Chapter 1 Who Would Have Thought

No one in the Northern Liao court expected that after setting up camp in Zhongjun Town, the Eastern Ping army would actually halt its advance. Unbeknownst to them, several months had passed; winter had gone and spring had arrived.

The various armies, led by the Blood Kirin Army, luxuriously used the vast territory of Northern Liao for acclimatization training, while the Eastern Ping armies continued to improve their traditional camp construction operations with ample time and resources. Zhongjun Town, once an unremarkable place, had become a small city due to the stationing of the army and the construction of a large number of barracks.

A simple, not-so-wide road extended from Yunzhou and was nearing completion. Naturally, the main force for road construction was still Northern Liao prisoners of war. But when these prisoners of war often enjoyed better meals than they did in their own military camps, and the only difference they felt from fighting for their superiors was that they didn't receive military pay, they found it very strange.

The Eastern Ping side didn't think their food standards for the prisoners were very high. Ye Tao felt that it was worthwhile to pay for the labor costs of having the prisoners work hard to complete the road and other projects as soon as possible. In addition, these road projects were not organized by the government, but contracted out by several large construction groups. The Ye Clan Workshop was not among them. Although the Ye Clan Workshop was now the most sophisticated organization in the world in terms of architectural design, landscape design, construction, related supporting engineering, and even property management, it wasn't that they weren't tempted by the highly profitable road construction projects, but Suo Yong, after weighing the calculations, still felt that they should finish the Danyang New Capital project as soon as possible.

The large groups that came this time were all construction companies with solid experience in various road and bridge projects in Eastern Ping over the years. Originally, the agreement with them stipulated the use of a large number of hired workers, with detailed labor protection clauses. At that time, it was considered that it might not be possible to recruit locally due to Northern Liao's scorched earth policy. But now, with batches of prisoners of war, these prisoners of war were naturally rented to these construction companies at extremely low prices, managed by the garrison camp system. In this way, the cost for the construction companies was extremely low. Ye Tao didn't ask these construction companies to return part of the project funds, but only asked that these prisoners of war be treated as people who could be "united" as much as possible. On one side was Ye Tao's perfectly reasonable request, and on the other side were the soldiers of the garrison camp watching, so it didn't seem good to go too far. The food standards given by these construction companies were about a little more than one-third of that of the average Eastern Ping combat troops.

But even so, for these Northern Liao prisoners of war, whose meals on the battlefield were usually just tea and pancakes, with occasional meat, it was already unbelievable. Generally, the meals were rotated between rice, noodles, buns, pancakes, and stir-fried noodles, which were gradually becoming popular in Eastern Ping. Every meal had vegetables and soup. Although it wasn't very lavish, and couldn't compare with the meals of the garrison camp soldiers next to them, what more could these prisoners of war ask for? Not only that, but if there were dietary restrictions due to allergies or religious beliefs, other arrangements would be made. Some people in the north of Northern Liao didn't eat pork, and the prisoners of war from this area were organized to eat together. If they complained about the food because they thought it wasn't tasty, it would be purely asking for a beating, and even their own people wouldn't help them.

At first, the Northern Liao prisoners of war were still apprehensive, but later, they gradually became accustomed to this lenient treatment. Although the work was hard, they were able to muster up the courage to chat with the garrison camp soldiers who were guarding them in their spare time. The garrison camp soldiers were the most adept at dealing with people in the entire army. In their usual tasks, urban security patrols were far more common than battlefield duties. Listening to the garrison camp soldiers regretfully recount their experiences of being eliminated by the main combat camps, the Northern Liao soldiers couldn't help but sigh. But even the most basic garrison camp had more than 450 hours of comprehensive training per year. The cost of equipment from head to toe, including horses, exceeded 400 Yunzhou silver dollars per person. The annual salary of a new recruit was 120 silver dollars, and the annual training cost was about 200 silver dollars. And the garrison camps that came to Northern Liao to perform various battlefield duties even had a combat allowance of 15 silver dollars per person per month.

