The World Online

2nd month, 12th day, eve of the Lantern Festival, a piece of news shocked the entire China region.

Nanjiang Governor-General Qiyue Wuyi made an announcement that Shanhai City would start a one off recruitment of five million players from the nine imperial cities, placing them across three provinces, 16 prefectures, 81 houses, and 400 counties.

This recruitment effort was mainly aimed at work occupation players.

However, there was a notable difference – Shanhai City had opened up to casual players. Based on the report, as long as one met the requirements, any elderly willing to move in would be granted territory welfare and protection.

The various government offices would provide free housing for the players. Moreover, every month, they would give the needed living resources to ensure that their basic needs were met.

The announcement clearly stated that there would be a million causal players allowed, which was 20% of the number.

The Nanjiang Governor-General House had taken out four million to execute this plan. Ouyang Shuo had basically taken out all the money they earned from the sales of weapons.

At the same time, the Nanjiang Govenor-General House would borrow three million from the Four Seas Bank to ensure that the matter proceeded smoothly. Along with the funds used by the various prefectures and counties, the overall costs would break the 10 million mark.

If one included the costs of the houses, as well as the future welfare costs, it would be a sky high price.

The moment the news went public, the first reaction was, ‘Shanhai City is crazy!’ … However, of course they were not.

This plan was thought of after a day of discussion with the Civil Affairs Department.

The details of the announcements only gave an overall framework while the Finance Division, Regulatory Department, Industry and Development Planning Department, Four Seas Bank, and related personnel would work together to help to make specific migration plans.

The various prefectures and counties also needed to make specific migration plans based on their territory and report to the Civil Affairs Department.

The entire migration plan was a huge systematic process, and they would need a full month or two to complete the first stage of personnel arrangement. It would take half a year for it to fully get on track.

Moreover, this was just the first step in Ouyang Shuo’s plan.

The China region had close to 100 million players, and Ouyang Shuo’s ambition was to have Shanhai City house at least 30% of that figure, which was around 30 million players. He wanted them to live under Shanhai City and get used to their rule.

Of course, the prerequisite would be that their territory had to expand once more.

Five million people were the migration limit the Civil Affairs Department had calculated. Any more and not only would it cause a massive hit to the industries, it would be a huge burden to the territory’s finances.

On the surface, this was a losing deal.

Of course, it was not.

First, casual players only took up 20% of the migration numbers.

This recruitment plan mainly focused on family units. In a family there would be old people and kids and normally a few work occupation players. Even the old people might be work occupation players.

In the 22nd century, people lived much longer and 50 to 60 years old people could be considered middle aged. When players truly became old, their grandchildren were already mature, and some who lived longer even saw their great grandchildren mature.

To use one causal player to obtain four work occupation players was worth it.

If not, Ouyang Shuo would not feel confident about recruiting four million work occupation players at once. After all, the release of the underground world meant that the resources deficit in the imperial cities would be solved soon.

Secondly, the increase in population would spur the growth of territory finances.

The various territories in the wilderness were not balance from the start. Shanhai City had taken down three provinces, and many places saw their people go hungry. Along with many wars, many ended up with plenty of land but little people.

Especially the prefecture grade land, which were mostly forcefully upgraded from Grade 3 County. The average population shortfall was 300 thousand per prefecture territory. In one prefecture of land that number would exceed four million.

Along with territory stone steeles being destroyed, the prefecture and county populations basically stopped. No matter how fast the natives could give birth, their contribution to the population was pretty much zero.

Based on the reports of the Civil Affairs Department, the territory overall number at the end of the 3rd year was 25 million.

Shanhai City covered three provinces and had close to the Ming Dynasty Era sized land. One must know that at their peak, the Ming Dynasty had 105 million people.

The Qing Dynasty was more terrifying with 436 million.

In comparison, Shanhai City was simply too poor.

But Ouyang Shuo did not dare recruit too many players at once as the balance would be broken, and it would have a destructive effect on the already weak county and prefecture ruling systems.

They could only bring in batch by batch, taking in the next batch after the first was digested.

The digestion process would also be the process where the various prefectures and counties progressed quickly. The Financial Bureau calculated that as long as Shanhai City digested these five million migrants, the financial income would increase by 30%.

Calculating it like that, the investment of 10 million gold was truly worth it.

Which was also why after taking down Yunnan City-State, Ouyang Shuo turned his strategy from internal to external. He did not want to attack Xiangnan and Chuanbei City-States in a short time.

