Chapter 1277 – World Map Reset

Along with the completion of the eight warzones, the defensive regions of each legion corps was settled. This was especially so for the Jingji and Zhongyuan provinces, which were specific till the province level.

That was beneficial to the legion corps, legion, and division level headquarters building.

Once this round of military disarmament was completed, Great Xia’s main land would enter a defensive period. If nothing went wrong, war would fade from the lives of the mid plains.

A stable internal environment would be created, which was beneficial to their internal politics and industrialization.

Furthermore, the completion of the eight warzones helped to draw a huge map of the Empire.

For the future period of time, Great Xia would use this map and strengthen internally while expanding outward. They would raise their authority in the world while trying to upgrade to imperial dynasty.

After an entire year, Great Xia had completed the first requirement, unifying China.

In the 8th year, the Empire would turn its eyes to the entire Asia to try to complete the second requirement and become the Overlord of Asia. Achieving that position would allow them to go for the final push for the highest throne.

…

12th month, 27th day.

Coordinating with the eight warzones, the Imperial Court adjusted the ranks of the generals.

There were three Grade 1 commander in chiefs, Baiqi, Han Xin, and Li Jing.

There were five Grade 1 Great Generals, namely Sun Bin, Li Mu, Wang Jian, Wuqi, and Zheng He. Guards Legion Corps marshal and Imperial Palace Guards Marshal Huo Qubing and Xu Da were dropped from the Great General rank.

There were three Grade 2 Duke Generals, Biaoqi General Huo Qubing, Cheqi General Xu Da, and Guardian General Xu Chu.

There were three Grade 2 military generals, Fujun General Zhou Yu, Middle General Shi Lang, and Top General Yanhuo Yaonie. These three were all navy Fleet Admirals and were worthy of their positions.

There were two Grade 2 protector generals, Er’Lai and Shi Wanshui. They were both top generals and were greatly trusted by Ouyang Shuo. They had served the Empire for a long time.

The Grade 2 Zhongnan General was Yashan Squadron Fleet Admiral Yu Dayou.

Apart from them, Binhai Squadron Fleet Admiral Qin Jiguang was awarded Grade 2 ocean protector general.

There were four Grade 2 conquering generals, east conquering general Li Xiucheng, south conquering general Zuo Zongtang, west conquering general Li Shiji, and north conquering general Guo Ziyi; they were marshals of the Empire’s four strategic directions.

There were four Grade 2 protector generals, east protector Yue Fei, south protector Zhang Han, west protector Meng Tian, and north protector Chen Yucheng; they were the marshals of the warfighting legion corps defending the four directions.

Next would be the Grade 3 generals.

Grade 3 army leading general was Imperial Palace Female Guards commander Hua Mulan.

There were four Grade 3 peacekeeping generals, the east peacekeeping general Zhang Xutuo, south peacekeeping general Fan Lihua, west peacekeeping general Shu Dakai, and north peacekeeping general Chang Yuchun; they were the four marshals of the Border Defense legion corps in the four directions.

There were four Grade 3 suppressing generals, east suppressing general Zhan Lang, south suppressing general Yang Su, west suppressing general Zhou Junji, and north suppressing general Xue Rengui; they were the marshals of the attack-minded border legion corps.

Next would be some generals with random titles; they would not be detailed.

At this point, before the 8th year of Gaia’s arrival, Great Xia had used the disarmament to change and reorganize the military, adjusting the warzones and military ranks. They had completed a top to bottom remodeling.

In the 8th year of Gaia, the Privy Court would establish eight logistical hubs to provide the eight warzones with logistical services to reduce their reliance on laborers.

Before this, the Privy Court Combat Logistics Department only created a war-based logistical station and not a large-scale base. Every time a war happened, they would utilize a lot of laborers to transport resources to the frontline.

This was a total remodeling, a massive masterstroke.

Each logistical hub would service one warzone. For example, the Zhongyuan warzone logistical hub would be in Luoyang.

For this, Ouyang Shuo gave the Privy Court the right to select 320 thousand people from those disarmed to build the logistical squads.

This course of action could also help them save a sum of retirement fees.

