The World Online
chapter-614

Translator: ryangohsf

Editor: Nora

Intel, diplomacy, and education; these three areas alone easily used up 3.5 million gold.

Apart from this, Ouyang Shuo would keep 2.5 million gold for his own use. As for the remaining one million, he would throw the sum into the military expansion.

The Guards Legion 5th division would be elite cavalry from the three legion corps. It would also be the 3rd Cavalry Division in the Guards Legion.

Originally, Ouyang Shuo had other ideas regarding this division. However, since Huo Qubing was proficient in cavalry warfare, Ouyang Shuo could only increase the cavalry set up in the legion.

Secondly, they would expand the city protection division to a city protection legion.

The city protection division already had two divisions under it, so they would just merge the Lianzhou, Xunzhou and Zhen An Garrison Divisions into this city protection legion.

With that, the city protection division directly reached full capacity.

As for the Garrison Divisions, the reserve squad members would temporality replace it.

Er'Lai’s promotion meant that this city protection division would completely break away from the brand of a local force people. Ouyang Shuo's goal was to turn this city protection legion into the 2nd Guards Legion.

Hence, Ouyang Shuo needed to send them out for training.

Based on the military agreement he had with Wufu, this completed city protection legion would teleport over to Stone City to aid in the expansion of Stone City for half a year.

During that period, the Guards Legion would handle Shanhai City’s defences.

The agreement clearly stated the roles and responsibilities of each party.

Shanhai City would take charge of their salary, while Stone City would bear the teleportation fees and logistics. As such, the city protection legion would receive the needed training, while Stone City would gain a helping hand; it was a win-win situation.

Ouyang Shuo’s move was naturally to impede the expansion of Handan City in the north region of Jingdou. Stone City was an extremely important chess piece in his entire strategy, so he could not allow Di Chen to remove it.

This deployment of the city protection legion could be called the opening of a new form of cooperation within the Shanhai Alliance. Consequently, Shanhai City slowly changed from an alliance leader in name to the alliance leader of a common military alliance.

Shanhai City providing military cover for its allies would become something extremely common in the future.

Now, aside from the economic field, Shanhai City had also started to play the role of an actual alliance leader in military terms; a true big brother.

Thirdly, they needed to build the 3rd legion of the Tiger Legion.

With the Zhenhai City Garrison Division acting as the foundation, along with the Qiongzhou, Leizhou, Zhaoqing, and Wuzhou Garrison Divisions, they would build up a complete war fighting legion.

With that, the eight Garrison Divisions in the territory were all removed from their duties and would need reconstruction. As a result, Ouyang Shuo had also removed some of the problems of the Garrison Divisions like local interests.

Furthermore, elite Garrison Division major generals such as Zhao Yan, Hu Yibiao, Su Wang, and Song Wu could use this chance to return to battle.

Zhenhai City, Qiongzhou Prefecture, Leizhou Prefecture, and Zhaoqing Prefecture all belonged to the Lingnan Warzone, which was under the command of the Tiger Legion. Hence, this new legion was placed under their control.

The base of the legion was chosen to be Zhenhai City.

Ouyang Shuo's goal was naturally to strengthen this area and defend the bridge. If not, what if the Lingnan City-State started something while he was away? He would not be able to help.

After this expansion, Zhenhai City would possess a war fighting legion and a complete Jiaozhou Squadron. Even if the Lingnan City-State went all out against them, they could hold on until reinforcements arrived.

Fan Lihua would take the role of general of the 3rd legion of the Tiger Legion Corps.

After this promotion, Fan Lihua had once again broken a record, becoming the first woman in the territory, and probably even China, to become a legion general.

Of course, just expanding two legions would not cost a million. More than half was spent on the expansion of the three squadrons.

The families of the thousands of talents that Zheng He had recruited also needed to survive, so just the settling down fees was an enormous sum.

Amongst this sum, it did not account for resources such as weapons and warships. If not, based on the current Shanhai City military standards, a million was definitely far from enough.

……

The Lord continued to blatantly expand his army, while resting his forces in his territory and taking no military action.

It seemed contradictory, but it was actually in the same vein.

After a few combo punches, the logic his commands contained gave the many officials in the city much to ponder about.

Of the 2.5 million that Ouyang Shuo kept, he took out five hundred thousand once more to purchase item for trading on their voyage such as porcelain and tea leaves.

