The World Online

When Ouyang Shuo and his group reached Gushan Town, it was already 3 PM.

With the large-sized tribe leader Lei Fan at the lead, all the leaders of the tribes welcomed Ouyang Shuo. The tribal alliance had chosen Lei Fan as the head of Gushan Town.

The short interaction let Ouyang Shuo see that Lei Fan was special.

Based on what he knew, Lei Fan became the leader of his tribe at 24 years of age. 10 years had past, and his reputation and prestige were very high in the tribe. Not only that, even the other tribes all respected Lei Fan.

Compared to the conservative spirit of Shi Xiong from the Xuanniao Tribe, Lei Fan was much brighter and had better foresight. His tribe had headed down the mountains as a result of his planning.

He realized that if the mountain barbarians wanted a better life, their best choice would be to mix with the humans.

When Tian Wenjing visited his tribe, the two of them immediately grew close.

After some simple greetings, Ouyang Shuo renamed Gushan Town as Gushan City. Then, he appointed Lei Fan as the city magistrate with the authority to appoint his underlings.

The same night, Ouyang Shuo met Lei Fan alone and the two of them had a deep conversation.

Ouyang Shuo promised that the main camp would provide a batch of grain for Gushan City. The duty of Gushan City would be to build a wall to increase the defences and reclaim farmland in preparation for the spring planting season.

As the population of Gushan City broke 30 thousand, and was still about a year until the first rice harvest, they would probably need around 10 million units of grain.

Obviously, the main camp could not provide for such a huge demand for grain. Ouyang Shuo suggested that they borrowed from the Material Reserves Department. After the first harvest of the next year, they could repay the department.

Apart from that, Lei Fan’s most important task was to continue to promote Shanhai City’s mountain barbarian plan. He needed to contact more tribes and get them to come down to Gushan City.

They had practically swept up all the south side mountain barbarians.

To contact the mountain barbarians, they either had to venture deep into the forest or head north. Either way, Lei Fan would play a bigger part than the Xuanniao Tribe. As the leader of a large-sized tribe, he still remained in contact with the other large tribes. So, he was undoubtedly the most effective choice.

In truth, as the tribes started to rebuild and reorganize Gushan City, the position and importance of Xuanniao Tribe began to drop. They could only help out in the Langshan Minefields.

As for contacting the other tribes, the Xuanniao Tribe was only a medium-sized tribe, so they had limited power and connections. They were already unable to help Tian Wenjing much.

As for the other small and medium-sized tribes that didn’t agree to descend the mountains, Ouyang Shuo decided to not care about them and let them destroy themselves.

The next day, Ouyang Shuo led his troops and left; they returned to Shanhai City on the same night. Ouyang Shuo rushed back because of the mid-autumn festival, which he couldn’t miss.

Gaia first year, 10th month, 4th day, 8th month, 15th day of the lunar calendar, mid-autumn festival.

Xinan University, Fallen Star Island.

Only a few stars shone in the night sky; it was dead quiet. Jiang Shang sat alone on a rock and looked at the moon, as he contemplated many things.

The one he longed for had passed on, and only the moon remained unchanged.

”The Lord’s Manor sent these mooncakes.” The servant held a box of exquisite mooncakes.

”En.” Jiangshang’s expression changed slightly. Then, he turned expressionless and motionless once again.

The young servant didn’t want to disturb him, so he placed the mooncake at the side and quietly left.

After the servant left, Jiang Shang picked up a piece of mooncake and muttered, “You still haven’t given up?”

The moon didn’t make a sound, nor did the man as the night breeze blew by.

Lord’s Manor, back garden.

After the feast, Ouyang Shuo invited everyone to the back garden to admire the moon.

The cool autumn breeze brought with it the scent of flowers. Bing’er held a bunch of Osmanthus Flowers in her hand and ran to Zisu, “Sister Zisu, I want to eat Osmanthus cake!”

Zisu nodded and laughed, “Ok, tomorrow, I’ll ask Auntie Wang to make some for you.”

Ouyang Shuo looked at them in amusement; it had been a long time since he felt so relaxed.

Recently, the duties of the territory had made him so busy. Many changes had occurred inside and out.

Sha Pojun’s probing attack had ended in failure, and Ouyang Shuo had forced him back. Weirdly, when Sha Pojun went back, there was no news about him. It was like he was a rock that fell into the ocean.

After that probe, Di Chen and the others became more careful. If one said that these people had given up on their schemes toward Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo wouldn’t believe it. The storms in the future would grow more mysterious and vicious.

