Chapter 180 Strategic Adjustment, Talent Crisis

Eastern continent.

The Empire of Eternal Night.

At Shipyard No. 1, it was already late at night, but the lights were still on, with busy workers moving around. A large number of extraordinary strong men were cooperating with the command, accurately arranging the heavy steel components on the hull.

One after another, huge ships are being built at a rapid pace. These ships are more majestic and powerful than any ship in the empire's past. The cannons on board are of the latest development. They have just been researched and put on the ships after simple testing. They possess extremely terrifying destructive power.

After years of confrontation with the navy of the Hundred Nations Alliance, the navy of the Eternal Night Empire has been fully developed. This development is not only reflected in naval warfare technology, but also in the replacement of ships.

There is a saying that goes, war is the most effective technological catalyst.

In the constant fighting, both sides aim to kill their opponents, and if they don't want to die, they can only make progress and develop.

The pressure of death is so strong that the speed of development is also extremely fast.

At the beginning, the navy of the Hundred Nations Alliance had a suppressive effect on the Eternal Night Empire. After all, they had been developing for so many years, it would be strange if they could not suppress it.

But the Eternal Night Empire has a mixed navy. If they can't compete in naval ships, they will compete in other things. Relying on the huge sea clan forces, the imperial navy has narrowed the gap between the two sides and even carried out counter-suppression.

After knowing that the Eternal Night Empire possessed a large number of sea warriors, the Hundred Nations Alliance was no fool and immediately developed various new weapons, formed a new naval fleet, and used a more conservative style of warfare.

At this point, they were also caught in a war of attrition in the naval battle.

During the consumption process, the Eternal Night Empire was able to absorb the essence accumulated over the years by the Hundred Nations Alliance Navy, thereby quickly improving its own naval construction and saving a lot of time.

To be honest, Su Xingyu is not very interested in the navy.

Because this world is a little different. Even though he has not yet dealt with the two major forces in this plane, the Hundred Nations Alliance and the Blood Empire, it is only a matter of time.

As mentioned before, the pace of unifying this plane may be slow, but it is definitely moving forward firmly.

Therefore, his opponents have never been natives of this plane, but from the outside void plane, or other players. In this case, there is not much significance in developing the navy.

After all, you can't go out with a naval fleet, right?
That's outrageous.

What's more, even if it can be used, it won't be of much use.

Without the support of the logistics system, the strength of the naval fleet will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the significance of developing a naval fleet is really not as good as developing a sea kingdom.

But...

From the empire's perspective, things are not that simple.

An empire that seeks to be powerful overall will not allow itself to have such obvious shortcomings.

Therefore, the naval fleet cannot be used, but it is necessary, so we have to bite the bullet and allocate some resources for its development.

In a relatively quiet workshop.

A group of short-haired, dusty-faced engineers were discussing something.

"The overall performance of the third-generation naval warships is about 70% higher than that of the second-generation, and the effective range has reached kilometers. It is much more powerful than the previous castrated version. It can be said to be a true beyond-visual-range strike."

"Great, great! We spent so much time on improvement and finally have a satisfactory answer."

"Yes, if we don't produce some results, I'm afraid the finance minister will cut off our funding."

"Haha, you don't know, when the boss went to apply for funding a few days ago, the finance officer's face turned black."

"With these third-generation warships, the navy of the Hundred Nations Alliance will not be a problem. Even without the Naga Kingdom's sea tribe army, we can still defeat them. By then, we will completely block the shipping routes of the Northern Continent. I want to see how they will fight us without the support of maritime logistics."

"Don't be too confident. I think we should increase the production first. Otherwise, even with the current few ships, no matter how powerful they are, the number is there, and they are not enough to fill the gaps in the enemy's teeth."

"Indeed, the production must be increased. Without a large fleet, there is no combat effectiveness. If we produce hundreds of ships and create a linked magic circle, even a demigod will be defeated."

"Don't dream. Producing hundreds of ships? A third-generation battleship requires a ninth-order crystal core as its core, and the other materials are countless. The finance officer would be crazy to allow you to build this. According to my estimation, at most you can only produce dozens of ships."

