After the battle of Roaring Bay, the pier of Sea House was no longer calm, but busier.
There are at least a hundred pirate ships traveling between the Whisperer Strait and the sea. This is due to the need to count the battlefield in the strait. In the Battle of the Whisperer Strait, Franklin and the others almost completely destroyed the warships in the Pope's Hall on the first day. In the ensuing battle, in order to save resources and firepower, even if he attacked the battleship, Franklin's primary goal was to paralyze its function.
Therefore, when the Pope's hall was evacuated, the Knights also dropped dozens of warships that were only moderately or slightly damaged.
These warships are the most abundant supplies for Haijia.
The quality of the warship itself is high, as long as it is pulled back to the sea home for repairs, they can be put into use. In addition, the turrets, ammunition, and military supplies on the warship are a huge wealth. Although it is not enough to make up for the supplies consumed by the pirates in this battle, it can also make up forty to fifty percent, which is quite good. What's more, the quality of military supplies has always been good, and those pirates who make a living by robbing warships are very clear about this.
After all the materials were transported to the pier, under the supervision of Mr. X, they were all sent to a warehouse on the Sea House, where they were stored in different categories. Through the Poseidon Order, Zero has integrated all the pirates and has become the master of the Sea House. These materials are naturally regarded as zero property. If anyone wants to take one or two items privately, Mr. X doesn't mind teaching these short-sighted guys a profound lesson.
It's just that the Sea God ordered Zero to chill the courage of the pirates, and the Battle of the Roaring Gulf won their respect and loyalty, so no one dared to make any decisions on supplies. Pirates are rebellious guys, and it is not easy to win their loyalty, but Zero finally did it. This is a base point for him to gain a foothold in the Western Continent, but this base point is obviously not enough, so expansion is an inevitable and imminent issue.
Zero was waiting, waiting for Su and the others to recover from their injuries. At that time, it will be the day to set sail again. On that day, their destination will be the mainland of the Western Continent.
While the pirates are busy, so are Billy and his tech squad. From the battlefield in Whisperer Strait, the pirates salvaged a few lightly damaged paladin and griffin mechs. For Billy and his team of experts, these mechas attracted their attention even more than those huge supplies. Billy asked Zero for these mechas, and then he and his team deconstructed the structure, system, equipment and other elements of the mechas day and night.
The number of capable users in the Western Continent is far less than that of the Central Continent, but their technology, especially the power mech technology, is far superior to that of the Central Continent. Take the Marauders of Green City as an example, which already belong to the very cutting-edge mecha technology in the Central Continent. But in the Western Continent, the looters are at most equivalent to the technical content of the paladin mecha. The paladin mecha is the first generation mecha of the Pope's Hall, which is in stock. Strategic materials that don't need to occupy land and won't hurt too much if they get damaged.
As for the lightweight Griffin Rider, it is a qualitative leap in mecha technology. It involves material processing technology, more sophisticated operating systems, fuel and flight systems, and other technical issues that were not involved in the Central Continent. As for the knights of the round table that Mamelo brought back, it was a terrifying meat grinder that could be called a war puppet.
It is no exaggeration to say that even if ordinary people were to drive the Knights of the Round Table, they could beat up a dozen ability users below the eighth level. As for ordinary soldiers, there may be thousands of units damaged in battle. Of course, the operating system of the Knights of the Round Table itself is not customized for ordinary people. It needs the incomparably quick response and rich combat experience of high-level ability users to fully display the combat effectiveness of the Knights of the Round Table.
But in Billy's view, if the knights of the round table can be mass-produced, then the requirements for the use of the operating system can be completely reduced. After all, ordinary pilots can be trained, but every death of a high-level pilot is one less, which is a resource that is difficult to regenerate.
For turbulent times, resources are everything!
When researching the first and second generation mechs, Billy also mentioned the idea of studying the Knights of the Round Table. Zero knew that he wanted to conquer this set of technologies and return to the Central Continent by then. Even if Billy can't innovate, if he can mass-produce a shrunken version of the Knights of the Round Table, it will be a terrifying fighting force. So Ling went to Mr. X and expressed his wishes tactfully.
The next day, Mamelo drove the Knights of the Round Table to Billy's temporary workshop, which was located on the edge of the island south of Sea House. When he saw Mamelo's Knights of the Round Table, Billy immediately went into a frenzy of deconstruction. His main research is the power system and operating system of the knights of the round table, which are the core technology of the knights of the round table.
The former solves the power problem of driving the big guy, while the latter deals with the control error problem between the driver and the mecha. It can be predicted that when Billy returns to Central Continent with this technology, a new type of mecha unit will quietly appear in Zero's camp. Even with enough resources and factories here in the Western Continent, he can build such an army.
But for now, it's just a conception stage.
The problem remains with resources.
