Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

As Xiaoyun arrived at the logistic office, he headed straight to the commander center.

Even though the building itself had been barely used ever since Yezi and Yiming were out, it was still a place where he could be all alone.

"New recruitment plans... Where do I start?"

Looking at the map in front of him, it was clear that Guangzhou was the best place to recruit refugees.

But thinking back to the last recruitment drive, he knew he needed to go there and have a look himself before he could make any further plans.

---

After a five-minute drive, he reached the front entrance, where he handed his permit to pass the border checks.

Driving down the streets, he could feel the city had become much more energetic.

Businesses and shops were sprawling out along the city center, but only a few people entered them to buy stuff.

Most of the people on the street were only going to the street stalls, where they bought breakfast for the morning as they headed to work.

He could feel the increased police presence, as every few blocks was a cop car or even border patrol armed with guns walking down.

Still, most people didn't seem to mind, as they all headed to their destination without much interruption.

With his car parked on the side of the street, he exited the car before walking towards the skyscraper.

The security guard was just about to stop him, before they instantly reconganized his face and let him pass.

At the same time, it quickly reminded Xiaoyun to put on a face mask as he headed toward the elevator.

After entering one of them and clicking the highest floor, several of the office workers inside looked a little surprised by Xiaoyun.

But none of them questioned him as they exited on their floor before he finally arrived at the top.

Taking a short turn to the right, he didn't bother knocking at the door as he turned the doorknob straight away.

Just as he expected, a man was sitting in the office, hard-working on a Sunday, just like the other people he had run into.

"Mayor Leifeng, look who's hard working on a Sunday?" Xiaoyun asked as he took a seat across from him.

"Good morning, governor... I'm just finishing up a few stuff before calling a day."

"No worries. You can work as many hours as you want. I'm not some stickler who's going to stop you from working overtime."

Leifeng let out an awkward laugh as he finally finished his work, looking up at Xiaoyun with a curious expression.

"Govonoer, is there some new directive?"

"Before I tell you that, how's the unemployment situation in Guangzhou?"

Xiaoyun asked, despite having seen the figure in one of the May reports in Yuqi's office in the past.

"It's not looking too good. I had already tried to disperse as many people into Foshan and the countryside towards more farming.

But it just keeps on growing every day. There are constantly small waves of people migrating over to here," Leifeng explained.

"How much?"

"Around a hundred a day. But sometimes it can be in the thousands or even higher depending on the army."

Xiaoyun immediately understood what Leifeng was talking about—the unspoken directive in the army.

All civilians found in the cities were to be removed from the combat zone, which requires a place to put them.

Yiming, Yezi, and Lingang had all shoved as many people as possible towards Guangzhou since it was the biggest city under his control.

"What's the population of Guangzhou at this point? I don't want the number from the statistic."

After a long silence, Leifeng finally spoke up.

"Around three or four million. But a lot of them are undocumented or scattered in various villages nearby.

I haven't had the time to conduct a full census, and the resources have been stretched thin."

"That's fine... So what you're saying is we just have too many people than we can handle, right?"

Leifeng nodded.

"Here's a thing. I want to do a fresh wave of recruits. But this time, I want them to be all trained at Guangzhou."

"Governor, we don't have food for that——"

"That's already covered. Don't worry about it. All I need you to do is to find a place and expand as big as possible."

Hearing Xiaoyun's answer made Leifeng's eye glow, almost as if he had just heard someone had just given him an empty check.

But his excitement and happiness quickly vanished, replaced by a worrying caution.

"How many people are we planning to recruit?"

"Around... 1 million."

"1 million! That's more than double what we have right now." Leifeng commented in shock.

"Obviously, we aren't going to jump straight to 1 million. But the goal is to slowly recruit up to 1 million by the end of the year."

After a short calculation in Leifeng's head, it was around two army corps, or 166,000 soldiers a month starting from June.

"Governor Xiaoyun... Do we have enough officers and high commands to put this in place?"

"That's not for you to worry. Your job is to find a place for it and get ready to deploy a hiring strategy...

Of course, try to cut costs. But it's okay to use a bit of money if the willingness is low. You understand what I mean, right?"
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Leifeng quickly nodded in agreement, noting everything Xiaoyun said in his head.

"Ahem, I can see a certain mayor being promoted to become a governor if nothing goes wrong."

"I'll fulfill the duty no matter what, sir!" Leifeng excitedly stood up as he saluted towards him.

"Then good luck... I'll start having Hou Qin and Yuqi send you the resources for the training field by the end of May."

As Xiaoyun left the office, his mind was relieved to see Leifeng so excited about getting promoted.

Considering his path to promotion, Leifeng had nowhere to go. The promise of promotion was more of an empty check.

At the same time, the check wouldn't be empty if the army expansion speeds up the expansion beyond Guangdong.

"Maybe I should start moving the two Army corps..." Xiaoyun murmured as he entered his car again.

The scouting report had indicated a low risk of another zombie horde, rendering the portion of the army stationed at Humen Bridge useless.

After driving back all the way to Luoping, the idea of moving the two army corps to somewhere else became more attractive.

However, the issue that Leifeng mentioned earlier once again rears its ugly head.

He couldn't spend money to solve the problem of a shortage of officers, especially those with combat and field experience.

When he arrived at the logistics office, he took a short turn and headed toward Hou Qin's office instead.

With a knock, he heard the voice inside, allowing him to open the door.

"Good morning, commander."

"Good morning... You don't take the day off for Sunday?"

"I don't have anything to do at home... I'll leave if you really want me to."

"Never mind, just ignore what I just said... I'm here to tell you that I have already started up a new wave of recruitment."

"How many?" Hou Qin asked as she started pulling up her spreadsheet to be ready for calculations.

"Around a million——"

"What? A million? Are you sure, commander?" Hou Qin asked in shock as she didn't move her hands on the keyboard at all.

"A million over 6 months. So, two army corp per month. I'm asking if you think it's doable."

Seeing the seriousness on Xiaoyun's face, Hou Qin finally started calculating and punching numbers into her computer.

After sitting there for almost ten minutes, Hou Qin finally gave him an answer.

"If we were to take Yiming's food into the calculation, it would be enough for around 3 months."

Hou Qin paused for a second, then continued.

"But if we were to increase our food production by a hundredfold, then it would be feasible."

"That's not happening... Is there really no other way?"

Xiaoyun questioned, his mind realizing how irrational he might have been to promise Leifeng with 1 million soldiers.

"I mean... There is a way, but we will need to cut the training time and send them out to different cities."

"By how much?"

"We currently have at least 2-3 months of training. But if we cut it to 1 month, then we can have them salvage food from those places.

And if we find food cargo similar to the one in Dongguan, then we wouldn't even need to worry about that at all."

After a long consideration inside his head, he eventually agreed with the time cut.

But not without a hook of its own, as his mind was still a little cautious with changing fundamentals.

"If we cut the training time, can we send them to the countryside to combat train first rather than in the city?"

Xiaoyun curiously asked as Hou Qin quickly started checking the average food gathered from those places.

"I don't see the issue... Most smaller towns and villages in the countryside sometimes have more food than the city."