Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 366 Delta Launch!
Reward 10,000 new players
Add 20,000 resurrection reserves
Added live streaming function
Added regional loudspeaker function

Current number of permanent respawn points that can be built: 1

The system's breakthrough reward remains incredibly generous; this time, instead of giving Destiny Points, they've directly given out 10,000 activation codes.

This means the total number of players will exceed 55,000.

The new permanent respawn point finally arrived, albeit belatedly, allowing Li Mu to temporarily shed the title of "dog planner"—

For players, the realistic large map is really unbearable. Every time they participate in a battle, they have to cross hundreds of miles of territory, and almost half of their time is wasted on the march. A large-scale battle often lasts for a year and a half.

While it has the advantage of "playing games in your sleep"—why not take advantage of those eight hours in your dreams—reducing the burden on players will at least reduce the amount of criticism they receive.

The location of the respawn point was naturally chosen after careful consideration. Since there was already a "first point" in Central China, covering the entire Central Plains region, the next respawn point would naturally be located in the more distant north or south.

The northern location was chosen in Tianjin, and the southern location was chosen in Guangzhou.

Both cities offer convenient seaports. Tianjin covers the Beijing-Tianjin-Liaodong region, allowing players to expand further into the Mongolian Plateau and Siberia. Guangzhou, on the other hand, can oversee the Indochina Peninsula and the South Pacific islands, providing protection for overseas Chinese immigrants.

However, the situation between the North and South is still unclear, and placing a permanent respawn point requires his personal operation, so it is not safe for him to go anywhere.

He personally wanted to lead his troops to make a move and stage another "loyal minister saving the emperor" drama to enhance his reputation, but the generals and strategists around him advised him to "put the overall situation first".

Players aside, ordinary people regard Li Mu as a "general" with whom they share weal and woe. If Li Mu were to die in battle, their future would be cut short. Therefore, they value Li Mu's life more than their own.

After being persuaded many times, Li Mu finally gave in. At this crucial moment, he really should pay attention to his own safety, so he temporarily put aside the permanent resurrection point.

The "live streaming function" and "loudspeaker function" are easy to understand.

The former allows players to spend "merit points" to enable filtered live streams, where any bloody, erotic, or violent scenes will be censored, and lucky viewers outside the game can also randomly enter.

The latter is the player's mouthpiece, which can continuously send three rounds of "one-time brainwave transmission" to all players within a designated area, just like the game's official announcement to players.

Aside from the fact that the items are relatively expensive, it's much faster and wider than going offline and shouting in a group chat. Once you send out a message through the megaphone, thousands of players in a province can hear it instantly.

Li Muyuan could have used this simple function before—

He whispered in the ears of countless players, like an evil god murmuring in the ear of a bewildered hero. For example, he used special rewards and whispers to persuade Zhang Xianzhong to commit suicide…

According to players on the front lines, the Ming Dynasty has no soldiers left to fight in the north. Just like in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign in history, it is only a matter of time before the rebel army enters the capital.

Live streaming and announcements are enough for Li Mu to launch a new version of the game, and he can also release a preview of the respawn point to whet the players' appetites.

As is customary, the new version 0.8.1 will have a new name.

Li Mu thought that the newspapers were promoting the seven legions as "Seven Kingdoms of Heroes," with all sorts of things like the feudal lords of the late Qin Dynasty and the "Seven Traitors Who Rebelled Against the Confucian Scholars." He suggested that the game should be named "Whoever Enters the Capital First Is King."

Of course, it's not fair to crown a single player as king, since in team battles, everyone goes together. Why should a "commander-tool" be king?
It's unrealistic to grant players fiefdoms within the country. Li Mu might not care about the lives of foreign tribes, but he would never allow the players to "manipulate" the people within the country.

Li Mu had recently envisioned this countless times—with the Begonia Leaf as the core territory, and overseas fiefdoms protecting China like the feudal lords of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The core territory is supported with money, food, and ammunition, while overseas lords expand wildly, and the profits are split between the two sides.

After pondering for a moment, Li Mu thought to himself that he would use each legion as the basic unit. Whoever could complete the main quest requirements would receive a fiefdom overseas as a kingdom, and all players in the entire legion would benefit.

A large number of "chaotic" players with excess energy will definitely be sent abroad in the future, allowing them to release their energy overseas. The world is vast, and there is always enough land for them to unleash their potential.

Of course, Li Mu also understood that players' nature is to exploit loopholes.

Since the first to enter the capital is king, wouldn't it be a no-brainer if all players joined either the Beggars' Army or the Beiwei Army to clear the game directly?
Ha, if it were before, Li Mu would have been caught off guard by the players, but now he is a qualified "survival planner".