It's not that there are no resources on Haijia, but they can't make ends meet. After all, the present and the past are completely different things. In the past, the pirates moved around and fought on their own, basically living a safari-like life. But once these things are put into war now, they won't be enough for one or two wars. War burns a lot of money, and of course it is also very profitable, but Zero can't use it to make money right now.
And to fight against the Pope's Hall, and even finally bring down Sauron, is not an ordinary burning of money.
Home of the Sea has just won a battle, looking at the scenery. But as long as it happens again, Zero is basically sure that the pirates will definitely not be able to hold on. So now, he needs income, a lot of income!
Only then did he realize the difficulty of being in charge. When I was in Central Continent before, the company was small in the early stage, but it didn't reflect it. Later, he became the invisible leader of a foreign race, and Ademili helped manage the finances, so naturally he didn't have to worry about it. After fighting again, to build the City of Dawn, simply bring the Black Rose along. With Beyoncé's means and the family staff team behind her, the construction of Dawn City went very smoothly, not to mention nothing.
Until now, when he had integrated the pirates to become their leader and regained his position, he realized that this was completely different from running an adventure team. The difference is that far away in the Western Continent, there is no such talent as Ademily or Beyonce to help him, and everything can only be done by himself.
War is a money-burning machine, and war is also a creator of great wealth. The difference is that the time chosen and the target of the battle are different, which is related to whether a war will burn money or make money.
Zero wants to bring Sauron down, of course he can't show off his power at sea. Therefore, attacking the mainland of the Western Continent is a necessary and necessary expansion behavior, so the next question is the choice of targets. You must be cautious in choosing zero this time, because the pirates can probably only support another battle of the same level as the Roaring Gulf. Therefore, in the choice of target, it must be the kind that can make money after attacking.
With income, the consumption of the war can be replenished, and zero can achieve the goal of expansion.
The Western Continent is not an iron bucket. On the contrary, Zero believes that under Sauron's high-pressure policy, there must be enough voices of opposition inside the Pope's Hall. It’s just that these voices still dare not make a sound. What Zero has to do is to poke a big enough gap in the seemingly solid but actually fragile barrier of the Pope’s Hall. Let these voices vent, and as long as there are dissatisfaction inside, and some people are eager for power restructuring, then Zero can get enough sponsors.
It will take too much time to operate on zero alone, and it will take too much time to manage it completely against Sauron. He didn't plan to spend ten or eight years in the Western Continent, so he had to seek as many sponsors as possible and tie these people to his chariot. To do this, the second campaign is crucial.
After the victory in the Roaring Gulf was reported back to the Western Continent, Zero could predict that it would form a huge influence. But this is not enough, after all, this is Roaring Bay, the home of the pirates. Zero still needs another victory, and this time it must be at the home court of Pope Hall. Only when he proves that he has enough strength to slap him at Sauron's home court, those sponsors who dare not speak out will consider throwing an olive branch of goodwill to a stranger like him.
The combination of these factors made Zero's first battle against the Western Continent very important.
He has to choose a weighty goal that can increase his income as his choice. The former proves its own strength, while the latter can develop into a fulcrum of power to encroach on the Western Continent.
Just when Zero was holding the map of the Western Continent and thinking about his next attack target, Oran came.
On the port of Sea House, headed by Zero, Manshan and Cinderella are separated on the left and right, and hundreds of pirates are behind them. Pulling out this huge team was just to meet Watcher Oran, one of the three giants of the rebel army. Zero can be said to have given the female leader enough face. As for the others, Hook is recovering from a serious injury, while Su and the others are Zero's secret trump cards, and Zero is not generous enough to reveal all his trump cards for others to watch.
With him, two legendary captains and hundreds of pirates, this welcome team is sincere enough. Especially at the moment when Istar was defeated and had zero new victories, no matter how picky Orlan was, he couldn't find anything wrong.
Unsurprisingly, Oran's arrival this time also brought a batch of supplies. The supplies are mainly ammunition, and food and medicine are secondary, which happen to be the most scarce things in Zero right now. On the pier, the pirates assisted the soldiers of the rebel army to unload the supplies from the ship to the pier one by one, and after handover and confirmation, they were transported to the warehouse of Sea House.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Oran, Zero said directly: "Excuse me, respected Ms. Oran. Isn't it time for the tension to shift in Istar now? Why do you still have time to go to Roaring Bay?"
Olan smiled slightly, and said to Zero that it would be fine to call her by her name directly, and said: "I heard that you guys had a big fight on Roaring Bay, based on the fact that we all have a common enemy, I would like to congratulate you and give you some I think the help of friends is very necessary."
"Then I would like to thank you for your generosity on behalf of everyone present." Zero smiled slightly and said, "Let me guess, Olan, your visit this time, shouldn't be as simple as congratulating and sending supplies?"
"It's an obvious thing, isn't it?" Oran replied with a smile.
Zero was not surprised at all.
