At Yarvis's strong urging, Paul decided to reopen the discussion on the war on the grasslands.
A meeting was held in Lakeheart Town. Crystal Radiance had clearly refused to continue supporting the Northwest Army's advance into the grasslands and had also rejected authorization for cross-domain conscription. With support from the Royal Capital cut off and Lakeheart Town's finances pushed to the brink by the long-term issuance of War Bonds, how to maintain military pressure on the orcs became the central issue of the meeting.
Paul presided over the meeting personally. The attendees included key officials from the Government Affairs Council, military staff officers, and a number of Affairs Officers from the economic administration.
After hearing Yarvis's report that the orcs were systematically integrating the grasslands' resources and imitating human institutions to establish a state apparatus, everyone agreed that stopping the offensive now would give Alba a chance to catch its breath, causing the threat in the future to grow exponentially.
Everyone offered their opinions. Among them, Hansel proposed an extremely tempting plan—the resource-concession system.
Its core concept was to divide the grassland regions under Alba's control into several resource blocks and grant them through bidding to wealthy industrial and commercial enterprises within Northwest Bay. The contracted enterprises would receive priority rights to prospect, extract, and operate the natural resources in those regions for ten years. They would also be allowed to form "armed merchant companies" under their own authority to protect their interests.
The key was that these lands would not be seized on the enterprises' behalf by the Northwest Legion. Instead, the enterprises would be required to organize their own forces to seize the land from the orc tribes and maintain control over it. The government would provide three forms of support: first, supplying firearms and ammunition at preferential