King of Creation Chapter 2056 - 2041: Military Department’s Military Order

Ye Zhen had quite a few titles on the Primordial Continent, whether it was the Celestial Patrol Division of Great Zhou’s Western Patrol Second Route Wind Patrol Envoy, the third-class Earl of North Sea County, or the Left Chief Priest of the Barbarian Spirit Hall under the Ancestor God Temple.

For the duties attached to these posts, Ye Zhen had already made arrangements.

Under normal circumstances, for ordinary minor matters, the people Ye Zhen had assigned were enough to handle them. But if something major came up, or some affair that was extremely troublesome or sensitive to deal with, then it was no longer something his arranged subordinates could resolve.

Those below were, after all, people below; they did not understand every aspect of Ye Zhen, and for these matters they simply could not, and must not, make decisions in his stead.

So, before leaving, Ye Zhen had long since prepared countermeasures.

He had purchased several sets of costly Two-World Communication Teleportation Formations well in advance, as a contingency.

Ye Zhen had agreed on times with subordinates on all fronts: if convenient, at Midnight in the middle of each month, he would take out and activate the Two-World Communication Teleportation Formation.

They could contact Ye Zhen at that time; if there were matters they could not resolve, they could also send a Talisman Book to reach Ye Zhen and have him decide.

If something unexpected happened to Ye Zhen on his side, and they failed to reach him at mid-month for three consecutive months, then they were to make decisions on their own.

And yesterday was precisely the agreed time for contact, and it just so happened that he received this jointly signed urgent message.

Ye Zhen was the Earl of North Sea; under normal circumstances the Imperial Court would not issue him any Military Order, and before he left, Ye Zhen had already greeted the Grand Celestial Official at the Celestial Patrol Division of Great Zhou, so no military assignments would be arranged for him in the short term.

As for the Western Patrol side, they had just suffered a huge loss at Ye Zhen’s hands, so they definitely would not come looking to provoke Ye Zhen again anytime soon.

Confused, Ye Zhen carefully read through this Talisman Book that came with a Military Order.

When he saw the Great Zhou Empire’s Zhou Department Grand Seal stamped upon it, Ye Zhen’s expression suddenly changed.

The four characters "Human Demon Battlefield" drew Ye Zhen’s gaze in like a vortex, fixing it there.

This was a Military Order directly issued by the Military Headquarters of Great Zhou.

No wonder Gu Tieqi, Liuu Feng, Governor Qiao Hong, County Captain Tang Biao and the others would send a jointly signed urgent message; the impact of this matter was simply too grave.

On the Human Demon Battlefield, up to now, battles large and small had been continuous. Along a defensive line millions of miles long, tens of millions of Great Zhou Empire troops were stationed.

Yet these tens of millions of troops garrisoned there year-round were an incomparably heavy burden for the Great Zhou Empire.

That was secondary; the most critical issue was the officers and soldiers garrisoned on the Human Demon Battlefield.

Even the rear sectors of the Human Demon Battlefield were extremely perilous, so family members could not accompany the army.

No one was willing to take their families to that slaughter-ground filled with countless dangers and accidents.

Those who dared to bring them were only those high-ranking officers with formidable strength, and even they mostly brought only concubines.

Then the problem arose: these officers and soldiers were stationed here year after year; three or five years was fine, ten or eight years they could endure, but what about ten or twenty years?

That pressure of death, the unrelieved loneliness, the harsh Military Orders—let alone ordinary soldiers, even resolute experts could be driven mad by it.

No one could bear it.

After meticulous study, the Military Headquarters of Great Zhou devised a rotational defense system.

Along the long defensive line, aside from the elite units directly under the Military Headquarters of Great Zhou, most of the forces were merely garrison and patrol troops, not the main combat formations.

For these patrol and defense armies, the requirements on Combat Power were not too high.

After research, the Military Department decided to shift the bulk of the manpower making up these patrol armies onto those nobles who possessed Fiefdoms.

