Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 904: Chapter 341: Moao’s Nine Garrisons, the Inspection System and Zhenyu, Li Hu and Hong Yuru (Part 3)

Of course, just this alone is not enough to deal with He Wuyang.

Bribery is the real plan!

With strong power as a foundation and presenting oneself with extreme humility, finally when Lu Yang gritted his teeth and handed over ten thousand taels of silver, he saw a change in He Wuyang’s expression and immediately understood he had done the right thing.

The requirement for a village-level camp to be equipped with a thousand pounds of silver-made items, as noted in Beishuo Town’s regulation, shows that silver is certainly very important to them.

In the Ice Abyss, the regulation was ten taels to a pound, so ten thousand taels of silver would be a thousand pounds.

Lu Yang was incredibly thankful at that moment because if he hadn’t exchanged five thousand pounds of silver from the Camp Supply Department in advance, he might have had to hand over the Cold Wing Sword bestowed by the lord.

Once He Wuyang accepted the silver, he became much more agreeable, not only understanding that they were new and unaware of the rules but also expressing a willingness to return to Beishuo to speak on behalf of the East Ridge Camp.

Lu Yang naturally cooperated, stating that as long as they were given a way out, East Ridge was willing to pledge allegiance to Beishuo, and henceforth would be under He Wuyang’s supervision in Beining Mountain, just like the other seven sectors, paying tribute to Beishuo every six months...

He Wuyang, taking advantage of the situation, laid out his own demands, and knowing that silver was hard to come by and obtaining more silver was impossible, he changed his request to jade bone and beast blood.

To successfully establish a foothold in Beining Mountain, Lu Yang naturally complied with all demands.

In the end, this affair concluded in this dramatic manner.

Lu Yang recalled the events of the past two months, shook his head with a light laugh, and then took out a document made of golden beast skin from his bosom, spread it out on the table, and said with a smile, "Though He Wuyang is an Inspector, his status in Beishuo Town is likely not high, otherwise he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to urge us to take advantage of the tribute opportunity to grab this Zhenyu decree."

Zhu Shun nodded, a smile also appearing on his face as he said, "That leader of Zhu Ling Camp, Zhu Tong, seemingly has some connections in Beishuo City, and He Wuyang is afraid that he will lodge a complaint to the higher-ups. By letting us take the Zhenyu decree first, even if an investigation is truly launched later, it will be hard to clarify the situation. Though he is greedy, he is not stupid."

Lu Yang chuckled softly upon hearing this.

East Ridge, newly established, was originally supposed to pay its first tribute at the end of the year, together with the seven households of Zhu Ling, but they came now because of Zhu Tong.

With East Ridge taking root in Beining Mountain, Zhu Ling Camp is undoubtedly the most displeased.

There is nothing else to do; not mentioning that East Ridge’s location is just within Zhu Ling’s sphere of influence, which naturally conflicts with it; just the strength East Ridge currently shows is enough to cause them anxiety.

Before East Ridge arrived, Zhu Ling was the leader among the seven villages in Beining Mountain, and although Lu Yang stated that in the future they would still respect Zhu Ling as the foremost, the power of East Ridge is evident here. Not to mention the future annexation of Baisong Camp, just the 24 Cold Resistance Levels and over 400 Earth-digging Realm Limits are enough to keep Zhu Tong awake at night.

The reason He Wuyang came to trouble East Ridge was that Zhu Tong reported them.

But the final outcome was completely different from what he expected, and Zhu Tong naturally would not give up easily. Although he is nominally under He Wuyang’s supervision, he clearly has other connections in Beishuo City, and He Wuyang understands that, fearing exposure of his bribery, so he allowed Lu Yang to go to Beishuo City in advance, using the tribute as an opportunity to first obtain the Zhenyu decree for the annexation of Baisong Camp, which is tantamount to cooking rice before the whistle is blown.

This was the reason for their trip to Beishuo.

However, this trip clearly did not go as perfectly as planned.

The rather hot-tempered Zhao Hu spoke in an angry tone, "Last night we handed over a full 30 pounds of jade bone, 500 pounds of beast blood, 8 million pounds of iron ore, and 10 million pounds of coal stone, yet we didn’t even get to enter the gates of Beishuo City; it’s just too much of a loss."

Upon hearing this, the expressions of Lu Yang and the others sank slightly, indeed feeling a bit discontented.

With the annexation of Baisong, East Ridge Camp, although with a population of just over ten thousand, was still considered a village-level strength, and thus the tribute regulations were also applied at the village level; the batch of resources Zhao Hu mentioned was what they handed over last night.

Such a large batch of resources in Great Xia could have been exchanged for countless Contribution Values, yet now it’s handed over to others for nothing. Crucially, according to Beishuo’s rules, they still hadn’t managed to enter Beishuo City, and the entire tribute process was conducted outside the city walls.

"Having been in East Ridge for almost a year, we’ve only found a coal mine, and it took us 160,000 pounds of beast meat just to purchase those 8 million pounds of iron ore from Hongyuan Camp; 160,000 pounds of beast meat, just thinking about it makes one feel distressed!"

Hearing Zhao Hu’s words, Wang Tao sighed and said, "There’s nothing we can do, Beining Mountain is only so large, and the area we were allocated is still the former site of Zhu Ling Camp. If there were an iron mine there, they would have already extracted it; it wouldn’t be our turn. If we want to find iron, we can only explore deeper into Beining Mountain."

Saying this, he paused slightly and continued, "But this isn’t an unsolvable problem after all; at worst, we can have Hanqiong send us some, just not in too large quantities, or it would be bad if someone noticed any irregularities."

Lu Dong exhaled slowly, nodding solemnly, "The iron ore issue isn’t a major trouble; it’s just allowing Hongyuan Camp to earn some of our beast meat. Our task is to continue establishing ourselves in Beining Mountain and to gauge Beishuo’s strength.

Although we didn’t manage to enter Beishuo City this time, through their dialogues and the hunting teams emerging at night, we could discern some aspects. It’s estimated that Beishuo has several hundred advanced hunting teams, implying at least two thousand Cold Resistance Levels. As for their Defensive Army, I saw three units, though I’m sure there are more..."