C113

The Rise of the New Forces

The battle between the Qingfeng Stronghold and the Gold Gathering City ended with the complete annihilation of the entire Fresh Breeze Stronghold!

This outcome shocked all the surrounding powers! From their point of view, the Gold Gathering City was just a new power that had just risen up. It didn't have the strength to fight against the Qingfeng Stronghold at all. However, in reality, such a small power had completely annihilated the Pure Wind Stronghold, making it history!

Although the other factions did not know how they had done it, the Blood Wolf Army was exposed in front of them! Therefore, all the credit for fighting was seen by these forces as the function of this powerful and mysterious army.

This was a strength that the ten powers of the Bedlam Lands feared. Since then, there had been one less Qingfeng Stronghold in the Bedlam Lands, but now there was a new hegemon, Gold Forming City! The rise of the Gold Forming City was unstoppable. There was no force that was willing to challenge the Blood Wolf Army when they were at their peak!

In the final decisive battle between Gold Gathering City and Fresh Breeze Stronghold, because of a 'trap' that Ling Feng had prepared beforehand, over a hundred thousand people of the Pure Wind Stronghold were trapped in Gold Forming City. Only a small number of people managed to escape, but this portion of them were completely exterminated by the Blood Wolf Army over six thousand!

After the battle, the statistics showed that more than 60,000 people had been annihilated and 80,000 prisoners had been captured in this battle! The entire defensive army of the Qingfeng Stronghold was only around twenty thousand. Amongst them, there were over fifteen thousand mercenaries. As for the minority of them, they were formed from the defensive army of the stronghold!

In a battle of such disparity in strength, the final result was 60,000 dead and 80,000 captured! This was definitely a miracle in the history of the war, and Ling Feng was the creator of this miracle!

However, the only thing that caused Ling Feng to feel disappointed was that the Fresh Breeze Stronghold's chief, Hu Lang, had been escaped! In the eyes of others, and even the majority of the people in the Qingfeng Stronghold, he was just a nominal leader!

However, Ling Feng did not think so. To be able to establish a huge bandit group in the Bedlam Lands in just a few short years, even though the entire Qingfeng Stronghold was not under his control! However, in this battle, Ling Feng had also seen his ability! Being able to control and command these hundred thousand bandits was not something a puppet leader could do!

Although the battle had resulted in a complete victory for the city, it had also resulted in heavy losses for the city. Not only had the buildings in the city been damaged, but the amount of money spent had also been enormous.

A large number of workers and merchants rushed into the city. The workers were here to repair the buildings, while the merchants were here for the strength of the city. After all, strength represented stability in the Bedlam Lands, and the city was a famous trading city.

Large numbers of people flowed into the Gold Gathering City, causing the city, which had just experienced the war, to regain its vitality. It was even more prosperous than before! At the same time, the number of soldiers defending the city had also increased. At the beginning, there were only five thousand people, but now there was a total of twenty thousand!

Other than the mercenaries who were participating in the city's defense battle, there were also many young residents of the city. There were even a few young factions that had chosen to join the defense army of the city!

Jin Yuyan, who came from a merchant family, didn't have the experience to lead her own troops, nor did she have any subordinates that she would take with her. Therefore, she handed this heavy burden to Zhao Zhong!

Zhao Zhong, who had just led the Blood Wolf Army, didn't even have time to rest before being appointed as the general of over twenty thousand city guards. He was responsible for training these twenty thousand city guards into elite soldiers, not a group of no-name soldiers!

To Zhao Zhong, having the Blood Wolf Army succeed and train the twenty thousand soldiers to defend the city was a piece of cake!

In the following half a month, the Blood Wolf Army had basically finished assembling. Hundreds of squads had all returned to their squads. The only regret was that on the way, there were nearly a hundred people who died in battle or under sneak attacks from magical beasts and demon beasts!

After all the Blood Wolf Army troops had been gathered, they were arranged by Ling Feng to go to the Qingfeng Stronghold! Ever since the Qingfeng Stronghold's over a hundred thousand people had been completely annihilated by the Gold Gathering City, it was only natural that the former Qingfeng Stronghold had become the territory of the Gold Gathering City and could be used as the base for the Blood Wolf Army!