With so many nobles in Great Zhou, each stuffing himself until his brain was full of fat and intestines, they ought to share Great Zhou’s burdens.

Thus, nobles across Great Zhou who held Fiefdoms, according to rank of title and size of their Fiefdoms, would in turn send patrol units to the Human Demon Battlefield as reinforcements.

This system had already been in force for tens of thousands of years.

For example, each major Prince of Great Zhou would, in a single deployment, station as many as one million troops on the Human Demon Battlefield.

When Ye Zhen had first arrived on the Primordial Continent, the Heavy Assault Group of Xitian Commandery he encountered was one that had just come down from the Human Demon Battlefield.

The Human Demon Battlefield, although terrifying, could be said to be the place where Great Zhou’s officers and soldiers harvested Military Merits.

According to the Military Law of Great Zhou, even if one did not slay any Demon Clan members, simply garrisoning the Human Demon Battlefield for one year would earn one First Level of Military Merit.

If one completed ten years of garrison duty, there would be no problem at all in being promoted by one level in military rank.

During this garrison period, if one had any noteworthy achievements and gained decorations, that would be even more remarkable.

Therefore, for the rotational defense of the Human Demon Battlefield, most soldiers were still quite eager; the martial ethos in Great Zhou was very strong.

The soldiers were eager because here lay a chance to change their fate.

But for titled nobles, the Human Demon Battlefield was a place that made them tremble with fear.

The rewards in Military Merit were generous, and nobles could also raise their titles through struggle on the Human Demon Battlefield; in this regard, Great Zhou was utterly unstinting.

However, if their patrol on the Human Demon Battlefield went poorly, if their operations in battle were ineffective, then the reduction or stripping of titles and Fiefdoms would be the least of it; losing their heads and having their clans confiscated was entirely possible.

Each year on the Human Demon Battlefield, a large batch of nobles had their titles elevated, and another large batch of nobles had their clans raided and exterminated.

More importantly, the Subordinates under these nobles—such as the Prefectural Governors and County Captains under Ye Zhen’s command—if Ye Zhen was unfortunate, they would have to share in his misfortune.

It could truly be called: when one prospers, all prosper; when one is harmed, all are harmed.

This was exactly why Governor Qiao Hong and County Captain Tang Biao were so nervous.

According to the conventions of the Great Zhou Dynasty, newly enfeoffed nobles would not be drafted to lead their private troops to the Human Demon Battlefield within ten years, because the development of the fiefdom and the training of the army needed a process.

Carefully calculating it, Ye Zhen had only arrived on the Primordial Continent about eleven years ago, and had been granted his title for less than nine years. By the Great Zhou’s conventions, most newly enfeoffed nobles would only be transferred to the Human Demon Battlefield after at least a dozen or so years.

This time Ye Zhen came out to look for Caiyi, he had also taken into account that in three to five years he would be going up to the Human Demon Battlefield, and that was why he set out.

He had not expected the military order for the Human Demon Battlefield to arrive so early, slightly going against convention.

However, a convention was only a convention, whereas a military order, once issued, was as unshakable as a mountain.

Even if it violated convention, once it was issued, Ye Zhen could only choose to obey and carry it out.

Only after strictly carrying out the military order could he then talk about anything else.

This military order stamped with the seal of the Military Headquarters of Great Zhou was extremely simple.

It ordered Third-class Earl Ye Zhen of North Sea to, within one year, lead at least one hundred and twenty thousand troops, with his own military armory, to report to the Human Demon Battlefield Commander’s Mansion; those overdue would be beheaded and their clans exterminated!

Behind the order, however, there was detailed explanation, such as the specific Cultivation distribution within the one hundred and twenty thousand troops.

He could not take a bunch of rookies whose Cultivation had not even reached the Soul Sea Realm up to the Human Demon Battlefield; that would not be going to war, that would be going to die.

There were also details such as the length of the army’s training time, all of which had to be noted in detail by the County Captain of the fief.

