Lord of the Gaming World - Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Preparing for the Historical Warfare

Chu Tian was still in shock at having upgraded his Level 1 town to Level 2. Right now, he had another golden recruitment order and a hall of loyalty construction drawing in his hand.

Chu Tian couldn’t be more familiar with golden recruitment orders, but this was the very first time he had come across a hall of loyalty construction drawing.

[Name]: Hall of loyalty

[Rank]: Level 5 military, cultural construction

[Effects]: Morale of troops in the relevant city increases, less passive impact on the territory from deaths of soldiers, city’s value of blessings +1.

Very simple effects, yet Chu Tian knew just how great the three effects that the hall of loyalty could bring were.

First, the morale of the troops in the city where the hall belonged would increase. Morale was very important in Feudal Lords. If morale began to drop, the combat power of the troops would be severely impacted, causing them to crumble or eventually turn renegade.

Secondly, the deaths of soldiers were a massive blow to their families. If they triumphed at the cost of many lives lost, the popular sentiment of the territory would decline marginally. In the presence of the hall of loyalty and Li Kui, even if they got defeated in the future, the popular sentiment of Xia Town wouldn’t drop very easily.

Third, the value of blessings of the town would affect harvests, propitious omens, and specialties. Very few constructions could serve to raise the value of blessings.

The hall of loyalty must be built, especially now that the first historical warfare “Riot of the Yellow Turbans” was imminent.

Chu Tian would probably sustain a large number of soldiers’ deaths, even those of heroes. After all, this time around, they weren’t faced with the Yellow Turban general Zhang Kai, but the Level 80 big bosses of the Yellow Turban Camp, such as Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang.

Furthermore, the Yellow Turban commanders would certainly be followed closely by a large group of seasoned Yellow Turban soldiers, leaders, and even combatants.

Therefore, building the hall of loyalty in advance would increase the combat strength of the troops of Xia Town, weakening the passive impact of the soldiers’ deaths on Xia Town.

Chu Tian would need to take the formation of the military forces for “Riot of the Yellow Turbans” into very careful consideration too.

First of all, the navy camp could be excluded, serving almost no purpose in appeasing the Riot of the Yellow Turbans. The main approach of the Han Court in suppressing the Riot of the Yellow Turbans was having large-scale, open-field, decisive battles and storming fortifications of large cities.

Moreover, due to financial constraints and a lack of warhorses, it was impressive enough to own a Grade 1 light cavalry of 100 members within the country during the early stages.

All that could be done now was expanding the scale of the infantry and archers.

“600 elite infantrymen and 300 Xu archers. When the time comes, 200 soldiers will be left to safeguard the town. A troop of 800 men, consisting of 100 cavalrymen, 200 archers, and 500 elite infantrymen, will be sent to take part in the historical warfare.”

Chu Tian left behind only 200 professional soldiers. He wasn’t worried that other feudal lords would attack Xia Town in that period because during the historical warfare, all the feudal lords who participated were in a state of acquiesced ceasefire, and other feudal lords who were not taking part in the historical warfare could not declare war against them.

The 200 professional soldiers were only left behind to prevent an attack on the village from the surrounding horse thieves, mountain thieves, and water bandits.

Only a handful of feudal lords in the entirety of Eastern Han could afford to send troops of 800 men. Of course, this was referring to professional soldiers, because almost any feudal lord could send over 800 local soldiers.

However, no one would bring local soldiers to a close-quarter fight against the ferocious Yellow Turban Army. Local soldiers made up the workforce of the territory and there would only be production if the workforce was large enough to handle it. Employing local soldiers, who had little combat power to fight, would probably cause greater losses than gains. After the battle, the future of the town might be jeopardized by that foolish decision.

This was why Chu Tian implemented the soldiers-farmers separation policy. A professional soldier only accounted for one individual of the population, yet he could exhibit a combat power far greater than the local soldiers. Even if they died in the battle, it would not cause as big an impact on the territory as it would if a large group of local soldiers died.

