Chapter 1173: North! The Gossip About Xue Qiancheng

"Colonel Liu Yan, I entrust Dajiao City to you from now on!"

"General Su, I swear I will spare no effort to defend Dajiao City!"

Liu Yan replied, standing before Su Yang.

"Then goodbye, everyone!" Su Yang waved with a smile, "I hope we meet again soon!"

This was Su Yang's most sincere blessing.

Liu Yan whispered, "You're always welcome to return, General Su!"

Liu Yan's words came from genuine sincerity.

At least he truly respected Su Yang!

Deputy Mayor Feng Yuanjie also said, "General Su, please come back often!"

When Su Yang first arrived at Dajiao City, Deputy Mayor Feng Yuanjie had indeed been displeased.

But after spending this time together, he had grown quite willing to work with Su Yang, and now that Su Yang and Liu Mengyun were leaving, he felt unexpectedly reluctant.

At the Treasure Pavilion, Xi Yao and Bai Cang also came to see them off.

Xi Yao looked at Su Yang and added, "General Su, whenever you return, feel free to visit the Treasure Pavilion—we'll always welcome you."

"I heard that. If I get the chance, I'll definitely come visit the Treasure Pavilion!"

"Then it's a deal!"

Xi Yao smiled.

Xi Yao also felt a pang of sadness at Su Yang's departure.

Too bad the north isn't within the Treasure Pavilion's sphere of influence—otherwise she would have applied for a transfer there.

"Then goodbye!"

Su Yang held Liu Mengyun's hand in one and Xia Na's in the other; Liu Mengyun carried Sovereign Jiazi.

Liu Yan, Feng Yuanjie, Tong Junhao, He Yao, Bai Cang, Xi Yao, and others waved to Su Yang, who then vanished from sight with Liu Mengyun and his two trusted subordinates.

Su Yang arrived at Zhanghai City, spent half a day bidding farewell to Qian Hailong, then returned to Jingcheng for a day, primarily to discuss treating wounded soldiers with Shi Fanmeng.

In the absence of war, Su Yang would return to Jingcheng once every month to treat severely wounded soldiers.

Shi Fanmeng's task was to collect wounded soldiers transported from across the nation, stabilize their conditions, identify difficult cases, and then have Su Yang intervene.

The Void Wandering Spirit's Void Travel requires a fixed location.

It can only teleport to places it has been before.

Su Yang had never been to the Northern Military Department, so he could only fly.

Storm Eagle was already an Imperial-grade pet beast, its flight speed beyond the imagination of ordinary Beast Masters.

Though the north was famously vast and sparsely populated, and Bingcheng was the farthest military department from Jingcheng, under Storm Eagle's full speed, it took only a few days.

The further north they went, the colder the climate became.

Liu Mengyun, Sovereign Jiazi, and Xia Na, who traveled with Su Yang, were all Beast Masters—the weakest, Xia Na, was Platinum-ranked; this ordinary cold affected them not at all.

Along the way, Storm Eagle had spotted many ferocious beasts.

But Su Yang paid them no mind unless they happened to cross his path—and even then, only if their strength reached the King rank, otherwise he had no intention of acting.

The world was vast, and Storm Eagle flew extremely high; the chance of encountering King or Imperial-grade ferocious beasts was negligible.

Moreover, Su Yang's current mission was to reach Bingcheng as soon as possible, assume command as General of the Northern Military Department, stabilize the northern situation, and only then consider hunting ferocious beasts.

The north had once been the Federation's industrial heartland, with a glorious history.

But decades before the Great Catastrophe, the Federation shifted its economic focus, and many young people moved south for livelihood, causing population decline.

Even now, the population of the Federation's north still fell far short of the south's.

The Northern Military Department was one of the Federation's Eight Military Departments, governing the smallest population.

It controlled two hundred and three cities, with a population of roughly ten million.

The population was small, but the challenges faced by the Northern Military Department were by no means few.

Standing on Storm Eagle's claw, Su Yang gazed northward, recalling what he had learned about the Northern Military Department in Jingcheng, sinking into deep thought.

Liu Mengyun, Xia Na, and Sovereign Jiazi sat on Storm Eagle's claws as well.

Mo Yi and Sister Xue Li had also been released by Su Yang to stretch their legs.

He hadn't let them out recently because he'd been too busy—and feared these two would disrupt his intimacy with Liu Mengyun!

Storm Eagle's temperament had never changed: it disliked anyone else riding on its back except Su Yang.

Liu Mengyun sat on Storm Eagle's claw, sketching in her notebook; Sovereign Jiazi reclined half-lying, reading a vernacular edition of the Records of the Grand Historian with focused attention.

She claimed she was studying traditional Chinese culture.

This book had been borrowed from the Jingcheng Library—impossible to find in ordinary cities.

After the Great Catastrophe, a group of defenseless scholars, enduring constant hunger, urged the military to rebuild libraries across Federation cities, using surviving electronic data and paper books to reprint many traditional Chinese cultural texts and distribute them to major cities for free public reading.

Though the resolution passed, the Federation had yet to fully implement it due to funding, resources, and practical constraints; only slightly larger cities within each military department had received libraries.

Even with libraries built, not everyone could borrow books.

Though borrowing was free, a deposit was required!

How could ordinary people, struggling to feed their families, afford to pay a deposit for leisure reading?

This was reality!

Yet history classes for students had not been dropped—even during the Federation's most desperate times, history remained mandatory.

Su Yang had studied history too, and believed learning it was essential.

Especially now, in a world ravaged by ferocious beasts and with transportation crippled, where ordinary people might never leave their city in their entire lives.