Vientiane Throne of Civilization

Chapter 1780 As expected of me
In recent years, the expansion of the Great Zhou territory and the rapid increase in population have, to some extent, intensified their development pressure, but at the same time, they have also been of great benefit to his cultivation.

Take the Saint Laurent region and the Rakshasa region for example. With the smooth progress of the state religion's missionary work and the establishment of churches and imperial statues, he can now obtain more faith power every day for his own cultivation.

As a result, the overall efficiency of cultivation has been significantly improved!
Based on this, the faith power he can obtain every day is still steadily increasing.

In other words, the conversion of believers is still ongoing.

The more believers he has, the more faith power he can reliably obtain every day. The more faith power he has, the higher his cultivation efficiency will be. The higher his cultivation efficiency, the faster his strength will improve.

Based on this premise, his own improvement in strength can also be fed back to all the people through his talent as an 'evolutionary leader'.

[As expected of me, a perfect cycle!]

On the first day of the new year, inside the Hall of Diligent Governance, Zhou Xu received a report from the lizardmen.

Strictly speaking, they can no longer be collectively referred to as lizardmen.

The evolution of the lizardmen began after they were given a bloodline purification pool.

Although at present, there are still very few dragon people, the number of half-dragon people is increasing day by day.

Therefore, the relevant departments of their Great Zhou Dynasty undoubtedly launched research on these new races as well.

In terms of combat strength, there's not much to say. Apart from a very few exceptionally talented individuals, from lizardmen to half-dragonmen to dragonmen, each level is basically stronger than the last.

Putting that aside, what the Great Zhou is most concerned about is undoubtedly the reproduction of its population!
The current conclusion is roughly that there is a very small chance that a lizardman or a half-dragon will produce a half-dragon, and that a half-dragon will produce a half-dragon, and so on.

Of course, that's not the point.

The Zhou people were generally prepared for the probability of such breeding issues.

This wave caught them off guard by another problem: the total population growth rate of all the lizardmen, half-dragons, and dragonmen combined is gradually decreasing, and the decline has been particularly severe in the last two years.

The relevant departments have thoroughly confirmed the cause of this result.

The key lies in the fact that the reproductive efficiency of half-dragons and lizardmen is completely different.

As mentioned before, the natural lifespan of lizardmen is not long; at most, they live to be sixty years old, and after forty, they are considered elderly among lizardmen.

However, in contrast, lizardmen are considered adults at the age of six. Based on this, blue lizards can give birth to two to three offspring in one litter, while green lizards can give birth to four to six offspring in one litter.

This is also the main reason why, even though a large number of lizardmen died in the early wars, the total population was still able to be maintained.

However, the situation is different for half-dragons. Half-dragons can only give birth to one or two offspring at a time, or to put it bluntly, just one.

Having two children is similar to having twins in humans; it's a low-probability event, and the chances of getting pregnant are even lower.

Originally, lizardmen gave birth in litters, but now, after evolving into half-dragons, they give birth one by one, and sometimes there are no offspring for several years.

Given this premise, with more and more lizardmen successfully evolving into half-dragons in recent years, the fertility rate of lizardmen has become increasingly lower.
At this moment, looking at the report in his hand, Zhou Xu frowned slightly.

This really took him a bit of a surprise.

Originally, his next goal was to evolve all the lizardmen into half-dragons, thereby achieving an overall improvement for the entire race.

It seems this plan needs to be adjusted. In terms of individual qualities alone, excluding a few exceptional individuals, the half-dragons are definitely stronger than the lizardmen.

However, in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the lizardmen were not only used for fighting. In the southern region, the lizardmen were also a very important source of labor.

Originally, they could have five or six offspring in one litter, which was a large-scale production of labor. But after evolving into half-dragons, they all became one child per litter? That would have a significant impact on the labor force within their Great Zhou.

From this perspective, it's clear that when the dragon god Ceylon created the lizardmen, he also considered addressing the reproductive deficiencies of the dragonmen.

Thinking of this, Zhou Xu immediately made adjustments.

The original plan was cancelled, and it was changed so that only officially enlisted lizardmen would have the opportunity to purify their bloodline and evolve into half-dragons.

After successfully evolving into a half-dragon, they are automatically considered professional soldiers, subject to military arrangements, and are not allowed to transfer to civilian life on their own.

As for ordinary people, they just need to maintain their lizard-human bloodline.

The entire adjustment to the plan was carried out quietly and did not attract much attention throughout.

For the next period of time, the lives of the people of Da Zhou became relatively peaceful.

In fact, for more than 90 percent of the people of the Great Zhou Dynasty, their lives have been quite peaceful over the years.

Whether it was the earlier clashes with the Desert Serpent Clan or the later battles with the Sea Clan in the Barton Islands, they were basically kept outside the defensive lines by the Great Zhou's border troops and did not affect the internal cities of the Great Zhou.

On the seafaring side, the fishermen in the coastal areas and at sea have heard several rounds of ship horn alarms and experienced a period of sea closure, so they have some sense of it.

On the other hand, the people on the mainland, if they hadn't heard about this from storytellers in taverns and teahouses, would probably not have known that their Great Zhou had actually fought two rounds of war in recent years, and they even found it somewhat strange.

It feels like waking up and watching the news to find out that an earthquake had struck the area while you were asleep, and you hadn't felt a thing.

In any case, during peacetime, the focus should still be on development.

The numerous wars fought over the years, coupled with the continuous expansion of territory, have led to the Great Zhou Dynasty currently facing some issues of being 'top-heavy'.

Now that we have the time, we need to quickly accelerate overall development.

The internal development plans have already been outlined, and the subsequent steps are simply to allocate funds regularly and adjust manpower and equipment from time to time.

If there's anything new happening, it has to be in the desert.

After a period of time, the desertification control work on the Saint Laurent border has been done very well, while on the Russian border, it can only be said that it has taken initial shape.

The key point is still that cliff.

When there is an invasion from outside enemies, it is indeed a formidable defensive line. But when there is no outside enemy, what is annoying is the work department that needs to climb over the cliff to carry out the desertification control project.

Just transporting everyday resources is already a huge undertaking, let alone the large machinery needed for the projects...

Sorry, we simply can't ship it!
This has forced all the work here to essentially revert to the most basic human labor, causing the work departments here to be on the verge of a breakdown.

(End of this chapter)