529 Grabbing Food from the Tigers Mouth (1/2)

Ever since the territory was built, Ouyang Shuo had strictly enforced the separation system of military and administrative entities.

Hence, he would not allow the generals and local officials to have any unneeded relationships and have any interest convections with one another.

Only Mulan Yue was different. This brat worshipped Ouyang Shuo and was truly dedicated to her work. As such, Ouyang Shuo trusted her and was not worried.

Raising her position was in truth to help pave a path for her future when the game ends.

Of course, her personal ability was something that Ouyang Shuo recognized. If not, he would not take a prefecture and hand it over to her to develop her and give her experience.

Compared to famous ministers like Pei Ju, Mulan Yue was naturally lacking. Hence, Ouyang Shuo specially mentioned in the letter that the officials and minor officials they sent to Zhen An Prefecture should be those with vast experiences.

Ouyang Shuo really spent a lot of effort on Mulan Yue.

The only problem was that when she accepted her role in Zhen An Prefecture, she would not be able to use the teleportation formation to find Ouyang Shuo.

However, there was nothing much he could do about this.

Besides, if one did not face a storm, how could one grow strong?

When the eagle grows old, it definitely needed to fly solo in the skies.

As his territory expanded and grew bigger and bigger, Ouyang Shuo's mentality also became older and more experienced. Just like how Song Jia put it, he was a kid in his twenties, but he acted like a middle-aged uncle.

Toward Mulan Yue, Ouyang Shuo had the feelings of being an elder.

However, the two of them were only several years apart.

One had to say that Ouyang Shuo had really gotten ‘old’.

Furthermore, in this past year, Ouyang Shuo had not spent a lot of time in Shanhai City. He had been running around outside, really a tough life.

Apart from that, Ouyang Shuo also moved Cui Shousi, who he had high hopes for, to Zhen An Prefecture to be the administration director and help Mulan Yue.

Of course, based on the administration system of Shanhai City, the director in a prefecture was half a grade higher than that of a prefect.

If one talked about Cui Shousi, one had to mention the Cui Family.

Based on the letter from Song Jia, the Cui Family had moved over a month ago. As for the Bai Trading Company, they still had not given Song Jia a definite reply.

Who knew what Bai Gui was trying to do.

The operation of the Black Snake Guards in looking for Fan Li had some small leads. From their letter, in about a month, they would be able to pinpoint his location.

Ouyang Shuo guessed that perhaps Bai Gui was waiting for Fan Li?

All these merchants kept beating around the bush and were not direct people.

Although Ouyang Shuo had secured the three governors, to Administration Director Xiao He, the troubles had just begun.

The governor was chosen but to assign the various officials also posed a huge problem.

Since the commencement of the Battle of Zhaoqing, in less than four months, Shanhai City had taken over five prefectures.

Compared to before, their land area had expanded by close to two times.

In such a short amount of time, such an expansion was really too much and would bring with it numerous negative points. It would shake the foundations and weaken the core of the territory.

The core problem would be the lack of talents.

Lianzhou Prefecture was the prefecture in the territory with the strongest foundation. The next best was Qiongzhou Prefecture. Although it had started off bad, under the buff of Yashan City territorial specialty, it grew stronger by the day.

The Leizhou Prefecture they recently occupied was also decent as Lord players ruled it.

Even including Zhaoqing Prefecture, it had a certain foundation. After their occupation, under the territory specialty buffs, they could quickly catch up to Lianzhou Prefecture.

However, for the four prefectures that he had just occupied, Ouyang Shuo was not as optimistic.

One did not need to mention Wuzhou, which was left in a total mess under the brutal rule of Chiyou. Ouyang Shuo had no choice but to send out his important minister, Fan Zhongyan, to take control of the situation.

Xunzhou Prefecture, Zhen An Prefecture, and Guilin Prefecture, under Hong Xiuquan's rule, only focused on expanding, so its internal affairs were in chaos too.

If it was not for Su Zhe and the others helping, it would be even worse.

Taiping Country had messed up these three prefectures of land for close to a year, destroying any foundation they had. The essence of the three prefectures was probably gathered by Hong Xiuquan and used to develop Tianjing City.

Hence, to run these three prefectures, it was a long and hard journey.

If these three prefectures followed the system of Shanhai City and built various Houses and counties, the number of officials needed would reach quite a shocking number.

Furthermore, during this period of time, the Administration Department had followed Ouyang Shuo's instructions and performed a full-scale evaluation of all local officials, removing a large number of them.

Hence, even if he used such a strong talent producing machine like Xinan University, he still could not keep up with this expansion speed. Based on the numbers that Xiao He had churned out, the territory had a shortfall of 1500 officials.

As he had no other choice, Xiao He personally visited the various imperial cities and used the title of Land of Philosophers to recruit scholars.