Above the mage!

Chapter 556 Branch City: Ironforge
“Establish a branch city.” Sunafa made the decision without any hesitation.

A month or two ago, the idea of ​​"establishing a branch city in Winter's Hammer" seemed like an unsolvable problem for Sunefair and the entire True Ice tribe.

From Phoenix to the Winterhammer's stronghold, there is not a single regular road across the vast, icy plains.

More importantly, there is no fast means of communication between the two places.

If Winter's Hammer encounters unforeseen circumstances, such as artisan rebellion, workshop problems, or food shortages.

It would take at least five days for the news to reach Phoenix's main city, and by the time the city sent reinforcements, it would be too late.

Unfortunately, the core value of Winter's Hammer—the ley lines and the forging workshop—is also its "unmovable" foundation.

This means that if the Zhenbing tribe wants to digest the fruits of victory of "striking down Winter's Hammer", it can only establish a branch city in the original location.

However, without effective control measures, the branch cities could easily become independent kingdoms, not only failing to provide forging support for Phoenix, but also potentially becoming new hidden dangers.

After all, the people of Winterhammer still harbor resentment towards True Ice, and if the main city is not properly controlled, disloyalty could easily resurface.

But things are different now.

With the help of Gaode Maps, Phoenix has established an Ethernet network.

Simply connect a "network cable" on the Winter's Hammer side, and messages can be transmitted between the two locations without delay.

By dispatching a number of trusted Frost Mages to Winter's Hammer and remotely controlling them via Ethernet, Winter's Hammer can be taken over painlessly without wasting time waiting for messages.

This is the significance of communication; it can break down geographical barriers.

In other words, Phoenix is ​​now fully capable of establishing a branch city.

Problems that previously required a large number of personnel to solve can now be easily solved with just an Ethernet system and a small number of trusted mages.

Of course, traffic problems still exist, but with communication issues resolved, they are not insurmountable.

In fact, Sunefair's decision was exactly the solution Elsa wanted: Winterhammer's workshops were rooted in the ley lines and could not be moved, so establishing a branch city there was inevitable.

However, how to truly integrate this land, which once belonged to the "enemy," into the Zhenbing tribe and prevent the people of the Winterhammer from harboring disloyal thoughts again is also a major problem.

Fortunately, Elsa is quite adept at this.

She had already devised a general plan to gradually dispel the resistance of the Winterhammer people, making this branch city a stable "forging city" and "industrial city" of Phoenix.

After inspecting the forge, Sunefa and Elsa returned to their tent and worked through the night to finalize the plans for establishing the next branch city.

The first thing is to change the name.

After establishing a branch city here, the original name "Winter's Hammer" certainly cannot be used anymore.

The words 'Winter's Hammer' are the spiritual totem of the original tribe.

As long as it is still in use, the people of the Winter's Hammer will subconsciously remember that they were once Winters, not Phoenixes.

A name is the first mark of one's identity.

In fact, this is something that Gaode has been doing all along.

He had been quietly abandoning the title of Zhenbing's former subordinate and replacing it with Phoenix resident, all in order to break down tribal barriers.

This is especially true in Winter's Hammer.

The name must be changed to erase the mark of the Winter's Hammer on the Winter's Hammer people.

However, Elsa and Sunefa agreed on the specific name to be changed and decided to leave it to God.

After resolving the spiritual imprint of the name, the next step is the more practical and direct material binding.

By controlling the survival resources of the branch cities, Phoenix can make them completely dependent on Phoenix, thus fundamentally eliminating any possibility of independence.

The method is very simple, and the core can be summarized in six words: "cut off the source and control the flow".

Cutting off the source means confiscating all of Winter's Hammer's original food acquisition channels and handing them over to Phoenix to take control of.

Controlling the flow means that all the food for the branch cities will be supplied by Phoenix on a monthly basis.

Although this will increase transportation costs significantly, it is a necessary control measure.

The people of the North value food above all else. As long as they control the food, they control their basic survival and eliminate any possibility of rebellion.

During the process of incorporating Winter's Hammer, personnel management will be of paramount importance in balancing the functions and security risks of the branch cities.

If the entire Winter's Hammer clan were to remain at their original base, Zhenbing would need to send a large number of mages and administrators to oversee everything and suppress any potential dissent.

This consumes resources and can easily exacerbate conflicts.

However, forcibly relocating most of the Winterhammer clan to the main city of Phoenix would not only disrupt the branch city's forging system, but also trigger resentment from those "forced to leave their homeland."

To this end, Aisha further refined the "classified retention" and "gradual integration" solutions based on three dimensions: "forging needs", "personnel attributes", and "integration progress".

