Chapter 76: I’m Helpless Too

“Mom, were your Territory attacked by Players?”

“No, that didn’t happen. I knew I couldn’t beat them. Yesterday, I voluntarily disbanded my Territory to come to you, little brat.”

Mother Mo shook her head and explained. Soon, Mo Xiaobai understood what was going on.

The root of the matter was the reputation-seeker’s actions.

Earlier, during the bandit sweep, Guming Diaoyu had actively gone out and defeated two small bandit hideouts. He earned enough Renown and Fame to upgrade his Territory.

After Domineering Village reached Village Level 3, it faced the same shortage of people that Mo Xiaobai had now. So, while Guming Diaoyu selected and accepted new Players to move in, he started trading people with the surrounding Lords.

However, it was less of a trade and more of forced buying.

“He forced every small Lord nearby to sell him 20 strong young villagers each. He paid one Silver Coin per villager. Several Lords refused, and he destroyed them all. Seeing that he was about to attack my home, I decided to disband my Territory and let the villagers leave before he took everything from us.”

After listening to his mother, Mo Xiaobai felt a deep sigh. The entire Plane had changed greatly compared to his past life.

In his past life, Guming Diaoyu and others were indeed among the first Players to force-buy people to supply their Terrories, but that only happened after they reached Village Level 3. He never expected this to happen so early, forcing Mother Mo to disband her Territory just to escape Guming Diaoyu.

“I thought I could just bring Mother to Daming Village, but I never expected she would be forced to give up her home under these circumstances.”

“Guming Diaoyu, you truly did a great job.”

On the surface, Mo Xiaobai remained calm and comforted his mother, but in his heart, he was already planning to choose the right moment to give Guming Diaoyu a lesson he would never forget.

After chatting with his mother for a while longer and finishing the dumplings cooked by Cheng Liya, Mo Xiaobai had to go back to handle the matters of his Territory.

At the very least, as the Village Head of Daming Village, he needed to do a full inspection of the changes. He had to know exactly what stage Daming Village had reached.

Leaving the Lord’s Manor, Mo Xiaobai first checked the Militia Training Ground. This was the basic barracks of Daming Village, no less important than the Rattan Armor Barracks.

Ten days ago, when he left, only sixty Village Soldiers remained. But now, the Drill Ground was crowded with hundreds of people.

“This subordinate greets you, My Lord.”

Mo Xiaobai helped He Chun up, who bowed as soon as he saw him, and nodded. “Raise your head, Jianli. The Drill Ground looks very different from when I left. Please tell me in detail.”

“Yes.”

He Chun led the way, inspecting the Drill Ground as he spoke. “Since you left, we have gradually added over a hundred Village Soldiers. Now, we have exactly two hundred.”

“Also, the Beast Skins you ordered us to collect when the beasts attacked have mostly been made into full sets of armor by the Li family clan. Besides the two hundred sets just distributed, there are over sixty sets left in the storage.”

“My Lord, please look. Since the Blacksmith Workshop was upgraded and could produce usable cast iron, the Village Soldiers no longer use wooden spears for training. They have now switched to long spears with iron spearheads at least two inches long.”

He Chun took a long spear from a row of weapon racks to show Mo Xiaobai the iron tip at the end, which was at least two inches long. He continued, “Besides the Spearman squad, I selected 50 Village Soldiers to train in archery to form a team of Archers. For now, the Archer team needs far more iron items than the Spearman squad does. Most of the cast iron produced by the Blacksmith Workshop is used to make arrowheads.”

As He Chun spoke, Mo Xiaobai saw the Archers training with targets at the southwest corner of the Drill Ground.

The 50 Archers stood in five clear rows. Each row had one Squad Leader in command of the other nine to train them. This was the common basic unit structure of the Han Dynasty, and Mo Xiaobai had not changed it at all.

Five men formed a Squad, ten men made a Platoon, one hundred men had a Commandery Guard, and five hundred men had a Commandant.

Currently, Daming Village had many War Generals, but in terms of actual power, even Li Guang was only equivalent to a Commandery Guard. He Chun did not yet have the power of a Commandant.

Although his military power was small, Mo Xiaobai felt that a force of this size was already impressive for Daming Village.

The total population of the Territory had only just reached the thousands. Three hundred Soldiers who did not farm or trade were a very large number in the total population.

Even in a real ancient world, if someone like Mo Xiaobai did this, he would surely be labeled as a militarist.

Having over a quarter of the people become soldiers was madness.

However, after Mo Xiaobai left the Drill Ground and toured the Mulberry Garden, Farmland, and Medicine Field, he finally understood why Li Ji had increased the military so much at the Drill Ground.

“Along the way, I mostly saw male villagers. The number of female villagers is probably less than two hundred.”

“The ratio of men to women in the Territory is seriously unbalanced.”

After leaving the kiln workshop and seeing the drying clay bodies, as well as the seven or eight male Territory Citizens working inside, Mo Xiaobai found the cause and scratched his head in frustration.

The Intellect Brain was too irresponsible. While strong young men were extremely beneficial for the Territory’s development and could speed up its progress, a normal Territory could not have only men.

Yin and Yang needed to be balanced. How could the gender ratio in a Territory be as terrifying as 4:1, or even 5:1?

This was not just about having a large group of single men. Over time, this would seriously affect the energy of the villagers and the Populace Sentiment.

“Could I also go out and snatch people? Specifically snatch a group of women?” When Mo Xiaobai pictured the lovely scene of taking his subordinates to snatch girls, his head began to ache.

“Let’s go find Li Ji first and see if he has any good ideas.”

Mo Xiaobai wanted to discuss a solution with Li Ji, and just then, Li Ji arrived at his location with Fatty Cheng.

Seeing Fatty Cheng, Mo Xiaobai grinned and bowed with his fists. “I am sorry for the poor hospitality yesterday. Please forgive me.”

As the saying goes, you have to be careful with your words when you have eaten someone’s food. Since they had drunk Lingzhi Wine only yesterday, Fatty Cheng could not act cold today. He happily replied, “Lord Baron, if such fine wine and delicious food counts as poor hospitality, I cannot imagine what would count as proper treatment.”

“As long as you are satisfied, that is good.”

Mo Xiaobai nodded with a smile, then turned to look at Li Ji. “Maogong, just now when I inspected the Territory, I found a difficult problem we must solve quickly.”

Seeing Mo Xiaobai speak so seriously, Li Ji dared not be careless. “What is My Lord referring to?”

“Women. Haven’t you noticed that our Territory is extremely male-dominated?”

Mo Xiaobai spoke directly and pointed to the farmers working in the distance. “Look, everyone plowing the fields is a man. Everyone gathering herbs is a man. I even saw several male Territory Citizens helping to pick mulberry leaves in the Mulberry Garden. Our Territory cannot even grow enough female mulberry pickers. How can this be acceptable?”

Mo Xiaobai spoke with urgency, but Li Ji’s face immediately fell into a frown.

If it were any other problem, Li Ji might have thought of a solution. But a shortage of women was embarrassing for even a Sub-Sage of the Martial Temple.

At this moment, Li Ji just wanted to tell Mo Xiaobai:

What can I do? I’m just as helpless as you!