Chapter 298- The Merger of Three Cities
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
To the discussion and debate on the forums, Ouyang Shuo just laughed it off.
Ouyang Shuo not caring didn't mean that others didn't too. Even the Shanhai Alliance members who were frightened by Bai Xiaosheng's prediction abilities immediately sought out Ouyang Shuo.
Out of the Shanhai Alliance, Bai Hua and Feng Qiuhuang were the most anxious. Their territories had already upgraded to grade 3 cities, and were working towards grade 1 prefectures.
Ouyang Shuo naturally wouldn't hide anything and told them everything from the upgrade mission and the changes to the city to let them make preparations.
After Ouyang Shuo finished, the alliance channel was dead silent. They didn't expect that the upgrade quest would be so difficult and for the changes to the territory to be so huge.
Out of the 4 quests, even though Ouyang Shuo completed them seemingly easily, it would be impossible to complete even 1 for other territories. The recruitment of historical people, the impossible task of asking a chamber of commerce to move in, completing the culture festival, all these wouldn't have been possible without Cui Yingyu and the Mazu Temple.
The last division trial seemed the easiest but it wasn’t. Even the strongest division in Shanhai City, the 2nd division, had difficulties completing it, let alone for other territories.
In conclusion, the other territories didn't have the depth of strength that Shanhai City had.
Luckily, apart from Bai Hua and Feng Qiuhuang, the others were far away from upgrading to prefecture so they had a long time to prepare for it.
Taking a thousand steps back, as long as one completed two quests, the could upgrade so they shouldn't be too hard on themselves.
Dali Region, Consonance City
The four flowers gathered in their back garden to digest the news that they had just heard.
Bai Hua sighed. "The prefecture upgrade quest really makes one feel despair!"
"What are you scared about, we will solve it when we get there." Hong Ying said confidently.
"Although the upgrade quest is random, it wouldn't be too far off. The 4 quests of Shanhai City have huge value, so we can make specific preparations." Tsing Yi said.
"That's right!"
"Recruiting historical people and the Chamber of Commerce, we can leave those to Qingfeng Pavillion. They are familiar with Dali, so it wouldn't be too hard for them to get close to a Chamber of Commerce."
"En, I'll write a letter to my brother later." Tsing Yi's analysis gave a little bit of confidence to Bai Hua.
"Giving the army group trial to Zhang Liao shouldn't be a big problem. The last culture festival would need the four of us to plan."
After Tsing Yi's analysis, for Consonance City to complete at least two quests wasn't too difficult.
"Great!" Luo Zilan laughed walking over and rubbing Tsing Yi's head. "What's this little brat's head made of, why is she so smart? Such a hard problem, after a few words from her becomes easy instantly."
"Sister!" Tsing Yi muttered, instantly changing from a cold rational girl into a cute next door neighbour.
Luoyang Region, Fallen Phoenix City
Compared to Tsing Yi's easy analysis, Feng Qiuhuang had it a lot harder.
After leaving her family, she finally understood how much pressure was on her, making her unable to breathe.
If it wasn't that she was resilient and didn't want to lose, she probably wouldn't have been able to hold on.
In a blink of an eye, 4 months had passed since that day.
Fallen Phoenix City, under her charge, had underwent a huge change.
The bad part in all the good things was that her position was overtaken by Consonance City.
In the Battle of Changping, she made use of her insider information to convince Wang He, winning something back for herself.
Recruiting Wang He meant that the military was not the weakness of the territory anymore, and she could focus solely on administrative matters.
Apart from that, with Wang He, Fallen Phoenix City could play a bigger part in the next battle.
Although she didn't know much about military matters, she was confident in administrative matters. From youth, she had watched, learned, and experienced a lot.
Even so; facing the upgrade quest, she wasn't confident.
She wanted to compete with Bai Hua in this race to upgrade. It wasn't that she didn't like Bai Hua, it was just that them two were the best women players, so she didn't want to lose.
"I've no choice, I must make use of that hidden piece!" Feng Qiuhuang muttered.
The next day, Ouyang Shuo was in his reading room and listening to the report regarding the city wall.
The new design by Old Li had changed what Ouyang Shuo had originally planned and instead used an entire outer wall to block up Shanhai Region, Qiushui Region, and Friendship Region to form a huge city.
Between the 3 cities there definitely was a distance, around 10-15 kilometers, which Ouyang Shuo specifically left to be a strategic area. Now all this was included within the wall.
