Leave Something Behind

The arrival of a secret envoy from Jian City delighted Wei Keng.

Since arriving in Pandora World, Wei Keng had descended on the world as a collective, but in a sense, he was still just one person. That was why he had always devoted much of his energy to thinking about how to communicate with the Human Forces here.

The armed conflicts caused by the two sides' mutual misunderstanding in the early days had been a form of communication. After capturing their people, holding talks with different social classes using different strategies had been another. Now, facing the many Human City-States across the Yue Region, Wei Keng was still thinking about how to end the state of hostility with Jian City as soon as possible.

If he could, Wei Keng would even accept paying Jian City a certain amount of economic compensation! (When you lose a war, it's called reparations; when you win, it's called economic compensation.)

Why? Because the hostility between Jian City and himself was already affecting his strategy for the entire region.

After containing Jian City, many merchants had come to Wei Keng's territory! They were all from other city-states in the Yue Region, coming to trade with him. The entire Yue Region had around five hundred thousand people, and Wei Keng had sea salt—cheap, refined sea salt—as well as ceramic jars with tightly sealed metal lids. Trade was booming, but! The visitors were all merchants. No one came to settle.

After all, the people Wei Keng had captured during the war with Jian City were technically still deprived of their personal freedom. Naturally, people from the other city-states wouldn't come! But what if he could reach an agreement with Jian City about the prisoners? What if the prisoners could return home freely from this newly developed land in the south, carrying a few bottles of oil, some salted fish sealed with carbon dioxide, a few pots and pans, and cloth made from the hemp fiber salvaged after the steam textile machines had been completely smashed? Wei Keng believed they would return the following year, and adventurers from other cities would come too.

Wei Keng had great confidence in the land beneath his feet! Before the Great Cataclysm, this had been Zhushui Jiao, one of the top two super-economic zones in East Asia, a place reputed in the 21st Century to be richer than Russia.

At the docks, a batch of stainless steel was melting in the furnace. On the small pier, a ship with a displacement of two hundred tons was beginning to take shape in the shipbuilding pit. Once it was built, Wei Keng would have Heavy Firepower to rely on across the entire Zhushui Jiao Plain during wartime. He wouldn't have to rely on two legs and light weapons for mobility anymore. After the war, Wei Keng had analyzed, "In the 21st Century, moving on foot with only light weapons would mean getting routed and abandoning your equipment in a Dunkirk Evacuation. To fight, you need heavy machine guns and dedicated mortars."

To develop further, he had to coordinate with the Human Forces of the Yue Region!

Once the farmland began expanding, Wei Keng knew what he urgently needed: people.

In this world, Wei Keng was undoubtedly a highly skilled professional who could create value through industrial production. But no matter how many of himself there were, by this point he was being bogged down by a mass of miscellaneous tasks: farming, mining, and transporting ore. While doing this work, most of the time he watched his own selves in the Industrial Zone working through their minds, repeatedly recording every step of the process in the system.

Inside the Public Meeting Room, built of straw-mixed mud bricks, Wei Keng met with Zeng Jiakan. The two sat on a long wooden bench.

For the first time, Wei Keng felt he had been a little careless in building his Guest Room. In this New Development Area, brick kilns could fire blue bricks, but the "practical" Wei Keng had used those building materials for the foundations of waterworks and factories. As for the Living Room, since it didn't seem to offer any practical value for now, he had thrown it together with straw and mud bricks. It just needed enough space for people to go in and talk. Besides, Western politicians could plot even in a toilet.

The long wooden bench had made Zeng Jiakan's backside sore. Without having expected much in the first place, he began the conversation.

Fifty minutes later,

Four proposal documents were piled up in front of Zeng Jiakan. Seeing Wei Keng enter the room yet again, he prepared to draft a fifth and decided it was time to call a pause.

"Sir, I can feel your sincerity. It's just that, for now, we need to establish what I can decide for myself. My authority is limited, and I have to take your suggestions back first." He sounded like a woman in a romance, wanting to escape in the face of an overly aggressive pursuit.

Wei Keng had no choice but to stop. "Then thank you, sir. I hope we can put what we discussed today into effect as soon as possible!"

"Of course."

He had come not only as an envoy, but also as a merchant. Jian City needed a large amount of edible salt and, if possible, a batch of soda ash. These were currently the hottest items in Wei Keng's trade with the other city-states.

