Endless Winter: My Camp Infinite Upgrades

Chapter 397 Exploration Competition: Winning Over the Public Isn't So Easy
"The people who came to participate in this exploration competition are all troublemakers. It won't be easy to win them over. The fact that you can be the captain is entirely due to your age. In terms of talent, these troublemakers are all just as good as you. You'll have a lot of trouble to deal with later!"

Recalling his father Xiao Kangcheng's instructions to him when the exploration competition at the Heyin outpost officially began in early August, Xiao Heng's face darkened, but he couldn't help but deeply agree with his father's words.

Heyin was not an ordinary outpost. It was located next to Mo'ao Mountain to the east. In July, Jiangxia was transferred to Daxia not only Heyin Village, but also the entrance to Mo'ao Mountain, which was 20 kilometers to its east.

After the battle at Dajue Temple, almost all the people in the villages within Ba Shang territory were wiped out, so after the Great Xia obtained Heyin, they immediately sent people to garrison it.

Logically speaking, Heyin has a 20-kilometer entrance to the Mo'ao Mountains, which should meet the requirements for becoming a major outpost. However, considering that Heyin is only 27 kilometers away from Ba Shang Town and has the influence of Ba Shang Town, Xia Chuan ultimately decided not to set up a major outpost there.

However, to highlight the importance of this place, he did not send a special person to serve as the garrison commander. Instead, he entrusted the hunting command of Ba Shang City, Shan Yu, who was also his father-in-law, Xiao Kangcheng, to manage it. This was tantamount to indirectly placing Heyin under the direct control of Ba Shang City.

With Heyin in hand and a 20-kilometer entrance to the mountains, Xiao Kangcheng, the garrison commander, naturally organized a hunting team to explore Mount Mo'ao immediately.

Mount Mo'ao is the fourth resource point controlled by the Great Xia. A new resource point means a huge number of new species. Although Lu Yang had brought back many new species from Mount Mo'ao during the four years he spent in Dongling, those were obtained through trade. How could that compare to personally going into the mountains to obtain them?

The Great Xia Dynasty now has over 700 high-level hunting teams, not to mention countless intermediate and low-level ones. When the Heyin outpost was established in July, many hunting teams immediately sensed an opportunity and flocked there. In a short time, at least a hundred high-level hunting teams gathered at the Heyin outpost. If it weren't for Xiao Kang's safety considerations and the number of intermediate and low-level hunting teams being limited, the Heyin outpost would probably have been blown up immediately.

The Ministry of Defense had clearly limited the number of people stationed at all external outposts within the Great Xia territory two years ago. It stipulated that the permanent population of small outposts could not exceed 10,000 and that of large outposts could not exceed 30,000. In addition, a 10% flexibility was given. Once this limit was exceeded, the local officials in charge of the area would face demotion and salary reduction.

Fortunately, Xiao Kangcheng had a keen sense of smell and noticed the commotion at the Heyin post, so he immediately took measures to limit it. Otherwise, he, the newly appointed garrison commander of Heyin, would have been punished by the command.

Even with his swift action, by the tenth day of the seventh lunar month, the total number of personnel stationed at Heyin had exceeded 1. Keep in mind that the station was only established on the third day of the lunar month, yet so many people had arrived in just seven days.

With the influx of a massive number of hunting teams, the Great Xia's exploration of Mount Mo'ao progressed at an unprecedented pace. In just over twenty days, they explored 15 kilometers deeper into the mountains, discovering countless new types of supplies such as cold beasts, vegetation, medicinal herbs, ores, and special materials, which were transported to Ba Shang City.

Most hunting teams made a fortune. High-level teams were even better off, and even members of low- and mid-level hunting teams earned at least a thousand contribution points every day.
The Great Xia's material reserves have not only been replenished, but also a massive amount of new materials have been acquired. Now, all that remains is for those materials to be transported back to Xia City from Ba Shang. After further evaluation and research by the Craftsmen's Department, the camp's productivity will surely experience another leap forward, and new products will continue to emerge.

Unfortunately, everything in this world has its advantages and disadvantages.

This win-win situation soon ran into problems.

Because so many high-level hunting teams from the Great Xia Dynasty arrived at once, and the exploration progressed too quickly, in late July, the Great Xia hunting teams inevitably ran into the hunters from Jiangxia in the mountains.

The division of the Mo'ao Mountains by the nine towns was not actually that detailed. The so-called division was actually just dividing up the more than 800 kilometers of mountain passes along the route.

There was a previous agreement among the nine towns that, apart from the outer 15-kilometer zone where no one was allowed to trespass, there were fewer restrictions in the deeper areas.

Now that Daxia has replaced Bashang as a new member of the Nine Towns, it naturally has to abide by this rule. Therefore, for the first 15 kilometers, all hunting teams followed the rules and did not go north into the area of ​​Jiangxia Town.

But once they reached a depth of 15 kilometers, everyone's minds started to wander.

