Regardless of the pantheon, there is a need for mortals with good aptitude. Even a gatekeeper needs good goalkeepers and good craftsmen, as this greatly helps with their advancement.
Unfortunately, good seedlings are rare. Chen Qing didn't even want to give them to Wei Gongcheng, let alone the Old Wolf guarding the gate.
"Ignore him. I have a plan for that man. Let's talk in the main hall first."
Once in the main hall, Chen Qing got down to business. "Fatty, how much grain does Liuzhou Prefecture have left? How long can it feed these newly arrived refugees in Liuzhou City?"
"When the adults bought the land, they purchased a large amount of grain. In addition, with the subsidies given to us by the Nanming Prefecture, we have a sufficient amount of grain. Even if we are provided with enough rice, flour, and steamed buns for every meal, it can last for at least four or five months. If we are kept alive by rice porridge, we can even last until winter!"
"Not enough." Chen Qing shook his head. "This isn't a normal way to accommodate refugees. These refugees will all need to be organized to work, either joining the army or participating in land reclamation. They all need to be fed every meal, and rice alone isn't enough; they need enough meat and fruits and vegetables."
"What the heck?" Zhou Haitao's eyelids twitched violently upon hearing this. "Sir, you're not joking, are you? Meat? Fruits and vegetables, for everyone?"
Even in Liuzhou's most prosperous times, not every family could afford meat, right? For the dockworkers doing hard labor, being able to eat two full bowls of noodles a day was considered a luxury. Most people ate a steamed bun and a bowl of thin porridge for their meals, okay?
This was only because Liuzhou was a prosperous commercial center at the time, with a considerable amount of money available to the common people. In Whitewater County, where I lived, ordinary farmers couldn't even afford to eat the fine grains they grew; they had to exchange them for coarse grains and cotton. Tens of thousands of people eating meat? This adult must be living in a dream!
Chen Qing knew what the other party was thinking, but he didn't explain further. Given the productivity of ancient times, it was indeed unrealistic for a city to feed tens of thousands of people with meat, but such a standard of living wouldn't work in Divine Path system.
The Divine Path system requires that the people be in good physical condition!
Whether it's the goalkeeper, the Mountain Ghost, or the War God System I plan to train later, they all need a lot of meat to feed them, so we need to quickly improve our production levels.
Chen Qing thought for a moment and said, "Go and issue a recruitment notice later."
"You're still recruiting soldiers?" Zhou Haitao was taken aback. Including the city gatekeepers, Liuzhou already had nearly two thousand soldiers, far exceeding the authority of a prefect. And even if they acted expediently in an emergency, how would they support recruiting more soldiers?
"How can we save people without recruiting soldiers?" Chen Qing rolled his eyes at the other person. "There are five districts and counties along the river, and more than a dozen along the mountain roads, with nearly a million people. Are we just going to let them fend for themselves?"
"But sir," Zhou Haitao said with a bitter face, "Training troops requires money and food. And what kind of troops are you planning to train? What kind of treatment will you be given this time?"
Previously, to encourage everyone to fight to the death, Chen Qing promised huge rewards: ten taels of silver per month and meat per ton of meat. He felt that this was the limit for two thousand people. Why recruit more? If the same treatment continued, he wouldn't have any money even if he were skinned alive.
"Don't worry about the silver; we can promise it first and give it to you later. As for the grain..."
Chen Qing knew he was putting the fat man in a difficult position. Rice was manageable; whether they had stored it or scavenged it from the towns, they could supply it in the short term. But meat was unlikely; Ma Erniang had slaughtered all the pigs back home these past few days.
This isn't modern times, where a pig farm produces thousands of piglets a year. In rural areas, pigs are fed cooked feed, and it's considered good if a village can raise a hundred pigs a year. The zombies won't be interested in livestock, and even if they plunder the countryside, they still won't be able to supply enough meat.
The original plan was to let the beast spirits in the South Mountain God slowly cultivate them, and spend half a year finding high-quality animal breeds for animal husbandry to increase meat production.
But the current situation clearly cannot be taken slowly. Although no new zombies will come up now, and the pressure is shared by Nanming Prefecture and Nanyang City, Chen Qing knows that this mode cannot be maintained for long. Even with the deliberate suppression by Nine Heavens Mirror Valley, the stable situation will only last for half a year at most.
Six months later, even the scattered ordinary zombies will evolve to level two. At that time, the outer magic array of Nine Heavens Mirror Valley will be unable to hold, and it will be fully opened.
Even with the occasional clearing of the number of zombies by the two major prefectures, the number won't decrease much. Adding in the mutual consumption and depletion, even with the most optimistic calculations, Chen Qing estimates that only a quarter will remain. Yuchi Feihong once said that tens of millions of households in the seventeen kingdoms of the West Sea have died. At that time, Jiangnan will have to face at least a million level-two zombies!
To protect itself, Liuzhou needs to support at least 50,000 elite soldiers of the Divine Path system; to protect the entire Jiangnan, it needs at least 150,000!
Time waits for no one!
"You should promise me first, and I'll figure something out when the time comes."
"Does the master mean to just make empty promises first?"
Chen Qing: "."
"Sir," Zhou Haitao said with a bitter face, "You'd better take it easy. How many more soldiers do you want to recruit? Five thousand? Not ten thousand, right? You can't expect all able-bodied men to join the army."
