Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 903: Chapter 341: Moao’s Nine Garrisons, the Inspection System and Zhenyu, Li Hu and Hong Yuru (Part 2)

"Lord Wang is not wrong, but not entirely right either. The Nine Towns all adopted the inspection system first created by Yang Zhun. While the Northern Three Towns are indeed strong, the strength of the Six Towns in the Central South should not be underestimated. The smallest town among the Six Towns, Dragon Valley, covers an area of over 7,000 square kilometers, exceeding half of Longyou. Although Dragon Valley Town itself has a population of just over 500,000, if you include the more than thirty village-level camps under its jurisdiction, the total population is at least over a million.

If you calculate it this way, although the Northern Three Towns are strong, they do not dominate any single town in the Central or Southern regions; for over a hundred years, the Nine Towns have been trading, intermarrying, allying, and making treaties with each other, creating an extremely complex web of relationships. They are intertwined, and anyone who dares to casually declare the destruction of a town would surely face the combined assault of the other eight.

For instance, what we learned outside Beishuo City last night, isn’t Wuchuan currently planning something against Muyin and facing pressure from the other seven towns?"

As soon as they heard this, everyone nodded in agreement.

Wang Tao nodded repeatedly, showing approval, and said, "Indeed, while the six do not form a coalition, there are factors such as the power struggles among the Northern Three Towns, but the main reason is that their strength is sufficient on its own. Currently, none of them can disrupt the balance of the Nine Towns, and that is the key!"

Lu Dong nodded, looking at the map on the table. His face first showed a trace of excitement, followed by a slight sigh, "The most regrettable thing about this trip was not being able to enter Beishuo City. If we could go inside and take a look, we would know for sure how strong Beishuo Town really is!"

The other three people heard his words and also nodded with regret.

Speaking of this matter, we cannot help but mention the turmoil Lu Yang stirred up at East Ridge over the past year. Just as he once said before Xia Hong, when he suddenly brought so many people to establish a new camp at Beining Mountain, it was not a simple process.

Last year, when he first arrived at East Ridge, he followed Yue Feng’s advice and let Great Xia dispatch five Cold Resistance Level villains to approach a giant camp named Baisong.

The total population of that camp had just broken through ten thousand, and the strongest there was a Cold Resistance Level with Three-maned, their leader Bai Pingshan. While Bai Pingshan led his team out for a hunt, Great Xia’s five Cold Resistance Levels ambushed and captured him alive. They then used his life to threaten the entire camp into submission, staging a takeover.

In the end, it was naturally Lu Yang and his people who came like divine troops, defeated the five and successfully rescued Baisong Camp.

Lu Yang concocted a backstory, claiming that he and his over five hundred people came from a camp that had been attacked by a Deceitful Monster, causing countless deaths and injuries, leaving only them to escape south to Beining Mountain.

Bai Pingshan, being sensible and grateful, did not ask many questions. Upon realizing Lu Yang’s intent to annex, and seeing his five hundred elite men, he readily agreed. Within a few days, the entire population of over ten thousand from Baisong Camp had successfully migrated to fifteen kilometers north of Beining Mountain, at the slope where East Ridge is located.

Lu Yang’s most crucial task when establishing the East Ridge outpost was to guard the secret path leading to the Hanqiong outpost, so naturally, the outpost had to be built at the location of the path.

Originally, it seemed that after annexing Baisong, contacting the seven families of Beining Mountain under the name of East Ridge Camp would naturally provide an opportunity to explore Beishuo’s reality, and everything should have gone smoothly.

But unexpectedly, annexation was just the beginning of the trouble!

The trouble originated from the inspection system currently implemented by the Moao Nine Towns.

The Nine Towns control their territories not by setting up outposts throughout and sending people to guard, as in Great Xia, but rather by appointing Inspectors to oversee all village-level camps within their borders, who then control all large and giant camps below.

Under the constraints of the inspection system, no camps within Beishuo’s territory are allowed to merge unless there is a directive issued by an Inspector. Unauthorized mergers violate Beishuo’s laws, leading to the leader’s execution in minor cases. In more serious situations, not only does the leader have to die, but all Cold Resistance Level Earth-digging Realm individuals in the camp must become mining slaves.

It was only then that Lu Dong realized he had been tricked by Bai Pingshan!

Bai Pingshan definitely knew about this regulation and clearly set him up on purpose.

It took until three months ago, when the other seven families of Beining Mountain knew about it, and an Inspector from Beishuo Town, who had been residing at Zhu Ling Camp, approached him, that Lu Dong finally realized the trouble he was in.

Because Beining Mountain was at the western edge of Beishuo Town’s territory, and the resources around it were not abundant with mediocre camp strength, the Inspector from Beishuo Town named He Wuyang was not very powerful, having only Twelve-maned.

The power of Twelve-maned was sufficient to rule over the entire Beining Mountain.

But the five hundred people Lu Yang took with him this time were not weak at all.

His East Sun Team, counting himself, had 5 Cold Resistance Levels; Zhao Hu’s Steel Mane Team had 6; adding the Five Department Directors, and the leaders of the eight Intermediate Hunting Teams, there were a total of 24 Cold Resistance Levels.

Putting the numbers aside, while Lu Yang himself only had a Mid-stage Cold Resistance Cultivation, with an Eight-maned power, Zhao Hu had already reached a Late-stage Cold Resistance, with a full Fourteen-maned power.

Even though He Wuyang noticed the strength at East Ridge, his arrogance did not change, and he even boasted under the impetus of Zhu Ling’s seven families, demanding Lu Yang tie himself up and go to Beishuo Town for execution.

Lu Yang considered directly killing He Wuyang at the time, but remembering Xia Hong’s instructions and the crucial nature of the East Ridge outpost, he suppressed his anger, lowered his stance to the lowest, acting as if he were someone from the Outer Domain who had just arrived and was completely unfamiliar with Beishuo’s rules, displaying a façade of panic and uneasiness.