Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora
Chapter 982 – 5th System Update
Gaia 4th year 12th month, 20th day, the Great Xia Imperial Court gave out a series of official appointments.
Gong Chengshi was appointed as the Jiangchuan Provincial Governor; he would oversee the building of the Jiangchuan Provincial Governor office in Black Lion City. Of the remaining 11 Lords, four became Governors and seven became prefects. Of course, they were all shifted to other provinces.
Black Lion City’s Jushou was appointed as the Administrative Mentor Court advisor secretary. With five top strategists, Ouyang Shuo’s desire for the Guo Jia who had yet to appear lessened.
Jiangchuan Province’s army troops were organized. Due to their peaceful surroundings, the armies of the 12 territories did not have much training, and their standards were even worse than the garrison forces.
Ouyang Shuo ordered the Privy Court to follow the way they disarmed the garrison forces to remove half of the territory armies. For the remaining elite force, apart from 20 thousand that were moved into the Auckland Formation, the remaining were organized into two War Fighting Legions.
Apart from the Guards Legion Corps, the current legion corps were all filled up. Hence, Ouyang Shuo decided to make a new legion corps – the Bear Legion Corps.
He appointed Chen Tang as the Legion General of the 1st legion and Pei Xingyan as the Major General of the 1st division.
Name: Chen Tang (King Rank)
Dynasty: West Han
Identity: Great Xia Bear Legion Corps 1st legion Legion General
Occupation: Advanced General
Loyalty: 80
Command: 78
Force: 70
Intelligence: 55
Politics: 55
Specialty: Unexpected Attack (raises troops attack strength by 10%, raises troops movement speed by 25%)
Evaluation: Chen Tang was a really courageous person who had the ability to think about the big picture. He was able to think up many strategies. He was famous in the Battle of Zhizi, shocking the barbarians. His fame spread everywhere.
Chen Tang’s old Lord was the Lord of Qingyun City, Sparks, who had worked together with the Shanhai Alliance in the first two Battle Maps.
Within Jiangchuan Province, Sparks could be considered the ally of Gong Chengshi. The two of them controlled the situation in the province, which meant that the province was controlled by Great Xia. During this merger, Sparks became a Prefecture Governor.
Pei Renji was appointed as the 2nd legion Legion General.
Pei Renji had already reported the tracks of Li Mi to the Shanhai Guards. Just last night, the Shadow Guards sent out a group to his hiding spot to capture him. The truth would be out soon.
With that, Pei Renji earned Ouyang Shuo’s trust, so he was given an important appointment.
Based on the plan, after this organization was completed, the Bear Legion Corps would be housed between Jiangchuan Province and Wannan Province to monitor Wannan Province.
The Yanhuang Alliance was currently busy with collecting Wannan Province. Weirdly, based on the intel provided by the Shanhai Guards, be it military action or the post war matters, it was all handled by Di Chen.
Maybe the Yanhuang Alliance was undergoing a huge change internally.
…
After announcing the appointments, Great Xia orderly took over Jiangchuan Province. Apart from that, there was no other news, which made the people looking on really disappointed. At the same time, they heaved a sigh of relief.
In a blink of an eye, the 5th year of Gaia arrived.
12th month, 30th day, a System Notification sounded out through the entire world.
“World Notification: At this point, Earth Online has run for four years, and the game will undergo its 5th update, effective immediately. Please go online to the official forums to take a look.”
The moment the notification came out, Ouyang Shuo immediately went online.
(1) Construction is 100% real time.
Along with the population of the wilderness increasing and the population density reaching average levels, Gaia removed the welfare of Lords. Be it building construction or weapons crafting, the speed buff was removed.
The construction time in the game would be the same as in real life. Take building one Z1 Type Warship as an example. Previously, it took just one month to build a Z1 Type Warship but now it would take four months.
With that, it not only was the crafting efficiency greatly reduced, but the costs were increased as well. At this point, Gaia demanded more from the ruling standards of the territory.
Those who could perfect their management would be able to stand out.
(2) Welcoming the natural disaster system.
In ancient agriculture societies, grain production was closely linked to the weather. Drought, floods, insects, and other natural disasters could cause production to be reduced or even result in getting nothing at all.
Basically, the Imperial Court would need to help out with these disasters each year, and the only difference would be the seriousness. There were even some disasters that would cause uprisings that could cause dynasties to fall.
Catastrophes were things that dynasties could not bear.
