The Natural Empire of the Oceanic Dragon

Five years, a full five years!

If it weren't for the old blind man sent by Attilan to the northern grasslands, using ten thousand obsidian spears crafted by people arranged by Attilan, and recruiting thirty thousand barbarians including centaurs, werewolves, wild boarmen, and minotaurs, to form a coalition with Attilan's elite three thousand soldiers,

and annually seizing portions of the Northern Kingdom's northern territories and cities, preventing the Northern Territory from sending more troops to support the war in the Royal Territory, it is estimated that the Grand Duke of the West would have already been defeated.

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Occupying the land of three territories, with a population of nearly two million, although nearly half of them only outwardly obey them while inwardly disagreeing, and even nobles occasionally cooperate with knights sent by the Royal Territory to launch rebellions,

the two Grand Dukes of the East and West, after integrating the population and resources of the three territories, still managed to muster an army of one hundred thousand, and now after five years of war, the army has only seven thousand left.

But these seventy thousand, whether regular soldiers or auxiliary troops, are at least twice as elite as they were five years ago.

However, they still cannot stop the Royal Guard led by Sandrak, who is truly no ordinary person, the dragon power inherited from the royal bloodline is fully manifested in him.

Unfortunately, with only the Royal Territory left, resources are limited, and facing the impact of the southern rebels, it is now teetering on the brink of collapse.

The main reason is that the men have all gone to war, and no one is farming, the Royal Territory army does not have enough food, and the daily supply of food is only half of what it was five years ago.

In contrast, the eastern and western rebels not only have not reduced their food supply, but have even increased it.

Because behind them, Attilan is still providing support.

Two years ago, under the premise of gradually depleting food, the two Grand Dukes of the East and West were forced to cede several territories on the southernmost edge of the Southern Territory to Attilan, in exchange for Attilan providing them with two million catties of black beans every year.

Last year, they proposed ceding three more affluent territories in exchange for Attilan increasing the supply by two million catties of black beans a year.

Attilan did not agree, and they could only cede one more territory.

Attilan selected some young people with active minds from among them, trained them in stealth skills and intelligence gathering, and organized an intelligence network covering the entire Northern Kingdom.

Although the Grand Dukes of the East and West only cede land, the residents living on those lands are forcibly relocated to the north to farm and provide food for their army.

But these restricted civilians cannot be stopped from fleeing the territory of the Grand Dukes of the East and West, going south to rely on Attilan, and becoming free people living on those lands ceded to Attilan.

Some civilians are very lucky to escape back to their hometowns and are allocated houses that they could not afford to live in even if they worked hard for a lifetime, the price is to farm for Attilan.

They are provided with enough to eat every day, but the surplus grain needs to be stored in the granary until Attilan requisitions it.

Under Attilan's rule, there is enough to eat, and anyone who comes simply does not want to leave, and everyone is more active than the last, especially those responsible for raising meat animals, who are most active in taking care of the pasture.

Of course, there are also people who want to get something for nothing. For these people, Attilan does not need to intervene. The demi-humans he sent to manage the area will let them understand why the minotaur's axe is red.

Just grabbing a typical one and beheading him, and the rest will naturally know to work hard.

As for those who cannot endure the high-intensity work and want to escape? The result is naturally death under the centaur's arrows.

He has sent a specialist to be responsible for planning the intensity of the work, which will never exceed the amount of work they can bear every day, and according to calculations, the fatigue of work will be eliminated after a night's rest.

The people in charge are all pharmacists who graduated from druid schools, and each of them can see a doctor and treat illnesses, so judging physical conditions is naturally a trivial matter.

Under Attilan's rule, there is no leisure, only becoming screws and gears in the engine to operate. Of course, the rations of those elderly people who cannot adapt to the high-intensity work will be reduced accordingly.

Children also cannot eat for free, but they are the future. As long as they are not really weak and sickly, and have limited intelligence, the officials sent by Attilan will let them stay in suitable positions.

Children also cannot eat free meals, they also have to do some work within their ability while receiving education.

Old Fishman is getting older and older, even if Attilan makes an exception to provide him with Sea Dragon Blood Wine, he estimates that he will not last more than ten years. There are indeed not many subordinates like Old Fishman who are loyal and know what Attilan wants.

Half-goatman Meph, minotaur Lista, and fishman Fischer, their talents are actually more outstanding than Old Fishman, but their personal will is stronger.

