When Shen Tang finished speaking, everyone fell silent.
This really was a tough problem.
First of all, the workload would be enormous.
As far as they knew, unless someone was born into the royal family, where even the most hopeless aptitude could be forcefully cultivated into a Literary Heart or Martial Gall with the Literary and Martial Fortune in the National Seal, talent was something you either had from birth or you didn't. It was a rare commodity.
In other words—
Every woman of suitable age in the territory might have talent!
If someone had exceptionally strong natural aptitude, she might sense Heaven and Earth Qi even after passing her prime.
How many households were there in Longwu Commandery?
Everyone turned as one toward Chu Yao and the others, who were in charge of rebuilding the household registers. Chu Yao's ability was beyond question. He pondered for only a moment before reporting the exact figures from the current progress: "So far, we've registered a total of 23,333 households, with 42,114 women among them... If we redo the entire census, I estimate that number could increase by another thirty percent..."
Chu Yao had looked through the commandery's records from previous years. According to them, at its peak Longwu Commandery had 300,000 registered inhabitants, and countless merchants had flocked there in search of business opportunities. Thanks to this influx of people, Longwu Commandery had been one of the most prosperous regions in Xin Country.
Now the population was under 100,000, a drop of nearly sixty percent.
Longwu Commandery had fallen into decline because of the Ten Crows' frequent invasions. The commandery's young men had either left their homes, been slaughtered by the Ten Crows, or joined the army to guard the border. Even if they spent money recruiting soldiers, they couldn't gather