Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora
Chapter 879 – Bidding
Last day of the 5th month, Zi Luolan led the Great Xia Dynasty negotiation squad and officially reached Atlantis, opening up a round of arduous negotiations.
Ouyang Shuo, who was in Shanhai City, was similarly really busy.
This morning, Tsing Yi handed him a document that listed the names of 20 guilds.
“This is?” Ouyang Shuo asked.
Tsing Yi said, “My king, this is the list of guilds in China who want to take the rights of the Satellite City in Rabat.”
Ever since the news of the Great Xia Dynasty conquering Morocco, the Satellite City outside of Rabat had interested numerous China guild leaders. Although China had nine imperial cities, the number of satellite cities was still too little, and there were too many guilds who did not manage to become guardians.
After learning that the Rabat Satellite City was an empty city, people were naturally attracted. In the game, the players did not bother about which region they were in because exploring the underground world was the same anywhere.
Hence, the Rabat Satellite City was really attractive to the guilds.
Since Ouyang Shuo’s return to Shanhai City, numerous guild leaders came over to visit him. However, they were all blocked outside the palace. Tsing Yi was in charge of meeting them.
Ouyang Shuo did not receive them. However, this was not out of arrogance.
Instead, it was only because out of the visiting guilds, there were many who used relationships, like guilds who were friends with Snow-War Rose, Qingfeng Pavilion, other related guilds, or classmates that knew Ouyang Shuo and Song Jia.
Till date, Ouyang Shuo’s identity had already become an open secret. Students who were left in the dark were shocked and excited upon learning of the matter. Trying to obtain some benefits from him was just a part of human nature.
Ouyang Shuo even saw the Liangshan Mercenary Guild on the list. It seemed like Ouyang Shuo’s gift of a sword had given Song Pu and the others unneeded thoughts.
To avoid suspicion, Ouyang Shuo did not see any of them.
Who knew that his actions would actually ignite the interests of the guild leaders? In their eyes, the king not meeting anyone was naturally to be fair; he would not be biased.
In a week, almost 20 guilds had met the set requirements. Today, all the guilds that were interested had basically handed over their applications.
Ouyang Shuo swept the list, and a lightbulb lit up in his head as he smiled, “Wishful thinking.”
“Is the king not ready to let a China region guild be the Guardian?” Tsing Yi did not understand.
Ouyang Shuo shook his head, “That naturally has to be done. However, which one to arrange or which to feel? Use what standards to judge? The Satellite City is huge, so we cannot be too nice to them.”
After experiencing the betrayal of Tingyu Floor and the rest, Ouyang Shuo was extremely wary of guilds. Who knows which one of these guilds were chess pieces of Silver Hand?
If the guild was not one that he trusted, Ouyang Shuo would not be at ease.
However, only Snow-War Rose and Blood Evil Mercenary Group could be considered allies of the Great Xia Dynasty, but they were both Guardian Guilds of their own Satellite Cities.
As for those friends and classmates, Ouyang Shuo did not trust them. If Ouyang Shuo still had any siblings or relatives, the matter would be easy to solve.
Using bloodline relations was an important method to maintain a rule.
Unfortunately, he did not.
“The king is saying?”
Ouyang Shuo thought about it, “Let the Shanhai Guards investigate and remove those who Silver Hand might infiltrate away. After that, let the remaining ones bid.”
The Guardian Guild would not pose much of a threat to Morocco Province, but he had to be wary against it.
Tsing Yi was stunned, thinking about it and saying, “The king wants to make it a bid?” After staying by Ouyang Shuo’s side for so long, Tsing Yi understood Ouyang Shuo’s thoughts.
“That’s right.” Ouyang Shuo smiled, “Those who reach the requirements for Guardian city would bid with three million and above mercenary fee, 5% and above guild control rights and also above 50% of the tax returns. Who gives out the best conditions will win the bid.”
“Understood!”
Tsing Yi knew that the king wanted to use this chance to earn a big amount.
Ouyang Shuo’s conscience was clear. Since he could not figure out who was not an enemy, he would simply give it to the highest bidder. He could use this money to make up for the expenses of attacking Morocco.
Restoring Rabat alone had cost Ouyang Shuo a million gold. Along with the military expenditure, war resources purchase, reparations, compensations, and military reorganization, three million gold was not enough.
Luckily, apart from this amount, after taking down Rabat, the large amounts of treasures and equipment he took from the palace was worth no less than two million.