They are loyal to Attilan, but it does not mean that they will unconditionally execute Attilan's orders.

Especially Meph, this guy actually got involved in the battle for the next leader of the Fairy Forest when he went home to visit relatives. If it weren't for the centaurs sent by Attilan to find out that his situation was not good,

and sent people to support him, he might have been killed by the faction of fairies who had defected to Oberon.

Because of Lulu's sake, the half-goatman naturally chose the current Fairy Queen Titania's side, and the old school's power has been greatly reduced due to Titania's slumber, otherwise Oberon's faction would not have proposed replacing her with a new leader.

After the half-goatman was rescued, Attilan sent him to work in the southern territory of the Northern Kingdom, or rather, the half-goatman took the initiative to request it, his purpose is very simple, just to be closer to the Fairy Forest.

That way, he can lead the army back to take revenge sooner.

Even Attilan did not expect that the half-goatman's father was actually the leader of the Fairy Forest, although the half-goatman was only the youngest son, and was driven away because of rebellion.

But it does not mean that he has no feelings for his father, as well as his eldest brother and second sister.

However, it is a pity that his family was persecuted by Oberon's faction, and only the daughter of the eldest brother and the son of the second sister survived.

Of the five hundred elite snake people who were brought to the Fairy Forest, only half survived.

Not to mention the half-goatman, even Attilan is very angry.

If it weren't for the Fairy Forest being within the territory of the Grand Duke of the West, in order to reassure the Grand Duke of the West to rebel, Attilan could not send a large army into the Fairy Forest at this time.

The Fairy Forest would have been leveled by Attilan's troops long ago.

"Dragon Lord, should we agree to the humans' conditions?"

Old Fishman's old and decaying voice pulled Attilan back to his thoughts.

"No, this time, I want half of the Southern Territory!"

The Southern Territory is indeed a good place, just the thirty thousand square kilometers of land that has been acquired can produce more than twenty million catties of black beans, eight million catties of wheat, and ten thousand pigs and three thousand sheep a year.

Even after ten years of careful care, the yield of his land is still not as high as those lands that have received hundreds of years of human care.

"Half of the land, will the two human Grand Dukes agree?"

Atilan coldly snorted, disdainfully saying:

"Old Fishman, I believe you've also seen how they've fought this war. Do you think they have the guts to refuse the conditions I've proposed?"

"Once I cut off the grain supply that I provide them every year, do you think they still have a chance to win against that Sun King?"

The old Fishman slowly shook his head.

"They cannot win. They can maintain the current situation only because we are providing them with support from behind. Once they leave us, they are destined to lose."

"Since that's the case, I'll go tell the envoy the Dragon Lord's conditions now."

The envoy could only meet with the old Fishman. A mere human envoy wasn't qualified to have a face-to-face conversation with Atilan. Even the East and West Dukes only had the qualification to converse with the old Fishman and the Half-goat people on equal terms.

When the envoy saw the old Fishman, he immediately walked up with a fawning expression.

"Lord Fishman, I wonder if the esteemed Dragon Lord has agreed to the Duke's conditions?"

The old Fishman said disdainfully:

"The Dragon Lord said that you must hand over this mountain and the land south of this river to us."

The envoy's originally fawning expression immediately turned ashen, and he said in a stern tone:

"Impossible!"

The old Fishman didn't even look at him.

"Can you win without us? Can you avoid defeat without us?"

The envoy was immediately rendered speechless.

The old Fishman directly waved the wooden staff in his hand.

"Get out of here. Go back and inform them of the Dragon Lord's conditions. We will send people next month to take over the land I just told you about."

"You…"

The envoy moved his mouth, but in the end, he turned around and left.

Guard A spat on his back with disgust.

"A human dares to argue with us? I think he doesn't want to live."

Guard B said with a grin:

"What do you know? The Dragon Lord calls this winning without fighting!"

"You even understand this?"

Guard B raised his head confidently.

"My son learned it at the school. He's the top of his class. Thanks to the Dragon Lord, otherwise, how could my son have learned so much knowledge? Even I have learned a lot."

"I'm telling you, my son is going to be a general in the future, commanding at least a thousand minotaurs in battle. He won't be like his father, who can only stand guard here because he doesn't use his brain."

Guard A nodded thoughtfully.

