Outworld: Rise of an Industrial Empire

A few months ago, the village of Huang Qicheng had been plundered by several nearby city-states, and the enraged lord Huang Xingbang gathered the entire city's army to prepare to attack one of the city-states.

This practice is like being beaten by a crowd, holding a person to beat him to death, and letting others beat him, he has to pull a cushion to die.

As a result, just a few days after the war between the two cities, the opposite side suddenly withdrew its troops, and then demanded a truce, apologized for the previous harassment, and was willing to pay compensation.

Just when Huang Xingbang thought that this was some kind of conspiracy, he had been nervously negotiating with him, but as a result, the other side directly returned the harvested grain, and also paid some extra grain.

Within a few days, the other surrounding city-states also returned their grain.

Just when Huang Xingbang was confused, he suddenly received a joint letter.

Roughly speaking, eleven city-states, including Suxin Tide, as well as Meilin City, Lingfeng City, Duotu Port, Fortress City, and Wolai City, will hold joint military exercises on the border of Tide City, and the armies of several of them need to borrow from Huangqi City.

Tens of thousands of troops gathered at their doorstep, almost scaring Huang Xingbang to death.

And this means that these eleven city-states are equivalent to alliances!

If it were normal, the empire and the Klar kingdom would definitely be taken seriously and interfered with.

But this time, just when the Xinqiong Empire and the Xingnuo Empire were in full swing, the empire was too busy to take care of itself.

From an outsider's point of view, the attention of the Clair Kingdom seems to be above the Xingnuo Empire, and there is no interference, not even a question.

In fact, Su Zheng held a joint military exercise under the banner of being ready to obey the dispatch of the empire at any time, and behind the scenes, he revealed to the Clare Kingdom that he wanted to side with the Clar Kingdom.

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The plan still couldn't catch up with the changes, and Su Zheng's original plan to master 21 cities was directly halved.

Such control actions are not at all as simple as imagined, and they are easily constrained.

Among the other city-states, Su Zheng encountered three kinds of problems, the first was that most of the troops were stationed around the city lord's mansion, the other was that the city lord's whereabouts were uncertain or not in the territory, and the last was the complicated relationship within the city-state.

Among them, Huang Qicheng is the most typical, directly including these three situations.

The city-state of Huangqi City is a typical European medieval castle.

The 3,000 people in the entire Huang Qi City are almost all affiliated with the Huang family and the Huang family's various departments, including 2,000 soldiers, and the entire city is equivalent to an enlarged version of a European lord's castle.

The range of activities of outsiders and free villagers in the countryside was very limited, so the spies in Huang Qi City could not even find out the specific location of the City Lord's Mansion.

There is no doubt that most of the soldiers and servants in Huang Qi City are all around the City Lord's Mansion, so there is no way to go deep at all, even if they sneak in, once a gun is fired, the surrounding soldiers will immediately react, and these two thousand soldiers will immediately come to support.

There were also city-states where soldiers were stationed around the Lord's Palace, or more accurately, in the barracks.

On the other hand, power relations within the city-state are complex.

Just like the city-states directly under the empire, the political and military officials are separated.

Huang Qicheng is like this, although Huang Xingbang is an earl, but there are also branches such as Huang Xinglong who have certain rights.

For example, the 2,000 army is not all affiliated with Huang Xingbang, and some are affiliated with the branches.

In short, the system of Huang Qicheng was like an aristocratic republic.

In the end, the whereabouts of the city lord cannot be determined for the time being, and he will not be able to do it for a while.

So up to now, including Duotu Port and Lingfeng City, Su Zheng has only 11 city-states actually in his hands.

However, through the joint military exercises, several city-states were intimidated and 'forced' to sign unequal agreements, as was the case with the previous port of Dotu.

Other city-states Su Zheng adopted the strategy of the city-state encircling the countryside, but the situation of Huang Qicheng was relatively special, this was an agricultural city-state, so Su Zheng needed to put pressure on Huang Qicheng from all sides to encroach on their countryside.