Chapter 43 - Alliance
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Levs
When Ouyang Shuo received the message from Zi Luolan, he was a bit shaken.
The alliance offers from Di Chen and Chun Shenjun, he could ignore but the one from Consonance Village, he had some interest in. The Four Flowers of Consonance Studio came from non-special backgrounds. Their credibility in the industry was also recognized, and so much more in line with his alliance conditions.
Ouyang Shuo immediately sent back a message that he was willing to accept the terms of an alliance.
At 10 AM, Fan Zhongyan and Zhao Dexian came into his office together. After they sat down, Zhao Dexian was the first to speak. “Lord, we are here to talk about the farmland situation.”
“What is the plan for the farmland?”
“According to the distribution of the people, the current number of farmers is about 180 people, and the existing farmland is two thousand mu. Therefore, the opinion of the Reclamation Division is that the distribution of the farmers is ten mu of farmland per person. The extra two hundred mu will be held out as public property, to be sold at a later date or to reward people as desired,” Zhao Dexian told him.
Ouyang Shuo frowned, looked over at Fan Zhongyan and asked, “What is the opinion of the Administration Department?”
Looking at his lord’s attitude, he seemed to be less than satisfied with the distribution plan. But Fan Zhongyan had already gone over this program with Zhao Dexian and agreed to it.
Therefore, the scholar could only bite the bullet and say, “The Administration department has no objection to this allocation program.”
Ouyang Shuo sighed. “It seems that your development strategy and understanding of the territory is not thorough enough. You are still thinking that farming is the core of our assets, and you want to guard it instead of letting it go as part of this privatization. What is the purpose of privatization? It’s not to split farmer fields, but to inspire the handicrafts and commerce of the territory.
“The territory doesn’t need public land, and ministers are not allowed to reward land for meritorious service. Therefore, the provisions of your plan are strictly prohibited, in order to curb this conservative thinking about the land. All of the farmland should be assigned to farmers. The transformation of these thoughts must be done by you, and only if your thoughts are changed, can you guide the villagers to also change their minds.”
Fan Zhongyan and Zhao Dexian hung their heads before him, ashamed.
“As for the allocation of farmland, I agree with the plan generally. However, raise the number of farmers to 200. Each farmer will be allocated with 10 mu of farmland, that way, an ordinary family of three will have farmland of 20 mu, this is far more reasonable. Use it as a standard for distributing farmland. Use the amount of farmland to determine the number of farmers, like salt workers.”
Zhao Dexian nodded his head, showing he understood. Then he asked, “Sire, there is a need to report on another matter. These last couple of days, speaking with the farmers, we found that there is a concern. Prior to the ripening of potatoes, farmers will have no source of income, and now it is the farming downtime. Relying on the one benefits of territory basic welfare, they fear that it is not enough to survive.”
“Look, more inherent thinking at work. Are they only farmers? The territory is building up, there is a demand for construction workers everywhere! In the slack season, the farmers can go to the building sites to help the workers to earn money for their families!”
Zhao Dexian understood suddenly and buried his face in his hands. He said embarrassingly, “What the lord said is right, it seems our thinking needs to change, or we won’t be able to keep up with the development and improvements to the territory, I am sorry!”
Ouyang Shuo was pleased that they finally understood. “This privatization is not only here to break the reliance on the lord for everything. We want to recognize the magic of the market, to recognize everyone’s pioneering spirit. To reach that point, you must have a correct understanding.”
Fan Zhongyang, still showing his shame, solemnly said, “As the Director of the Administration Department, I am ashamed to say I still have an inferior understanding of sire’s intentions. I originally wanted to make my report to sire about the privatization program, but after sire’s instruction, I find that a lot of content in the program is too conservative, and I need to readjust things. Please forgive me, my lord, and grant me an additional two days time.”
Ouyang Shuo smiled and said, “Do not blame yourself. In the face of new things, things will obviously be different from usual. Your ability I am very trusting of.”
Fan Zhongyan nodded, and with Zhao Dexian, rose and left the office.
At 2 PM, Ouyang Shuo went out to the barracks. He had finished writing the Military Behaviour Code of Conduct and wanted to deliver it to General Shi, as well as see the training situation of the recruits.
Leaving the barracks, Ouyang Shuo thought about the news he’d received from General Shi. After two days of scouting, the cavalry team finally found a raider camp. It was located in the northwest corner of the territory, an intermediate camp on the shore of the Friendship River.
