The World Online

Deliberations finished, it was time to move on. The territory had just been upgraded, everyone was busy, there was no time to chat idly.

New director Li Tie was anxious to go get Song Yi and Zhao Kui, his two helpers. Then they had to put up recruitment posters to get their 20 officers as soon as possible. He had pledged a military oath to Ouyang Shuo, promising that the Security Division would be in place before the Spring Festival to ensure security during the holiday season.

Cui Yingyu also mentioned that she was missing staff for her Business Division. How she was going to build up the staff of the Business Division, in order to implement a round of economic stimulus as soon as possible, was placed in front of her as her top priority.

Material Reserves Director Tian Wenjing was not so easy to handle. On one hand, he wanted to work with the Military Intelligence team, searching for the green horses, Qingfu horses, and also find a suitable area to construct a horse ranch. On the other hand, with the rapid expansion of transportation demand in the territory, the need for a special fleet of wooden horse carts was placed before the Material Reserves Department, as well as the need for a transportation fleet between Shanhai and Beihai.

Waiting until the others had gone, Fan Zhongyan said, “My lord. I have a recommendation for the Secretary of the Division of Household Registration if you could have a look!”

“Who?” Ouyang Shuo was very curious about who would take over from Beihai’s Gu Xiuwen.

The work of the Household Registration Division looked very simple on the surface. All it seemed to do was register the resident’s addresses and jobs, sorting out the proportions of agriculture, industry, and fishermen required into five categories. It also carried an important mission in finding talents within the territory.

In Gu Xiuwen’s time, he dealt with the general talents. Only if he thought it was important, or if Ouyang Shuo would be interested, did he specifically report to Ouyang Shuo and ask him to arrange something. That had been the right way to handle it, and the very reason why the Household Registration Division existed was that of the wisdom and vision of Gu Xiuwen.

If he thought it was an important talent, he told Ouyang Shuo, but did not worry him otherwise. Or perhaps if it was just general talents, but in fact, Ouyang Shuo had been looking for such people. Whatever the situation, the Secretary could have been accused of dereliction of duty.

Fan Zhongyan did not hesitate, saying directly, “Today, among the immigrants, there is a young scribe by name of Zhou Haichen. I am recommending him as the Director of the Household Registration Division.”

This was a surprise to Ouyang Shuo. He originally thought that Mr. Fan would recommend his assistant Qin Shijian to serve as the new Director. If it had been Qin Shijian, he would have had no objections.

Ouyang Shuo had some knowledge about Shijian. He took the initiative to register to participate in the first political affairs class in Lianzhou College and was one of the first to graduate with outstanding achievements.

He had been selected by Fan Zhongyan personally as his assistant, to help him deal with governmental affairs. Mr. Fan had been an excellent teacher in word and deed, and Shijian was now far more sophisticated in dealing with governmental affairs. Ouyang Shuo had long seen him as a good seed and reserve talent, having a great focus on him, and had been considering adding to Shijian’s responsibilities.

He had not thought that Mr. Fan would nominate a completely new person as the candidate for the Directorship. It seemed that this Zhou Haichen was very special to be able to earn the administrative director’s focus on him, among all his other responsibilities.

Since he had previously committed that Mr. Fan would determine the candidates for the directorship, Ouyang Shuo would naturally not go back on his words. He smiled and said, “Okay, I will agree to this appointment. If he can get Mr. Fan’s approval, he must be a talent. In addition, we should burden Qin Shijian and Du Quan, these two young people. Hmmm, let’s see, appoint Qin Shijian as Assistant Director of Administration, and Du Quan as Assistant Director of Household Registration.”

Mr. Fan nodded and said he had no objection.

Qin Shijian was basically taking over a job from Gu Xiuwen, and so he could justifiably assist Mr. Fan in handling the duties of the Administration Department.

As for Du Quan, he had also graduated from Lianzhou College’s first political affairs crash course and was taken in by Gu Xiuwen. Ouyang Shuo had heard from Xiuwen that he was very good. This time, Ouyang Shuo took the opportunity to give him a promotion and provide him with a broader platform to display his talent.

Having finished discussing staff movements in the Administration Department, Mr. Fan rose to leave. The busiest person in the territory was him. Not only did he have to embark on a new era of administration, he also had to set up the Meritorious Service Division to test and register all government officials.