In the past, pirates were like scattered sand, and there was no cooperation with the rebels at all. Moreover, Istar was strong in the past, and there was no need to cooperate with pirates who were labeled as arrogant and undisciplined. But now it is not what it used to be, Istar's power has been greatly reduced, and the pirates have become a real powerhouse under the integration of Zero, and with the new victory of the Roaring Gulf, there is finally a cornerstone of cooperation between the two.
Cooperation can be carried out at many levels, from the most direct money trade to even the deployment of the army, all of them are cooperative projects, so Zero is still looking forward to the arrival of Oran. Since they wanted to talk about cooperation, they naturally couldn't do it in a place like the pier. Zero needed a place that was quiet enough and not disturbed by others, so they came to Mr. X's bar.
The basic framework of the bar has been rebuilt, the only difference is the necessary decoration. Now, there is no one in the bar, so it is a good meeting place for a few people.
In addition to Zero, there are Cinderella and Manshan in the bar. In addition to Oran, there are four people at a table. After Mr. X asked for beer and food, he kicked out all the irrelevant people and left the space for them.
Next, as Zero had guessed, Oran put the word "cooperation" on the table. So Cinderella and Man Shan watched a different kind of battle, and the battlefield was on this small wine table. Olan Luo listed dozens of projects that could cooperate with Zero, among which Zero was the most important arms deal, This is exactly what pirates are currently lacking.
Attacking the Western Continent is not like a naval battle. A land war means having to bear full fire from the mech troops of the Pope's Hall. In this way, the group of high-level ability users alone is not enough to suppress, which means that Zero needs strong fire support. But the equipment of the pirates is not comparable to that of the Pope's Hall, and even the rebel army is inferior. The advantage of the pirates is that there are enough ordinary ability users, but this advantage is not enough to reverse the situation that the equipment and technology of the Holy Hall are far superior to them.
To open up the situation, strong enough firepower is necessary, so the arms and equipment provided by Oran are naturally the top priority of all cooperation projects. In the list of arms available for trading listed by Oran's intelligence brain, all kinds of electromagnetic bombs, landmines, and electromagnetic pulse guns that can counteract or even threaten mech troops have attracted zero attention.
Although Ishtar can't produce powerful power mechs like the Pope's Hall, it has accumulated enough experience in countermeasures after dealing with them over the years. The last time Sauron was able to almost sink the entire Istar with King Arthur, in fact, he still took advantage of the sneak attack. If it is properly prepared for Istar, let alone a King Arthur, even a few more Knights of the Round Table may not be able to reap the benefits.
But now, Zero's eyes naturally fell more on these electromagnetic weapons. Then they started haggling with Oran about these electromagnetic weapons, and it was obvious that Oran really wanted to find change for cooperation, so the price he offered was not high. It's just that Ling is not rich now. Based on the principle of saving what he can, Ling is almost fighting for every inch of land to cut the final price. Oran also generously stated that these weapons will be sent to Haijia in the near future. As for the issue of repayment, considering Zero's current financial situation, Oran can let him use loans.
This means Zero has more room to work.
Next is the next level of weaponry, such as machine guns, mines and anti-armor missiles, which are relatively smooth. This part is a cash transaction, and part of it is barter. In general, Oran is tantamount to fully supporting zero-sum pirates, and many things in it are half-buy, half-free. Oran was indeed very generous, to the extent that zero was surprised.
But then, Oran uttered another news that surprised Zero even more.
"sponsor?"
"Yes, that's right." Olan took the lead and said seriously: "I think the three of you here should be able to see that the price we paid you for the transaction we discussed just now is only about 30% to 40% of the market price. Of course, I appreciate the performance of Mr. Zero and the captains, and I am willing to help you or trade in some aspects. But this will definitely not involve electromagnetic weapons, after all, it is our cutting-edge product. Selling it to you at such a low price. To be honest, the amount of our transaction can't even cover the cost. The reason why we are willing to do this is our sponsor's request."
"I don't know who is the sponsor behind Istar?" Cinderella asked.
This is also a question that Zero wants to know.
Just as he deduced before, the rebel army could not start from scratch with their own strength, let alone contend against the Pope's Hall for so long. Of course, the containment of the pirates was one of the reasons why the Pope could not go all out against them. But more importantly, there should be one behind Istar, or a group of big figures with enough weight to support them.
"Sorry, due to the current depth of cooperation between our two parties and the reasons for protecting our sponsors, I cannot disclose specific information to you." Alan organized the wording carefully, and said: "What can be disclosed is that our sponsorship The strength of the latter is not weak. Since your recent active performance has attracted a considerable degree of attention from him, he intends to carry out a deeper cooperation with you."
"But our ultimate goal is not any big man in the pope's hall, but the head of the powerful Sauron. Therefore, our sponsor hopes to see further performance from your side. At least let him see that it is possible to defeat Sauron. Long, even if there is only a 50% chance, he will fully support you, and even consider the possibility of our two forces merging!"