The planned logistical hub would not only provide rations but also armor, weapons, war horses, firearms, ammunition, siege weapons, and more.

Hence, the planned logistical hubs, apart from warehouses, would have factories, breeding grounds, and other families; this was a really complicated and systemized logistical group.

Servicing the hub, apart from the logistics soldiers, would be paid workers; together, they would form a huge industrial group.

This was another way the Empire was promoting industrialization.

Looking at recent history, war had a huge use in promoting industrialization.

One could foresee the complications of building such a system. As a result, Ouyang Shuo did not start this right away and pushed the matter to the 8th year of Gaia.

The Privy Court had a year to complete the construction of the eight logistical hubs.

Their first mission would be to deal with the tens of millions of equipment eliminated from the disarmament to build relevant warehouses and maintain the items regularly.

Amongst which, although some of the items like bows and arrows were unsuitable for war, they could not be allowed to flow into civilian life, as that would cause problems for the local offices.

For example, the matchlock guns that were eliminated had to be locked up.

Once these eight logistical hubs were completed, Great Xia would take a huge step toward being more modernized. In the future, they would have more types of firearms and equipment in their armies.

…

Gaia 7th year, 12th month, 30th day, a System Notification sounded out around the world.

“World Notification: This is the 7th anniversary of Gaia. The game will undergo its 8th system update, effective immediately. Please go onto the forums to check it out.”

…

Right as the notification sounded, Ouyang Shuo went onto the forums as usual to check out the update.

1. World map returns to normal size.

The game world was expanded 10 times compared to Earth with the goal of creating a vast wilderness so that the tens of thousands of Lords would have enough space.

Currently, there were less than 20 Lords remaining, and the wilderness was not the same anymore.

Now, the huge game map became a developmental obstacle instead. With the technological standards of the game world, the previous size was a huge restriction without the teleportation formations.

For example, Great Xia whose territory was too huge made it difficult to rule. If it were not for the four Governor-General Houses and one Jiedushi House, the Imperial Court would not be able to cope.

A vast territory also went against Gaia’s goal of training the Lords. After all, it could not threaten the lives of the civilians.

In the 6th year of Gaia, the cities stop spawning new people in the huge territories. Hence, the population density was really low.

In the 10th month of the 7th year, although the calamity greatly affected the world, they mostly recovered within a year through reclaiming land and making farms.

Keeping warm and full was not a big issue.

Naturally, their situation was different from ancient times, so shifting the game size back to normal helped to restrict such a matter.

Of course, the goal of Gaia was to increase the amount of competition in the world.

With Great Xia as an example, without the goal of upgrading to Emperor dynasty, Ouyang Shuo would not have much motivation to expand.

Even if he took up a large amount of territory, he would not be able to cope.

Rather than aimlessly expanding, why not focus on internal politics? Focusing on increasing industrialization so that quality exceeded quantity was more logical.

This was a wise choice.

In modern day society, small countries like Singapore had massive influence on the world.

Japan, Tokyo was able to rule to a certain extent, revealing that after modernization, the size of one’s territory did not mean power.

After they digested their current land, Great Xia would have enough to rule the world.

Due to that, Gaia threw out such a bait. To increase the speed of industrialization and reduce the land size so that the Lords with ambitions would continue to fight one another.

Of course, the game world adjustments would be relative. The cities, farms, roads, and other man-made constructions would not be reduced in size. Otherwise, all their hard work would be wasted.

Even then, this update had major impacts on the game world.

With the imperial capital as an example, before this, Lianzhou Basin was huge and still had a lot of space even after fitting in a giant city.

After making it small, the surroundings of the imperial capital was really squeezed.

Even to say that the Lianzhou Basin could not be called a basin anymore because the mountain ranges had returned to their original appearance.

Another example would be the rivers that expanded several times. They were the pillars of inland transport. Now, them going back to their original sizes had a huge impact.

Many rivers became unsuitable for ocean transport after this.

Moreover, the land that the monsters lived in would be closer to the humans, and they could threaten human lives at any time.

There were countless examples of such problems.

Gaia really did not mind creating problems for the Lords. This system update would be enough for the dynasties to get busy for a long period of time.