Chapter 1275 – Developing the Border Region

The moment he unified China, Ouyang Shuo’s heart realm appeared to welcome a change, becoming calmer and more expressionless. His eyes seemed like they could look through all kinds of thick fog and pierce the unknown.

Even if Ouyang Shuo did not rely on his revival advantage, his strategic foresight would still be greater than others.

As he dealt with Empire matters, Ouyang Shuo had grown more unruffled, reaching a calm, mountain-like level. His energy and focus merged into one within his body, not revealing anything.

At this moment, the Five Emperor True Manual that he trained in finally broke through to the 10th layer. He broke into the innate realm, welcoming a huge physical jump.

To train to the 10th layer, Ouyang Shuo had spent two years to temper his body from scratch.

Foreseeably, the difficulty of cultivating this true manual would get greater and greater as one progressed. Upgrades through layers would in units of years.

After reaching a bottleneck, unless one achieved a suitable level of comprehension, they could get stuck for several years.

For example, to proceed from the 9th layer to the 10th layer, Ouyang Shuo had used nine months. For context, he also took nine months for the first eight layers.

If it were not for his heart changing, he might not have managed this.

Chances and opportunities would just pop out of nowhere sometimes.

…

Using the remaining half a month of the 7th year of Gaia, the Great Xia Imperial Court quickly decided on how to deal with the Mongol Dynasty and designed their rule over the Mongol grassland.

The Imperial Court decided to split the Mongol Empire into two. The north would be the Beiyuan Region. The House of Ogedai, formerly Turkish Khanate, would become the Xijiang Region.

These two provinces had a vast amount of land, especially the Beiyuan Province that spanned east and west. The province had grasslands, plateaus, and deserts in its territory. Be it in terms of length or breadth, it was the biggest province in the territory.

Xijiang Province was not much smaller, having deserts, mountain ranges, and basins.

The person that Ouyang Shuo selected for the position of Provincial Governor of Beiyuan Province surprised many. Ouyang Shuo decided to choose former Mongol Empire Chancellor, one of the 10 famous ministers of China, Yelu Chucai.

Ouyang Shuo made this decision after careful consideration.

First, he was not a Mongolian and did not have resentment toward Great Xia. When Genghis Khan fell into a coma, he was the one who stepped out to stabilize the situation. He had prevented Karakorum from descending into chaos.

He was a person who had no other choice apart from being loyal to the empire.

Secondly, thanks to his long-term workings with Genghis Khan, he was really experienced and had a high amount of prestige amongst the Mongolians. For him to become the Beiyuan Provincial Governor would help to stabilize the people’s sentiment in the north plains.

Due to these reasons, Ouyang Shuo chose him.

The Provincial Governor of Xijiang Province would be the Minnan Province Shaowu Prefecture Governor Jing Jian. Jing Jian had been in the Empire for a long time and was once the regulation director. To avoid suspicion with Wei Yang, he was sent out to Shaowu Prefecture.

Many had expected his promotion to Xijiang Provincial Governor.

Be it Beiyuan Province or Xijiang Province, both were border provinces with a huge amount of land. Furthermore, both provinces had complicated racial makeups, so the Provincial Governor had to be particularly skilled.

Both Yelu Chucai and Jing Jian undoubtedly had the right qualities.

Making use of this chance, the Imperial Court also adjusted the jurisdiction regions of the Beijiang and Xijiang Governor-General Houses to fit the Empire’s strategy.

A day ago, the Imperial Court decided to move the Beijiang and Yingzhou provinces away from the Beijiang Governor-General House and back under the Imperial Court. At the same time, the Beiyuan Province would be placed under their control.

As such, the Beijiang Governor-General House would have the Beiyuan and Liaojin provinces, the north territories of the Empire. Their ruling city would move from Jingdu to Karakorum to better manage the north.

This was a whole new challenge for Governor-General Gong Chengshi.

Whether he could manage the north and rule it well was a test from Ouyang Shuo. If he did, he might be able to reach the next level; if he could not, Ouyang Shuo would not give him face.

The Xijiang Governor-General House would add in the newly established Xijiang Province and manage the west border of the Empire.

This also meant that the pressure on Wufu had just gotten much greater.

The three provinces under him were the Qiang, Tibet, and the Mongol homeland. Their geographical positions were special, and their development was backwards. Ruling them well was not an easy matter.

…

After dealing with the Mongol Empire, Ouyang Shuo had an even tougher problem ahead of him, which was how to deal with the 1.2 million leftovers of the ‘consumable army’ and the 600 thousand Mongol cavalry.

The simplest solution was to disband them all.

However, this was also the dumbest and most expensive method.

The 600 thousand Mongol cavalry were especially worrisome. Although they had surrendered, they were unrestrained and arrogant. Letting them go could create huge problems for the Empire’s rule in Beijiang.

