Chapter 274: Chapter 274: War Refugees
"There's a war in the north that is causing a lot of refugees to flee south. They're at the training field right now." Xiaoyun explained.
After a long silce, Yuqi finally responded.
"Give me fifte minutes. I'll draft an emergcy housing plan."
Yuqi immediately hung up the phone call before Xiaoyun could say anything back.
As Xiaoyun looked back to the training field, it was now full of people as the soldiers sured them in the cter.
Some of them were forming groups of their own, but most were just small family units as they stood next to each other.
Alerted by the consolidation of the crowds, Xiaoyun quickly took out his walkie-talkie to talk to Lingang.
"Lingang, start breaking up the groups into family units and tell them that they're going to be st to differt shelters."
Immediately, the soldiers began going inside the groups and breaking them into smaller groups on the field as of them disobeyed.
Considering of them had any weapons and all the soldiers had guns, Xiaoyun didn't expect the soldiers to face any resistance.
After waiting for almost twty minutes, Shuli, along with over a hundred administrators, finally came to the training field.
"Where's Yuqi?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"She wt to go direct food and resources towards here. I'm here to gather everyone's info."
The administrator behind Shuli's started setting up booths with fordable tables and paper they had brought along with them.
"Okay. Just ask Lingang if you need any help. I'll go call——"
Before Xiaoyun could finish, Wuli's tire brigade came inside the training field.
The faces of the refugees immediately looked ev more afraid as all of the new soldiers arriving were fully armed with rifles.
"I was just about to call you. Can you help Shuli set this up?" Xiaoyun asked as Wuli approached the two.
"Yuqi already called me. Shuli, what do you need me to help with?" Wuli asked.
"Just make them do a single file line. I need them to be separated into these categories.."
As Shuli began explaining the details to Wuli, Xiaoyun headed towards the warehouse.
Wh he got there, Yuqi was already directing the warehouse workers as trucks full of resources were heading toward the training field.
"Everything all good?" Xiaoyun asked as he walked up to Yuqi.
"What do you think? You really give me a massive headache sometimes."
Yuqi gtly punched Xiaoyun on the elbow to let out her frustration.
"My bad. My bad. I didn't expect Lingang to bring so many people back to the town, either. At least the town is growing ev bigger with this many new people."
"Yeah, almost a fifth of the town at once. Totally 'manageable' for us."
Yuqi rolled her eyes as she directed the last truck towards the training field.
"Where are we going to put this many people?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"To the restricted zone that we set up before. But it can only handle a few thousand people at once, ev with all the tts there...
So I asked Shuli also to sd some of those people who have kids to share houses with people who live in the town since they are probably safer than single refugees..."
After hearing Yuqi's explanation of her plan, the two headed back to the training field.
All the trucks were already unloaded as the workers passed out half of the truck's canned food and water, with more people still lining up for their turn as they held a ticket in their hands.
Besides the people who were lining up for food, there was also a long line at all fifty booths, as all of them were handed a ticket after filling out a form.
Yuqi quickly wt over to Shuli to check how it was going, as Xiaoyun wt inside the crowd to look for Lingang.
After searching a, he finally found him at the d of the line.
"Hey Lingang, how's the crowd?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"None of them made any fuss or anything. All of them had be mostly obedit to orders except for a few who needed some lessons."
"What lesson?"
"Like some of them think because they were a former mayor, they deserve special treatmt and cut in line. But a soldier pointing a gun at him quickly made him get back in line."
"Good. Some people are just out of touch..."
As the two stood next to each other, Xiaoyun spoke up again to ask a question.
"How was Qingyuan?"
"A lot drier, and the heat there is a lot more bearable compared to Guangzhou."
"I'm not asking about that."
Lingang quickly realized what Xiaoyun was asking and replied.
"Qingyuan is a lot bigger than our town. But they are extremely spread out in the city... Although Zh Ti is the leader of Qingyuan, he's more of a figurehead that of them are willing to break."
"Really? Figurehead? That bad of a situation?"
Xiaoyun asked to make sure, as he couldn't believe what he just heard from Lingang.
"Yes, it's that bad... Commander Xiaoyun, you got my letter, right?"
"Yeah, I did... I can't give you the approval because it's too risky. Other factions and the military in the north are still watching us. I hope you can understand my situation."
Xiaoyun explained as he realized what Lingang was trying to convey.
"I understand. I'm actually happy you rejected my idea... If you gave me the option to go in, I would have ded all of our soldier's life right there."
Lingang suddly looked down at the g as his voice sounded a little sad.
"Why? You're asking permission because you know you can take over control of Qingyuan, right?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"Initially, yes, wh I wrote the letter. I was thinking that I could just capture all of those group leaders and Zh Ti with a blitz operation against them at night...
But after the letter was st, I quickly realized it was impossible to rule over an tire city with just five thousand soldiers. I was starting to get worried that I might have requested the worst idea possible and that I was going to be forced to execute my awful idea."
As Lingang's voice got deeper and deeper, Xiaoyun patted him on the back.
"Good thing of that happed... Anyway, do you know what's happing in the north to cause this many refugees to come south like this?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
Lingang's mood quickly shifted back to normal as he thought for a second to formulate his answer to Xiaoyun.
"Appartly, the Ming empire at Jiangxi had be attacking Zhongxiong's self-defse force at Hunan. They started escalating their conflict over Pingxiang city to the point that they are fighting each other rather than the zombies."
"Of course, they do infighting over fighting the real emy... who's winning?" Xiaoyun asked another question.
"The Ming empire. The self-defse force is just too scattered a Hunan to fight back. But I heard from some of the refugees that they are starting to gather their troops for a big battle at Zhuzhou city since they had be pushed back from Pingxiang." Lingang explained.
"I see... Who do you hope to win the war?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"Zhongxiong. The things I heard from the refugees is that people in Pingxiang wanted to join the self-defse side in the first place, and the Ming empire was the one who attacked because it was a part of their influce."
"Make sse... Well, it's not like we can do much to either side with Shaoguan still under the military."
Xiaoyun thought back to the thorn of their expanding influce.
"Actually, I heard that the military at Shaoguan had a new leader who's looking for someone to join. The soldiers there overthrew their old geral and had completely disbanded the southern theater."
"Wait, you sure?"
Xiaoyun asked as he couldn't believe the news that Lingang had just announced casually.
"It's just rumors from traders that had traveled there. But from some of the refugees who used to be soldiers for the southern theater, it might actually be true."
Lingang paused for a second, th continued.
"The Northern command from Northeast theater had told them that all soldiers from other theaters should head towards Shyang city, which obviously is impossible for the one who's all the way from the south here, or the far west."
"You think we can invite them to join us?" Xiaoyun asked with high hope.
"As much as I wish, I really don't think so... Our location, ev though we had cleared most of Guangzhou, doesn't mean much wh the tire Pearl River Delta is too dsely populated."
"What if we clear the tire Guangdong province?" Xiaoyun suggested.
"Th they'll have to join. They will have no other choice, considering how close we are." Lingang replied without a second thought.
After talking to Lingang for a few more minutes, Xiaoyun headed back toward Yuqi, who was working at the booth alongside Shuli.