It should be noted that the number of advanced hunting teams in Heyin Village has exceeded one hundred.

With so many high-level teams going into the mountains to hunt every night, how could a 20-kilometer-wide snow-covered forest area possibly be enough?

So some squads headed north into the Jiangxia Town area.

They weren't really breaking the rules, since the Nine Towns Agreement only stipulated the outer 15 kilometers; beyond that depth, everyone had to rely on their own abilities.

Hunting is an extremely sensitive matter for all camps.

First, it's inherently a life-threatening endeavor, very dangerous; second, it relates to the acquisition of cultivation resources, which is relevant to everyone's interests; finally, because it takes place in the wilderness, it can easily breed greed, so everyone is quite sensitive whenever hunting areas are involved. Even if they run into their own hunting team, they have to be careful, let alone run into people from other camps.

Therefore, when the hunting teams from the two towns collided deep in the mountains, a conflict was inevitable.

Jiangxia suffered heavy losses in the battle with Dajue Temple at the end of last year. At least three or four thousand of the Yuhan-level soldiers died, and now there are less than two thousand Yuhan-level soldiers left in the whole town. They also have to take care of the more than one hundred kilometers of mountain pass. There are only about thirty high-level hunting teams that can be assigned to the vicinity of Baisong Camp.

The Great Xia Dynasty had over a hundred high-level hunting teams in Heyin Village.

With the conflict erupting between the two sides, Jiangxia would inevitably suffer losses.

The initial five or six conflicts were mostly just verbal disputes. In addition, the higher-ups in Jiangxia must have given instructions, so their hunters kept to themselves, and the situation never escalated.

But gradually, things started to go wrong.

The high-level teams from Daxia have started stealing game from Jiangxia, and they've become increasingly arrogant, even starting to claim territory inside Mo'ao Mountain and forbidding people from Jiangxia Town from hunting there.

As a result, the situation became increasingly serious.

Until the end of July, a high-level hunting team from the Great Xia Dynasty saw that another small team from Jiangxia had trespassed into their designated hunting area and directly asked them to leave. Jiang Xia's team was furious and retorted, and somehow the argument escalated into a fight.

Of course, it was the Great Xia that made the first move.

The final result is self-evident. Although Jiangxia's group was also a high-level hunting team, there were only 4 out of 25 people in the team, who were at the Cold Resistance level. In contrast, the high-level team from Daxia had a total of 39 people, with 7 of them at the Cold Resistance level.

Fortunately, the Great Xia side didn't go all out, only seriously injuring a few people.

But after Jiangxia's group left, they became increasingly angry. That very night, they went to find reinforcements from Baisong's camp to settle scores. Taking advantage of the fact that the Daxia hunting team was not paying attention, they also seriously injured several of them.

Before long, the situation escalated completely!
Eventually, this evolved into more than thirty high-level hunting teams on the Great Xia side. They did nothing but search for Jiangxia's hunting teams in the mountains all day long. Not only did they steal all the prey they found, but they also beat up the other side's people severely and then threatened them not to go hunting in the mountains.

In the end, Jiang Yuandong, the deputy commander of Jiangxia who was stationed at Baisong Camp, personally came to Bashang City to find Xu Ning, the deputy commander.

Because of the special status of Ba Shang City, no garrison commander was appointed. Instead, Yuwen Tao, the director of the Military Affairs Department, and Xu Ning, the deputy director of the Garrison Department, were personally in charge.

Yuwen Tao was busy with military affairs all day and naturally had no time to manage things, so Xu Ning was the one who actually governed Ba Shang. Xu Ning was shocked when he heard about what happened in Heyin Village. He was very clear about Xia Hong's plans for the future of Jiangxia Town, so when he learned that there was such a big conflict between the two hunting teams, he immediately summoned Xiao Kangcheng, the mountain guard of Ba Shang Hunting Office and the garrison commander of Heyin Village, in front of Jiang Yuandong, and asked him what happened to the hunting team in Heyin Village.

"I don't know! I haven't been to Heyin Village for half a month."

Xiao Kangcheng was completely unaware of this matter!
The events in Heyin Village were entirely organized spontaneously by the high-level hunting teams of Great Xia. When Jiang Yuandong learned of this, his feelings were naturally extremely complicated, and his understanding of the strength of Great Xia reached a new level.

Xu Ning finally gave Jiang Yuandong a satisfactory answer. The two towns are now as close as family, so how could they let such a small matter as hunting cause unpleasantness? He directly ordered Xiao Kangcheng to quickly rectify the situation in Heyin Village.

Xiao Kangcheng had no objections. Although he didn't know as much as Xu Ning, he could guess the lord's plans for Jiangxia, so he knew very well that these trivial matters could not affect the lord's grand plan.

So he immediately went to Heyin Village, stopped the actions of those high-level hunting teams, and made strict demands on them, forbidding them from initiating conflicts with members of the hunting teams in Jiangxia Town in the future. He also made the person who first attacked Jiangxia apologize to the other party, and only then was the matter considered closed.

