Longzang

Chapter 1101 The So-Called Win-Win Situation

Each refugee camp could accommodate 200,000 to 500,000 people, and Li Zhi established a total of ten such camps.

Each camp has a clear indication of how many people are in it, the earliest check-in time, and the latest check-in time. It is divided into camps by time period, with each camp lasting five days.

Each camp was guarded by thousands of soldiers and managed by hundreds of officials. Everything in the camp was well-organized, demonstrating superb governance skills.

Li Zhi aimed to become a human emperor, so he naturally valued fortune and therefore paid special attention to ordinary people.

Officials of all ranks who dared to embezzle the daily food rations of the refugee camp, or to bully men and women, would be punished with caning and exile at the very least, and execution at worst. For decades, everyone in Zhenshan Commandery knew of Li Zhi's iron-fisted style, and no one dared to defy him.

Therefore, when Wei Yuan arrived, he saw that the more than four million refugees in the ten camps all had a very full complexion. In each camp, there were several thousand to tens of thousands who were in a state where they could contribute their fortune.

Wei Yuan nodded secretly, knowing that Li Zhi had a long-term vision. Regardless of his true thoughts, his ability to treat the people this way meant he was always blessed with good fortune and could achieve twice the results with half the effort.

Each refugee camp was strictly divided according to time, which was also for the convenience of management. Once the refugees in a camp had lived there for a sufficient period of time and left behind their karma and fortune, Wei Yuan could move the entire camp away and relocate to Yizhou to settle down.

This was a compromise agreed upon by Wei Yuan and Li Zhi.

Li Zhi instigated war, using the chaos to gather displaced people and bring them back to his territory to recuperate for a period. This not only created the reality of population displacement but also allowed him to gain some good fortune amidst the chaos. In the end, these displaced people were taken in by Wei Yuan and lived a truly good life, a win-win situation.

Otherwise, Li Zhi's territory had only just been demarcated, covering only a few counties, and the land was far from being fully developed, making it impossible to support so many people. Even if Li Zhi had occupied the Jinan prefecture, the ravages of war had left him with no food reserves, so he still couldn't support so many people.

If a large number of refugees starve to death, Li Zhi will bear a heavy burden of karma. Although the founding emperors of all dynasties carried enormous amounts of karma, it did not prevent them from becoming emperors. However, it is a fact that many founding emperors died young and violently. Therefore, Wei Yuan's opinion is that one should try to avoid bearing such karma as much as possible.

The large camp that Li Zhi brought Wei Yuan to see was the earliest established refugee camp, housing 310,000 people who had lived there for nearly two months, meeting the required timeframe. Wei Yuan's vision was now beyond that of ordinary cultivators; looking around, he could tell that approximately 20,000 people in the entire camp had already contributed their luck.

This proportion is already quite high. Under normal circumstances, even if the refugees lived in peace and prosperity, they could only contribute slightly more than 10% of the fortune. In other words, most of the fortune has already been harvested by Li Zhi.

Wei Yuan didn't mind; this was originally part of the agreement he and Li Zhi had made. Neither of them mentioned the matter of destiny that day, which meant Wei Yuan had already tacitly agreed that Li Zhi could reap as much as possible from it.

After surveying the camp, Wei Yuan turned and whispered a few words to Sun Yu, who was following behind him. Sun Yu then made a gesture, and a large number of Qingming warriors entered the camp to complete the handover with Li Zhi's officials. Following this, numerous doctors and nurses entered the camp to triage the refugees and examine their health in turn.

After being inspected, the migrants were notified to gather in a designated area and wait to be relocated.

A moment later, a huge shadow swept across the ground, and several enormous floating airships flew overhead before slowly landing outside the camp. The refugees had never seen floating airships before, and they all stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Under the command of the Qingming soldiers, large numbers of refugees left the camp and boarded the floating airships in batches. Before boarding, there was a final check: all refugees were not allowed to bring any personal belongings and had to discard them on the spot before queuing to board. This way, by boarding lightly, each airship could carry one or two thousand more people.

One after another, flying boats landed and took off again, each capable of transporting over ten thousand refugees, and the entire process was carried out in an orderly manner.

