Chapter 178- Cultivating Poison
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Nora
One could describe Ouyang Shuo’s strategy toward the territories at his border as cultivating poison.
Ouyang Shuo had always viewed Lianzhou Basin as something he owned. He wouldn’t allow any others to corrupt it. The other territories in Lianzhou Basin weren’t even on the same level as the Shanhai City.
After all, destroying their territories would mean losing that important growth stat. Hence, Ouyang Shuo naturally wouldn’t be too rash. Instead, he just watched closely as these territories developed. They were similar to a blood-making machine which provided the Lianzhou Basin with refugees.
He had to wait for the basins to start and connect with Shanhai City. Only then could he possibly spy on and see some of the secrets of his territory. After that, Ouyang Shuo would make a move and remove them from Lianzhou Basin.
To protect the secrets of Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo needed to create a manmade empty region between the City and the other players’ territory. This would prevent other players from infiltrating his territory.
This region was similar to the cans used to raise venomous insects, which separated it from the master.
Of course, to raise venomous insects, one needed to have absolute strength and also great cultivating methods. Otherwise, the insect you raised might kill you instead. Ouyang Shuo wanted to be the insect rearer of Lianzhou basin, but this was something the sky blade alliance definitely wouldn’t agree to.
Without a doubt, Ouyang Shuo rejected the request from Beihai City to build affiliate territories.
As for the monetary request to build the city wall, they could only collect the profits early. These were the earnings in the first half of the 6th month from Langshan mine and Northern Saltpan.
Shanhai City earned money quickly but spent it even quicker.
Ouyang Shuo used red ink to jot down his thoughts on Gu Xiuwen’s letter. As for the monetary request, he would provide 500 gold. Beihai City would have to solve the rest themselves.
Following this, the clerk Bai Nanpu followed Ouyang Shuo’s annotations and informed the various divisions and departments, which would settle it themselves.
Now, Ouyang Shuo didn’t need to run to their offices when he had something to announce or inform. He wouldn’t need to ask them to make a trip to his office. When he reached City level, he had pushed for a more orderly and fast administrative process.
An example would be what had just happened. After Ouyang Shuo finished his annotations, Bai Nanpu would convey Ouyang Shuo’s intentions to Cu Yingyu. She would naturally send people to collect the profits from the first half of the 6th month and give a portion to Beihai City.
After he settled the matters concerning Beihai City, Ouyang Shuo picked up the documents that the Qiushui Town head Zhao Dexian had sent him.
Zhao Dexian raised in the letter that they had built the mountain barbarian settlement. That small-sized mountain barbarian tribe had moved into the settlement. Zhou Dexian had sent the needed living items and farming tools.
Tian Wenjing was a genius. After building the settlement, he gathered many of the mountain barbarian tribes. In the name of giving them a tour, he brought them to view the settlement.
They saw many green brick houses, granaries filled with grain, chickens, ducks and other poultry in the courtyard, bunches of vegetable lands, the vast plains outside the settlement….
All this amazed the barbarians viewing the mountain.
Compared to their tough lives in the mountains, this settlement looked like paradise on earth.
Not only that, but Zhao Dexian had also sufficiently understood what Ouyang Shuo wanted, so he followed the standards of the tribe witch to build a very majestic ancestral temple.
All these factors added up would definitely make one touched and amazed. On the spot, there were two small tribes that expressed their willingness to migrate to Shanhai City. Additionally, one mid-sized tribe and two other small tribes said that they would discuss with their people before they made a decision.
Such a bountiful harvest made Ouyang Shuo delighted.
When the two small tribes migrated down, Qiushui town would reach the population upper limit. Then, they would become that 2nd affiliate territory after Beihai City to upgrade. Not only that, the increase in manpower meant that the grain production for the next half year would increase.
Ouyang Shuo noted in the letter to provide Qiushui Town with an additional 1000 gold for the building of future settlements.
Now, it seemed like out of the three affiliate territories, friendship Town was lacking. Although they succeeded in building a trading market, the nomads valued their Qingfu horses highly and wouldn’t easily sell them.
Furthermore, the purchasing value of the Qingfu horse was incredibly strong. The 200 horses traded from the Tianfeng tribe allowed them to obtain enough resources to use for a long time. It was currently summer, and it was the best time to let the animals graze, so the herders were all busy and didn’t have time to trade.
