The World Online

Gaia First Year October 12th.

Ouyang Shuo led his guards and arrived at Beihai City. It had been half a year ever since the establishment of Beihai City and this was the first time Ouyang Shuo had visited it.

The skiff sailed through the canyon, twisting and turning along the way but still moving toward its destination steadily. He raised his head and all he could see were the cold stones and hard rocks which were partially tinted dark green by moss. The atmosphere around was dead and dull; he looked straight up. The steep cliffs took up half of his sights, forming a blue skyline in between.

The gushing torrents of the river washed its anger onto the stone cliff walls, sounds of water rippling could be heard as the water splashed onto the hard cold rocks and splattered around in all directions.

A sudden sharp turn was made, and an upright skyline rose above from the ground all the way up as it joined the blue bright sky. As the little skiff sailed through the breathtaking skyline, the view became open and clear. The sky was high and the land was wide, shimmering warm sunlight shone down to the earth. The thick white-line of coast could be seen from afar, thundering sounds could be heard as the waves rumbled in the sea. A couple of seabirds flew across the skies bringing an immense feel of liveliness.

The narrow and the wide, life and death, so abrupt yet harmonious, they all existed side by side. Ouyang Shuo was astonished as he looked at all these great creations of mother nature.

At a riverside next to the sea, a majestic city stood in between the heaven and earth; its existence within this land subdued every living being in the area.

The city magistrate Gu Xiuwen and the commander of the Beihai navy Pei Donglai, along with their trusted subordinates were waiting at the dock for Ouyang Shuo’s arrival.

The skiff slowly reached the dock, and Ouyang Shuo walked down of the skiff under his guards’ protection.

“Greetings to the lord!” The officials bowed and greeted Ouyang Shuo.

Ouyang Shuo nodded and said, “All of you are the humerus and backbone of Beihai City. Beihai City could not possibly be what it is now today without any one of you. Your hard work and contributions are much appreciated. Today, I am not here to show off what I have achieved, so you may be dismissed!”

“Understood!” The officials dared not delay, and they all dispersed. Only Gu Xiuwen and Pei Donglai stayed back.

Ouyang Shuo wasn’t in a hurry to enter the city. He smiled and said to the two, “So, let’s take a walk!”

In actual fact, even Gu Xiuwen and Pei Donglai knew little of the purpose behind why Ouyang Shuo visited Beihai City.

The night before, the two had received an emergency mail from secretary Lang Bainan. In the letter, it was stated that the lord would pay Beihai City a visit, but it did not clarify the reason behind the sudden visit.

Naturally, the two wouldn’t decline their lord’s request, so they answered in unison, “Yes!”

The group of three walked toward the beach, while the guards kept a distance away from them and watched over their safety closely.

While they walked slowly around, Ouyang Shuo turned and looked at Gu Xiuwen, “Xiuwen, how is Beihai City doing lately?”

Ever since he had occupied Tianfeng and the other 4 cities, Ouyang Shuo had abolished the need for the heads of subordinate territories to personally report to Ouyang Shuo in the main city on a monthly basis. He had changed the debriefing report to once every half a year.

Therefore, it was quite some time since Ouyang Shuo had met Gu Xiuwen, his trusted right-hand man.

Gu Xiuwen was startled for a moment. Then, he bowed and said, “Reporting to the lord…”

“Ey,” Ouyang Shuo waved his hand. “This isn’t the imperial court, Xiuwen can skip the formality.” This was also the reason why Ouyang Shuo did not rush to the magistrate office; he didn’t want things to get too solemn.

Gu Xiuwen nodded and he started to report to Ouyang Shuo in a casual manner the main points and issues of Beihai City.

During the last military and governance meeting, Ouyang Shuo had proposed a plan that they would have to diversify their industries. After the meeting, the clerk office had organized the proposal into an official document and sent them to the subsidiary territories.

The heads of the secondary territories knew exactly what Ouyang Shuo meant. They started to figure out ways to diversify and also develop their unique industrial planning.