The so-called categorized relocation is actually about keeping "key craftsmen" while relocating "non-core personnel" to ensure the operation of the branch cities and disperse risks.

The core value of Winter's Hammer lies in its forging system. Personnel management needs to serve the preservation of the "forging function" to avoid workshop shutdowns due to personnel turnover.

Therefore, the people of Winterhammer were divided into two categories based on their necessity for the forging system, and a differentiated migration strategy was formulated accordingly.

Including alchemists, apprentices, and auxiliary workshop craftsmen, they are the core of the Winterhammer forging system.

If anyone leaves, the workshops in the branch city will be paralyzed, and their skills are deeply tied to the workshops and forging facilities of Winterhammer.

They are talented here, but once they move to Phoenix, they will be unable to realize their full potential.

Therefore, all these personnel must remain in the branch city and be bound to the branch city's functions.

However, precisely because these people are the core members of the branch city and all come from the Winter's Hammer, if certain measures are not taken to check and balance them, it is inevitable that they will band together and secretly comply with orders while secretly disobeying orders.

So Elsa's approach was quite simple and direct: the family members of these key personnel, especially their underage children, all needed to relocate to Phoenix.

However, the wording would be much more palatable—relocating to Phoenix to receive compulsory education.

This is Phoenix's basic policy: all school-aged children must attend school for education.

From this perspective, this move is in line with Phoenix's education policy, and no one can find fault with it.

Moreover, allowing the artisans' children to receive Phoenix cultural education from a young age is also a form of gentle checks and balances.

Meanwhile, a certain number of people from Phoenix who are interested in forging will be selected to enter the branch city workshops and learn forging skills from the artisans of Winterhammer.

Of course, they will not only be learners, but also supervisors.

Another type of non-core group that does not directly participate in the forging process adopts the "three retentions and seven relocations" approach.

That is, 30% of the personnel will remain in the branch city and be integrated with the management personnel who will be sent from Phoenix later.

Responsible for the daily operation of branch cities and the auxiliary work of workshops, avoiding the functional gap of branch cities due to excessive personnel migration, and eliminating barriers in daily interactions.

Seventy percent of the non-core personnel were relocated to Phoenix's main city in batches to avoid chaos caused by a one-time relocation.

They are the main mobile group involved in personnel control.

Before the relocation, the main city will match positions based on the applicants' skills. Moreover, personnel adjustment is not something that can be done overnight, but needs to be carried out gradually in three stages: "initial, mid-term, and late-term," to avoid a backlash caused by doing it all at once.

This idea stemmed from Gaode's special instructions before the deployment of troops—he had anticipated this situation in advance.

First, in the initial stage, that is, the first three months, rigid control measures should be implemented to quickly stabilize the situation through physical isolation.

Personnel movement between branch cities and the main city will be managed through "passes".

Those who remain in Winterhammer must obtain approval before leaving the branch city to prevent core artisans from leaving without permission or non-core personnel from moving around in an uncontrolled manner.

Personnel dispatched from the main city to the branch city must reside in the "Zhenbing Garrison Area" to maintain a certain distance from the residential areas of the Winter Clan and reduce initial friction.

The collaboration between core craftsmen, Zhenbing apprentices, and support staff must be strictly carried out in accordance with their "job responsibilities".

Daily work content and material usage must be recorded and reviewed by the monks dispatched by Zhenbing to ensure that the forging process is transparent and controllable;

Personnel relocated to the main city must complete training and job adaptation in the "transitional resettlement area" and pass the assessment before they can work in the core area of ​​the main city.

In the medium term, flexible interactions and shared interests can be established to gradually eliminate barriers.

In the later stages, at least six months later, the "pass" system between branch cities and the main city was abolished.

Members of the clan can freely travel between the clan based on their work needs and personal wishes.

The physical separation between the Zhenbing Resident District and the Winter Tribe residential area has been removed, allowing people from both areas to live together and participate in the construction of the sub-city.

If core craftsmen wish to travel to the main city to teach their skills, they can apply for "cross-city teaching".

Clan members who have migrated to the main city and wish to return to a branch city can apply to work in the branch city's workshop without additional approval.

At this point, personnel mobility is no longer a matter of control or management, but rather a matter of personal development choice.

The Winterhammer people will shift from passively accepting integration to actively participating in it.

Phoenix, City Hall.

A silver-white figure swept across the central square and landed precisely on the windowsill of Gaode's office, emitting a short chirp to alert Gaode.

Gao De put down his quill pen, got up and walked to the window, taking the letter paper tied to its leg.

