Section 003: Tribal Development and Naval Forces

As soon as he logged in, the system notification chimed continuously—

Ding! Dear player, welcome. Chaos Mainland (the name of the map expansion) has officially launched. A brand-new world structure and hero mode await your exploration and discovery. Wishing you a pleasant journey!

Three seconds later...

Ding! The magistrate of Danyang, Fei Tong, has ordered an increase in the poll tax for all villages within Danyang. The rate rises from 10% to 30%.

Ding! The magistrate of Danyang, Fei Tong, has enforced a military restriction. All self-made armed forces in villages must strictly limit soldier numbers to no more than twenty. Any consequences for violations will be at your own risk.

Ding! The magistrate of Danyang, Fei Tong, decrees that all village chiefs in the region must report to the magistrate’s office tomorrow morning for registration. Absentees will be held responsible.

...

The villagers at the heart of the tribe busied themselves as usual. To them, the presence or absence of map functions meant little—they simply carried out their duties as instructed by the chief. But for the players, it was different. The tribe’s geographical location determined its future development trajectory.

After more than a dozen system prompts, the notifications finally ceased. Li Zhan carefully noted the key information, closed the system dialog, and opened the newly added map feature.

Danyang was not a prominent city during the Three Kingdoms era; Li Zhan had only seen its name in an old game called "Fire and War: Three Kingdoms." It was a small port town under the jurisdiction of Moling (later called Jianye), adjacent to the Yangtze River, and beyond the river lay the East Sea. He wondered if this map expansion resembled the layout of "Fire and War: Three Kingdoms" in his memory.

Upon activating the map, he saw a constellation of cities across the China region—forty or fifty dots scattered here and there. To his delight, their distribution matched his recollection of "Fire and War: Three Kingdoms." No surprise, since Shenglong Corporation was part of the United International consortium, involved in the development of "Empire Rising." Reusing their previous game map designs was only logical.

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Reducing the map scale, he pinpointed Danyang under Moling’s jurisdiction and soon discovered his Yanhuang Tribe was situated beside a river called Hanjiang. Within a hundred miles, there were a dozen or so other tribes, all similar in size to his own. Four were built along both banks of Hanjiang, his tribe at the center.

Hanjiang was a tributary of the Yangtze. From Li Zhan’s Yanhuang Tribe, following Hanjiang downstream for over thirty miles brought you to Danyang City and the Yangtze proper. From Danyang, a further hundred miles east along the Yangtze led to the vast East Sea.

After studying the tribe’s location on the map, Li Zhan paused in thought, then quickly closed the map window and strode out from the tribe’s center, heading for the bank of Hanjiang, just over a hundred meters away.

Hanjiang’s current was not swift. By Li Zhan’s estimation, the water flowed just over a meter per second. The river spanned about fifty meters, its water clear but unfathomably deep.

At that moment, Zheng Jun, who had been by the waterwheel with Wang Hui, approached Li Zhan, curiosity piqued as he followed the chief’s gaze across the river, but after a long look, he could make nothing of it and asked,

"Chief, why do you keep staring at the river?"

Li Zhan glanced at Zheng Jun, pondered briefly, and instead of answering directly, instructed,

"Zheng Jun, go to the lumberyard and find several slender wooden rods. Join them together, mark every meter, then bring the finished rod to me."

Zheng Jun hesitated for a moment, then replied and hurried off. Soon, he returned, dragging a long wooden pole before Li Zhan, with marks carved every meter as instructed—more than ten in total. Li Zhan checked to ensure the pole was securely fastened, then had Zheng Jun and a fisherman board a boat and row to the river’s center.

At midstream, the fisherman steadied the boat, and Zheng Jun, following Li Zhan’s orders, plunged the rod into the water. As the marked segments disappeared beneath the surface, Li Zhan’s brow furrowed deeper. At last, when only two marks remained above water, the pole touched the riverbed. Li Zhan had Zheng Jun pull up the rod and count the submerged segments.

"Thirteen marks!" Zheng Jun called out.

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Thirteen meters! Li Zhan’s heart skipped—a depth like this could accommodate an aircraft carrier sailing up the Yangtze right to their doorstep. He directed Zheng Jun to measure the river’s depth a thousand meters upstream and downstream to see if it varied.

After some time, Zheng Jun finished the measurements. The depth was much the same, with the shallowest spots nearly ten meters and the deepest so profound the pole couldn’t touch bottom.

Li Zhan exhaled, his resolve strengthening. The region dictated the tribe’s development; Hanjiang determined that if Yanhuang Tribe wished to grow strong, they must build a powerful navy and firmly hold the river’s control, not allowing any enemy fleet to approach the tribe’s center through Hanjiang.

To develop a navy, they first needed to build arrow ships (not a typo—they really were arrow ships; only in the feudal era could they upgrade to warships, and only at the imperial era could they build large battleships). The primary material for arrow ships was wood. Although the shipyard, in this dark age, could only produce fishing boats, it was prudent to stockpile timber ahead of time, preparing for the day arrow ships could be built.

As for the magistrate’s military restriction, Li Zhan was certain there must be a way to circumvent it. Otherwise, with each tribe limited to twenty soldiers, how could anyone expand? United International surely had designed a solution, waiting for players to discover it.

After Zheng Jun returned from the boat, Li Zhan immediately ordered him to ramp up timber collection. Two more lumberyards were to be built, dividing workers into two teams under a reward system—those who worked fastest and produced the most usable timber would receive a unit of berries as a reward. All newly produced villagers, unless specializing in research or rare skills, were to be assigned to the lumberyards.

After Zheng Jun left, Li Zhan thought further. Now that all tribes had established their territories, trade between neighboring tribes was bound to begin soon. Including dyes, he should start purchasing them before the loom was developed. This would give him ample time to bargain with other players and gain insight into the general market for dyes.

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