Before Wei Keng arrived, all the city-states would gather large numbers of workers by the shore when the ocean monsoons weakened in winter, repairing temporary salt fields dating back to before the Pandora Era. It consumed a lot of labor. And every summer, storms brought Sea Beast gene colonies that damaged the salt fields.

Now Wei Keng had secured a foothold right on the coast. Salt was shoveled into carts, then shipped to storage sites, and he supplied merchants from all sides without limit. This benefited the economies of every city-state, except Jian City, which remained hostile toward Wei Keng.

So, although Zeng Longmu kept declaring that he would take a hard line against Wei Keng and his Strange Human Group, in practice, he had no choice but to yield to reality!

Conflict damaged the interests of both sides.

Bag after bag of salt was loaded onto the vehicles and covered with rainproof capes made from palm leaves. The laborers from Jian City who were preparing to go home also boarded the vehicles with their luggage. The workers handling the transport shouted in rhythm as they moved the cargo, while the passengers chewed roasted melon seeds and chatted. It looked like a Spring Festival Travel Rush.

Wei Keng would escort the convoy with a hundred-man squad. To do so, he once again pulled out all the teams stationed in the north. But he had learned from his mistake: this time, he wouldn't leave any small squads behind.

Five hours later, the convoy disappeared from the Wei Kengs' view at their settlement.

Wei Keng's consciousness turned to a question for a while!

He was working so hard here, but he would still have to leave after a year. Should he leave something behind in this world?

Wei Keng looked north and casually voiced his thoughts. "If we want to live in peace from now on, we have to keep enough strength on hand to fight a war. If we want to leave something behind, we have to let loose and wage a war of total annihilation against the gene colonies to the north. That would secure decades of peace."

At that moment, the system spoke.

"Pioneer, the Planar Channel has now been successfully located to thirty percent. If you're willing to stay three more years, we can temporarily open a Return Channel and transport 1,300 tons of supplies." Bai Linglu's voice carried a hint of persuasion.

Wei Keng wasn't stupid, though. He sensed that the way his observer spoke to him suggested she was inclined toward the kind of risky gamble where you bet everything on a chance to turn a bicycle into a motorcycle. She wasn't just encouraging him to take a risk; it seemed she was gambling on something herself! Especially when he wanted to look through the System Regulations, Bai Linglu had simply given him a massive pile of documents.

Wei Keng's experience told him: when a government employee gives you a ton of paperwork without highlighting anything, especially when you don't have much time, it's because they're afraid you'll find something.

Of course, after thinking it over, Wei Keng saw no need to expose her just yet. He did want to exchange for a batch of weapons. If he let it slide this time, she'd get bolder, and he'd have plenty of chances to expose her later.

Wei Keng opened the Armament Exchange Column.

First, he exchanged for two hundred assault rifles, with a total weight of one ton. Then, seven hundred thousand 5.8 mm rounds, weighing twelve tons in total.

Next, a thousand Type 38 Rifles, weighing four tons altogether. Wei Keng had originally planned to find wood for the stocks and exchange for the gun barrels and other core components. But the system warned him that the wooden stocks might not meet manufacturing standards and could affect the rifles' trajectories. Processing the stocks also required several steps; it was by no means easy. After seeing the long list of steps in the Gun Manufacturing Process, Wei Keng decided not to cut corners. He would exchange for complete guns and scopes instead, including a hundred night-vision scopes.

"I never want to exchange for these again."

In the bolt-action era, the Type 38 had been designed for East Asians. During the Republic of China Era, the country's Industrial foundation had been practically nonexistent, and it hadn't had the Military Design Capability to develop weapons independently. The Zhongzheng Rifle was a Mauser copy, and during the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, its accuracy had been suppressed by the Type 38. To some extent, this was one reason why the Nationalist Army suffered a casualty ratio of twenty to one despite having twice the enemy's numbers. As for the era of the semi-automatic rifle, that only came after the country had completed its Industrial System Construction following its founding. Although Wei Keng was 1.9 meters tall and his physique was now definitely no worse than that of a Westerner in the twentieth century, a rifle meant for the battlefield still had to account for various factors, including Environmental Adaptability. The dust cover on the Type 38 could effectively keep sand and dust out.

The rifle was good for bayonet fighting. It had little recoil, and its trajectory remained stable when aiming at long range, which was especially important with the system's Aiming Assistance. As for 6.5 mm rifle rounds, one ton would do. That gave each person just over fifty rounds, enough for a battle.