"Alas, the Empire has been expanding its demiplane recently, and has gained a lot of resources. However, with great gains comes great consumption. The Army is still the main force of the Empire, and it is already good enough for our Navy to get a piece of the pie."

An engineer who looked a little old said with a smile: "To be honest, we have to thank the Hundred Nations Alliance. If it weren't for their strong navy, the Empire probably wouldn't have thought of us."

"Hey, we must thank them... defeating them and integrating their technology will be the best way to thank them."

"Although a few dozen ships are a little less, it is enough to serve as a vanguard. Let's apply jointly. If nothing unexpected happens, this should be the largest amount of funding we can get in the near future."

"it is good."

"Hurry up, time waits for no one."

"I can't wait to see how powerful they are."

……

……

Evernight City.

Presbytery.

Sitting on the first seat, Ye San took out a document, looked at the elders, and said calmly:
"War Zone No. 11 has basically been taken over. Next, we need to send someone to represent the Empire and take charge there to ensure the interests of the citizens of the Empire. Do you have any good candidates?"

The Eternal Night Empire's advancement in the Northern Continent has been very smooth. It has expanded its territory countless times and has now taken over nearly 1/6 of the land.

However, it is easy to conquer a piece of land, but it is difficult to manage it afterwards.

Especially now that the Hundred Nations Alliance has not fallen and is still resisting, resistance forces will emerge from time to time in the imperial-occupied areas.

Under the strict supervision of the Eternal Night Empire, the strength of these resistance forces is not strong, but they are extremely annoying.

It's like a mosquito in the summer, buzzing in your ears all the time and biting you from time to time. It doesn't cause much harm, but it is extremely annoying.

Therefore, after conquering an area, the Eternal Night Empire would send a governor there to re-govern the area, restore local production, and maintain law and order there as much as possible.

Due to wartime regulations, these governors have great power. After all, the Northern Continent is too far away from the Empire. Even with special means of communication, it takes several days for a message to be sent back and forth. Therefore, if you want to govern well, you must delegate power.

Locally, the governor of the occupied area can be said to be a local emperor, and they can even adjust their strategies according to local conditions.

There is nothing we can do about it.

Rules are dead, people are alive.

Just because this rule is implemented well elsewhere doesn't mean it will work here.

Adapt to local conditions and formulate different local strategies according to different environments.

From any other perspective, being the governor of an occupied area is a lucrative job.

However, facing the consul's question at this moment, everyone below lowered their heads and remained silent.

They no longer have any candidate in mind.

Ye San tapped his fingers beside him and looked at the elders with a headache. "Push someone out. The pace of the empire's expansion will not slow down. The rear must be stabilized at all costs. If there is no one, then you will have to do it yourself."

The empire had to expand its territory, conquer planes, and manage its development, all of which required people, which once again caused the empire to fall into a population shortage problem.

The rapidly expanding territory and the huge population that came with it once again overwhelmed the Eternal Night Empire.

For those areas that surrendered, they could implement a policy of introducing religions, changing their beliefs, and slowly transforming the people of the kingdom. With the help of the surrenderists, this policy went very smoothly, and within a few years, the local people would submit to the empire.

But this is not the case for conquered areas. There are troubles such as banditry, rebels, and resistance forces. Even if the empire supports a puppet, it will be useless. Both civil and military efforts must be used.

The problem is that anyone who can manage such a large area at the same time is a top-notch talent no matter where he is placed.

The empire itself does not have enough talents like this, so how can it have spare energy to support and manage the occupied territories?

"Your Majesty, the empire is now building its affiliated kingdoms and expanding its dimensions. Manpower is needed everywhere, and we can no longer squeeze out other teams." Seeing that no one spoke, an elder with gray hair had to speak up.

As soon as he said this, others immediately echoed him:

"Yes, yes. We really can't hold on any longer. All the people the Empire can send out have been sent out, even those students who have just graduated and have no internship experience. We really have no one left to use."

