Chapter 414.1: We Have To Start Scamming Somewhere...

A day had passed.

The road west of Dawn City had been extended by 4 kilometers, surpassing their initial estimates.

Two massive industrial giants steadily moved forward, their towering bodies and deafening roars becoming a grand spectacle in Dawn City, attracting many onlookers.

Curious players weren’t the only ones attracted to it.

Merchants traveling north and south, travelers, mercenaries, wanderers, and residents living nearby couldn't help but cast astonished glances at those behemoths. They couldn't look away in amazement.

"What is that?"

"A road-building machine?!"

"By the Great Stag God... I've never seen one so big!"

"It’s said to have come from Ideal City!"

"Ideal City?! That’s over 3,000 kilometers away!"

"How many oxen would it take to drag it here?"

"Idiot! They wouldn’t use planes for that? Just fly it over!"

"

Shh...

"

"It’d be great to see that place one day."

Standing beside the freshly constructed road, Chu Guang, while not as flabbergasted as those clueless wastelanders or as incredulous as the few civil engineers exclaiming how what they were seeing was unscientific, felt nearly the same level of shock and awe.

Seeing the longing looks of those wastelanders, he hadn’t even begun to win, yet those folks from the East Coast were almost winning too easily.

Territorial conquest?

Appointing kings and ministers?

Those were strategies of the Imperial era.

A slightly smarter form of conquest involved power projection and regional influence, which not only didn't reduce stability or production capabilities but also saved on costs for suppression and maintenance, with benefits far outweighing direct control.

As for how to increase their regional influence...

Advanced technology, abundant resources, prosperous culture, lofty ideals, excellent education, and more were the way to achieve this.

Chu Guang thought the details were complex, but at the end of the day, it was quite similar to the matters of the heart.

Handsome or beautiful, wealthy, eloquent, cultured, intelligent or shamelessly thick-skinned... Anyone with one or two of these traits would never lack close friends or admirers unless the rest of their traits were completely shit.

It was just like himself! Although he wasn’t wealthy, somewhat inarticulate, and too thin-skinned... He still had a bunch of adorable gamers flocking around him daily.

Ah... It’s just because I’m too handsome...

Anyway, the New Alliance’s situation was similar.

Although they had won several impressive battles and survivor confidence was at an unprecedented high, in terms of depth and heritage, they were still less substantial compared to the old survivor strongholds on the wasteland.

Those wealthy and handsome newcomers from the East Coast just had to show up, and even without any intention or necessity to flaunt, their regional influence would skyrocket.

Forget those poor wastelanders.

Chu Guang also hoped to visit the East Coast one day, to see for himself what the survivor settlements, closest to the pre-war era, looked like.

A city smaller than half of Mumbai... How would it accommodate millions of people and build skyscrapers reaching into the clouds?

He might also provide him with some management insights.

Of course, while there was a clear objective gap, one shouldn’t feel unnecessarily inferior.

The New Alliance had its own advantages.

Support from the Fallen Empire represents both an opportunity and a challenge.

If well managed, the New Alliance could save a decade of development. If poorly managed, it might end up taking longer.

As an administrator, his job was to maximize their own strengths.

As Chu Guang pondered how to profit from these old friends, Luo Hua interpreted his expression as envy.

Glancing at Chu Guang, then at Li Changkong's smug satisfaction, Luo Hua felt somewhat displeased.

When they deployed the Pioneer, those guys from the Ideal Corporation were very reluctant to contribute... Now, they were out there making a show of their presence.

It felt like he was being toyed with.

Driven by comparison, Luo Hua couldn't help but make a snide remark. "Don't overestimate these people's capabilities... In Ideal City, their main business is actually property management. If it weren’t for this, I'd almost forget they could also build roads."

However, upon hearing Luo Hua, Chu Guang looked even more astonished.

"Property management?!"

Maybe his imagination was still a little limited

What kind of property management company can be this impressive?!

"Yes." Luo Hua nodded, pursing his lips as he continued. "... Fixing water pipes, cleaning building exteriors, maintaining air exchangers, servicing elevators, generating electricity, they used to have a logistics distribution too. Now, they are all outsourced... As for heavy machinery like this, they don’t have the capability to produce it."

Seeing the expression on Luo Hua’s face, Chu Guang suddenly had an idea and spoke up. "I heard heavy machinery is the main business of the Silver Wing Corporate Group?"

"That's right," Luo Hua said with a hint of pride, "The Pioneer is our masterpiece! Over 80% of its components were independently produced by us."

Chu Guang immediately asked, "So, can you make this kind of machinery? How much would it cost?"

"Uh... I’m not sure," Luo Hua scratched his head. "Five or six million? 12 million? The price depends on the model. You can ask Yi Chuan for a specific quote, I haven’t been back for three years. He knows the market better."

"..."

Hearing the quote, Chu Guang finally realized just how cheap the Magnetic Confinement Plasma CNC Machine that Li De sold him was.

