started building at the same time. Then, they would meet up in the middle and join up.
A large portion of the road was out in the wilderness. The conditions were harsh; they had to defend against wild beasts and also raiders. Hence, troops had to protect the workers.
Tianfeng City's City Protection Unit's raider operation helped to pick the path for Tianhai Road.
The building of this road had a strategic meaning. As they built relays along the way and stuck the Shanhai City lord’s flag on the road, they would strengthen the power and prestige of Shanhai City on the west region of the Lianzhou Basin.
Tianfeng City, Yongye Town, and Guangzhou Town formed a triangle. Once they used the Tianhai Road to connect them, it would be enough to control the west. Even if other territories asked for reinforcements, Shanhai City would have the time to react and send military forces to destroy or defend.
After they conquered the three most important territories in the west, Ouyang Shuo started to act more gentle toward the other territories. As for the specific policies, he would need to return to Shanhai City before he set them.
After Ouyang Shuo had a conversation with Zhao Dewang, he made his return trip to Shanhai City in the afternoon. On the way back, he also brought his Guards units to Yongye Town and Guangzhou Town to take a look.
Shanhai City had already sent officials to take charge and change the organization structure of Yongye Town and the other grade 2 towns. They had to build the City Protection Unit, open a four seas bank branch and assign policies.
The back of Yongye Town faced Yongye Forest, Ouyang Shuo named it Forestry Town. Guangshui Town and Yishui Town were close to the river, so it was easy to reclaim fertile land. As such, they were deemed as agricultural towns. The back of Gushan Town faced the mountain and Ouyang Shuo was ready to set it as the 2nd settlement location.
9th month, 18th day, in the afternoon, Ouyang Shuo and his group returned to Shanhai City.
When he came back, he directly rushed to the market to check the price of grain.
On the market, the price of grain had risen. Each unit was now 20 copper; the price had doubled. As the price of grain continued to increase, some lord players rashly used their gold to buy the grain. Those with vision had long since sold their wood and other resources to obtain gold to buy grain. This would ensure that they had enough to last them till the 11th month.
This fight for grain further pushed up the prices. Right now, the price of grain was sky high.
The main sellers of grain were the various Chamber of Commerces in the system imperial capital. These entities bought the grain from the farmers on the suburbs of the imperial city, but the grain wasn’t limitless.
Every system capital city had tens of millions of players that stayed there, and their presence caused a huge strain on the grain supply. The merchants were all smart. When the prices rose, they started to accumulate grain and prepared to sell for a profit.
Hence, this whole situation got worse and worse; everyone got involved in it.
In this storm, Shanhai City also felt the side effects. The Four Seas Bank branches at the allies' territories had increases in loans, and their gold supplies were going to run out.
Ouyang Shuo immediately made the decision to harvest all the profits from the 1st half of the month to distribute to the branches. Mulan Town, Black Lion Town, and Tianshuang Town all got 2,000 gold, while Xunlong Town and Fallen Phoenix Town both got 2,000 gold.
Unfortunately, this sum of money was only a temporary solution to the territories. The lord's had to take the risk and start looking to clear raiders to earn money.
However, the limited amount of raiders posed a problem to them. Unlike Shanhai City, which basically had a harvest every time they upgraded.
While Ouyang Shuo was away, the city east camp had obtained 4,200 gold after the temporary stop of their raider operations due to the alliance’s attack. After the operation on both the east and west sides, together with clearing things from the territories, 15,200 prisoners were sent to Shanhai City.
During this period, many work occupation players were teleported over to Shanhai City. The Fallen Moon Guild had reached the 1,000 member upper limit. Unfortunately, they were still a period of time away from upgrading.
Apart from that, Old Sun had continued to contact scientists and invited them to live in Shanhai City. Since that time, the professional group had expanded to 45, and it continued to increase.
The Snow-War Rose mercenary group had sold all the useless equipment that Ouyang Shuo gave them. With the sum, the mercenary group had started to set up offices for Shanhai City in the various system imperial cities.