The intermediate raider camps generally numbered 300 people in the area, including a large number of combatants. Compared to the basic raider camp, the level of combatants had clearly increased. There were level 20 ordinary raiders, level 25 elite raiders, and at least level 30 leader types, including the boss.
In accordance with General Shi’s plan, they would wait until the cavalry squadron was fully formed before moving in, destroying the camp in one fell swoop. After all, things were different now. They had cavalry now, it was nothing like last time when militia were the only troops they could use.
The cavalry soldiers were not only armored, but was also skilled with bows, mounted, and had experienced a baptism of war. Their individual combat effectiveness was greater than elite bandits. The most experienced veterans of the Siege of Beasts had been promoted to the fourth rank, how could the raiders compare? Whether it was attacking or field warfare, they had the advantage. This was the gap between a regular military and those living in the wild.
Ouyang Shuo had agreed with General Shi. He didn’t want to lose his strategic advantage. He also did not want to push the raiders into a corner. He deliberately told General Shi that, if the conditions permit, he could try to recruit the raiders. With some screening, surrendered raiders could be recruited into the army. As long as they were bound by strict military discipline, they would make qualified soldiers.
Coming back to the manor, he just received an alliance request from Bai Hua. He removed the Lord’s Handbook from his storage bag and opened the territory column. He found Consonance Village, its lord was Bai Hua. After confirming, an alliance application automatically came up. He clicked to confirm, and a contract popped up.
Ouyang Shuo read it carefully from beginning to end, a total of four major terms.
First of all, if anyone wanted to cancel the covenant they had to give three days advance notice. Termination did not require the approval of the other party and could be done unilaterally.
Second, they could negotiate through the Advanced Market Platform for cross-regional trade. In order to encourage free trade between allies, the system would reduce the tax by 10%.
Third, when the territory is upgraded to a county, you could transfer people between Allies using the Teleportation Formation. If one side was having problems, the other party could support them by sending people using the Formation, the cost would be 1 gold coin per person.
Fourth, after the opening of the battlefield maps, allies can choose to select the same side. In the process, you can team up and complete war quests.
After reading the covenant, Ouyang Shuo took the Lord’s official seal out of his storage bag and touched the contract with it. At that point, Consonance Village and Shanhai Village officially formed an alliance.
At the same time, in the Consonance Game Studio, the four flowers were together, staring at the screen. When they saw that the contract had been signed, they started jumping around excitedly.
“Sister, this Qiyue Wuyi is not so difficult to work with. He agreed so readily to an alliance,” Zi Luolan spoke up first.
“Yes, yes, it seems the charms of big sister are really different, bah, one shot, you won over the number 1 lord in the world so easily, hehe!” Tsing Yi promptly countered her.
“It seems big sister will have another admirer under her skirt~” Third sister Hong Ying also joked.
In the face of her three joking sisters, Bai Hua did not move, pulling back her long hair, and saying lightly, “Qiyue Wuyi was able to have today’s achievements, how could he be superficial. According to his email return, he has rejected alliances from Shenjun and Di Chen. Seems like he did so for a reason.”
Tsing Yi nodded her head. “I say he probably had a couple of reasons for doing so. Probably, he is not like what the online rumors were saying, the successor of some secret family, but he’s only a civilian player just like us. So, he turned down a big force like Chun Shenjun, and instead picked our Consonance Game Studio. In addition, his ambition is as big as Chun Shenjun, but he isn’t such a jackass.”
Hong Ying whispered, “You mean that Qiyue Wuyi wants to eat our Consonance Village since he is stronger than us?”
“I do not know how will it go on at the end of the day. But at least if we compare strength now then that's the case.”
Zi Luolan gave a teasing smile, touched the sulking Hong Ying, and said, “Don’t think such bad things. He already politely refused Chun Shenjun and Di Chen, rather than a direct rejection. This tells us that he is not a person who is too dominant, and our alliance is more or less from the perspective of a mutually beneficial cooperation.”
Although Tsing Yi was smart, Zi Luolan was definitely better at grasping human nature. Therefore, she accepted the judgment of her, nodding in recognition of her point.
Bai Hua smiled, pleased. “I think both of your analysis is very reasonable. Whether Qiyue Wuyi is or is not the descendant of a secret family, or what kind of ambition he has, right now he has only one known identity. He is an ally of us and our Consonance Village. This alliance with Shanhai, we will keep confidential between the four of us. This is too high profile, it will draw too much interest and attract too much trouble.”
The other three nodded, understanding that point.
Ouyang Shuo did not know that his motives had been guessed by the other side, at this point in time, he was simply reading in his office again.