Even so, Xiao Kangcheng still felt it wasn't thorough enough. To avoid further conflict between the two high-level hunting teams, he divided the 20-kilometer entrance from north to south into two sections. All high-level teams could only enter from the ten-kilometer section to the south, while only mid- to low-level hunting teams could enter from the ten-kilometer section to the north, which bordered Jiangxia.

In this way, the conflict between the two towns was finally resolved.

While solving this problem, it also brings about a new one.

That means the exploration speed in the north has suddenly slowed down!

This is perfectly normal. After all, they used to be high-level hunting teams, but now they've switched to mid- to low-level teams, so their exploration efficiency is naturally lower.

Exploration efficiency is related to the speed of discovering new species, and it also determines the range of activities of the stationed personnel and the efficiency with which they acquire resources. All of these are important factors that determine the monthly profit of Heyin Village.

The earnings value is also related to the year-end assessment of all guards.

Thanks to the discovery of a large number of new species in Mount Mo'ao, Heyin is currently the most popular outpost in the entire Great Xia Dynasty. The outpost was only established in July, and its profit creation value jumped to fifth place among all outposts that month.

At this rate, making it into the top ten by the end of the year is definitely not a problem.

Xiao Kangcheng had finally been transferred from Zhaoyang to Bashang. He was not only promoted to the position of Shan Yu of the Bashang Hunting Division, but also concurrently served as the Garrison Commander of Heyin. At this time, he was the focus of everyone's attention. There were already a lot of rumors circulating in Xiacheng that he got such a good job because of his status as the father-in-law of the Director. Many people were watching his position and waiting for him to make a mistake.

Under such circumstances, Xiao Kangcheng was naturally walking on thin ice, wishing he could do his best in every aspect of the affairs of the Heyin outpost.

He couldn't tolerate the exploration efficiency slowing down.

But if we send the advanced hunting team back, that would cause another conflict with Jiang Xia. What should we do then?
Moreover, such frequent changes in orders demonstrate his incompetence as the garrison commander.
So after thinking it over, he came up with an exploration competition.

From all the mid-to-high-level hunting teams, select elites with the ultimate cultivation level of the Earth-Digging Realm to form temporary teams. Then, divide the entire ten-kilometer entrance to the mountain in the north into different areas, and have these teams specifically responsible for exploring inwards.

As a garrison commander, he naturally didn't have the authority to do such a thing. He contacted Xu Ning, who was in charge of the Ba River region. Xu Ning immediately expressed his support upon learning of this and personally helped him send a message back to the Xia City Supply Department to apply for a batch of supplies for the competition rewards.

Coincidentally, Xia Chuan found out about this.

Xia Chuan added fuel to the fire by having the logistics department provide pills worth a total of 30 contribution points, as well as various cultivation resources, for the competition. He then announced the competition in Xia City.

As a result, the exploration competition in Heyin immediately became a hot topic.

After all, it's 30 contribution points, and the Heyin outpost is already very popular. Now, all the elite Digging Realm hunters from the mid-to-high-level hunting teams in the camp, those who have any confidence in themselves, have flocked to Heyin.

The current elite excavation warriors of the Great Xia Dynasty are not comparable to those of a few years ago.

Nowadays, everyone is well aware of the cultivation elements for the Cold Resistance level. Therefore, in order to obtain a higher level of combat physique aptitude, anyone with a bit of talent and enough financial resources will basically choose to hold back from breaking through and squeeze the process of reshaping the skin membrane to its limit.

Those who meet both of these conditions are basically the youngest and most outstanding people in Xia City, and also come from relatively good backgrounds.

According to Xiao Heng's understanding, the more than 400 people who came to Heyin to participate in the exploration competition were mostly around 20 years old, with the youngest being 15 and the oldest not exceeding 25.

Age is secondary; the key is these people's cultivation!
These people all had a basic strength of over 50,000 jin, and a few even exceeded 100,000 jin.

Take Xiao Heng himself as an example. His current basic strength is over 90,000 jin, which is considered top-tier intermediate combat physique. He originally thought he was quite good, and even if he couldn't rank in the top three, he should be in the top five.

But in reality, he couldn't even make it into the top ten.

This is without considering age!

Take Luo An, for example. Although his basic strength is only 61,000, he is not even sixteen years old this year, while Luo An is already twenty-two years old.

His team consisted of sixteen people, thirteen of whom had a basic strength of over 50,000 jin.

That's not all; the most critical factor is age.

He was the oldest of the sixteen.

Thinking of this, Xiao Heng turned to look at his cousin Xiao Yan, and a look of frustration immediately appeared in his eyes.

My cousin Xiao Yan isn't even sixteen yet, but his basic strength is already 46,000 jin. At this rate, unless his battle physique is lacking, it's only a matter of time before he surpasses me.

Why…………

Thinking of this, he sighed slightly, too embarrassed to refute what the others said.

(End of this chapter)