"Should I also get married and have a son early, and send him to school to become a general?"

How much the West Duke once looked down on the Half-goat people, that's how humbly he now begs the Half-goat people to sell him more resources.

Just as Atilan rejected the conditions proposed by the envoy, on the land south of the Northern Kingdom, the East and West Dukes were hosting a banquet for the Half-goat people, hoping to buy all the excess grain from the land governed by the Half-goat people.

Could the Half-goat people agree?

Definitely not!

Even if Atilan obtained a way to cure Trina, it didn't mean that the Half-goat people would forgive the West Duke for harming Trina. If the West Duke wasn't related to Atilan's strategic arrangements...

The Half-goat people would have already turned hostile.

In five years, the Kingdom of Atlantis had grown more than just this much.

Not only had the Hexi and Hedong regions, centered on Big Horn Town, been fully developed, but although they couldn't yet reach the point where they could support 200,000 people as Tengnu said, supporting 100,000 gluttonous demihumans was easy.

In particular, the eastern part of the Southwest Great Desert had almost completely reverted to wasteland and grassland, allowing some herbivores to live freely on it.

Like the grass rabbits domesticated from sand rabbits and the grass sheep domesticated from sand sheep by Atilan's subjects, they were called this because these two animals only needed to be fed grass to continuously grow meat.

Moreover, they grew quickly, so these newly cultivated breeds were naturally called Grass-something. As for the official names given by the druids in charge of breeding, they were basically not used, so much so that the founder had almost forgotten them.

These grassland pastures allowed Atilan's territory to have an endless supply of dairy products and meat.

Although the mountains blocked the cold air from the north, making it difficult for it to reach the eastern grasslands and western deserts of the southwest, which remained green all year round, Atilan considered the cost-effectiveness of raising meat.

He chose to slaughter meat and make it into jerky to sell to the dwarves or use it to recruit northern barbarians to fight before the meat-to-feed ratio dropped to a certain level.

How did Atilan take down the Northern Territory? Wasn't it because Old Blind Eye first plundered the nobles loyal to the Northern Duke, allowing the ambitious people of the Northern Territory to see an opportunity for rebellion?

After repeated plundering, when the ambitious people gained an overwhelming advantage, Old Blind Eye plundered the territory of the ambitious people, weakening both sides to a certain extent. Then, Old Blind Eye led more and more barbarians who chose to join him in plundering, and took half of the Northern Territory in one fell swoop.

He originally had a chance to take it all, but Sandrako actually led a thousand elites out and almost took down Old Blind Eye instead.

That dazzling golden light, Old Blind Eye will probably never forget in his life, almost blinding his only remaining eye.

At the banquet, the West Duke toasted the Half-goat people with a smiling face.

"Lord Mepu, this grain issue still needs your attention."

"Lord Lansterlo, don't worry, as long as the price is right, I will definitely sell you grain. Of course, based on this year's war situation, the price of grain will definitely increase again."

The West Duke's face looked a little unsightly.

His West Territory did have many gold mines, but if the price of grain continued to rise, he would really become a miner for the Half-goat people. This rebellion was for the sake of becoming king, but after calculating the accounts, he and the East Duke had almost lost money in the past five years.

The Half-goat person smiled faintly.

"There's no way around it. Who made the Sun King so charming? There are even people who dare to come to my territory to cause destruction. You also know that a large area of almost ripe grain can be destroyed with just a torch."

"It is indeed difficult to defend against. If Blood Fort were in your hands, wouldn't the price of grain return to the level of a year ago?"

Mentioning the Sun King, the two Dukes gnashed their teeth and looked north.

Sandrako was so unremarkable before he ascended the throne, but as soon as he ascended, he suddenly became so capable. There must be something wrong with that.

The Half-goat person took a sip of wine and said jokingly:

"I heard that the throne inheritance contains the royal family's Dragon Vein Warlock inheritance. Sandrako has fully activated the golden dragon bloodline in his body. If you can obtain the secrets in this regard, I can buy you 50,000 kilograms of wheat at a preferential price."

"It's wheat flour, not black beans."

Compared to black beans, white bread made from wheat flour is definitely more motivating for morale.

Moreover, the two Dukes also wanted to find out the secrets of the Sun King.

"Lord Mepu, I think our three parties' secret agents can cooperate once. What do you think?"