"We don't want to slow down the pace of expansion. After all, if we let the Hundred Nations Alliance catch its breath and integrate its internal forces, the trouble will be even greater. But if we continue like this, we can only draw on internal talents, and then the local development will be affected..."

"If it really doesn't work, we can only lower the local policy standards and select management personnel directly from the local area. We will make the local people suffer a little more. We can make other arrangements after we have recovered from this."

"I agree. Their lives were not that good to begin with. What's wrong with them suffering for a while longer? Besides, this isn't that hard. Compared to the days when the kingdom ruled, their lives have been pretty good since we took over."

"That's right. Compared to the policies of those masters in the Northern Kingdom, even if we lower the standards, ours is still a benevolent policy and we deserve their respect."

Everyone was talking at once, and the Elders' Council suddenly became lively. They expressed their opinions, which generally meant one thing: no.

We can no longer provide foreign aid. If we continue like this, the development of the empire will be affected.

In the perception of the citizens of the Eternal Night Empire, the creatures in the world are divided into high and low levels, including the imperial headquarters, affiliated kingdoms, surrendered forces, and other forces. The conquered kingdoms belong to the lowest level of other forces.

They have not been incorporated into the system of the Eternal Night Empire and are still considered outsiders.

So when they affect the development of the empire, the elders will abandon them without hesitation.

After all, there is no reason to sacrifice one's own development to support outsiders. This is pure nonsense!

Looking at everyone, Ye San frowned slightly, sighed inwardly, and felt a little powerless.

The expansion of the empire is beneficial to the entire empire. The elders are not short-sighted people, and they naturally understand this truth.

Therefore, the suggestions they put forward did not include slowing down the expansion.

The opinions that the elders wanted to express were very simple, that is, to lower the standards for capturing areas. There was no need to make everything perfect. It was enough to maintain the minimum stability so as not to affect the operations on the front line.

Anyway, we are not citizens of the empire, so let our life be a little harder.

Ye San naturally understood what they meant. In fact, this was the best solution at the moment. After all, the empire really had no more people, and if they didn't want to slow down its expansion, they had no choice but to do this. However, doing so would go against the principles that the empire had always followed.

"Your Majesty, the Empire's foreign policy is too lenient. Perhaps it's time to make some changes." An upright and strong elder from the Knights said, "For those people who have surrendered to the Eternal Night, there is nothing much to say. I will help them. After all, we are all one family. But for those rebellious guys, why should they also enjoy the Empire's preferential treatment?"

"I agree with the Seventh Elder's idea. In the past, the empire had abundant resources, so we provided support. We didn't need that much, and we could manage it. Now, if we continue to provide support, the empire will be affected. Is it really worth it?"

"Your Majesty, please reconsider this..."

Other elders also spoke up. Although their words were slightly different, their meanings were similar: the standards for the kingdom's citizens must be lowered and its own development must not be interfered with by outsiders.

Ye San sat in the first seat, lost in thought. After a long while, he spoke up: "Since there is no consensus, let's discuss this matter again in three days."

There is no harm in lowering the standards, at least not in the short term.

But Ye San's intuition told him that this matter was not that simple, so even though all the elders opposed it, he did not agree immediately. Instead, he used the tactic of procrastination and prepared to find someone to discuss it and think it through before making a decision.

"As ordered."

"Alright."

Seeing this, the elders had no choice but to nod in agreement. No matter what, Ye San was the consul.

Soon, the conference was over.

Ye San left the Council of Elders, got on the carriage, and headed towards the temple.

When they arrived at the temple, there was already a young priest guarding outside. When he saw Ye San approaching, he immediately stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty, the high priest wants to see you."

Ye San was not surprised why the other party knew he was coming, and ordered the guards behind him: "Wait here."

"Yes." The guards were a little disappointed that they could not enter the temple, but they still responded respectfully.

Following the priest, Ye San walked into the temple.

Two and a half days later, Ye San walked out of the temple with a smile on his face. It was obvious that he was very satisfied with the conversation.

(End of this chapter)