In this matter, Beihai City was placed in a bad position. As the saying went, ‘Those living on a mountain live off the mountain, those living near the water live off the water’. Beihai City was located beside the sea, so it was natural for them to exploit the fisheries and salt industry. But other than that, it was hard for them to develop another new industry. Their industrial structure was very simple.

Needless to say, the salt industry was limited by the beach area by the sea, so it had long reached a bottleneck.

The fisheries were not going so well either. The fishermen had to worry about bad weather and face the threats of the pirates, so the industry itself wasn’t too stable. They could only fish within the area of the navy cruise waters.

An estimation of half a month was needed before Beihai City could be upgraded to a grade 3 city. This was while Qiushui City had caught up to them, and was already a grade 3 city as of last week.

Although the migration of mountain barbarians played a big role in it, Gu Xiuwen was still not convinced. As the first subordinate territory of Shanhai, Gu Xiuwen had always looked at Beihai City as the benchmark and model example of the subordinate territories.

In order to catch up to Qiushui City, Gu Xiuwen had a small discussion with Pei Donglai to launch a military operation to exterminate the pirates. They could capture the fugitives and increase the population of Beihai City at the same time, eliminating the obstacles faced by the fishermen.

Pei Donglai had that idea in mind for a long time, and as he listened to Gu Xiuwen, the two immediately saw eye to eye with each other.

However, after a few defeats, the Black Shark pirates started to retreat. For a long period of time, they stopped sending scout ships over to monitor the movements of Beihai City.

In order to avoid unwanted events from happening, the two requested help from Ouyang Shuo, hoping that he could approve the military operation to exterminate the pirates.

Seeing the two beating around the bush and in the end coming back to the topic of exterminating pirates, Ouyang Shuo laughed and shook his head. “The two of you, stop giving me a two-man comic show. The battles that took place on the land lately have indeed affected the operation to exterminate the pirates. However, along with the fall of Zhennan Pass and Er’Shi Ridge, the battlefield on the land can now enjoy a momentary peace. And that is why I am here today, to discuss with the two of you about the matters regarding the extermination of Black Shark pirates of Moon Island.”

Listening to his words, Gu Xiuwen and Pei Donglai were overjoyed.

As they were talking, they had reached to the beach. The seawater was crystal clear and the beach was clear of rubbish.

In the brick and mortar world, such a clean and spotless beach was long gone. Seeing the paradise-like beach, Ouyang Shuo had a sudden urge to dive deep and immerse himself in the sea. He gazed at it and thoughts flowed in his mind. He could bring Bing’er here for a vacation in the future.

“Xiuwen!” Ouyang Shuo called.

“Here!”

“Do me a favor. Build a wooden hut near the beach. Next time, I will bring Bing’er here for a vacation, and we will stay in the hut,” Ouyang Shuo instructed.

Although he was the great lord of Shanhai, he did not want to be tied by the endless void of military and governing affairs. When it was time to relax and enjoy, he would not hesitate at all to do so.

“Understood!” Gu Xiuwen took the words into his heart. He’d decided that he would build and embellish it into the best wooden hut ever, so that his lord and the third young lady could enjoy the most comfortable living environment.

“Alright, let’s head back to the magistrate office.” After he visually fed his eyes with all the breathtaking views, Ouyang Shuo had decided to return to the city.

Beihai City, Council Chamber.

As Ouyang Shuo whispered for the heartstone in his heart, the crystal-white heartstone heard his call and slowly rose above the ground. On the face of the heartstone, three glimmering ancient Chinese words that spelled Beihai City were written.

He placed his right hand on the face of the heartstone and whispered “Subordinate village.” Then, the system prompt rang in his ears.

“System Notification: Beihai City belongs to a grade 2 city, possess 3 village creation tokens, do you wish to use one?”

“Yes!”

“System Notice: Village creation token of Beihai City is silver-level, village creation token of subordinate territories will automatically be reduced by one level into the black-iron level, do you wish to extract?”

“Extract!”

