A period of time passed quietly, and during this period of time, there was new progress in Great Xia.

Far away in the West Sea, the territory of Franc was completely annexed by him, and then temporarily named the Eighth District for the convenience of its name.

This incident can be said to be completely expected by Xia Qi.

As early as when he won the sea supremacy of the twelfth sea area before, this Franc machine player had already become a piece of meat on his plate.

How and when he wanted to eat it was just a thought on his mind.

Therefore, when confirming this news, Xia Qi's mood did not change much.

After sending a group of officials over to govern, his attention quickly shifted to another matter.

The capture of a territory will give him access to a large number of people, factories, and resource points.

And these things will eventually become the productivity of Great Xia.

Over the years, his productivity has been growing at a rate that is visible to the naked eye.

Although the burden on the population has also increased, the momentum of its development is still quite fierce.

Today, the various regions of the Central Continent, as well as the Fifth Region far beyond the East China Sea, known as the Sakura Islands, are able to bring him enough resources and productivity on a regular basis.

These resources include all kinds of metal ores, food, fuels, energy supplies, and so on.

Not to mention productivity, take the Fifth District as an example, originally as a civilization that focused on naval warfare, there were many shipbuilding factories in the Fifth District, but now after being taken over by Great Xia, they are naturally all put into use, which has significantly improved the manufacturing efficiency of Great Xia warships.

As for the 6th, 7th and 8th districts, which were later recovered one by one.

Among them, the sixth district has Alber, a top talent, personally sitting in charge, and over the years, it can be regarded as quite improving.

However, it is still in the process of recovery, and if you want to reap the benefits, I am afraid you will have to wait a few more years.

Not to mention the 7th and 8th arrondissements.

In order to connect all the industrial chains in these regions, Zhang Liang, who is in charge of the internal economy, trade and finance of civilization, also wasted a lot of time and energy, directly threw money at it, and came up with several maritime trade fleets.

These fleets all have fixed sea routes and are responsible for rushing to various regions to transport resources and goods.

Often, it takes a year and a half or even longer to go to sea once.

However, their existence is to completely connect the economy and trade of several continents and archipelagos in this entire region

At the same time, it also attracted a large number of merchants to rush to the sea.

As a result, the central continent was the mainstay, and at this time, the maritime trade in this entire region developed rapidly with an unprecedented momentum, and brought a lot of economic benefits to Xia Qi.

As soon as these batches of income were collected, the financial and economic situation of the entire Great Xia was much more relaxed, and those important projects were finally able to allocate funds.

At the same time, this airship force and the sea fleet, Xia Qi also wants to further expand!

I have to say that building warships and airships is really a very cool thing.

Not to mention, it's cool and necessary at the same time.

This territory is bigger, and there are more sea areas that need to be patrolled daily on weekdays, so the original warships will definitely not be enough, and the fleet must be expanded!

And in order to gain a broader field of vision and increase the support of air power on this larger territory, then the aerial reconnaissance unit and the goblin aerial bombardment unit must also be expanded together!

The old minister of the Ministry of Finance was stunned for the amount of financial funds that needed to be spent on this pen.

Compared with the financial expenses required to expand the warships of the Navy and the airships of the Air Force, the amount of funds required to expand the strength of the Army can only be said to be worthless.

At the same time, in today's Great Xia, the scope of conscription has been expanded to all areas except the 6th, 7th, and 8th districts

Finish.

This is also something that can't be helped, although for Xia Qi, within his Great Xia, the original citizens are more credible.

But the continuous conscription of the past few years has begun to reduce the number of young and middle-aged laborers within his civilization, although in terms of the total population, it has grown rapidly.

But there is a very big problem here, that is, children who have just been born in recent years account for a considerable proportion.

And those children will not be able to see them as a labor force in the next fifteen or six years, let alone join the army and fight.

As a result, conscription from other regions became inevitable in order to maintain productivity and labor.

But in fact, there is no need to be too pessimistic about this matter, after all, he has been operating those areas for some years.

His own talent has made the people in those areas have a basic sense of loyalty, which is still useful.

