Chapter 756: Development Across the Regions

After meeting Scott, Henwell briefs him on the current situation.

Scott does not disappoint. He quickly puts together the best possible plan.

First, they will make a public spectacle of wiping out Qili Guild, using its fate to warn everyone else.

Next, they will distance Miller from the affair and identify him as an agent Peace Haven planted inside Qili Guild.

After all, Miller had said more than once that he came from Peace Haven.

Since Miller would later return to Peace Haven and continue working there, people would easily begin to question Qili Guild's allegiance.

That makes Miller's cover as an agent of the Military Intelligence Office perfectly believable.

Qili Guild conducted major business with Peace Haven several times. Planting an agent inside to keep watch would only be natural.

Finally, the plan will make Lodar's identity even more secure.

He is the adopted son of Qili Guild's leader, and he even fought the Military Intelligence Office.

After the Military Intelligence Office seized all the guild's liquid wealth, he sold its remaining fixed assets.

Together with the gold he took, worth one million gold coins, the sale raises more than three million in total.

With his own subordinates as the core, Lodar gathers several hundred people and rallies them beneath the banner of avenging his adoptive father.

Six months later, after several clashes with the Military Intelligence Office, Lodar catches Marquess Pajaje's attention.

Just as Henwell predicted, Lodar has already approached the Western Federation by then.

The Western Federation has no desire to fall out with Henwell, so Lodar uses Pajaje as a bridge to Dilio instead.

By then, construction of the industrial park had already begun.

Pajaje has no reliable armed force in his territory, much less troops to spare on monitoring the industrial park.

Naturally, he turns to Lodar.

Lodar came from Qili Guild, after all, and supposedly bears a deep grudge against the Military Intelligence Office.

In everyone's eyes, the destruction of Qili Guild had struck Lodar harder than anyone.

He had been moments away from inheriting the entire guild, only for the Military Intelligence Office to wipe it out.

That is the kind of blood feud born from the destruction of one's home and family.

Pajaje also valued Lodar's strength.

The arrival of the Hundred-Year Calamity and the spread of extraordinary energy from sites of divine fall might have increased the number of extraordinary awakenings.

Even so, Grand Knights are anything but common. Every faction still prizes them as high-end combat forces.

There is only one Blood Hill Lord, and everyone has stopped treating him as a normal point of comparison.

Every faction would go to great lengths to recruit someone as talented as Lodar.

Only the wealthy Western Federation cares solely about recruiting Lodar and dismisses the more than two thousand people under his command.

Pajaje is different. He wants both the man and his troops.

And so Lodar naturally joins Pajaje, who uses him to keep the Military Intelligence Office in check.

Lodar also monitors the industrial zone, making sure the Military Intelligence Office cannot hide anything right beneath Pajaje's nose.

While Pajaje and the others match wits, Henwell returns to Peace Haven and enters seclusion.

He does not attempt his breakthrough immediately after returning.

Instead, he orders the construction of a massive pyramid-like structure.

A pyramid nearly fifty meters tall rises above ground, while an inverted pyramid of equal depth extends below it.

As construction proceeds, Henwell inspects every aspect of Peace Haven's development.

He begins with the progress of the bridge.

The bridge is progressing far better than he expected. The architects have met one difficulty after another, yet their efforts have produced a solution every time.

This is exactly what Henwell wants. He has not worked all these years just to drive every development through his own unfair advantages.

He wants the people beneath him to conduct their own research and chart their own course of development.

This year, work in the Cloud Tree and Liverpool Districts has settled into a steady rhythm in many areas.

The campaign to uncover privately concealed serfs is also largely complete.

With productive capacity allocated under a unified system, a great deal of waste has been eliminated.

Roads of various specifications remain under rapid construction, while factories serving basic civilian needs have begun operating.

Branch factories making goods for foreign trade have also moved out of the core region and opened locally in both districts, sharply reducing transportation losses.

Overall, neither new district needs financial support from Peace Haven this year.

This is especially true of food production. After more than a year of trials, they can also draw on the experience of the demonstration zone.

Both districts now grow enough grain to feed themselves, with a sizable surplus left for export.

In iron and steel metallurgy, the first plants commissioned in the two districts can already meet local demand.

The sudden relocation of so many industrial workers has lowered output quality at smelting plants across every district, though the extent varies.

Fortunately, development throughout Peace Haven consumes vast amounts of secondary-grade steel, so nearly all of it can be absorbed internally.

Peace Haven's designation of secondary-grade steel is only an internal classification.

Every other country regards it as high-quality steel.

To outsiders, using steel fit for fine swords and armor to construct buildings is an appalling waste.

Peace Haven sees things differently. Its finest steel is not meant for swords, but for forging all kinds of critical components.

The decline in qualified high-grade steel production has sharply reduced profits from the smelting industry.

National development, however, cannot be measured in money alone.

Henwell believes the smelting industry and related sectors will recover next year, perhaps even reaching new heights.

This large-scale division has taught every industry a lesson. None of them will be as complacent next time.

Everyone knows Peace Haven will continue to grow. Another division is inevitable, and they must be ready for it.

Next time, they will not be caught scrambling and making mistakes at every turn.

On the military front, both new military districts have finished organizing their forces.

Within a year at most, they will possess full combat capability.

Fresh reports have also arrived from the expeditionary zone.

After several years of development, the expeditionary zone is fully self-sufficient and has built up considerable wealth.

Its industries have nearly caught up with Peace Haven's, and it has begun flooding nearby markets with its goods.

Its population has surged as well. With the sea close by, there is no shortage of pirates.

Through Barbosa, the great pirate leader, numerous pirate factions have become willing to sell their captives there.

Pirates once raided coastal settlements and killed everyone they found. Now they carry people off and sell them to the expeditionary zone.

As a result, the expeditionary zone's population has doubled in only a few years, climbing from under two million to nearly four million.

Its armed forces have improved just as dramatically. Eight garrison warbands now defend the surrounding region.

Its three formally organized expeditionary legions are all far above strength, each fielding twenty thousand troops.

More importantly, the expeditionary zone has begun building a navy.

Several new-model warships have already been launched, generating valuable feedback. Peace Haven should be able to finalize its standard warship design before long.

Henwell grants approval for the expeditionary zone to form the Fourth Expeditionary Legion and establish the First Naval Legion, with Orlando as its commander.