Against the pitch-black night sky, the streaking lights of more than two hundred flying boats flashed past like a meteor shower.
Within the flagship at the center of the flying boat formation—the commander-class flying boat North Sea—Ye Zhen looked over several jade slips that had just been sent through the Small Communication Teleportation Array, grinning from ear to ear.
More than ten days ago, Ye Zhen had used Primordial Mirage Qi to assume the appearance of Ji Guan, the garrison commander of Zhengyao City, and swindled him out of a full 5.8 million High-grade Spirit Stones, along with the latest complete sets of military equipment for over thirty thousand troops. That alone had left him grinning from ear to ear.
One had to know that North Sea Commandery's annual fiscal revenue was only three million High-grade Spirit Stones. After military expenditures, civilian expenses, officials' salaries, taxes, and all manner of other costs were deducted, less than three hundred thousand High-grade Spirit Stones actually ended up in Ye Zhen's hands.
And that was under the current prosperity and stability of North Sea Commandery. Of course, it was also related to Ye Zhen's increased investment in development.
Yet one could still imagine just how enormous 5.8 million High-grade Spirit Stones were.
Preparations for this joint defense mission at the Human-Demon Battlefield had already emptied out North Sea Commandery's reserves from the past few years. With this huge infusion of Spirit Stones, Ye Zhen had far greater confidence in this joint defense operation.
War, sometimes, was fought with money—and what it burned was Spirit Stones!
Not only had he obtained enormous benefits, he had even driven Marquis Kaiyuan Ji Guan into a corner, with no path to heaven and no gate into the earth.
According to the wind scouts Ye Zhen had left