Chapter 345- Prefecture System and Enfeoffment System
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
Compared to Mu Guiying, Fan Lihua was a little better and was regarded as one of the four heroines.
Legend had it that Mu Guiying and Fan Lihua were both students of the Li Mountain Old Mother. Other disciples included great women such as Zhong Wuyan, Zhu Yingtai, Bai Su, and the like.
When Gaia built the in-game world, the Li Mountain Old Mother was just a small presence.
While Ouyang Shuo was taking a look at Fan Lihua's stats, a system notification sounded out by his ear.
"System Notification: Congratulations player Feng Qiuhuang for becoming the 2nd player in the China region to upgrade to grade 1 prefecture, rewarded 4200 merit points!"
……
"System Notification: Congratulations player Bai Hua for becoming the 3rd player in the China region to upgrade to grade 1 prefecture, rewarded 4000 merit points!"
……
When the system notification rang out, the players in the China region were very calm.
After Feng Qiuhuang and Bai Hua were given their titles, the players had already predicted for their two territories to upgrade. If it wasn't for the Battle of Lianzhou, they probably would have been even faster.
What was interesting was that Fallen Phoenix Prefecture was actually quicker than Consonance Prefecture.
Feng Qiuhuang had her ways!
While Ouyang Shuo felt it was interesting, the four sisters felt a little depressed. They were highly confident in taking 2nd place in China, but instead they were usurped by the lone player Feng Qiuhuang.
Hence, one should never underestimate their opponents.
Feng Qiuhuang had given the four sisters such a lesson.
The prefecture grade, to an ambitious lord, was the starting point. Only after upgrading to a prefecture would it mean that your territory had taken root and started building its foundation.
Be it the raiders in the wilderness or the uprising army, to take down a prefecture was harder than climbing the heavens.
Prefecture, the start of being an overlord.
Gaia’s 2nd year would also become the year of prefectures.
If at the end of the 2nd year, your territory had not upgraded to a prefecture, this would mean that you had lost your ability to rule the world.
The jump from county to prefecture was a rise in the entire substance of the territory. It not only represented the change in rank, but it represented that the territory would change from one small city to a whole prefecture.
And for the lords, while they would gain more power, it also meant that they would face greater challenges.
Talents, especially those of high rank, would become more and more important.
As the lords were basically young men, to control and lead a prefecture was highly difficult. Even people like Di Chen, without those around them helping, would not be able to manage.
This was true much more for others like Gong Chengshi and Xunlong Dianxue. They were normal people in real life and when they played the game, it was only for fun.
As for the experience and skill necessary to manage a territory, one could only slowly learn.
A grade 1 county was still manageable.
When it reached the prefecture grade, as long as you didn't pay attention, it might totally backfire.
Gaia had a good grasp in this area, accurately predicting things that would happen.
Its end goal would be to develop a batch of leaders for the real world. If a lord could last until the end, it would be 10 years of hard work. From a village to a town, to a county to a prefecture and finally setting up a country, this training would be able to make a raw diamond into a polished one.
The Shanhai Alliance members were considered lucky in such an aspect.
With such a model lord as Ouyang Shuo leading the way, they just needed to copy him and basically they wouldn't make any huge mistakes.
Of the ideas Ouyang Shuo pushed out in his territory, some he created himself but mostly they were things lords personally went through and developed in the last life.
In the end, Ouyang Shuo was just standing on the shoulders of giants.
For him to be able to last all the way until now, this was because he relied on his last life. His knowledge and mental strength far exceeded his peers. Moreover, he had a huge batch of historical people helping him.
After Shanhai Prefecture upgraded, Ouyang Shuo decisively made changes and pushed for the prefecture system, the reason was obvious.
The Battle of Lianzhou was a show of strength.
Even if Ouyang Shuo wasn't there, the commander unit had Baiqi and Du Ruhui; the various major generals were all famous generals and had the ability to think under pressure. Furthermore, they had an administrative system that ran efficiently and smoothly.
How would they lose?
Hence, the further behind one got, the more one needed to rely on teamwork.
The lord was the navigator of the ship.
In the last life, towards the strategies of running a prefecture, the lords didn't agree on a single system.
In short, there were two methods that could work.
The first would be the prefecture system that Ouyang Shuo was pushing for. It was suitable for most territories. Its positives were that it was able to raise the lord's power, but it needed large numbers of exceptional talents.
If everything was smooth, it would prosper, but if not, riots and unrest would easily occur.
The 2nd method would be the enfeoffment system that was equally popular amongst players.
In the last life when the enfeoffment system appeared, many people chose it. One type of people were the various powers represented by the Six Tyrants of Handan. They were huge, and the internal power struggles were highly complicated.