After the sowing was finished, sections of the farmers’ labor forces were spared. Chu Tian mobilized labor forces from each of the towns and villages to the military camps, either in Xia Town or Lingyan Town, to be trained as planned.

All the feudal lords were making haste to prepare for the first historical warfare ever.

From September to December, the prototype of each feudal lord’s territory gradually came into existence, having gained their own clients. Some feudal lords even started village battles and town battles, their aims to gobble up one another in order to strengthen themselves.

Chu Tian was also expanding his territory like crazy.

He sent the current most powerful commander of Xia Town, Hua Mulan, to wipe out the surrounding villages with his existing army, incorporating these villages into Xia Town’s area of control.

Xia Town had taken complete control of Lingyan Town, and had three client territories so far, which left three more vacant quotas to be filled. Lingyan Town was a Level 1 town, which had three existing client villages, sparing one vacancy.

Chu Tian ordered Hua Mulan to conquer the Level 3 villages nearby and made them his client territories.

Due to the presence of towns and cities like Xia Town, Lingyan Town, and Langya City, which devoured nearby refugees like starving whales and tigers, the Level 3 villages in the vicinity hardly had any chance to achieve enough of a population to be upgraded into towns.

It wasn’t because the village chiefs of these Level 3 villages were useless. As a matter of fact, they happened to be edged between Xia Town and Lingyan Town, which left them with no room for development. Neither did they have troops like Xia Town’s, which could pillage nearby villages to boost their population.

All that awaited them was the destiny of being conquered, surrendering, or breached.

The Xia Town-Lingyan Town territory, with a population of 17,000, was not something that a Level 3 village could resist against.

The development of territories was like a snowball: the more it rolled along, the bigger it got. As the saying went, “the strong only get stronger; the weak only get weaker.” It was extremely difficult for the weak to triumph over the strong. The Red Cliff War and the Battle of Fei River were rare examples of the weak defeating the strong, but the disparity between the weak and the strong in these instances wasn’t exactly significant either.

There was a 10x difference in strength between a territory with a population of 17,000 and a Level 3 village with a population of 1,700.

Chu Tian sent Hua Mulan to conquer nearby villages while he stayed in Xia Town to strive for a Level 3 town, and then the first city in the world.

Previously, it hadn’t been easy for Xia Town to catch up with the top-ranking Liaodong Town of the Eastern Han. Nonetheless, after assimilating with Xiaozhu Village, which had been a Level 1 town, Xia Town now stood a chance of keeping up with Liaodong Town.

The assimilation of Xiaozhu Village provided a population of 3,000 to Xia Town, a large number economical constructions, various specialties, and the prosperity of the main city.

If Xiaozhu Village hadn’t been located near Xia Town, it would have remained a client village, but not a part of the main territory.

Now, Xia Town had the capital and the opportunity to go after Liaodong Town!

Hence, Chu Tian closely monitored the development of the main town at all times.

The purpose of having Hua Mulan conquer the surrounding villages was to raise the total prosperity level of the territory.

Meanwhile, Chu Tian set up different branches of the courier station in the various client towns and villages, making a governmental decree that all the client villages should launch grand-scale constructions.

“I still have a golden recruitment order in hand. But the chances of recruiting historical heroes with the golden recruitment order are very slim…”

Chu Tian received a golden recruitment order for being among the first hundred feudal lords of the Eastern Han to upgrade to a Level 2 Town. The golden recruitment order could most likely recruit ordinary heroes, with a very small chance of recruiting historical heroes.

Ever since recruiting Hua Mulan and Li Kui, Chu Tian had become very selective, so he wasn’t really concerned about the golden recruitment order. What interested him more was actually the historical hero recruitment order.

“Ding! You have used a golden recruitment order and received the loyalty of royal commander Zhou Yafu.”

“Oh, it’s really just an ordinary he-” Chu Tian’s eyes suddenly went very wide, as if he had realized something. “Zhou Yafu, the one who appeased the rebellion of the seven states during the Western Han!”