117,000 CR.

It was just slightly more expensive than paving a kilometer of concrete road. It was incredibly fair!

But then again, CR back then wasn’t the same as now. As a general equivalent for exchange, the significance of currency varies in different contexts.

At the time, the Pioneer needed local resources and labor, while Chu Guang needed the technology from the Pioneer. CR’s role was merely used in pricing and exchange.

Thus, in that context, the credit backing for CR wasn't provided by Ideal City but by the Pioneer itself.

The quoted prices didn’t represent the products' intrinsic value but were more like a result of negotiation.

Even now, the price lists provided by the five major corporations were clearly not indicative of Ideal City’s market rates but seem more like an internal compromise.

Chu Guang believed that paving an emergency kilometer of concrete road in the Among Cloud Province definitely wouldn’t cost as much as 100,000 CR.

But that was of little concern to the New Alliance.

As part of the 300 million military aid, it wasn’t his money being spent. He just needed to focus on spending it.

...

With Li Changkong in charge of road construction, Chu Guang didn’t need to supervise it closely. After watching for a while, he went off to handle his own affairs.

Including the subsequent railway, fiber optic cables, electric cables, high-voltage electricity, and other infrastructure related to supply lines... They were all managed by the Ideal Corporation.

Holding the 300 million CR budget, Chu Guang also got to experience what it felt like to be financially supported.

Of course. The money was provided by others, so spending it didn’t feel as free as spending his own. Out of the total funds for infrastructure construction, only 70 million was allocated, and a quarter of it had already been spent.

The remaining 230 million was largely for military equipment aid, meant only for purchasing weapons and equipment to counter the Army.

The budget for industrial upgrading was just over 30 million CR.

To make the most of this funding, Chu Guang convened meetings with industry representatives on one hand, and on the other, he opened a thread on the forum to solicit ideas from players.

After some thought, using a planner’s alt seemed a bit off-brand, so Chu Guang simply used the NPCs' alts names instead.

They wouldn’t be online anyway.

[Beta 0.4 Version Update: Industrial Upgrade!]

[Old Luca: Allies from the East Coast plan to provide 30 million CR to help us improve production technology. The New Alliance is set for an industrial upgrade! The budget is limited, any good ideas?]

Tail: Eh?! Wait, isn’t the new expansion about fighting?! ( ˶°ㅁ°)

Sisi: Emmm... Looks like the game is finally updating some tech-heavy equipment, looking forward to it.

Quit Smoking: Awesome! Upgrading while fighting?

Be Quiet: Need you ask? Every time there’s a war, the prices of copper, coal, sulfur skyrocket. If you have the means, definitely start with mining!

Bathroom Goer: Mining is fine, but the mines from Bluestone County to West Continent Municipality are not underperforming. The main cost is in transportation, once transport capacity increases, costs will naturally decrease... I think upgrading the trains is necessary!

Athlete Foot: Machine tools! That magnetic confinement plasma one is great! More machine tools! <3<3<3

Professor Yang: We already have machines with greater horsepower in Boulder Town. The advanced ones from Ideal City are advanced, but they might not adapt well here. I’d suggest focusing on upgrading the light industry first. At the moment, the New Alliance’s exports to Boulder Town have a significant advantage, we can definitely expand on that!

Quit Smoking: Wait, do you even have a beta test qualification?

Professor Yang: Ah, damn it, why do you have to bring it up? T.T

Within half a minute of the post, the comments section quickly heated up.

Chu Guang unexpectedly found that for an issue not so closely related to the game itself, cloud players were much more enthusiastic than beta testers.

However, unfortunately, these heated debates didn’t produce many constructive results and mostly went off-topic.

The comment that beta testers upvoted to the top was still from Ample Time.

Ample Time: This topic is too abstract. The New Alliance's problem isn’t lacking something, it's lacking everything. Heavy industry provides production materials, light industry produces consumer goods, one is internal strength, the other external. Is the former important and the latter not? Not to mention agriculture, currently the highest value product in the New Alliance isn’t consumer goods, but the tens of thousands of acres of farmland north of Linghu Lake! I think agricultural technology should be upgraded.

Makka Pakka: I agree! Agricultural technology really needs an upgrade, the New Alliance’s population is almost breaking 100,000! If it grows further, we won’t be able to support it! (grinning)

Professor Yang: It’s just about priorities!

Ample Time: Discussion is discussion, but this issue can’t be debated into existence, we need to consider the practical situation. Rather than centralized procurement by the New Alliance, why not establish an exchange and procurement channel, let each industry decide which equipment to introduce. Those who own textile mills will naturally upgrade textile equipment if they make money, and those who own steel mills will naturally upgrade their steel plants if they make money.

Escaping Mole: +1, insiders know better what they need, they can address key technical pain points with minimal cost, much more efficiently than a group of outsiders cluelessly picking and choosing.

After briefly browsing the comments below the post, Chu Guang stroked his chin with interest.

Interesting.