As a result, no matter what, they had to restrain them and remove some of their barbaric nature.

Regarding this matter, Ouyang Shuo had many discussions with the Privy Court, Grand Council, and Administrative Mentor Court. They started from the strategic needs of the Empire to the developmental needs of the various regions to form a suitable plan.

First, they needed to replenish and strengthen the North America formation.

Zhan Lang’s North America formation only had two legions. Ouyang Shuo decided to choose the elites out of the 1.2 million ‘consumable army’ to add into the formation.

Without a doubt, this would upgrade the formation to the North America legion corps, and Zhan Lang would become their marshal.

At the same time, to strengthen their ability, Ouyang Shuo sent over Great Tang general Yuchi Gong to become the 3rd legion Legion General.

Secondly, they decided to build the South Asia legion corps.

The South Asia legion corps was a newly established legion corps and the first one after the disarmament plan. From the name, one could see that this legion corps was prepared for India.

If nothing went wrong, the Empire would not be expanding their army for the future period of time.

The marshal would be the 4th Legion General of the Guards Legion Corps, Wuwei General Er’Lai. Due to the number of marshal appointments decreasing again and again, this could also be called Ouyang Shuo’s compensation to this long serving general.

The vacant spot would be filled by iron armored beast cavalry Major General Shan Zhu. During this disarmament, the Guards Legion Corps would not keep the special arrangement of having a direct iron armored beast Cavalry Division.

Apart from that, Great Tang general Cheng Yaojin was moved to the South Asia legion corps to be the 1st legion Legion General.

Thirdly, make the three construction formations.

In the future, if the Empire wanted to attack the Romanov Dynasty in the north, they would need to gain a stable footing in the Britain Province. To take down the Persia Empire, they would needed to be stable in Xijiang Province.

Following a similar theory, they needed to be stable in Xikang Province to take down India.

If these three border provinces were unable to provide grain and resources for the army and had to get support from the mid plains, there would be no way for them to win.

If they started wars from these areas, they would be humiliated because of the lack of grain.

If they were determined to transport grain from the mid plains, such huge wars might cause the Empire to collapse.

Hence, increasing the development of these three provinces and exploring the potential of the border lands was more important than building more legion corps.

Without grain support, it would be useless no matter how many troops you had.

Alternatively, put it this way, before the three provinces grain production could reach a certain level, the Empire could not arrange large amounts of troops to move in.

Even with mentioning other aspects, just their daily logistics could not be achieved. If that happened, let us not talk about taking down other dynasties, even defending themselves would be good enough.

This was something that had to be done and could not be delayed.

Due to such considerations, the three provinces would establish formations.

China had such traditions, especially in the west starting from West Han to East Han, Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing.

It lasted till today, where strengthening the borders had never stopped.

Ouyang Shuo was inspired by this, which was why he decided to build three formations right away. As they strengthened the borders, they would amass more grain resources to set the foundations for expanding the Empire.

The Privy Court estimated that after promoting the North America legion corps, building the South Asia Legion corps, and retiring some injured soldiers, there would be 1.2 million left.

As such, the three formations would each have 400 thousand people, not only exceeding a normal formation but also a legion corps.

That was not the end to it. To stabilize their hearts, when the conditions allowed it, the Imperial Court would let their families move to the borders to participate in the construction.

As such, the scale of the construction formations would only double and increase.

This was necessary. Moreover, given the current technological scale of the Empire, such a scale was not much. In the future, if they had the chance, Ouyang Shuo would expand the construction formation scale.

Only then could they inject life into the three border provinces.

Based on the ancient system, the construction formation would be under the Imperial Court and the Governor-General House. During wartime, it would also be under the warzone. When necessary, the warzone could summon them to fight on the frontlines.

As a result, the choice of Lieutenant General was important.

First, the general selected had to be from the military. If not, they would not be able to suppress these untamed soldiers. Moreover, they had to know about internal politics and have some management ability.

After all, the goal of the formation was to expand and develop and not wage war.

Such a selection criteria meant that there were only a few people that were worthy of the position.

Ouyang Shuo first settled on the most crucial one out of the four, which was the Xijiang construction formation. This person would be the former Great Zhou general Tian Dan.

In history, he was once a chancellor. Naturally, he could succeed at this role.

Following which, Ouyang Shuo selected Ma Teng to be the Beiyuan construction formation Lieutenant General.

In history, Ma Teng ran Xiliang and managed the territory. As such, he was up to the task.

For the final construction formation, Ouyang Shuo selected Bear Legion corps 2nd Legion General Pei Renji.

Compared to young generals, old generals had an obvious advantage in handling such a matter.

Ginger getting spicier the older it gets was not just an adage.

At this point, the 1.8 million troops had been settled down.

Following which, Great Xia would have a head to toe remodeling of the warzones and legion corps relationship, clarifying the Empire’s strategy to solidify their future foundations.