As for the territorial matters, Ouyang Shuo slowly felt like he was overworked himself. He planned everything for Shanhai City and also had to pay attention to the alliance, which made him exhausted.

As the affiliate territories increased, Ouyang Shuo needed a talent that could help him control the big picture. Jiang Shang, who was on Fallen Star Island, was such one person, unfortunately....

”Brother, eat the mooncake.” Bing’er took a mooncake and passed it to Ouyang Shuo.

”Good Bing’er!” Ouyang Shuo took it and smiled. All his thoughts and problems instantly flew to the back of his mind.

”Blockhead, these few days, I’ve received some letters from my old classmates,” Song Jia suddenly said.

”Old classmates? How did they find out your ID?”

”Most of them are high school friends. I suspect that Yuanping revealed it. Before the migration, he had pulled many of them to live in his territory.”

Ouyang Shuo nodded; it was as he had expected, “They want to join Dongli Sword Sect?”

”That’s right, what do you think?” Song Jia would seek his opinion for this kind of important matter.

”We welcome them, but remember to keep a lookout.” Ouyang Shuo would rather be safe than sorry.

”En.” Song Jia naturally knew what to do.

After the mid-autumn festival, the grain crisis exploded. Grain prices rose up to 30 copper per unit.

Lord players had to spend all their money and live on the edge, while the merchants made a lot of gold.

The end of the 10th month would be the second harvesting season. Obviously, everyone clearly knew that grain prices would fall after that.

The 10th month was going to be the hardest month for lord gamemode players.

Many territories were already forced to the edge. They had spent their resources and those that could be sold were sold. They had no choice. Helplessly, they started to sell equipment to adventure mode players to gain gold to buy grain.

Compared to lord gamemode players, adventure gamemode players weren’t affected. They weren’t like lords who had to care about residents; they only needed to care about themselves.

As they had no choice, some lord’s started to raise the taxes. Not only that, they sold the grain they bought at high prices to the residents.

Shanhai City, the price of grain at the grain shop remained at 11 copper.

The high prices affected these lords because they needed to lower the grain prices in the territory. If it rose along with the market, it would result in a huge blow to residents, and it could easily cause riots. The farmers naturally wouldn’t sell the excess grain so easily to the territory. Instead, they would accumulate them.

Hence, these lords had no choice but to use their own money to make up for the difference in prices.

Ouyang Shuo’s allies also faced the same problem.

At the end of the 9th month, Ouyang Shuo had to further invest in the Four Seas Bank to save his allies.

Mulan City and Black Lion City were still okay, as they had just upgraded. They could barely make it. As for Tianshuang Town, which was still at grade 3 Town, they still had sufficient funds as the branch of the bank was just built.

The ones that had it the hardest were Fallen Phoenix City and Xunlong City. They had to pay the loans from the bank every month. Now, they struggled thanks to the grain prices.

Wufu’s Stone City also found it hard to get by. A Four Seas Bank branch wasn’t built there, so it was rather remarkable for them to survive all by themselves.

After the mid-autumn festival, Wufu finally couldn’t take it and asked Ouyang Shuo to save him.

Ouyang Shuo didn’t hesitate. He sold the 60 million units of grain he had accumulated. After the 10% tax deduction, he obtained 161,000 gold.

In addition to his original funds, he now had 177,000 in his storage bag.

Ouyang Shuo immediately invested 40,000 in the main branch, and 2,000 in the five branches. Overall, he invested 50,000.

The one time investment of 40,000 gold made the main branch of Four Seas Bank start to have the grandeur of a central bank.

As the city continued to run the bank, the views of the people slowly changed. They started to learn how to save up.

Based on Yingyu’s data, in the 9th month, the Four Seas Bank had a total of 9,000 gold in savings.

Based on Ouyang Shuo’s plan, this was the last time he would inject money. From now on, Ouyang Shuo wouldn’t bother with the Four Seas Bank. He would let its members and officials do their job.

Apart from that, the Four Seas Bank branch in Stone City had opened up. Ouyang Shuo gave them a starting amount of 5,000 gold.

After such actions, Ouyang Shuo still had 122,000 gold left.

Based on his plans, he would not touch 100,000 gold. He planned to spend these funds on the year end auction three months later.

Compared to the first system auction, the year end auction would be bigger and have more rare items. Naturally, he didn’t want to miss it.

He had to make proper preparations to purchase what he wanted during the auction. If it wasn’t for the grain crisis that used up a lot of the other territory’s gold, Ouyang Shuo would have prepared more in case of uncertainties.