Much less the Jiangchuan and Minnan Provinces.

Ouyang Shuo’s goal was simple, which was to make use of the territory stone steeles’s ability to spawn refugees to increase the number of natives. As a result, the next time he recruited players, he could ask for more of them.

Thirdly, he wanted to lower the ratio of civilians to military personnel.

After this round of military reorganization, the Shanhai City Army consisted of 16 War Fighting Legions with 1.12 million men, which did not sound too terrifying. If one included the navy and the Garrison Divisions, the number would reached 1.9 million.

Based on the 25 million population count, the ratio had reached 1:12, which was close to the danger value. These five million players would help to buy them some breathing room.

The above three points were the core reasons, and it was also the tips and ideas that Taigong gave him to try to drag as many grassroots players up his boat as possible.

Only by doing that would he not become an abandoned chess piece. … No matter what Ouyang Shuo was considering, the nine imperial cities were turned on their heads because of this announcement. Some agreed while others opposed.

The underground world was about to be opened and players with ambition naturally would not be willing to leave.

But there were also a portion of the players who were tired of fighting over the Satellite City and engaging in slaughter and battles. They would rather move over to Shanhai City to live a peaceful life.

If one had elderly or children at home, all the more they thought that way.

Before the true battle started, the various guilds had started killing one another. Obviously, once the Lantern Festival was over, the murders would grow even more intense.

To say that blood would flow like rivers was not an exaggeration.

At that time, who knows how many players would die, and their three years of cultivation and hard work would go down the drain.

No matter what, the Shanhai City recruitment announcement had a market. After Shanhai City took down Yunnan City-State, the China region players had already recognized them as the top power in China.

To live there was much safer than going to the imperial city. … Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo’s reading room.

Apart from recruiting five million players, Ouyang Shuo also thought of other ways to go up against the threat of Silver Hand.

In the reading room sat Shen Buhai and Black Snake.

Before this, Ouyang Shuo had split the roles of the Shanhai Guards and the Black Snake Guards but he did not do so completely. Since it was not a total split, and their jobs intersected, which resulted in a waste of manpower and resources.

To make matters worse, monitoring blind spots appeared as they competed. Like the intel error in Yunnan, which was the result of the two intel organizations being too eager to perform, losing their calm as a result.

After that incident, the three intel organizations had an extremely through reflection.

After Ouyang Shuo saw their incident report, he felt exceedingly guilty and blamed himself.

Using the threat of Silver Hand, Ouyang Shuo was going to thoroughly split the duties of the two organizations.

“All duties of the Black Snake Guards in the China region, including the development of spies and moles, will be taken over by the Shanhai Guards.” Ouyang Shuo’s first sentence stunned Black Snake.

“Monarch?”

Black Shake’s face was ashen white, and he thought that this was the punishment for his mistake.

‘Have the Black Snake Guards lost the trust of the Monarch?’ Black Snake thought bitterly to himself. The moment they lost Ouyang Shuo’s trust, the only path left was to disband.

Even Shen Buhai was shocked and did not know what was going on.

Ouyang Shuo waved his hand to tell the two of them to relax. “After the Shanhai Guards take over, do you feel confident about doing a better job of investigating players?”

Shen Buhai was a really by the book person, and he thought about the question seriously before replying, “There will be an adapting period. After which, there will not be many problems.”

The Shanhai Guards were no longer at their initial stages of development, and there were players in their ranks. Moreover, through their monitoring of the Black Snake Guards, they had also gathered some experience.

But to control the whole situation was not easy to achieve.

“How long do you need?” Ouyang Shuo asked.

“Two months.”

Ouyang Shuo raised three fingers and said calmly, “I will give you three months; if you mess it up, you’ll know the consequences.”

When Shen Buhai heard those words, he felt a cold feeling in his heart.

“Do not worry Monarch; if I cannot accomplish the task, I’m willing to give you my head.”

Ouyang Shuo nodded. Then he looked at Black Snake who had calmed down slightly, “The Black Snake Guards need to cooperate with them to make the relevant handovers. Is half a month enough?”

Black Snake’s voice was hoarse, but he did not lose his calm and calculated in his heart, “It’s enough.”

As for handing over, it was mainly contact methods of the informants, spies, and list of all of them. Finally, there would be the major intel stations.

Much of this information could be handed over right at the Shanhai City headquarters.