Chapter 397: The Situation in Liang Province
With the combined assault of everyone, Yunje City was successfully captured!
The moment it was taken, a broadcast message appeared at the top center of the screen, visible to all players across the entire server.
[Congratulations to the alliance Dragon Battle for capturing the city of Yunje (lv.5)!]
The alliance channel immediately erupted with cheers and laughter.
“Wow, we took it down, 6666!”
“Awesome, that was fast—done in less than ten minutes!”
“Withdrawing troops now, recruiting soldiers and going to sleep!”
Even on the world channel, players from other provinces were typing messages of congratulations.
The alliance leader sent a group mail: “Everyone worked hard. Those who can, feel free to take down the other districts of Yunje to increase tax revenue. Tomorrow we’ll continue expanding and attack Yumen. The day after, we rest for a day, and the day after that, we’ll hit the level 4 city Anyi. Prepare in advance.”
The forts around Yunje City began to withdraw troops. All players recalled their main forces to their own cities to replenish the lost soldiers. At the same time, many people’s road-building units were already heading toward Yumen and Anyi, preparing to claim land and build forts, securing good positions for the upcoming siege battles.
In the alliance’s chat group, many players were also discussing.
“It feels like this city wasn’t as hard to take as I imagined. With so many people, it went fast.”
“Mainly because we did our homework well and figured out all the tricks. If we’d gone in unprepared, it definitely wouldn’t have been this smooth.”
“Yeah, we had to build forts in advance and have enough siege units.”
“Alright, everyone keep it up. Tomorrow we’ll take a few more cities and aim to unify Liang Province as soon as possible!”
After capturing Yunje City, everyone was thrilled.
Group activities like this were the best for boosting cohesion. Unlike other national war games, the siege battles in Rate the Land required everyone’s participation. High-tier players sent their main forces to eliminate the garrison, while ordinary players needed to assemble siege units to chip away at the city’s durability. Without enough numbers, it was impossible to succeed.
In the early stages, taking cities was essentially training—improving the alliance’s organization and discipline in preparation for future province wars.
After a while, the alliance leader spoke in the chat group.
“Everyone, save my phone number. If anything comes up, you can call me directly, no matter the time.”
Zheng Hongxi: “That dedicated?”
The alliance leader typed: “It’s not about dedication. In this game, if the alliance leader gets taken down, the entire alliance falls. So my city absolutely cannot be ambushed. Everyone keep an eye out—if there’s any sign of trouble, contact me immediately.”
Zheng Hongxi was a bit surprised. There was a rule like that?
He checked, and sure enough, there was.
In this game, players could attack any other player. If you wiped out all of a player’s troops and reduced their city’s durability to zero, that player would enter a [Fallen] state.
Once fallen, that player became a vassal of the attacker, unable to counterattack, and all of their land plots could be used by the attacker as a springboard.
There was also a special rule: if the alliance leader fell, then every member of the alliance would fall as well.
In short, falling meant total ruin—you’d be at the mercy of others. That’s why the leader of Dragon Battle was so cautious, even sharing his phone number so everyone could reach him at any time.
...
Currently, the situation in Liang Province was essentially a competition between two alliances: Dragon Battle and How Can We Be Without Clothes. All the smaller alliances had already submitted.
This was also dictated by the game’s mechanics. In the [World Trends] feature and daily activities, if an alliance occupied more cities, every player received a large number of jade talisman rewards. The bigger the alliance, the more rewards—this incentive drove alliances to keep merging, with players eager to join larger groups for better benefits.
There were a few solo players who didn’t care about rewards, but they quickly found the game increasingly difficult to play and eventually had to join a major alliance.
Strictly speaking, Dragon Battle and How Can We Be Without Clothes were currently in a competitive, hostile relationship. The cities within Liang Province were limited—if one side took them, the other couldn’t.
However, the two alliances were still at peace for now. Everyone was still in the development phase. If war broke out, it would drag on for ages, hindering everyone’s growth and likely leading to mutual destruction.
In the chat group, Dragon Battle’s diplomat specifically reminded everyone not to attack members of How Can We Be Without Clothes, to avoid misunderstandings. Any disputes should be reported to management for resolution immediately.
...
During this time, Zheng Hongxi’s territory had also grown significantly. He could now fairly smoothly take level 4 land, giving his resources a substantial boost.
In Rate the Land, level 4 and level 6 lands were two major bottlenecks. Players typically had to replace all their land with level 3 land before attempting level 4, and even then, it would be costly.
This reflected the game’s design philosophy: land resources became increasingly scarce, and higher-level land grew harder to find. Later on, to get more land, you’d have to fight for it. Once you exhausted your own province, you’d have to invade others, and conflict would naturally erupt.
For now, Dragon Battle’s goal was clear: focus on development, start with level 3 cities, and complete the World Trends objectives.
...
After playing for a few days, Zheng Hongxi noticed that most people in the alliance were night owls.
It wasn’t that they were born that way—it was just that playing Rate the Land for a while naturally turned them into night owls.
Many activities in the game were timed in hours. For example, upgrading a high-level building, mass recruiting soldiers, or sending troops to very distant land plots often took several hours to complete.
What if those tasks finished in the dead of night?
Take recruiting soldiers: after a battle, you needed to recruit to keep fighting, and the recruitment might end at 2 a.m. You could ignore it, but if you didn’t wake up until 8 a.m., and your generals’ stamina was already full, you’d have wasted six hours of stamina recovery.
Most players, to save resources, would log in at 2 a.m., send out two attacks to burn some stamina, then go back to sleep, letting stamina recover naturally the next day.
The same went for building construction. If a building finished in the early hours and you didn’t start a new one, you’d have an idle construction queue for several hours—another waste.
So, the vast majority of players gradually became night owls. Many hardcore players even set alarms to wake up on time, play for ten minutes to handle everything, then go back to sleep.
Zheng Hongxi was no exception. That night, at around 2 a.m., his alarm went off.
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he grabbed his phone, opened Rate the Land, and logged in to upgrade some buildings and sweep a few level 4 lands to burn off his generals’ stamina.
Then he noticed a red line on the map.
“Huh?”
At first, Zheng Hongxi didn’t pay much attention. But he casually realized that the red line seemed to be heading toward the alliance leader’s direction?
He found the leader’s city and was shocked to see several forts under construction not far from it. Two of them were already finished, and troops were being sent out to build roads!