Once they start running, Shanhai City would see a huge rise in the number of people that wished to live in their city.
They had rebuilt the 1st regiment; they chose the 3rd, 4th, and 5th unit members from the prisoners. As for the 1st and 2nd units, they still entirely consisted of elite mountain barbarians. The two large scale recruitments nearly squeezed the tribes dry of their fighting ability.
Based on the plan, he had pushed back Shanhai City’s promise to destroy the stronghold of the mountain bandits by nearly a month’s time.
To gain their trust and understanding, the internal affairs director Tian Wenjing had once again increased the grain help to the tribes.
When Ouyang Shuo returned, he immediately started the operation against the mountain stronghold. He codenamed it ‘Bobcat.’
As this was forest warfare, apart from the Guards unit and the god machine unit, there were also eight other units apart from the cavalry units from the 1st and 3rd regiment.
The deputy secretary of military intelligence, Lengqian, had led a group of spies to investigate the stronghold situation. It was much harder to attack than they had expected.
The stronghold was located in the Er'Shi Ridge, which was easy to defend and hard to attack. Its population had reached 14,000 men and there were 8,000 mountain thieves. Among them, there were many elite mountain thieves. The only road up had three roadblocks that the mountain thieves had set up. To attack all the way up would be harder than ascending the heavens.
"Is there really not another way up?" Ouyang Shuo wasn't willing.
Lengqian shook his head and said, “The back of the stronghold is a cliff. To attack from behind its nearly impossible, unless..."
"Unless what?"
"A thousand meters away from the cliff, there is a mountain peak that is easy to climb up. The only problem is how to get past this thousand meters. Even if we use a zip-line, we can't tie it to the cliff." Lengqian was very pessimistic.
Ideas popped into Ouyang Shuo’s mind, and he said, “I have a way to solve the problem of securing the rope." Ouyang Shuo thought about Bing'er's pet, Xue'er. She was the highest grade smart pet. Although she was only an ornamental pet in the game, she was strong and she could fly. Hence, she would be the perfect candidate to tie the rope onto the other side.
"Ah?" Although he knew that Ouyang Shuo wouldn’t lie, his lord’s words still shocked Lengqian.
Ouyang Shuo waved him off and said, “Let the Military Intelligence Division survey the mountain and find a suitable way up. Our troops will go up tomorrow."
"Yes, lord!"
After Lengqian left, Ouyang Shuo ordered director Ge Hongliang to ask the Combat Logistics Division to prepare enough zip-line rope, oil, and other miscellaneous resources to guarantee the smooth operation of bobcat.
At the same time, to prevent deaths and casualties, Ouyang Shuo ordered the formation of two sword-shield units and one archer unit from the reserve force to attack together. With that, this 6,500 soldiers attack on the Er'Shi Ridge mountain thieves was the biggest operation till date.
After they discussed the details, it was already 5:30 PM. He had just returned to the lord’s manor, yet now he needed to leave at first light tomorrow due to the operation; he was living such a tough and restless life.
As they ate dinner, Ouyang Shuo looked at Xue'er, who was on Bing'er's shoulder, “Xue'er, tomorrow, I'll bring you to play, okay?"
Her eyes brightened up, and she flew up around Ouyang Shuo's head, “Go out and play, go out and play, lalala~~"
Bing'er's eyes also lit up, “Brother, can Bing'er come too?"
Ouyang Shuo resolutely shook his head, No, you have to go to school tomorrow!"
Bing'er's face turned crestfallen; she angrily used her chopsticks to stir the rice in her bowl, as she muttered, “Bad brother, bad brother, bias..."
Ouyang Shuo laughed, and he had to explain, “Tomorrow, brother needs to do an important thing, so it isn't to play."
"Really?" Bing'er didn't believe it.
Ouyang Shuo stared at her, “When did I ever lie to you!"
"Ok, Bing'er forgives you." This little brat's mood really changed quickly.