Hence, the trading market was very cold and didn’t reach the expectations of Town head Zhou Haichen.
After he read this letter, Ouyang Shuo had some thoughts.
It seemed like to remove the huge rock—the nomads—relying purely on trading was impossible. Most crucially, he would also need to make use of military might for it to have a chance of success.
With these thoughts in mind, Ouyang Shuo immediately sent a letter to the military affairs department and the city north barracks of Friendship Town. He asked them to conscript more soldiers and to expand an additional cavalry unit in half a month.
As for the main barracks, Ouyang Shuo didn’t plan to expand the military. If not, it would place a huge financial burden on the territory.
The income of Friendship Town was actually very low, and they still needed to maintain a city protection unit and a north city barracks, which made them struggle. Ouyang Shuo noted in the letter to ask the Finance Department to give them 1000 gold. This gold was for military expenditures and funds to buy Qingfu horses.
With that, the three affiliate territories had spent 2500 in gold. Without the two gold gooses of the Langshan mining field and the Northern Saltpans, he wouldn’t be able to carry on.
From this, one could see how difficult it was to run a territory, especially one like Shanhai City that developed together with its affiliate territories.
The grade 1 towns mostly just built mud city walls. The reason that they didn’t use stone was because they didn’t have the resources or the money.
After refugees entered the territory, they weren’t your slaves but your residents. When the businesses were just set up, it was okay if you just provided meals as this was something they could understand.
However, after that initial stage and the town went up to grade 1 town things would change. If the lord continued to squeeze them and force them to work for his personal gain, they would likely start a riot and kill their lord, especially if the lord treated them like slaves and didn’t give them clothes and salary.
In the last life, there were many lords who were killed by their own NPCs and replaced.
Under normal circumstances, the refugees were definitely very docile and followed instructions. As long as one didn’t force them to the brink, they would do such a thing. If not, riots would happen out of the blue and no one would dare to be a lord.
After he dealt with the letters of the three affiliate territories, it was already close to six in the evening.
Ouyang Shui got up and passed the annotated letters to Bai Nanpu. Then, he headed to the backyard.
“Brother, you got off work early.” In the backyard, Bing’er and Zisu were playing an Olden version of puzzles. When they saw Ouyang Shuo, they were surprised.
Lu Guangzhi made this puzzle especially for Bing’er. In real life, Bing’er had seen and played with many different kinds of toys, but this kind of IQ game intrigued her. She was also talented; even Zisu and Banxia couldn’t beat her.
Ouyang Shuo nodded,”Ya, Brother came back early to look for our little brat and see if you were well behaved.”
Bing’er placed down the puzzle and ran over, as she wanted Ouyang Shuo to hug her.
Ouyang Shuo carried her up and walked toward the canteen. The time right was just nice for a meal. Ouyang Shuo felt puzzled. After entering the game, Bing’er became more clingy and frequently asked for hugs.
Ouyang Shuo guessed that she probably saw him treating Yingyu and Qing’er well. Then, she felt that he was going to be snatched away.
This was similar to real life, where kids didn’t want their parents to give birth to another sibling. They didn’t want more siblings because they didn’t want to split their parents’ love.
Ouyang Shuo didn’t interfere and just watched on. He couldn’t reduce his care for Yingyu and Qing’er. Ouyang Shuo wanted to let Bing’er know that love was supposed to be shared and this was a part of her life that she needed to go through.
After dinner, Ouyang Shuo returned to his room and went offline.
In reality, it was only half a month away from the 7th month, 1st day migration date. The atmosphere was still and cold, filled with fear for the future and the sadness of leaving the earth.
The news reported that some elderly didn’t agree to migrate. Firstly, they were very old and even if the earth changed, it was still in 10 years. They probably wouldn’t live for that long. Secondly, they didn’t want to go through the torture of galactic travel.
The federal government respected their choice, and before they left, they would leave enough resources and lifestyle machines to take care of the citizens that weren’t willing to migrate.
Apart from that, artists were reluctant to leave their artworks like old buildings, paintings, and cultural artifacts.
Those crazy people wanted to die together with the art pieces and cultural artifacts. The federal government didn’t care about the views of these people and dragged them into the spaceships.
