Chapter 90: Arranging Official Positions

( ) Chapter 97: Arranging Official Positions

At noon, Li Bucai and his party returned to the Territory. He disliked bureaucratic airs; having already finished the briefing in Sky City, there was no need to repeat those pompous words back in the Territory, so he directly ordered cooking by setting up pots. Because there were too many people and the settlement was too small, everyone built stone walls and set up pots outside the settlement.

Now, unlike when we first arrived, the population surged suddenly; we can no longer be vague as before. For easier administration, it is necessary to assign distinct duties to these few people who have officer potential.

The civil and military sides were separated, and the four newly recruited civil officials are: Rong Er, skilled in fisheries, who will serve as the fisheries supervising officer, responsible for fisheries affairs; Wen Zi, skilled in forestry, who will serve as the forestry supervising officer, responsible for timber matters; Meng Yu, specialized in agriculture, who will serve as the agricultural supervising officer, responsible for wasteland farming and related affairs; Man Er, specialized in construction, who will serve as the city construction supervising officer, responsible for the Territory's building affairs.

Common folk differ from the specialists; under the specialists' guidance, they can handle all the crude tasks, but without supervision their efficiency would be very low. With these supervising officers, efficiency rises and it also benefits the specialists' development.

Yan Qiu knows every affair in the Territory like the back of their hand; Yan Qiu will serve as village affairs assistant, overseeing all production matters, and also manage the four supervising officers.

Regarding military commanders, Li Bucai divided the 390 Undead into seven units, 60 per unit, with Shan Ji and the other five each commanding a unit. The remaining 30 were assigned as guards to Yue Ji, and all six obey Yue Ji's orders.

Although Wan'er has high aptitude, she is a medical officer, working with two military doctors and two herbalists, a total of five people, all dispatched only by Li Bucai. Later, a separate medical hall will be built for them to treat everyone.

The 100 archers were temporarily placed under Wu Zhuoyue's command; her original two subordinates and the sword‑and‑shield troops Fang Ling'er under Wu Zhuoran were given to Yan Qiu. Because an extra 1,000 civilians arrived at once, some friction was inevitable, so the three of them will assist Yan Qiu in maintaining security.

The allocations were set. While the commoners were still resting after lunch, they began assigning people and mounts to the supervisors. Of the 500 soldiers, 100 Sky City archers were relatively uniform. The 390 Undead soldiers wielded a mix of weapons—some knives, some spears, some bows—and their arms were of poor quality, ordinary copper weapons, whereas the Sky City troops used refined copper.

Undead differ from Sky City people; whether their archers or other units, because of their race, their hit rate and physical damage are slightly lower than those of Sky City, and no amount of effort can surpass that. However, they are naturally immune to all physical damage as well as water and fire, with the only weakness being a negative immunity to the Poison Branch.

There is no time to mine and mass‑produce weapons, so weapon standardization cannot be achieved for now; they must make do, settle the commoners first, and discuss upgrading weapons later.

Assign the 60 spear‑wielders to Shan Ji; Shan Ji also uses spears, and another 60 horses are given to her, forming a 60‑person cavalry unit. Then assign 60 archers to Yin Ji, who excels at shooting; the city defense needs many archers, so they fill the gap. The remaining mixed troops could not be further divided; spears, swords, and halberds were distributed among Jing Ji and three others, while Yue Ji's 30 guards are all sword‑armed soldiers.

……

"Lord, everyone has rested, we can begin now," reports Man Er, the city construction officer.

"Alright, start. Everyone, push yourselves and try to finish before sunset, building enough thatched huts for the people to spend the night. Outside the huts, temporarily use wooden anti‑cavalry fences in place of a settlement wall." They cannot afford to buy many temporary tents; it is early spring, the night isn't very cold, and a few bonfires should suffice to get through the night.

Yan Qiu said, "The warehouse now holds only 1,000 logs; that won't be enough. Should we first fell the forest north of the settlement and connect it to the clearing knocked down by the Lululu Beast, so it can be used for future road building?"

"Alright, start with that area. As for personnel allocation, you can discuss the distribution and adjust as needed according to progress."

The group moved at once; the other two supervising officers, having no immediate duties, also helped build wooden sheds. Some people, under the city construction officer's supervision, were led by builders to fetch timber from the warehouse and begin erecting housing on the open ground; the forestry officer led a group, guided by loggers, to start cutting timber in the forest; the rest transported the timber to the open ground, where carpenters stripped bark and sawed planks, then sent the boards to the building site.

One thousand people worked together; the open ground outside the settlement wall became a bustling scene. With the personnel in place, Li Bucai only needs to make occasional rounds, having no room to intervene.

Just as lively as the South Bank, the school‑uniform girls on the North Bank also produced a constant sound of logging; many busy figures appeared on the open ground, and the school‑uniform girls, surrounded by a few maidens, walked to the riverbank.

"Are all your people women?"

Li Bucai, having already seen that her commoners were all girls, said, "Yes, I thought your commoners would be boys, and I was planning to get a few flirtatious women who had married into my group from you. Looks like that won't work, so I'll have to resort to the money‑wind scheme."

The school‑uniform girl sighed, "Anyway, we might not stay here long, so I'm not worried about that. However, I recruited 800 people at once, and the fish in this river have all been caught. If we wait for the fields, even the fastest crop takes four months to harvest. How will you solve your food problem before then?"

"Shalanjiang, then. I plan to build a dock there and craft a few fishing boats to catch fish. Your Territory borders Shalanjiang to the north and the sea to the east; do you still worry about food?"

"Although Shalanjiang isn't far, the river quickly turns into mountain paths; to reach the riverbank you must cross two mountains. My guards are limited, and with only about 200 recruits this time, I fear I can't protect them, which would be dangerous." The school‑uniform girl noticed many guards standing on the opposite settlement wall, some even with horns on their heads, and asked oddly, "They… they seem strange; were they also recruited from Sky City?"

"The Undead were recruited from the wild; haven't you encountered any over there?"

The school‑uniform girl shook her head.

"Where did you obtain those two kinds of wood? Didn't you encounter any Undead?"

"We only ran into a few Goblins and some half‑person‑tall, big‑eyed little monsters living in the trees, which we scattered."

It turned out not every "Star‑Devouring Void" is an Undead nest. Li Bucai let out a sigh and said, "Do you want to use my path to the riverbank?"

The school‑uniform girl gave her a cold stare and said, "One or two days is fine, but over time I fear you'll trick my people into becoming concubines, which would cost me both wives and soldiers."

"Uhh…"

The school‑uniform girl covered her mouth with a laugh and said, "I know you wouldn't go that far with me; it's just a joke. I was wondering, have you considered dredging the shallow area below into a navigable canal? Then we could sail directly from here to the riverbank, greatly easing later cargo transport."