Xia Qi called Du Ruhui, and the two discussed it, and then, as soon as the conscription order was issued, the response in each area could not be said to be good, but it was not bad.

The people of these regions had only just experienced war in their early years, so they should not ask for too much.

Looking at the report sent by the Ministry of Military Affairs afterwards, Xia Qi was actually quite satisfied.

In short, those recruits who are not reserves but basically have zero foundation must be trained for at least half a year.

If conditions permit, it is also necessary to train for a year or two.

After stamping the document of the Ministry of Military Affairs and signing his name, Xia Qi directly handed the document to Du Ruhui below.

In this regard, Du Ruhui took the opportunity to open another document, handed it over, and reported it at the same time.

"Your Majesty, this is our latest bolt-type rifle, the Lightning Seventh Company, equipped with it."

Weapons are constantly being updated.

However, considering a series of problems such as quantity, cost, and financial funds, it is often impossible to equip all of them at once, and basically they all have to be prioritized and come in batches.

If the efficiency is slow, it may take years to complete a complete replacement.

But fortunately, according to Gang Duo, this lightning seventh company is currently the best bolt rifle that Great Xia can manufacture, and in the short term, it is impossible to make further upgrades and improvements.

Therefore, Xia Qi didn't have to worry that this lightning seventh company was only halfway popular, and the Ordnance Research Department had improved a new model of rifle with stronger performance.

Considering the priority, this latest model of the Lightning Seventh Company, Xia Qi was the first to equip the army on the front line.

As for the garrison on the inland side, he also equipped some of them just in case, and as for the other legions, they could only take their time.

Xia Qi, who had confirmed the latest progress, closed the file, and then, as if he remembered something, he asked Du Ruhui, "By the way, how is the body armor I ordered the Ordnance Research Department to study before?"

After entering this era, leaving aside some special civilizations and special types of troops, body armor has undoubtedly become the main armor.

Ordnance Research Department, although it is not under Du Ruhui's control, but the armor of body armor is closely related to the military after all, so Du Ruhui has always been very concerned, and there is basically nothing wrong with asking him this question.

Sure enough, in the face of Xia Qi's question, Du Ruhui said quite simply: "Back to Your Majesty, at present, a number of samples of body armor have been developed, and now they are being experimented and improved one by one, and if you want to get specific results, I am afraid you will have to wait for a while."

Hearing this, Xia Qi nodded, he probably had a number in his heart about this matter.

Firearms and bullets are one of the main means of output in this era, and body armor, as a corresponding piece of armor, is obviously not a thing that can be done with a mouth.

What is important is the overall performance.

There are so many metals here in Great Xia that can resist bullets, just make a set of armor and come out.

But according to the weight of that armor, how many people can eat and wear?

Not to mention full-body bulletproof armor, even if you only make a cuirass and wear it on your body, the amount is bearable.

But on the other hand, if the bulletproof ability is very poor, or basically none, then it doesn't make much sense to equip this.

As a result, how to make bulletproof and relatively lightweight body armor that is capable of bulletproof while controlling costs has become one of the main projects being studied by the Ordnance Research Department.

And while Xia Qi was busy developing his internal affairs and military strength in Great Xia, on the periphery of the twelfth sea area, five shark people led by the youngest son of the shark man patriarch Malfoy, Rubin, finally arrived here after a long journey.

It has to be said that the efficiency of acting alone is much faster than with a large army or troops.

Coupled with the fact that the Shark Man clan's physical strength and speed are quite good, this operation is relatively smooth for Rubin, at least, so far.

"Captain, what are we going to do next?"

With such a question, the four shark people who had arrived at the periphery of the twelfth sea area fell their eyes on Rubin.

To be honest, before this, although Rubin also had a few experiences in leading troops into battle, most of the time, he was actually a junior general under his father or elder brother and was sent to be dispatched, so it was the first time that something like this had happened.

The successful arrival made Rubin greatly relieved, and now in the face of this problem of the clansmen, his choice is nothing more than two.

The first is to stay secretive and try to see if you can meet with Dort quietly to understand the situation.