Apart from that, Ouyang Shuo found a substitute doll and a King Ranked summoning talisman.
After such a huge war, the Great Xia Dynasty did not suffer a losing business.
Under the request of Song Jia, Ouyang Shuo kept the substitute doll by his side. According to her words, “You are the Xia King, so you cannot be so bold. You need to have protecting your life as the most important mission.”
Ouyang Shuo was helpless and had no choice but to accede to the request. In the Satellite City, Dida’s sneak attack let Ouyang Shuo realize that he had started to cherish his life.
Now, with the substitute doll, who knows whether it was good or bad?
This psychological problem was one that Ouyang Shuo needed to personally understand and break through.
As for the King Rank summoning talisman, Ouyang Shuo did not use it. Instead, he gave it to Gong Chengshi as thanks for his gift the previous time.
Without it, the Great Xia Dynasty road to country establishment would have faced more problems.
Ouyang Shuo hated owing people favors.
Ouyang Shuo said to Tsing Yi, “The bidding matter will be handled by the Industrialization Department. Let them amass some bidding experience.”
“Yes my king!”
Ouyang Shuo said, “Since we have mentioned the Satellite City, let’s deal with the Province migration matters.”
“Please give your instructions my king!”
Tsing Yi had already prepared the brush and ink to record down his instructions. The dynasty had many policies that Ouyang Shuo had casually voiced, but whatever he said needed to be recorded into memorials by the Secret Document Pavilion.
Hence, Tsing Yi was already used to recording at any moment.
Ouyang Shuo said, “The scale of players migrating there, apart from the Satellite City, will be temporarily set to one million and will mostly be work occupation players and casual players. Casa Blanca is really attractive for casual players, so we can relax the numbers there to around 600 thousand.”
Casa Blanca was a garden city and a holiday resort, so it had an undeniable attraction toward causal players. It was the best place to retire.
It seemed like even if the Great Xia Dynasty did not provide welfare packages, there would be elderly who would be willing to move over. Amongst the old people, there were numerous rich people and not all of them were poor.
The tourism industry of Casa Blanca was huge.
Speaking of which, he really needed to thank the previous Lord Caroline for running it so well.
“Apart from players, move 200 thousand natives from the provinces to migrate over. Similarly, move 200 thousand Moroccan natives over here.” Ouyang Shuo continued.
Cross migration was naturally to reduce the Arabic atmosphere there and try to totally merge it into the Great Xia Dynasty system.
Along with the specialty of the dynasty, the territories in Morocco would spawn Chinese refugees. They could totally remodel the province in a year or two.
When that happened, Morocco Province would pretty much be like any other province.
Of course, this cross migration had a price to pay. Not to mention other matters, but just the settling fees was huge, and the entire thing would probably cost another million gold.
Along with the player migration settling fees, the expenditure was even larger.
Ouyang Shuo thought about it, “Once the bidding is over, leave a million from the fee to be used to settle the migrants. The remaining shortfall will be solved by the Financial Court.”
Settling down Morocco Province would be really good for the finances of the dynasty.
Tsing Yi noted down his words one by one.
“Should we copy Xingzhou Prefecture and auction off the surrounding islands?” Tsing Yi suggested.
Ouyang Shuo shook his head, “No. Morocco is different from Xingzhou Prefecture, and there are no countries around that will interest the China region PK maniacs. Furthermore, those outer islands are built into military resource bases and will not be easy to auction off.”
“It would cost another sum to build a base.”
Ouyang Shuo smiled, “That’s unavoidable. Morocco Province is surrounded by enemies, so if we do not do that, we will not be able to feel at ease. I have done a rough calculation, and five million gold should be roughly enough to settle everything and push Morocco on the right path. If we are lacking in funds, why not let the Industrialization Department do better and squeeze out some more funds from the bidding?”
“I’ll let the Industrialization Department know the king’s intentions.”
Tsing Yi had witnessed the king’s greed; he would truly squeeze the guilds dry.
Ouyang Shuo nodded, “Let’s do it like that.”
In such a short half an hour, Ouyang Shuo had settled the rough plan going forward for Morocco Province.
…
6th month, 1st day, the Great Xia Dynasty announced the news of the bidding for the Rabat City Satellite City. Naturally, this matter raised many heated debates.
Some scolded the king for being black-hearted, while others were tempted.
Some smart guild leaders had already thought about the way Blood Shadow Alliance was formed. They could use a merger to compete in the bidding. Then they would have a greater advantage and a higher chance of winning.