Chapter 350 Choice
The journey from the medical department to Zhou Xu’s residence was not long, but the heavy heart and inner struggle made Silk walk extremely hard, as if every second was like a year.
The guard standing outside the door had known that Silk was coming. After seeing him from a distance, he asked Zhou Xu for permission and got permission to let him in directly.
As the door in front of him opened, Zhou Xu, who was sitting at the desk, immediately came into Silk's sight.
"Silk, I'm honored to meet Chief Zhou Xu. Thank you for your help during this period."
There is no need to explain how obvious the changes in Silk's body are. Looking at the other party's respectful appearance, Zhou Xu smiled slightly.
"Please take a seat."
After motioning Silk to sit down, Zhou Xu temporarily put down the work at hand and looked at Silk, who now looked a little embarrassed in front of him.
"There have been a lot of things going on recently. Time is precious. Let's get down to business."
After a slight pause, Zhou Xu spoke again...
"As an ally, I deeply sympathize with your plight and have been helping you all along. But now, another nineteen grassland elves have come to my village. Sir Silk, I must confirm with you now, what are your plans next?"
This question made Silk feel very uncomfortable.
What plans? What plans could he have now? Some of the elven knights who were seriously injured before have not even been discharged from the hospital yet, and many of the 19 new tribesmen are also injured.
What plans could he make? If he left Prairie Village now, he wouldn't even be able to have dinner!
Looking at Silk's embarrassed look, not knowing how to start the conversation, Zhou Xu immediately understood what was going on.
"Let me be frank. Under normal circumstances, feeding nineteen more mouths might not be a big problem given the situation in our Great Zhou. But in this season, it is not easy to get food, and the pressure on food has been increasing recently."
Zhou Xu was not telling lies at this time.
Their food pressure has indeed been increasing recently, but it’s not because of the addition of these 19 grassland elves, but because Shi Lei has been constantly clearing out the primitive tribes and recruiting people in the mountains.
Since it was only the beginning of winter and not too long ago, the primitive tribes had not yet reached the point where they could no longer hold on and people started dying, so the task of incorporating the population went on very smoothly.
In just a short while, they easily captured more than a hundred prisoners.
Being able to capture more than a hundred prisoners easily is a good thing, but having more than a hundred mouths to feed all of a sudden will definitely put pressure on food.
Not to mention that at this point in time, Shi Lei and the others are still arresting them.
Now that they have already started, according to their style, they will definitely level the entire area to ensure stable subsequent development.
Therefore, it is entirely foreseeable that in the next one to two months, the number of prisoners they capture will increase.
At this rate, they will most likely face a food shortage problem in the future.
In order to minimize the impact as much as possible, Zhou Xu has now ordered to further reduce the food distribution to the prisoners.
This situation cannot be attributed to Zhou Xu's mistake in decision-making.
He had no idea about the existence of the Lizardmen beforehand, not to mention that the Lizardmen invaded in late autumn.
Generally, work such as reclaiming fields and increasing yields has to be done in early spring, or even before the beginning of spring.
By the end of autumn, we have already started preparing for winter, so how can we increase grain production?
According to Zhou Xu's original plan, even if he wanted to take any action, it would be in the early spring of next year. By then, he could increase the size of the fields according to the situation.
But the result was the sudden appearance of the Lizard Man, which once again made him realize what it meant for plans to fail to keep up with changes.
Of course, none of this prevented him from using this incident to put pressure on Silk.
“I feel like I’ve done my best as an ally.”
Silk didn't have any doubt about Zhou Xu's words.
In Silk's impression, a village with a population of a hundred people is already a large village.
As for the grassland village, including himself, there were suddenly 29 additional grassland elves. In a village of a hundred people, this was equivalent to an increase of almost one third of the population. There was bound to be food pressure.
Not to mention that most of them are wounded and sick, which makes the pressure on Caoyuan Village even greater.
It is completely visible to the naked eye how exhausted the people in the medical department are during this period.
Just for the sake of a new ally who we have only formed for a short time and with whom we cannot say that we have a very deep relationship, we have done this much.
To put it bluntly, even if Zhou Xu asked him to take his people away now, he would not be able to resent him.
Just when Silk was ready to accept the reality, Zhou Xu's voice sounded again...
"I now have two solutions. The first is to ask you to leave. After all, I have to prioritize my own people."
"I can't let my people and soldiers live a hard life with food shortages because of you. If I do that, my people and soldiers will definitely be dissatisfied. I hope you can understand this."
The words were expected, but they also contained some unexpected information.
"Captain Zhou Xu, you said there is another plan?"
Seeing Silk's hopeful expression, Zhou Xu didn't keep him in suspense and directly stated...
"The second plan is very simple. That is to make the grassland elves headed by you submit to our Great Zhou and become our citizens."
Zhou Xu's words made Silk stunned. This was something he had never thought about.
But Zhou Xu ignored him and continued to talk about his thoughts.
"As long as you become the subjects of my Great Zhou, it will be a matter of course to provide assistance and food to my own subjects, and others will not have any complaints. At the same time, I promise to treat you equally."
“…”
These words caused Silk to fall into silence.
Seeing this, Zhou Xu did not urge him.
"You can go back and think about it slowly, and give me an answer tomorrow."
In a word, the deadline has been set.
Although Zhou Xu didn't say it directly, his meaning was very clear.
The deadline is tomorrow. At that time, you will either choose to surrender or leave with your people. There is no third way.
But what Silke said next surprised Zhou Xu a little.
"No need to wait until tomorrow. I choose to surrender. I am willing to bring my people with me and become the subjects of the Great Zhou."
As he spoke, as if he had made up his mind, Silk knelt down on one knee towards Zhou Xu.
"Silk, meet the leader!"
The update is here, and I would like to thank my book friend '摸爱鱼小熊猫' for the reward!
(End of this chapter)
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