However, for this No. 12 sea area, he is not familiar with the place, and with such a large area, trying to find Dort is tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack, so the feasibility of this first method is very low, and it can basically be ignored.

In this case, the only way to choose is to directly contact the fish-people on this side, explain the intention, and then try to see if you can meet Dort.

According to the information he had confirmed, none of the several fish-man reconnaissance teams sent by William Mousse had returned.

From this information, it is enough to see that there must be a fish-man unit patrolling in the 12th sea area.

That way, things will be easier.

Rubin first took his four clansmen to find a place to hide the remaining supplies on his body, and the batch of materials that his father prepared for them saved a little use, enough for them to turn back, so there are still a lot left.

After disposing of the supplies on his body, Rubin ordered another clansman to stay here, while guarding the supplies, it can be regarded as a pick-up just in case.

And he took the other three clansmen with him, and he entered the twelfth sea area in such a grand manner.

Sure enough, not long after they entered the twelfth sea, with the sound of a surging current, a group of fishmen quickly swam towards them and surrounded the four of them on the spot.

This situation made the four of Rubin subconsciously tense their nerves, and at the same time, their eyes quickly swept around.

At this time, these fishmen surrounding them are all typical bottom fishmen miscellaneous soldiers, and the number of them is roughly estimated to be about thirty people.

According to the combat effectiveness of the four shark people, this miscellaneous team can be easily wiped out.

For this point, the fishmen who surrounded the four of Rubin at this time were also clear in their hearts.

But, who would have thought that there would suddenly be four shark people in the twelfth sea area?

However, before they started, they had already sent people to call for reinforcements, thinking that it would not be long before the reinforcements arrived, and what they had to do now was to hold back the other party.

And just when the captain of this patrol team was thinking about how to buy time.

Rubin, as the besieged party, has already taken the lead in speaking.

"Don't worry, we have no ill intentions, we just came here to meet a shark man named Dort."

Rubin's straightforwardness made the fishmen around them stunned.

At the same time, I have a lot of ideas in my heart.

After all, Dort is a shark man, and the four people who came this time are also shark people, and when they think of the fish-man empire, they can't think about it too much.

But in any case, they are just a group of small soldiers, and the largest rank is a captain-level non-commissioned officer, and this kind of thing is obviously not their turn to make decisions.

The thought flew around, and after the captain of the patrol team asked the four sharkmen led by Rubin to stay honestly, after a period of time, with the surging current, a larger, at least three or four hundred fish-man troops, officially arrived here, and the person at the head was the shark-man Dort.

According to the size of the shark people, among the low-level fish people, they naturally saw each other at a glance.

Then, the expression on Dort's face was stunned.

He received a report from the patrol team that four sharkmen had broken into the area of the 12th Sea, and then he rushed over with hundreds of fishmen.

Along the way, of course, he also thought about a lot of things in his mind, after all, it was very likely that it was his kindred, but he never thought that the person who came here was not only his kindred, but also a brother who grew up with him since childhood.

Rubin, who was surrounded by fishmen, had already seen him, but he didn't say anything, because he didn't know what the situation was here, and considering the situation on all sides, he felt that it was better for him not to speak for the time being.

After swimming closer, Dort, who had confirmed some information from the patrol leader, glanced at the faces of the four shark men before speaking directly.

"Come with me."

The four shark people, under the "personal escort" of hundreds of fish people, slowly entered the deep-sea camp located in the sea area of the twelfth.

Today, the largest tent in the deep-sea camp is actually a shipwreck, which became Dort's residence after emptying the wreck of something unwanted and making some simple and crude modifications.

Dort didn't call the other fishmen to follow, and swam directly into the shipwreck residence.

Seeing this, Rubin was slightly surprised in his heart, and at the same time, he also left the three shark people who had been following him closely.

The three shark people obviously knew that Dort and Rubin were brothers who had grown up together, and there was nothing wrong with it, so they didn't show too much nervousness.

Closing the crooked-looking door, after entering, Rubin, who had been holding back all the way, finally couldn't help but ask.