In accordance with Ouyang Shuo’s directives and seeing the Spring Festival approaching, it was the right opportunity to give year-end evaluations to all of the staff, dividing them into four grades of excellent, good, qualified, and poor. Getting evaluated as good meant being a priority for promotion. If their evaluations were poor, they might be allowed to stay, demoted, or even directly dismissed.

Soon after Mr. Fan left, Ouyang Shuo received two messages from Bai Hua of Consonance Village and Mulan Yue of Mulan village.

He opened Bai Hua’s message first. The lovely lady first congratulated him on his promotion to the township. After some courtesy lines, she euphemistically asked him to discuss the secret of upgrading to a township. She was especially interested in how to enhance her territory’s economic index.

Regarding such ‘secrets’, there was no need for him to keep it to himself. He was tolerant of this and didn’t really have anything to hide. He very simply explained Shanhai’s privatization measures, from the establishment of the village to the development of the basic welfare system, to the price and wage levels and other steps he had taken, listing them out one by one before sending off the reply to Bai Hua.

Ouyang Shuo also hoped that her village could be promoted early, helping break the Six Handan’s’ monopoly on the ranking list. As for how her village should go about raising private funding, it wasn’t something he needed to worry about.

Then he opened the message from Mulan Yue. She was the only female lord among his former predecessors in the Lianzhou Basin, and he didn’t know much about her.

After all, in his last life, he was an Adventurer. He only had some impression of the famous lords. He had only understood the basic situation of the Lianzhou Basin, and benefited thereby. As for the specific information on the lords, he knew nothing more.

No surprises, Mulan Yue directly proposed an alliance.

Her Mulan Village was located in the north of the Basin, next to the town of Zhennan Pass, firmly stuck in the hinterlands of the Lianzhou Basin with control of the overland trade channel out of the Basin. Shanhai was located in the south of the Basin, with the sea as its main trade channel.

Who was in a better position was hard to say clearly, it could only be said that the good see good, and the wise see wisdom. For those who liked warring with other expanding lords to grow, her area was a military battleground. For those more interested in building themselves up as a great lord, the vast ocean was much more attractive.

Mulan Village was placed near Zhennan Pass deliberately. This long-term strategic vision was the only thing she mentioned, but enough to earn Ouyang Shuo’s respect and goodwill.

Mulan Village and Shanhai were at the north and south ends of the Basin. Before upgrading to a Capital, their territories would not intersect. With these two territories and only two ways out of the Basin, once they joined up the other lords in the Basin would only be able to drink a pot of bitter tea.

Upholding the principle of deal far-off and attack near, Ouyang Shuo did not intend to refuse the offer of alliance from Mulan. Perhaps the alliance would, in the territorial wars of the near future, also bring him some more surprises.

He took the Lord’s Manual from his storage bag, opened the territory column, and searched for Mulan Village, with Lord Mulan Yue. After confirming, an alliance application automatically popped up. He clicked to confirm, and a covenant popped up.

He then removed the Lord’s Seal from his storage bag, and without hesitation stamped the Covenant. At that point, Shanhai Town and Mulan Village were officially in an alliance.

After the two sides had signed the covenant, Ouyang Shuo made a copy of the message he had sent to Bai Hua about privatization and sent it to her. At the same time, he notified the Consonance players via a brief message about his alliance with Mulan Village.

Allies could be a bilateral alliance, and also a multilateral alliance. If Bai Hua and Mulan were interested, they could also form an alliance with one another.

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At the same time, in the Mulan Village office, a 20-year old girl said happily, “Sister Mu, as you expected, Shanhai Town agreed to our alliance application!”

Mu Guiying fondly watched Mulan Yue, smiled and said, “As long as the lord of the Shanhai is not an arrogant person, he would naturally not refuse our alliance. After all, there will be no conflicts of interest between us in the near future.”

Mulan nodded agreement and said, “Well, he gave us much information on how to promote to a Town. But if we follow his directions, we will need a lot of gold coins.”

Mu Guiying shook her head and did not agree. “The privatization idea was good, but if it was just for the sake of promoting to a township, there is no need to do it so thoroughly. I think why Shanhai did it that way was because they had sufficient funds to develop such a rich basic welfare system. We can act according to the actual situation of Mulan Village, be flexible in our adjustments, and we will still be able to meet the economic index requirements.”

Mulan Yue was like a pecking chicken with the way her head was bobbing in agreement. Which was not like a village lord, but more like a little girl idol. “Hee hee, I will listen to Sister Mu’s analysis, I am at ease!”

Mu Guiying touched Mulan Yue’s small head, laughing and not saying anything.