Seeing that the handover went smoothly, Wei Yuan nodded in satisfaction, greeted Li Zhi, and then slowly disappeared before Li Zhi's eyes. Li Zhi hadn't even noticed how Wei Yuan left. After Wei Yuan vanished, a seemingly unremarkable scholar behind Li Zhi suddenly had a chilling glint in his eyes, glanced in the direction Wei Yuan had disappeared, and said slowly, "This little fellow has some skill."

Another military general's demeanor also suddenly changed, becoming gloomy and heavy, like a black stone that had never seen the sun for ten thousand years. He said in a deep voice, "Everyone says that Wei Yuan is skilled in luck, but I think he's nothing special. These refugees have been stimulated by my great formation and have contributed their luck ahead of time. Although the battalion looks large, in reality, they may only have three to five thousand units of luck left, and they will need to be supported for a long time."

"Hmph, he thinks he's outsmarted everyone, but he doesn't realize he's only getting back burnt-out embers."

Li Zhi frowned slightly and said, "Grandmaster Uncle, I have a deep relationship with Wei Yuan. He has helped me a lot, and he also needs a lot of manpower. How about we don't take everything from him and leave him half?"

The gloomy general rebuked, "Woman's compassion! A true king does not concern himself with trivial matters; how can he tolerate useless so-called benevolence and righteousness? If you want to achieve great things, no matter how many people you have, it will never be enough. Why should you distribute your resources further?"

Li Zhi said, "But if I want to succeed, Wei Yuan's assistance is crucial. Even if we are to reward those who have made contributions, shouldn't he be given something in return?"

The scholar said slowly, "Rewards for meritorious service should only be given after the great cause has been accomplished. Moreover, the so-called rewards given to meritorious officials throughout history are nothing more than useless money, grain, and land. If he is law-abiding, then he can live out his old age in peace. If he has disloyal intentions, then these rewards are merely temporarily stored in his possession."

"Human destiny is so crucial, how could it possibly be rewarded?"

Both opposed it, and Li Zhi could only sigh inwardly, his gaze slowly sweeping over the remaining camps. Others couldn't see it, but he, possessing the aura of a human king, could see that beneath each refugee camp, a large array was slowly operating, stimulating the refugees' luck, with strands of human fortune constantly emerging and then being captured and absorbed by the array.

Each and every refugee is like a hen laying eggs, being forced to lay them eggs by various means without their knowledge.

In Wei Yuan's eyes, this war felt somewhat strange.

Previously, Wei Yuan had used hundreds of floating boats and airships to transport 300,000 troops from Zhenshanling to the south of Ji State in one go. Then, he transported enough weapons and equipment to arm 300,000 more people, arming the former Ji State soldiers newly recruited by Li Zhi to the teeth, and also reserved 100,000 more for the future.

Most of the military supplies for Zhenshan Territory were produced by Qingming, so Wei Yuan was very clear about the standard equipment configuration of Zhenshan Territory's army, and directly produced a batch and sent it over.

The Zhenshan Army is currently composed of infantrymen in cuirass armor, equipped with spears, swords, and muskets, while the cavalry are additionally equipped with lances and muskets. By the standards of the nine kingdoms, the Zhenshan Army can almost be considered a fully armored force, with fierce firepower and formidable close combat skills, making it a top-tier army.

However, the Qingming troops now rely primarily on artillery for offense, while defense depends on the Dharma Aspects and Dao Foundation cultivators casting spells. The role of ordinary soldiers is diminishing, and most of the time they have become simply occupying infantry to maintain order after occupation.

In terms of individual soldier equipment, the core main force of the Qingming army has generally reached the second-tier Body Forging stage and is therefore equipped with a full set of Nether Crystal Heavy Armor, weighing over a hundred kilograms, and possessing some defensive Taoist magic effects. According to the standards of the Nine Kingdoms, the main force of the Qingming army is a fully heavily armored force, and even the core elite of the Nine Armies of the Great Tang is no more than this level.

Each unit of the Azure Nation also had a large number of armed wagons for routine transport. In terms of long-distance mobility, the Azure Nation infantry actually outperformed the cavalry of the Nine Kingdoms.

Now, the Qingming and Zhenshan armies have basically developed a generational gap, but the generals of Zhenshan are unaware of this and still believe that their equipment level is about the same as that of the main force of Qingming.

Wei Yuan was responsible for transportation for Li Zhi's army, arming for the new army, and supplying provisions for the army. He was only not responsible for frontline combat. Wei Yuan was involved in the entire war, yet he remained a detached observer.

(End of this chapter)