"That's not it," Chen Qing shook his head and said, "We need to recruit farmers at the same time as soldiers. Once you announce it, the government will redistribute farmland and provide protection."
"Recruiting farmers?" The fat man was taken aback. "Where are you going to farm?"
He had heard about the situation in the countryside; it was full of cannibalistic zombies. Who would dare go back to farm now?
"I'll arrange the location," Chen Qing said directly. "You just need to spread the word that the location is safe enough and that land will be allocated according to the number of people."
The fat man listened with curiosity; given the current situation, where was there still a safe place to farm?
Surely it can't be inside the city? There might be some land that can be cultivated on the South Mountain inside the city, but how much could be cultivated?
"Go and make the arrangements quickly," Chen Qing said, pulling out a large stack of silver notes from his sleeve. "You can recruit the accountants, clerks, criminal investigators, secretaries, and so on you need now. There are quite a few scholars among those rescued. Among the people rescued from Spirit Deer County were people from the Six Houses of the county at that time. You can recruit them directly, but be careful. Those people used to follow Gu Beiquan of Spirit Deer County, so you have to be careful to prevent them from playing tricks on you."
"Alright!" Zhou Haitao eagerly grabbed the large stack of silver notes, his eyes shining like pearls. Having worked as an accountant since childhood, he immediately beamed as he touched the notes. They were all large denominations of over a hundred taels each, and this thick stack was worth at least a million taels.
This is rare indeed! After all these days of working like a slave, I'm finally willing to pay.
Putting everything else aside, I'll withdraw my own salary first!
Seeing the other person's curious expression, Chen Qing shook his head with amusement. Not to mention these silver notes, even worldly gold and silver would depreciate rapidly in Liuzhou in the future. Under the Divine Path system, spirit stones with the Power of Faith would be the main currency. Of course, the fat man couldn't know this now, and even if he did, the other person wouldn't believe it.
" Laoda." After receiving the money, Zhou Haitao immediately reverted to his previous intimate address. "You don't need to worry about those scholars in Spirit Deer County. I've inquired around; Gu Beiquan and his group weren't popular in Spirit Deer County before. They were harsh on the officials below, and the teachers at the academy all disliked them. You don't need to worry about them causing any trouble."
Chen Qing nodded. Without soldiers or power, and unable to leave Liuzhou, these few spineless fellows certainly couldn't amount to anything.
"But that Liu Yiqi..."
"Hmm? What's wrong?" Chen Qing asked curiously.
Zhou Haitao hesitated for a moment but still said, "I know Laoda and Cui Yan received favors from him back then, but I feel that Fatty isn't a good person. You'd better not use him, Laoda."
Chen Qing rolled her eyes. Did you even need to remind her?
The two vengeful female ghosts who had been following Liu Yiqi closely were obvious to everyone. It was clear that this guy must have done something heinous in the past, and he would be punished sooner or later under the Divine Path system. They just hadn't had time to deal with him yet.
--
"This Chen Qing is getting more and more outrageous. Even if we have made a mistake, we are still respectable scholars. Even if you confiscated our official seals, you should at least arrange our food and lodging properly, right? What is this? Mixing us with these refugees and feeding us this every day?"
The speaker was Li Chong, the county magistrate of Spirit Deer County. At that moment, several people were standing domineeringly on the table of a teahouse, feeling indignant.
The teahouse owner noticed that the group looked like scholars. Although they Heavenly Capital, he didn't want to offend them, so he could only keep his distance.
"Has Magistrate Li lost his mind?" Liu Yiqi said coldly, "What do you mean we're at fault? What fault did we have? It was Chen Qing failed to take precautions and gave no warning. We struggled to hold out in Spirit Deer County to protect the people, but we had no soldiers or generals. After organizing the people to resist for a day and a night, the city was finally breached. Chen Qing not only privately recruited thousands of soldiers, but also refused to come to our aid. How did that become our fault?"
The group was taken aback for a moment, then quickly realized what was happening and nodded repeatedly. "Instructor Liu is right, he's right!"
Gu Beiquan frowned immediately. Although he was also unwilling to let Chen Qing remove them from their posts so easily, it was ultimately their own fault. Even if everyone joined forces and conspired together, could they really turn black into white?
He frowned and asked, "So many people in Spirit Deer County were saved by Chen Qing. Putting everything else aside, all the teachers at the academies are on Chen Qing's side. Do you think the imperial court will believe us?"
"Magistrate Gu is truly muddleheaded!" Liu Yiqi said sternly, "What do those lowly commoners know about righteousness? Can their words be considered testimony? As for those few ungrateful scholars..." He then lowered his voice and said, "Don't worry, I'll handle it."
Although the voice was lowered, everyone felt a chill run down their spines even in broad daylight, including Gu Beiquan, whose heart skipped a beat from the other party's sinister gaze.
I don't know if it's just my imagination, but I feel like Liu Yiqi's whole demeanor has completely changed since that night. He has a kind of sinister ruthlessness that seeps into his bones, and he can make your heart pound with fear just by glancing at you every now and then.
Recalling that night when this guy pushed those two women down without hesitation, Gu Beiquan hesitated for the first time.
Do we really want to associate with this guy?
At this moment, none of them could see that behind Liu Yiqi, two women, their flesh torn and bloody, were smiling sinisterly at everyone, their eyes filled with the same viciousness as Liu Yiqi's!
I recommend a good book to a friend (The Literary Era Against the Current). Those who are experiencing a reading slump should check it out.