If players exploit loopholes, where will he put his face?

Moreover, if the seven major armies were to truly unify internally, Li Mu would then face a "new dynasty" that would replace the Ming Dynasty and span across Shaanxi, northern Henan, Shandong, Hebei, and Liaodong.

He can easily subdue a player with a single announcement, but subduing a united armed group is a different story.

Even if he establishes a new dynasty, dealing with the internal "giants" alone will consume all his energy. This is why he frequently uses war zone rewards to continuously subdivide player legions.

The various legions must "split," and even in this instance, they must be in a state of "non-violent competition."

According to Li Mu's understanding of players, most players rarely care about the safety of ordinary people in order to complete tasks, get rewards, and achieve results.

Even with highly immersive "story-driven" and "good-natured" players, it's not enough to secure their position. Ten thousand inexperienced new players, aside from doing some daily tasks, are of little use as "human surveillance cameras."

With the new main storyline released, players who want to become king will definitely abandon the common people and form a main army to rush to the capital, so we need to put a golden headband on these mischievous monkeys.

Li Mu had an idea and ordered each army corps to proceed steadily and thoroughly, consolidating the newly occupied territories—stockpiling food and ammunition, training field and garrison troops, and properly managing the bureaucratic staff. Only after reserving enough troops for the future southern expedition could soldiers be drawn to attack the capital.

Considering that the Changsheng Army had been annexed by him, and that the Qihuo Army and the Wild Wolf Army had also lost most of their territory, Li Mu planned to give them extra honorary titles as compensation and allow them to join their desired legions remotely, as long as they arrived at the legion before the fall of the capital.

In addition, the Red Turban Army and the Beiwei Army had gained the upper hand and their power was growing stronger. They needed to be "weakened". So Li Mu added a condition: it was not enough to enter the capital first; Zhu Youjian's family had to be captured alive.

For example, if the Beiwei Army enters the capital first, but Zhu Youjian's family is captured by the Red Turban Army, then the Red Turban Army can win by escorting Zhu Youjian back to the capital.

Considering that the distances of each legion from the capital varied, Li Mu set a minimum departure time for each legion, and they were not allowed to depart before the deadline, so as to ensure that each legion was on the same starting line.

After assigning the main quest, Li Mu suddenly remembered that the Black Flag Battalion stationed in Beijing had not yet been assigned. He then thought for a moment and decided to arrange it later when he came up with a good idea.

As for the fate of Zhu Youjian's family after the fall of Beijing, Li Mu thought of Puyi, who ultimately died a peaceful death. With this in mind, Li Mu activated the system to add an additional condition to the main quest: capture Zhu Youjian's family and spare their lives.

……

On his imperial bedchamber, Zhu Youjian was suddenly awakened by a nightmare, and cried out in surprise, "Ah!"

The eunuchs outside the palace heard the commotion inside and immediately called out to His Majesty to check on his safety. They were relieved to hear the reply, "I am safe."

Only after Zhu Youjian called out softly a few times did the eunuch dare to enter the palace to serve His Majesty as he changed clothes and drank tea.

A terrifying scene flashed through his mind. In his nightmare, Zhu Youjian seemed to enter another time and space. It was the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign. The rebel leader Li Zicheng, who had finally gained power, led his army straight to the capital. All the government troops along the way surrendered to Li Zicheng.

He summoned troops from all directions to the capital to defend the emperor, but only one person responded.

That world had no loyal minister Li Mu, only Zuo Liangyu who held military power and the four garrisons of Jiangbei who made excuses to stay put.

Zhu Youjian sat idly in the capital awaiting reinforcements, but the "civil official group," seeing the situation was dire, opened the city gates to welcome the rebel Li Zicheng.

Having exhausted all other options, he tragically hanged himself from an old, crooked tree, just as he had dreamt of the slave chieftain Huang Taiji and his servants hanging themselves!
Will not.

Li Qing's good news kept coming, and he had almost wiped out half of the bandits!

Even if the rebel forces of Beiwei and Red Turban invaded the capital region, he was able to protect himself with his five thousand Black Flag Battalion soldiers.

At worst, he could follow the example of Li Longji's southern hunt and be escorted south by elite soldiers of the Black Flag Camp.

The crown prince is still young and lacks the prestige to usurp his power. Even if he goes to the south, he will still be the emperor of the Ming Dynasty!
Zhu Youjian may not be afraid of death, but if there is a glimmer of hope, he would like to seize it.

When he personally led the expedition, he was besieged by the Tartars in the Dujiatun area and almost hanged himself before the dawn of victory.