To balance out all of this, enfeoffment was an acceptable choice.
The reason why it didn't work now was because a county was too small, and enfeoffment was pointless. Hence, various large powers had reached a tacit understanding.
Before reaching prefecture grade, they would fight against outsiders.
After the prefecture grade, they would start splitting the cake. The further they went, as the territory grew bigger, more people would step out because they wanted a piece of the cake.
In the end, with this method, they would form up a huge conglomerate.
Not only that, the various big powers were also planning something in the dark.
During the Battle of Changping, how did Yanhuang Alliance pull over so many lords to their side?
Relationships and connections were only for show. Most crucially, some of these lords were just people from the big powers.
They just didn't show themselves and did not attract any attention.
With Di Chen's Handan County as an example, when Handan Village was being built, their family had sent people to acquire village creation tokens and built these territories around Handan Village.
Once Handan County became a prefecture, these territories would immediately surrender and merge with Handan Prefecture.
With this, Handan Prefecture had it so easy, being able to claim the nearby territories without doing anything. Some innocent lords even wanted to ally with some of these territories to go against Handan County.
Unexpectedly to them, some of their allies were members of the family.
As for these kind of lords, they had already fallen into a trap; they just didn't know it.
Only huge powers could use such a method.
As for commoners, they didn't even need to think about it.
Hence, when Ouyang Shuo predicted that what they showed was just the tip of the iceberg, it was a correct conjecture.
There was another group which liked the enfeoffment system. They were the various alliances that had formed up most recently.
At the start of the alliance, all of them would team up and fight those around them.
When they had cleared up all the surrounding territories and only the alliance remained, the internal war and conflict was going to start.
Internal conflict was the worst choice, as it would reduce their strength.
So, how would they solve the splitting of interests and not let the alliance fall apart?
The enfeoffment system was a good choice.
The leader was the emperor, and the other members were basically officials. The officials were all independent but were all united against outside enemies.
From a historical standpoint, the prefecture system came after the enfeoffment system. But in the game, it would just depend on the player’s preference.
Going back on topic.
After Yashan Village was built, everyone started getting busy.
The first course of action was to move the camp to the village.
Although Ouyang Shuo acted as Bing'er's guardian and could manage the territory, he couldn’t use his rank to allow the village to break the restrictions.
Luckily, the game was open and allowed one to build various buildings without breaking through.
Hence, apart from the already built quarry and sawmill, as well as the saltpans, farms and harbor that were being built, the other buildings were directly planned and organized according to the prefecture grade.
Ouyang Shuo had prepared all the building blueprints.
Ouyang Shuo directly ordered others to change the name from Yashan Village to Yashan City.
The overall planning of Yashan City was naturally done by Sun Xiaoyue. During this period of time, Xiaoyue had brought her planning squad to follow the Guards regiment and walk along the border of the territory.
The basic city planning had already formed.
Based on the planning, the 1st course of action was to build the city wall. The harsh surroundings of Yazhou had decided that the only way they could be safe was to build a solid city wall.
There were going to be two city walls, splitting the city into the inner city and the outer city. The wall of the inner city would be 3 kilometers long, while the outer wall would be 10 kilometers long. Its scale would follow that of Shanhai City.
As there was limited manpower, they chose to build the inner wall first.
Luckily, the 2nd batch of migrants was already on the way and would reach Yazhou soon. After this, the construction speed of Yazhou would reach new heights.
As for the specifics of the city planning, Ouyang Shuo didn't interfere in them and left them all to Sun Xiaoyue.
After Yashan City was set up, the basic level administrative personnel started to follow the set structure and started to build up and start doing their jobs.
Bai Nanpu was appointed by Ouyang Shuo as the mayor and was in charge of the early building. As for the future mayor, Ouyang Shuo was ready to choose a stronger person to take up the role.
After arranging these matters, Ouyang Shuo was ready to return to Shanhai City.
This was not only because Shanhai City had a bunch of stuff waiting for him, but the 20th day of the 2nd month was Chinese New Year's Eve, and he had to go back.
What made Ouyang Shuo worry was that Song Jia hadn't returned from Five Finger Mountain. Every day, she would report to Ouyang Shuo through the alliance channel to say that she was alright.
Based on what Song Jia had said, her martial arts were on the verge of breaking though. As a result, she temporarily couldn't return. It seemed that during this festive period, she would have to spend it in the mountains.
As for the quest Ouyang Shuo mentioned, Song Jia didn't get it.
Gaia 2nd year 2nd month 18th day.
Ouyang Shuo had arranged and planned out all the work for Yashan, and brought Bing'er and Fan Lihua back to Shanhai City through the teleportation formation.
As for the Guards regiment, they would remain in Yashan to guard it for a period of time.