Long-term Plan

The journey back to the camp was uneventful.

For some reason, the Governor kept a sour expression on his face the entire time, making everyone afraid to approach him.

Gu Hang's aide, Zhang Chao, was already waiting outside the Governor's Camp. He had received notice from Gu Hang in advance and had already arranged the preparations for receiving the supplies within the camp.

Gu Hang was currently severely short-handed, so he was intentionally grooming this young man, Zhang Chao. The kid didn't look like much of a soldier, but handling clerical and administrative work shouldn't be a problem for him.

Even if it were a problem, there was no other choice; not many people under Gu Hang's command were literate, and he had no better candidates.

Besides, the young man was doing quite a good job.

There wasn't enough time to build a proper warehouse, but they had cleared out some prefabricated rooms to store the supplies. For items with low storage requirements that didn't mind being exposed to the wind and rain, they found an open space, stacked them up, and covered them with large tarps, which was sufficient for temporary storage.

Afterward, Zhang Chao busied himself with taking inventory of the supplies and arranging their distribution, which included determining how much should be sent to the Waste Mine Society.

He was reliable enough that Gu Hang felt at ease, and his expression softened slightly.

As for the frustration from the two previous empty draws, it had mostly dissipated by now.

Technology was something that required spending Favor to draw. The probability was just a fact of life; if you didn't hit it, there was nothing you could do. He just hoped his luck would be better next time.

Retreating into his own room, Gu Hang took out paper and a pen to begin planning his next steps.

He didn't intend to manifest the G9 Gun Family black box he had just drawn from the system immediately. Based on his experience with the Alloy Plasteel black box, these two items likely wouldn't be small, and once manifested, they couldn't be put back.

Zhang Chao was already organizing men to dig a bunker. Gu Hang planned to establish a core secret base to serve as the future "scientific research" center of the camp, which required strict confidentiality.

As for these black boxes, he preferred not to reveal them to anyone if he could help it.

The technology draw was just a minor interlude; what he did next was the key.

The supplies obtained—or rather, extorted—from Revival City had alleviated the shortage of resources within the camp, especially food. He couldn't achieve self-sufficiency in food within his current territory yet. Mantan Valley Manor could produce grain, but a harvest wouldn't come until autumn, several months away.

For this period, they could get by on these supplies.

That was, provided the population he had to support didn't expand further.

But that was impossible.

Gu Hang's next goal was to expand the population.

The Alloy Plasteel production line needed to be expanded, the G9 Gun Family production line would need workers, and construction required workers. In the future, he might draw other technologies and establish other production lines, all of which would require people.

Where would the people come from?

This problem was easy to solve.

Nuxiao Planet was a wasteland planet with a sparse population—at least compared to those Hive Worlds with tens of billions of people—but for that very reason, human life was particularly cheap.

Wandering survivor tribes and the destitute living hand-to-mouth around Revival City... these were all sources for Gu Hang to recruit from.

But he couldn't recruit blindly.

Once people arrived, Gu Hang had to provide them with jobs, food, and other consumer goods.

In short, he had to be able to afford them and ensure they could provide greater value.

This required more supplies and greater production capacity.

Coming down to the present, his first step was to sell the most important output of his current territory—and the most important future output—Alloy Plasteel.

Only by selling it could he talk about expanding production capacity.

Thinking of this, Gu Hang turned his gaze toward Revival City again.

It wasn't that he had to keep shearing the same sheep; it was just that it was so close, his status was appropriate, and it was too convenient to do so.

Moreover, he had long regarded Revival City as his own. What's yours is mine; what's wrong with using it first?

In any case, he was determined to eventually take control of that city.

He only had two years; he couldn't possibly start from scratch on a barren plot of land and farm his way to the wealth and resources needed to pay the taxes for an entire planet in two years.

Coming out here to start a new stove was essentially an attempt at another path to control the entire planet.

If he wanted to fully control Revival City, running into the city to play political games with those local snakes would be a dead end. But if he mastered a force of his own before taking over Revival City—and eventually the administrative power of the entire Alliance government—that would be a different story.

In the near future, when he was ready to take over, it would be because he was confident he could purge the power hierarchy of Revival City from top to bottom and make the city's strength truly serve him.

This kind of power couldn't rely solely on the deterrence of the Quintet in the sky. If they all went down together, he would be finished too, and the councilors in Revival City knew this.

"Nuclear deterrence" alone wasn't enough. If Gu Hang asked for a hundred tons of supplies, they would give it; but if Gu Hang wanted a massive purge and their lives, they would fight him to the death despite the threat of orbital bombardment—at worst, they would all die together.

He needed a real, conventional force to support him in doing what he wanted to do.

"I still need to expand the army," Gu Hang concluded.

Expanding was simple.

He would pick two hundred people from the servants brought down from the starship. One hundred would use the remaining G7 Assaulters, and the other hundred would make do with the captured local miscellaneous firearms. With a point or two of Favor spent, and combined with the hundred men from the Waste Mine Company, he would have another light infantry battalion.

Gu Hang handed the task of recruiting new soldiers from the three thousand servants to Yan Fangxu.

Captain Yan was already numb.

He knew his Governor was about to demonstrate once again how to train a regular army in a few days that would normally take a year or two to produce.

He truly couldn't fathom it, and in the end, he could only conclude that this was the Governor's ability—the Governor was a genius at training troops.

Although this explanation was also ridiculous, he couldn't come up with anything else.

Of course, even though he knew that in the hands of the Governor, even the worst recruits could be whipped into shape after a few days of training, he still conscientiously selected the two hundred best soldiers from those three thousand laborers.

After the weapons and equipment were issued, Gu Hang casually spent 2 points of Favor in the [Troop Panel] to set up a training package for this group of soldiers, and then he didn't pay much more attention to the matter, only showing his face every day to keep up appearances.

It didn't take long for the new information to appear.

[2nd Infantry Battalion: Light Infantry, Comprehensive-, Non-upgradable]

[Quantity: 300 men]

[Equipment: T5, Training: T5, Experience: -]

The commander of this unit was Pobov from the Waste Mine Society, who had been promoted to battalion commander.