These figures left the Northern Liao prisoners of war speechless, and they could only respond with silence. Even the weakest garrison camp in Yunzhou spent enough on equipment and to support a soldier to form a small team of ten or so people in Northern Liao. The soldiers of Northern Liao didn't have such high salaries. Many people even joined the army just to eat. Not to mention the exquisite leather and steel mixed armor, sharp battle knives made of fine steel, and various uniform equipment including saddles, first aid kits, and even water bags that even the small soldiers of the garrison camp had. Many local troops in Northern Liao were lucky to have a spear or an iron knife per person. When the prisoners of war learned that in Ye Tao's guard camp, every soldier's weapon was custom-made, and the cost of their entire body of equipment alone was two or three thousand silver dollars, they were completely silent. Many prisoners of war had faced those guard camp soldiers on the battlefield at that time, and they could only sigh and admit that those guys deserved to use such good things. They were undying cockroaches, killing machines on the battlefield. These military news were the most influential for these prisoners of war who were also making a living on the battlefield. When they felt the power of the Eastern Ping army, they naturally wouldn't put themselves on the opposite side of Eastern Ping. Once this mood changed, everything else was easy to say. In Ye Tao's view, this kind of extravagant military construction was nothing more than two sentences: "American equipment, German will." Of course, these words could only be said to Tan Weixin; no one else understood what he was talking about. However, the advantages of this elite policy were fully demonstrated in the battle to conquer Liao.

While building roads, the prisoners of war also saw the land on both sides of the road changing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The previously stagnant production was fully restored. After dredging rivers, leveling land, planning planting schemes, and planting fruit trees suitable for winter transplanting throughout the autumn and winter, large areas of land began to be sown in the spring, and patches of tender green seedlings looked refreshing. In the fields, many newly built farmsteads also began to show vitality. Because the Northern Liao side's scorched earth policy in the early stage was very thorough, the population in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Northern Liao Western Route Army, especially near Yunzhou, had thinned to a certain level. Even though the first batch of Eastern Ping immigrants had arrived, they could only build these new farmsteads on both sides of the road, gradually developing the entire barren plain, which would require the efforts of many generations.

At this time, the garrison camp soldiers seized the opportunity to tell these prisoners of war that after serving two years of labor, they would have the opportunity to apply for a piece of land to cultivate, or to apply for a job in the city to support themselves. After all, they would have to rely on themselves to support themselves in the future; Eastern Ping wouldn't provide food for a lifetime. Hearing this news, these prisoners of war became active, and didn't notice that the garrison camp soldiers had subtly replaced the concept of prisoners of war with providing food... And their yearning for a better life in the future far outweighed their resentment for being captured and having no private property.

At both ends of this road built by prisoners of war, there were also different changes. The fortress complex originally built to resist the army under the command of the Northern Frontier Pacification Office was now used as a large warehouse and material transfer point, and there were also several classified markets for merchants large and small to conduct various transactions. Although entering Northern Liao didn't mean making money immediately, the prospects were very good from the current situation, and those merchants with strength didn't refuse to make some early investments. In the fortress complex, the most important building was undoubtedly the preparatory office of the Northern Liao branch of the Communication Bureau. A large number of materials were stockpiled here, and batches of professionals were constantly traveling back and forth between Northern Liao and here. They established a preliminary wired telegraph network in the controlled territory. With the cooperation of the military, all town-level units in the occupied territory had preliminary airship mooring facilities. Compared to these construction achievements, Zhongjun Town, as the center of the attack on Northern Liao, seemed unbelievably quiet. Ye Tao and Dai Yun would always have at least one of them staying in Zhongjun Town, and everyone could see the training, preparation, and construction of barracks of the army. But when would the next wave of attack come? Merchants needed some time to digest these current achievements and couldn't care about this. The military had already received instructions and were preparing for the next major advance, but for the sake of secrecy, they wouldn't publicize it everywhere. The only one who was worried about this was probably Gao Senqi and his hundreds of thousands of troops who were on edge. They knew that they weren't professional soldiers from Eastern Ping who could switch to attack at any time overnight. During this slightly calm period, many of the hundreds of thousands of troops had returned to their hometowns or were stationed in places with relatively abundant logistics. Gao Senqi directly controlled no more than 100,000 elite soldiers who could be put into battle at any time. And these 100,000 people were now stationed in towns opposite the Eastern Ping army's control line. Gao Senqi had become somewhat moody. Ye Tao didn't play conspiracies much. Seeing the Eastern Ping side's large-scale construction work, he could imagine that the other side's patience was for the sake of making it easier to attack them in the future, but he had no way to do anything about it. Watching helplessly as Ye Tao consolidated Northern Liao's land, watching many of Northern Liao's people completely turning to Eastern Ping, and even the people in the towns under his control were watching, secretly hoping that their lives would improve someday... Such changes were a torment for Gao Senqi. And more troublesome was that the direction of the court was also subtly changing in this peaceful spring.