If this went well, the profits of this batch would double, helping to make up for the costs of this voyage. Needless to say, at the same time, they could bring back a massive batch of the other country's products and earn plenty.

It was similar to when Zheng He headed down the pacific in history. However, they were more practical this time and did not empty their coffers.

If Ouyang Shuo had not ordered that no merchant ships could follow them, the Chambers of Commerce in the territory would probably risk everything to stalk them on this mystical journey.

The self-produced porcelain from Shanhai City was far from standard. The best porcelain in China’s history came from Jingde Town, Jiangchuan Province. In the wilderness, there was no such town, as it was just drafted into the Quanzhou Imperial City.

Making use of this chance, they opened up the sea route to Quanzhou.

Gong Chengshi had mentioned that due to his regional specialty, porcelain masters would occasionally show up in his territory, to the envy of all the other Lords.

Within Black Lion City, there was high grade earth and materials for making porcelain.

The porcelain industry had already developed into one of their core pillars. In the future, his ambition would be to defeat Quanzhou and become the capital of porcelain.

As for tea leaves, although the self-produced white tea was a territory specialty, it was not a premium product in China. The real famous teas were teas such as Biluochun (green tea) and Tie Guanyin.

Luckily, tea leaves were small in size, so they could use storage bags to hold the purchased tea from the various imperial cities.

Similarly, Lords had occupied the production regions of these famous teas, creating a monopoly.

The advantage of geography was undeniable.

Since the wilderness had developed to such a stage, apart from the outer regions that had not been opened up, there were exceedingly few regions that players had not claimed. Territory specialialites were not a fresh thing.

Various industries prospered.

The vast China had various items, which made numerous Lords rich just like Gong Chengshi.

Winter slowly left.

After the snow melted, the wilderness became as its name suggested. As the Lords farmed, the wilderness brimmed with life. The current wilderness had the prosperous scenes of ancient dynasties.

A new era was slowly arriving.

……

In the following period of time, Ouyang Shuo was making preparations for his voyage.

The plans of the four bureaus had already been approved, and they did not need any adjustments.

The Internal Affairs Bureau's most core job was naturally to handle the territory law system to model the way the territory was run.

Apart from the expansion work, the Military Affairs Bureau would prepare the combat logistics.

Director Du Ruhui could already smell the scent of war after the Lord expanded the army once more. Hence, after the territory stabilized, war would definitely start.

There was also a chance that it would be a large-scale battle of successive wars.

In contrast to previous occasions, the future wars would move hundred thousands of men, and the logistics required would take more than a more or a half to settle.

In ancient times, to prepare for a massive war, one needed a year or numerous years.

The Combat Logistics Department had planned to build a logistics supply base near the three legion corps' base, including a huge granary, a combined military factory, and a horse breeding farm.

Their duty in this half a year was to fill up these three logistic bases.

Apart from that, as there were no war matters in the first half of the year, they would hold a martial arts competition involving the whole military to maintain morale and to ensure that their combat strength did not decrease.

The competition was based on soldier type, cavalry, bowmen, spearmen, heavy-sword soldier, sword-shield soldier, and navy soldier, six types in total. The final champion would obtain honor and prizes.

For example, the champion bowmen would be called the Marksmen. Apart from titles, the winner would rise up one military rank and receive a platinum weapon.

Such rich rewards were enough to drive one crazy.

The most crazy part was that the top three of each soldier type will fight one another to see who is the strongest soldier in the entire army.

The overall champion would receive the title of Martial Scholar, and their rank would increase by 5 grades. Additionally, they would be granted the role of major general.

Only colonel and below could participate in this competition.

Ouyang Shuo was extremely supportive of Du Ruhui’s idea, and he even promised to personally hand out the prizes and prepare a special gift.

The moment the news went out, waves rose in the military.

Even those colonels and major generals were grumbling and wanted to join in.

Helplessly, Du Ruhui could only go with the masses and make it a team competition, where each regiment would send out a hundred elites to fight.

For the final champion team, all of them would receive a grade 1 prize. At the same time, the colonel would receive a promotion to major general and reach the rank of grade 5 general.

With that, he had managed to calm down the requests of the colonels. As for the major generals, Du Ruhui could not bother with them, as their participation would only be bullying the others.