He didn't want to commit suicide before everything was settled, because he still had Li Qing as his pillar of support. As long as Li Qing launched an attack, everything would be alright.

If Li Qing can rebuild the Ming Dynasty, even if the princess is still young, she should be betrothed to Li Qing, just as the Tang Dynasty treated Guo Ziyi well.

However, the two reports that arrived in succession shattered Zhu Youjian's hopes.

The bad news, which was supposed to arrive in three days, didn't reach him until the sixth day.

He frequently reviewed reports of victory and memorials, knowing full well that this meant the remaining rebel forces were getting closer and closer to the capital, and even the postal system was becoming unstable.

The post station is a small matter; the defeat of the army is a big one.

He instructed Yang Wenyue to lead the main force in the Central Plains, which was completely wiped out in Shandong, and Jinzhou in western Liaoning was also captured by the rebels. All 30,000 soldiers related to Zu family were massacred.

Both rebel armies were less than 800 li from the capital, and could reach the capital in as little as a month.

Finished!

If no reinforcements arrive at this moment, the capital will be in grave danger!

The only troops he had available were Li Qing in Henan and Hong Chengchou stationed in Ningyuan.

The former had fought several major battles, and its soldiers were exhausted. The latter had only recently been forced to advance, and was probably approaching the Songshan area by now…

If these two units were to suffer any losses, Zhu Youjian would have no more troops to fight, and the ancestral foundation of the Zhu family would be destroyed in his hands.

His brain seemed to have been struck on the head, buzzing. For a moment, Zhu Youjian seemed unable to hear the voices of the eunuchs around him, only repeating the same muttered words, "I will become a ruler who brings about the downfall of the country."

No, no, no!

Zhu Youjian suddenly snapped out of his daze, and then, as if grasping at a straw, he roared at Wang Chengen in a rather disgraceful manner—

Li Mu, the general of Henan, was granted the title of Duke of Loyalty and Righteousness, and was ordered to lead his troops to the capital to defend the emperor.

He also ordered Hong Chengchou to be recalled immediately and to abandon all fortresses outside Shanhaiguan. Except for the troops left to guard Shanhaiguan, all other troops were to enter the capital to defend it.

However, even Wang Chengen, who was standing next to him, felt that this decision to give up almost everything was inappropriate.

Lord Li commands tens of thousands of troops, and Minister Hong also commands tens of thousands of troops. Once these elite troops enter the capital to defend it, where will the military pay and provisions come from?
It should be noted that the Red Turban rebels and the Kun rebels occupied Shandong and had cut off the grain transport. The grain transported to the capital in the first half of the year was simply not enough, not to mention the dispensable sea transport.

“Without money and provisions, even if the Black Flag Battalion is brave and skilled in battle, it’s like a skilled cook trying to cook without rice…” Wang Chengen looked troubled.

"Bandits are causing trouble in the north, and supplies are running low in the south. The country is short of money, and the soldiers are short of food... Why is it that I, who possess the wealth of the entire land, am short of money and food? And the bandits, who occupy only one or two provinces, are becoming more and more powerful with each battle? What do you think, Your Excellency?"

"This servant dares not presume to discuss state affairs."

"Alas..." Zhu Youjian sighed deeply, feeling as if the affairs of state were a rope tightening around his throat. He muttered to himself, "Does Heaven truly intend to destroy my Zhu family?"

Hearing His Majesty's faint sighs, Wang Chengen felt a pang of heartache. He gritted his teeth and offered his advice, "This servant dares to suggest that the bandits' troops and supplies are increasing daily. They are simply plundering the wealthy and powerful and pressuring rich merchants... If all the meritorious officials and ministers gather in the capital and each donates a little, they can surely overcome this crisis... This servant is willing to offer five thousand taels of silver to help Your Majesty quell the bandits!"

"Brilliant!" Upon hearing this, Zhu Youjian's eyes lit up, and he subconsciously praised, "This method is feasible! The secret reports printed by ordinary people also said that powerful and wealthy merchants are like the flesh and bones of ordinary people who are rotting and poisonous. If they are allowed to run rampant, they will rot and perforate, living like walking corpses."

Dynasties throughout history have lasted only two or three hundred years, and yet things are like this. Our Great Ming Dynasty has existed for over two hundred years; it is time for our meritorious officials and high-ranking ministers to shed their blood to save the country.”

In the late summer of the thirteenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, Zhu Youjian, under the pretext of "overcoming the national crisis together," demanded that meritorious officials and high-ranking ministers donate money to support the military.

(End of this chapter)