LRAB Chapter 731 Financial Crisis
Chapter 731 Financial Crisis
After dividing the spoils, Yang Ming began to deal with the prisoners of this battle.
Although they were called captives, in fact most of them were civilians who were coerced by David Dai and others. Most of them surrendered voluntarily without even doing anything for David Dai.
After Yang Ming returned the Pokémon to them, he sent these people home and told them that there would be no more war on Ula'ula Island in the future. He asked them to go home and live a good life. After expressing his gratitude profusely, these people left happily.
As for the veterans such as David Dai, Yang Ming also screened them and executed the diehards who had committed more crimes. As for the rest, he tried to recruit them to his own side. After recruiting these people, Yang Ming had more than 15,000 people under his command, which was incomparable to the "lone commander" of less than ten people at the beginning.
Afterwards, Yang Ming interrogated the captives from Poni Island and obtained some information about Poni Island from them.
First, Poni Island was still in chaos. With no new king or queen, it was a lawless place, plagued by daily conflicts and casualties. In this incubating environment, a true king emerged from this group of warlords and bandits, barely stronger than a mountain harrier. This man was the "King of Beasts" mentioned by the three would-be kings defeated by Yang Ming.
However, those three quasi-kings were not actually Beast King's minions. Not only were they unrelated, but Beast King had actually seized their territory. They claimed to be Beast King's minions simply to manipulate the power of the other, hoping to intimidate Yang Ming with the Beast King's name. Unfortunately, Yang Ming wasn't buying it and quickly wiped them out.
Currently, the Beast King seems to be studying the ruins on Poni Island and has no interest in invading Ula'ula Island.
This made Yang Ming temporarily relieved, but he also did not dare to take it lightly.
"From the tone of those captives, studying the ruins will not be completed in a year or two. I must take advantage of this time to improve my strength and consolidate the defense line on Ula Ula Island." Yang Ming said in his heart.
Another piece of news left Yang Ming speechless. Due to the long-term war, the information on Poni Island was very closed, even worse than the previous Ula'la Island. Under such circumstances, the rumors about Yang Ming were very ridiculous and bizarre.
According to the captives, the rumor on Poni Island was that he was a gigolo who rose to power by licking rich women. In order to compete for this gigolo, the Queen of Akala Island and Kahili, the daughter of the Haonuo Group, fought each other to a bloody pulp. In the end, Kahili won by relying on her "money power".
After hooking up with Kahili, Yang Ming used his power to bully others and launched an attack on Ula'ula Island. However, due to his inability to find a way out, he ultimately had to rely on the Haonuo Group to barely gain a foothold on Ula'ula Island. Because Yang Ming was an incompetent, gigolo son-in-law, his most important daily job was to please the wealthy Kahili. It was said that he played various exciting games with Kahili every night, even kneeling down to lick her feet. The nightly tossing and turning lasted so long that he developed dark circles under his eyes despite his youth.
"What a ridiculous rumor!" Yang Ming was about to curse. "Although I do have dark circles under my eyes, they're all caused by hard work! And if I really was the son-in-law, why would I have to live such a hard life?"
Having said that, Yang Ming still feels that this rumor is somewhat useful. At least it can paralyze potential opponents and make them underestimate them when they meet him.
"It's a pity that such a good girl like Kahili has been slandered by rumors. It seems that I have to modify the rumor a little and remove Kahili from this outrageous rumor."
Yang Ming thought for a moment and decided to change the rumor into that he was actually a simple-minded, muscular man with strong limbs, and he dominated Ula Ula Island by relying on his muscles and just by chance killing all the enemies.
"Although this rumor is nonsense, at least it has nothing to do with Kahili." Yang Ming was complacent, thinking that he was truly "amazingly intelligent" and that others would definitely not have thought that he could make up his own rumor.
After unifying Ula'ula Island, Yang Ming immediately moved his office to the quiet city of Malie and began to restore the production and economy of Ula'ula Island.
Because the previous warlords had caused so much damage to Ula'ula Island, Yang Ming had no choice but to declare the entire island tax-free for one year and to rebuild the towns destroyed in the war with his own money. This policy naturally received unanimous praise from the people of the island, but it brought great economic pressure to Yang Ming himself.
Due to the wanton squandering of warlords like Liangzi, there is really little money on Ula Ula Island now. Even if Yang Ming killed all the warlords and took over their wealth, the remaining money would only be enough to reward soldiers and provide relief to civilians. It is obviously impossible to rebuild the city and expand the strength while being tax-free for a year.
Although Yang Ming also has his own industry, "Silver Dream Company", and has made a lot of money by selling energy blocks and treasures, this money is at best enough to support an army of several thousand people. It is far from enough to maintain the development of an island. On this basis, Yang Ming still has other expenses.
The first issue was the military budget after the expansion. Since Yang Ming initially only had about 2,000 men, supporting this small number was no problem for him. However, in order to unify Ula-Ula Island, Yang Ming expanded his forces to 1,000 men. Although he relied on the warlords' treasuries to recruit these men, it was still insufficient to maintain this force in the long term.
Yang Ming originally thought that after he captured the quiet city of Malie, he could rely on the treasury of Liangzi and others to alleviate the financial pressure, but he found that although warlords like Liangzi levied heavy taxes, they spent all the money on enjoyment, resulting in not much floating wealth as he imagined. In addition, Yang Ming incorporated the remnants of Liangzi and others' troops, which led to his expenses becoming even greater.
Besides the expenses for his subordinates, Yang Ming also planned to mass-produce Zygarde Polyhedrons to collect Zygarde cells scattered across Alola. However, this was another huge expense, and he urgently needed to improve his own strength, so he really didn't want to shelve this plan.
As a result, Yang Ming, who had just unified Ula Ula Island, fell into a financial crisis.
Yang Ming had also considered levying taxes on civilians and disbanding the army to solve this problem, but when he saw the city of Malie, which had been ruined by the warlords, Yang Ming gave up the plan of levying taxes.
As for disbanding the army, Yang Ming did intend to do so at first, but when he heard that the forces from Poni Island came to harass Ula'ula Island from time to time, Yang Ming had to temporarily give up the disbanding.
"Although the strongest Beast King on Bonny Island has no intention of invading Ula'ula Island for the time being, other warlords run to the coast of Ula'ula Island to plunder from time to time. In order to maintain the stability of Ula'ula Island, 15,000 standing troops are already the minimum." Yang Ming rubbed his temples, feeling an immense headache.