The outer wall was north of the 2nd wall at the Shanhai Region, east of the north side of the Friendship Region wall and on the same line as that of the Qiushui Region wall.
In such a way, the entire wall stretched 25 kilometers from east to west, 30 kilometers from north to south and took up 750 square kilometers.
This was 75 times larger than what Ouyang Shuo had planned for Shanhai City.
As it must be connected to the current city walls, the outer wall was 12 meters high and 6 meters wide, totally different to that of the design of Tianfeng City.
"This is too crazy!"
"If we don't plan it like this, merging the 3 cities would be a lie. In the hearts of the people, if they aren't protected by the same wall, how could they be said to live in the same city?" Old Li insisted.
"However, did you consider that based on your plan, the city is indeed one, it also takes up enough space, but the defensive ability has been weakened? How could such narrow walls fit with the stature of our future capital? Not only that, based on the design, the current core region has became the corner of the city. The moment an enemy attacks, they could easily reach the Lord's Manor." Ouyang Shuo was a little emotional.
"Ouyang, relax." Sun Xiaoyue calmed down the situation and explained, "Actually, we have already taken into account your worries when designing."
"How so?" Ouyang Shuo tried his best to calm himself down.
"If we wanted to talk about the defensive ability to the city, the future Shanhai City is definitely not strong and is just barely passable. However, a city's defense should be evaluated based on its environment. Think about it, the Lianzhou Basin is already ours. With the geography of the place, we only need to take note of Zhennan Pass, and everything is settled. Hence, why would Shanhai City's defense matter? If the enemy really broke through Zhennan Pass, we just need to make the walls thicker."
"But."
"And also," Sun Xiaoyue didn't give Ouyang Shuo any chance to counter and continued, "As for the core region ending up in a corner, it’s only your old thinking. Think about it. Which modern city has its core right at the middle?"
Thinking about it, what Sun Xiaoyue said made sense. With the uniqueness of Lianzhou Basin, Ouyang Shuo really didn't think that anyone could reach Shanhai City. If anyone could, then they would probably lose anyways.
Ouyang Shuo didn't expect Sun Xiaoyue, that brat, to have such a sharp mind.
"Xiaoyue, you make sense." Ouyang Shuo didn't insist on his views or try to regain any face.
"Of course!"
"Ok, we will work as planned. How much do you all estimate the load to be?"
"Don't worry, the workload isn't as much as you expected." Sun Xiaoyue calmed him down first. "The outer city wall has three sides, a total of 85 kilometers long. Not including the 3 city walls currently built, only 69 kilometers are needed and it's only 4 times that of the second wall of Shanhai Region."
Ouyang Shuo nodded. "What about the Wengcheng? Did you factor that in?"
"Of course. Based on the design, we will have at least 20 gates and 11-12 main gates. Each main gate needs to have a Wengcheng. Apart from that, we need to build a watergate where the rivers meet the city gates. Additionally, we will need 7-8 more bridges to increase the connection and convenience between cities."
Ouyang Shuo listened until his hair and skin was numb and waved it off. "Okay okay, you just go over this stuff with the Construction Division. Then, go to the Financial Department for funds and the Administration Department for manpower. We must finish this before the spring sowing."
Such a huge project was going to use so much gold. Ouyang Shuo actually wanted to leave a portion of the 12th month’s profits for the system auction, but it seemed like it wasn't going to happen.
One mustn’t forget that apart from the city wall, there was also an Army Military Academy waiting to be built.
"Me, me?" Sun Xiaoyue said with uncertainty and nervousness. Such a big project was hard to coordinate and she didn't have much confidence.
"Yes, you, the leader of this city wall protect." Ouyang Shuo needed to pass this project to someone he could trust. Furthermore she was very lazy usually, so he needed to give her more to do.
"What, you didn't ask for my opinion and just gave me work." Sun Xiaoyue grumbled.
"Why, you aren't willing to help me?"
"I’ll help, who is afraid of who?" Sun Xiaoyue wasn't one to be triggered.
"Ok then, that's settled."
After discussing the city wall, Ouyang Shuo took the chance to discuss with Old Li about the planning problems of Shanhai City.
However, this was bigger than the city wall by thousands of times. Just the design would need construction, architecture, planning, administration, waterworks, etc., and many professionals to work together for it to be completed.
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