Last came the heavy firepower! Artillery—not the mortars from before, but guns that could serve both for breaching defenses and for fire suppression. Without the slightest hesitation, Wei Keng selected a famous World War II weapon, the Type 92 Infantry Gun:

Caliber: 70 mm

Weight: 0.212 tons

Gun length: 2.745 meters

Gun height: 0.62 meters (with shield)

Elevation: -10 to +75 degrees (some sources claimed it could exceed 80 degrees)

Traverse: 4–5 degrees left and right

Ammunition: 70 mm High Explosive Shell / Shrapnel Shell / Smoke Shell

Shell weight: 3.8 kilograms (High Explosive Shell)

Muzzle velocity: 198 meters per second

Maximum range: 2,788 meters

Minimum range: 100 meters

The gun's highlight was its light weight: just two hundred kilograms. It could be disassembled and carried by infantry, making it very suitable for Wei Keng's current conditions.

It might look small, but it could effectively damage buildings made of brick and tile. It was also about as tall as a heavy machine gun, so it could be pushed forward quietly and brought in close for direct fire, right within the enemy's blind spot! The so-called "bayonet charge by artillery."

The weapons sent by the system weren't original models; they came with a "skin." The steel forging technology in the entire gun carriage was superior to that of World War II, and some structural components outside the barrel used titanium alloys to reduce weight. The aiming equipment on the barrel was electronic.

This thing was great. Wei Keng ordered sixteen of them outright, enough for four artillery companies. Watching the system's model appear in his field of view, Wei Keng, after spending so many points, let out a breath and admired the firepower he was about to receive. He opened the Northward Terrain Map from last time and imagined placing the four artillery companies at certain points on the map for a Battle Decisive Engagement. Wei Keng admitted that he might have looked a little silly while indulging in the fantasy.

After Wei Keng finished exchanging for the guns, the system automatically flipped to the armored vehicles section. Before he could say anything, it helpfully suggested that the rare-earth components for main battle tanks couldn't be transported. It recommended exchanging for Type 4 Tanks instead; two could be exchanged at once, with each exchange weighing twenty tons.

Wei Keng passed on those and continued with the Gas Generators and Vehicle Engines.

Of course, the system tried to recommend a replication center next, but Wei Keng skipped that too. He began choosing more Chemical Equipment and Machining Equipment.

As the system required, everyone not involved was kept away after fifteen hours had passed.

Wei Keng brought out, on a wheelbarrow from the storeroom, the special stones and sands he had collected from different areas.

He couldn't refine these materials himself, but they could be combined to make the items he needed. Wei Keng had sorted them out dozens of days ago in preparation for emergencies.

Because the exchange was large this time, the system told Wei Keng to stand around the entire six-hundred-meter Jungle Edge and provide positioning coordinates. Then it had him hold up a Solar Mirror and aim it at the sky above the jungle. As the beams crossed overhead, countless extremely thin but densely packed rays swept across the entire thicket, like a Laser Emitter. The shrubs began to smoke, then burn. The flames were pinched into a halo by the points of light, which spread across the whole jungle. In an instant, the jungle was no longer burning and glowing; it was radiating light all over, like a filament.

Five minutes later, everything had been reduced to nothing. The ore had become slag, and the jungle was as flat as a site leveled by a Neutron Bomb, with a slight depression in the center. The supplies Wei Keng wanted lay in the middle.

Wei Keng's men secured the perimeter, then the groups entered one by one to collect the weapons and move the supplies.

As for the ten large pieces of equipment, Wei Keng took a deep breath. He felt the factory's chimneys could now be made even taller.

Once all that equipment had been built,

In terms of machinery, Wei Keng could produce machine guns and axles for one-ton cargo vehicles himself.

In terms of chemicals! In recent days, Wei Keng had dry-distilled wood, producing some charcoal fuel and benzene substances. Now he could process them; nitrating them with nitric acid would turn them into—that substance used to measure explosive units.

In the Dimensional Space, Bai Linglu saw Wei Keng checking the project documents. She stuck out her tongue and sent him a question: "Are you planning to blow up a mountain?" Wei Keng, half lost himself, answered the unpredictable future, "I don't know what I'm going to do. It's just that I can do these things, so I'm doing them."

Then he added, "I'm no genius, and I can't predict things that far ahead. But as an ordinary person, if I follow the Social Division of Labor and prepare for everything, I can avoid a lot of losses."