Although the game had a weather system, Gaia had really treated the people well.
Territories like Great Xia that had strong specialties would not even face any disasters.
From the 5th year onward, things would change. The local granaries had no choice but to store up enough grain to supply them for disaster years. The moment a disaster arrived, the Imperial Court would also have to take out huge sums of gold to compensate the people.
Maybe from this moment onward, the various Lords would need to pray to the gods for good weather.
(3) NPC intelligence increase.
This update mainly targeted the tens of millions of normal NPCs. Before this, the civilians were mainly just normal people that were like a flock of docile sheep.
From now onward, the situation would change.
There would be good ones and bad ones, hardworking ones and lazy ones, and those that follow the law and those that broke it.
Officials and soldiers would also become complicated and start to have selfish thoughts.
The entire official ecosystem would become several times more complicated.
All in all, like the previous two updates, each update demanded more from the ruling standards of the Lord.
Of course, with cons, there were also pros. With their increase in intelligence, the basic level officials and generals would also have a skill increase. As long as they were trained well, it could increase the military and administrative standards of the territory.
As for the effects, one had to look at the standard of the system.
Toward this, Ouyang Shuo was really confident. Since the village level, he had paid attention to the system. At the current date, the entire dynasty system was really healthy and orderly.
(4) Once again increasing the movement speed of troops.
After the update, the normal soldier movement speed would increase to that of the relay speed. As a result, the negative effect of the map expansion would be totally wiped out.
Under the buffs of the specialty, some troops movement speed would even exceed ancient levels. This update basically reduced the obstacles to dynasties in the game expanding.
(5) Opening up the merit point quest system.
Apart from the current quest system, Gaia opened up a new merit point quest system. Lords could take specific merit point quests to raise their merit points and their rank.
Looking at this, Ouyang Shuo’s eyes tensed up.
It was not that he was vain, but he felt that this update was targeting him because his merit points had far exceeded that of the other Lords.
Gaia could not go against the rules and reduce his merit points, but it could use the quests to help other Lords earn more points to close the gap.
“Am I hated that much?” Ouyang Shuo was speechless.
(6) Opening up higher ranks and reputation levels.
If one said the last update was roughly related to him, this update was totally caused by Ouyang Shuo. Be it in terms of rank or reputation, Ouyang Shuo had reached the max level during the 4th year.
If Gaia did not use this chance to update it, it would be awkward.
First was rank, above the prince rank was son of heaven, which had a five million merit point requirement; this was three million merit points higher than that of the prince rank.
Next was reputation. Above known far and wide, there was dazzling the world, which required five million points.
Gaia was really vicious this time; it was determined to not let anyone reach that level.
Ouyang Shuo took a look. His current merit points were at 2.26 million and his reputation points were at 2.65 million; there was a huge gap till he reached the next level.
(7) Opening up the global alliance system.
Alliances between Lords were no longer limited to within a country, and it could now be done on a global scale.
Gaia did this to promote the global scale wars and cooperation. It aimed to create a vaster platform for the next round of the battle of survival.
There was no the strongest but only the stronger.
(8) Giving imperial cities more autonomy.
First, regardless of if a dynasty was present, the prefecture where the imperial city was located in was an absolutely prohibited zone. If one moved an army in, it would be seen as a provocation, and it might lead to war.
Secondly, any imperial city with a dynasty would be given autonomy. For any land in the province that the imperial city was in, if there was no Lord there, the imperial city could send troops to occupy the place.
The first thing Ouyang Shuo thought about when he saw this update was the Zhongyuan Province.
In the entire China region, only Zhongyuan Province did not belong to anyone. Furthermore, Luoyang Imperial city had the Hanwu Emperor that had moved in. With his style, he would surely take advantage of this.
Di Chen and the others would be definitely filled with regret. If they chose to attack Zhongyuan and not Wannan, the Hanwu Emperor would not be able to do anything.
Speaking of which, if they had taken down Zhongyuan Province first, then after Great Xia merged with Jiangchuan Province, they would have no chance of taking down Wannan Province.
Looking at it further, if their route in Zhongyuan Province was broken, the Yanhuang Alliance would definitely turn their eyes to West Chu because they would have no other choice.
Xiang Yu was in trouble this time.
Ludong Province was not connected to Great Xia. Even if Ouyang Shuo wanted to help, he could not. Furthermore, with Xiang Yu’s arrogance, he might not be able to accept Great Xia’s help.
This pretty much became a forgone conclusion.