In the Qingfeng Stronghold, besides the Blood Wolf Army, there were also 80,000 prisoners. This was the reason why Ling Feng had arranged for the Blood Wolf Army to be stationed in the Qingfeng Stronghold! Ling Feng planned to build his own military base on the foundation of the former Qingfeng Stronghold!

The eighty thousand prisoners of the Qingfeng Stronghold, if they were let go, they would likely take their revenge again. If they were all killed, then Ling Feng would have to bear it all to the end; in the end, Ling Feng decided to subdue these eighty thousand people! Of course, they could also sell these prisoners to slave traders, which was the most popular business in the Bedlam Lands!

However, Ling Feng was a little reluctant. With so many young and powerful individuals, if he sold them, he would only be able to exchange them for some money. However, if he subdued them, it would be a very powerful force! It had to be known that the Qingfeng Stronghold was the lair of bandits before, and the majority of them were all young and robust. Moreover, every single one of them possessed extraordinary strength. Otherwise, they wouldn't have become bandits!

As for this taming mission, Ling Feng had given it to the two Gao brothers and Lu Tianji. With the help of the Blood Wolf Army, taming the 80,000 captives shouldn't be a difficult task! The only difficult thing was the question of loyalty. Who knew if those prisoners were truly willing to submit, or if they were just putting on an act!

Regarding this problem, Ling Feng, who had two lives of experience, had his own way of doing it!

If he wanted to obtain the loyalty of these prisoners, he had to give them a sense of belonging, a sense of honor! It made them feel as if they were following the Blood Wolf Army for their own sake, to fight for honor! As for the specific method, in his previous life, the army had a lot of people, many of them were originally untamed youths, but most of them were trained into an army of steel!

Ling Feng handed some of his previous life's experience to the Gao brothers and Lu Tianji. These methods were very instructive for them, so they believed that with Lu Tianji's intelligence, there was no problem in taking these 80,000 captives!

After a series of arrangements, Ling Feng had handed all of this to the others, and had become the person in charge of this matter! However, Ling Feng did not stay idle either. He had an even more important matter, and that was to fulfill his own promise!

First was her promise to Jin Yuyan, that her Treasure House would be opened throughout the entire Bedlam Lands! And what Ling Feng wanted to do was to fulfill the first step of this promise, and start opening the first Treasure House branch in another city outside of Gold Gathering City!

Even though it was only the first branch, it was a good start. He believed that before long, Ling Feng's promise would be completely fulfilled!

The second promise was a promise made to those unfortunate people who had died in Gold Gathering City, saying that it was to help them raise their families! Although this was a simple matter, there was still a huge amount of work to do!

The number of casualties in this battle was more than five thousand. The families of these five thousand plus people were at least twenty or thirty thousand. It would take more than one or two days to settle down so many people!

Thus, Ling Feng personally set up a small organization to take care of the heroic families!

Although these twenty to thirty thousand people were mostly old, women, and babies, they were not the type of situation where they couldn't support themselves! After all, the spiritual energy in the Demon God Continent was very abundant. The physiques of the humans here were much stronger than on Earth. The average life expectancy of humans even exceeded 200!

Other than those who truly did not have the ability to support themselves, the rest of these people were arranged to work in the Gold Gathering City, so that they could support themselves!

In order to make the merchants of Huijin City willing to hire these 'heroic family members', Ling Feng had also issued a series of tax cuts and exemptions! Thus, the families of the twenty to thirty thousand heroes were settled down just like that!

Following that, Ling Feng came up with a lot of measures to protect Gold City by giving preferential treatment to his family members, such as the food allowance, the discount for shopping, the award of medals, and so on! All in all, they would fight for the families of these heroes for whatever benefits they could get!

This approach was also well-received by many people. After many people learned of the policies of the Gold Gathering City, they all came to join the city, causing its reputation and strength to once again soar … A brand-new power was rising up!