After pondering for a moment, Ye Zhen wrote a Talisman Book in reply to Gu Tieqi, Liuu Feng, as well as Governor Qiao Hong and County Captain Tang Biao.

He told them to start preparations first; he himself would return in the shortest time.

He told County Captain Tang Biao to start preparing the garrison troops, to prepare at least two hundred thousand elite soldiers.

The Military Department required the minimum number of troops to be one hundred and twenty thousand, but when the time came and a defensive sector was assigned to Ye Zhen, that entire sector would be under his responsibility.

If he wanted no problems, the more troops the better.

The Military Headquarters of Great Zhou had stipulated the minimum lower limit of the troops brought, but had not stipulated an upper limit.

If the regulation required you to bring one hundred and twenty thousand troops, as long as your status was fine, bringing three hundred thousand would not be a problem.

However, the various supplies provided by the Human Demon Battlefield Commander’s Mansion would only be calculated based on the quota for one hundred and twenty thousand.

In other words, all supplies for any additional troops had to be provided by the nobles themselves.

On Ye Zhen’s side, the number of troops could not be too few, but also could not be too many; two hundred thousand was an appropriate figure.

And the normal duration of such a garrison was ten years; only if sufficient great military merit was earned, or if more than half of the troops were killed in battle, could the garrison be lifted early.

When a great army marched, the matters that needed preparing were countless; the preliminary matters could only be left to them to arrange.

After receiving a clear reply, Ye Zhen fell into thought.

This order to go to the Human Demon Battlefield to take up a garrison was actually far more complicated than ordinary people imagined.

Because the current Grand Governor in charge of the Human Demon Battlefield Commander’s Mansion was Prince Lik Ji Yuan.

Ye Zhen and Prince Lik Ji Yuan could be considered old enemies; it was to be expected that once he went up to the Human Demon Battlefield this time, things would definitely not go smoothly.

Especially since what held sway on the Human Demon Battlefield was military law. Once the military law was invoked, even if Ren Venerate Emperor Ji Long personally intervened, it might not be of any use.

When the general is in the field, he does not necessarily obey the emperor’s command.

Therefore, for this trip to the Human Demon Battlefield, Ye Zhen had to make extra preparations to ensure everything was watertight.

With countless matters on his mind, Ye Zhen pondered for a full day, recording several hundred preparation items in a Talisman Book before he slowly rose to his feet.

He slowly exhaled a long, pent-up breath, looked at the blood-colored sky before him, and suddenly smiled. "Isn’t it just the Human Demon Battlefield?"

"The Demon Clan that have died under my hand already number in the tens of thousands; those in the Dao Realm I have slain have already broken past two tens. What is there to fear?"

"Hei Er, Hei Qi, Hei Jiu!"

With a stir of Ye Zhen’s Divine Sense, the three Corps Leaders around him, whose blood light had already shot into the sky and turned into Blood Skulls, appeared before Ye Zhen.

"Assemble the army. Each of you will lead ten thousand Elite Realm King Realm troops to march with this Marshal!"

The Demon Soul Army could not appear on the frontal battlefield, but bringing them along might have unexpected uses. At present there was no war in the Demon Soul Realm, so Ye Zhen planned to take this force along as a reserve.

"Yes, we subordinates will strictly obey the Grand Marshal’s military order!"

Afterward, Ye Zhen loaded, one by one, the sea of ore that had been mined in the Demon Soul Realm over these ten months into the Mirage Dragon Pearl Space.

The Teleportation of that mountain-like mass of ore, plus the thirty thousand-strong Demon Soul Army, was extremely consuming on his Primordial Spirit Power.

It took Ye Zhen two days to finish all the preparations.

Two days later, after making all the arrangements, Ye Zhen stirred his Divine Sense and appeared at the spatial exit of the Demon Soul Realm, stepping into the vortex gate that led out of the Demon Soul Realm.

After a burst of dazzling light, Ye Zhen left the spatial vortex gate and arrived at his destination.

But at the instant he landed, Ye Zhen’s expression suddenly changed drastically.

"Why is it here?"