At the coastal fortress, it had been nearly half a year since his last visit.
In half a year, the changes here could only be described as rapid and dramatic.
The existing city walls had been reinforced, and large-scale renovations had been carried out within them.
After making a complete circuit, the place had already been built up into something fairly impressive.
However, after leaving the coastal region, the vast stretches of land in the southern frontier still wore the same look of ruin and waiting to be rebuilt.
The coastal region had been developed first because of its special geographical location.
The interior of the southern frontier, however, was different.
With the limited labor force available, fully developing it would truly take another ten years of slow progress.
Not to mention that Great Zhou now had another Volcano Island overseas, which had diverted quite a bit of labor.
By the time Zhou Xu returned to Black Moon City, it was already late spring of the new year. With the temperature continuing to rise, summer was clearly just around the corner.
From the day he had left Black Moon City until now, he had been gone for nearly a year.
Because this outing had lasted so long, any important documents that required his personal review had been sent specially to Volcano Island for him to examine. The less important documents had generally been handled under the supervision of Huo Qubing and Li Bowen.
Even so, a massive pile of official business had already accumulated on the desk in his Hall of Diligent Governance.
That left Zhou Xu no choice but to forgo taking a couple more days off.
On the day he returned, he went to bed early and slept to his fill. The next morning, he dutifully went to