The document contained battle reports from the front lines of Winter's Hammer, a summary of the situation in Winter's Hammer, and the plan for establishing a branch city finalized by Sunefa and Elsa.

— Ethernet has not yet been set up at Winter's Hammer, so for now, communication can only be conducted through Sunaf's magical falcon, the Grey Wolf.

"Yarna has been killed, her body preserved in ice; the Winterhammer tribe offered no resistance, and Elder Jolan led the tribe to surrender. The workshops and the underground fire channel are intact, and all the core craftsmen are willing to stay..."

The battle report and situation summary were largely in line with Gaode's expectations.

Given the disparity in strength, and with Sunefa personally leading the team, it would be surprising if something unexpected happened.

The only thing Gao De didn't expect was that the Grand Elder of the "Winter's Hammer," Joran, would be so pragmatic and decisively choose to surrender after Sunefa killed Yarna.

This saved some trouble, allowing this expedition to proceed without any casualties.

That's why people say "development is the only way forward".

If Gao De had chosen to unify before developing, after becoming the King of Zhenbing, he would have commanded the Zhenbing mages to conquer the north and south, unifying the northern territory.

The very act of sending troops to Winter's Hammer would take at least twenty chapters to write in a novel:

From conscription and preparation for war, to the twists and turns of the march, the several clashes with the Winter's Hammer, to the perilous situation during the final battle, and finally the pyrrhic victory and subsequent incorporation.
Furthermore, the challenges of incorporation are even more unsolvable: without Ethernet and sufficient food, it is impossible to establish and control branch cities.

Now, after two years of development, the powerful Phoenix has once again challenged the Winter Hammer, which was once its equal, and has simply swept them aside without even a decent hard-fought battle, leaving them with nothing to show for their efforts.

As for the plan to establish a branch city that the two finalized, Gaode believes it is quite comprehensive.

Every step has taken into account the unique characteristics of the North and the tribal attributes of the Winter's Hammer, so there's basically nothing that can be improved.

After all, in this field, Sunefa and Elsa are the real professionals.

One was familiar with the survival logic of the northern tribes, and the other was good at overall management and attention to detail; he was actually an outsider.

At most, they could offer some ideas that the two of them couldn't think of at the moment, based on their knowledge from their previous lives.

However, to refine their ideas and implement them in a way that suits local conditions, they still need to rely on their own abilities.

The entire process of incorporating Winter's Hammer went smoothly, and in the end, all that Gaode really had to do was name the branch city.

This feeling of being a "hands-off boss" made him chuckle softly.

The name of the branch city.

After a moment's thought, Gao De quickly came up with an idea, reached for a piece of parchment, picked up a pen, and wrote down his reply:

Ironforge.

It was both to add something familiar to the world when it was difficult to return, and to express his high hopes for this branch city.

After all, in its previous life, Ironforge was the benchmark of industrial city-states.

Gao De hopes that Ironforge in this world will be the same, becoming a benchmark industrial city in the North and even the entire Nolan continent.

After seeing Canglan off, Gaode glanced at the population migration plan on the table and suddenly realized something:
The North may seem backward, but it holds a natural "urbanization dividend".

Here, there are no constraints of agrarian civilization, no attachment of self-cultivating farmers to the land, and the urbanization process faces almost no resistance.

In agrarian societies, the most difficult aspect of urbanization is decoupling from land ownership.

Farmers have relied on the land for generations to survive, and even if there are better opportunities in the city, they are unwilling to leave easily.

But the North is different. It's freezing cold and unsuitable for farming. The people of the North have always lived a nomadic life, relying on hunting, gathering, and forging. They don't have the concept that land is their root.

This means that when Phoenix promotes urbanization, it does not need to "abolish the well-field system" or "reform land" as in its previous life.

There is no need to confront the resistance and opposition of the farmers.

If you provide stable jobs, sufficient food, and safe housing, people from the North will voluntarily flock to the cities.

"After unification, the Northern Territory will develop faster than I imagined," Gao De couldn't help but exclaim.

The people of the North have always lived a life of "living in search of resources." As long as the city can provide a stable life, they will naturally "vote with their feet" and actively integrate into the city.

More importantly, the North's "non-agricultural" nature allowed Phoenix to build farms to "industrial standards" from the outset without having to transform traditional agriculture.

When Gaode was setting up the farm, it did not follow the old path of "small-scale farming" but directly introduced the concept of "large-scale planting".

This is also an important pillar of urbanization.

Urbanization is the foundation of industrialization.

Industrialization, on the other hand, can trigger rapid urban development and leaps forward.

The two complement each other.

(End of this chapter)