Three black lights flashed on the crystal-white heartstone, slowly congealing and falling into the hands of Ouyang Shuo, turning into 3 black-iron level village creation tokens. Then, Ouyang Shuo took a look at the properties.

Name: Village Creation Token (Black-iron)

Features: 25% increase in attracting immigrants; 10% increase in attracting special talents; 25% increase in crop production; 10% increase in skilled worker productivity; 10% increase in military promotion.

Evaluation: An unique item, cannot be dropped, untradeable.

The properties of a black-iron level village creation token was only half of a gold’s. The quality was a lot lower. But Ouyang Shuo didn’t mind at all. He kept the 3 tokens in his storage bag, as even a black-iron level village creation token was better than none.

“Is the lord going to establish new subordinate territories?” Gu Xiuwen, who was standing to the side, asked.

Only then Ouyang Shuo did remember that he had not explained matters regarding the [Token of Territory Merging] to Gu Xiuwen, so a slight sense of embarrassment lurked in his heart. He could recall that Gu Xiuwen had not only once but twice requested for permission for Beihai City to establish new subordinate territories, but he declined all of them.

“Xiuwen, there is something I need to tell you.” Ouyang Shuo pondered for a moment before he continued on. “Beihai City need to focus on its main base; the top priority is to develop itself, so there is no need for the later subordinate territories. I have other plans for these 3 village creation tokens.”

Gu Xiuwen was stunned. His face paled, and he looked like a strangled person. He thought that Ouyang Shuo was only doing this because Ouyang Shuo was unsatisfied with Beihai City’s current development.

“I am sorry, I have failed to reach the expectations of my lord. Please punish me!” Gu Xiuwen was half-kneeling down onto the ground, and said in panic and fear.

Ouyang Shuo shook his head. This was the bad thing about scholars; they liked to brainstorm and too many thoughts flowed in their minds. Sometimes, they would blindly overthink situations. If it were Zhao Dexian or Zhao Dewang, they would not be like this and would just ask directly for the reason.

“Get up, do not misunderstand the situation. I am not doing this because I am dissatisfied with your performance. This is nothing but the official arrangements done in accordance to the future planning of the territory. Beihai City stands beside the sea, so it is only naturally for it to center the developments around itself. This is the only right way for Beihai City.” Ouyang Shuo had to explain it nicely. To leave any ill feelings or creating barriers between him and his trusted subordinate was something he did not like to see.

“Understood!” Gu Xiuwen was feeling more relieved; his heart finally at ease.

He couldn’t be blamed for being so anxious. The fact that Beihai City was superseded by Qiushui City made the competitive Gu Xiuwen feel unpleasant. It had caused him to feel a little jittery and panicked lately.

Ouyang Shuo also noticed that Gu Xiuwen was now in an emotionally imbalanced state. But matters like these were hard for an outside person to comfort. The more one comforted, the worse the unpleasantness might grow. The only way was to allow Gu Xiuwen to self-regulate and calm the waves in his sea of emotions.

As the lord, Ouyang Shuo couldn’t favor any one side, be it Qiushui, Beihai, or even Friendship City. Both the palm and the back of his hand were his own flesh, so any good news or developments of the three cities were worth celebrating.

As long as the competitions between the cities were kept within limits and stayed as healthy competition, Ouyang Shuo would not intervene. But if any one of the cities crossed the line, Ouyang Shuo would not hold back his fists; he would severely punish the personnel in charge and show no mercy.

As the subordinate territories increased in numbers and strength, it would be a profound art to balance the relations, resources, and arrangements between the subordinate territories.

That was why Ouyang Shuo was hurrying the construction of Tian Hai Road, to strengthen his control over the subordinate territories so that they would not grow out of his control.

In this regard, Ouyang Shuo was still immature, and he could only take things step by step with great caution, slowly and steadily teaching himself how to do it.

In actual fact, Ouyang Shuo needed a teacher, a mentor who could teach and enlighten him on the the righteous way of a king’s path. Even Fan Zhongyan and Tian Wenjing were quite clueless in this aspect.