"Twenty thousand mobile phones produced daily."
"That means several million annually."
As the first person to discover the network signal appeared,
in a very short time, more and more people began to pay attention to the television news from the neighboring city.
People were amazed at the advanced industrial sector over there.
It's worth noting that even before the apocalypse,
a factory producing several million mobile phones a year would be considered a large factory.
And now, in the apocalypse, with ground transportation cut off and external material exchanges nearly zero,
where all components must be produced in-house,
this is almost a miracle.
Under normal circumstances, not to mention Jianghe City, which is roughly comparable to their territory,
even provincial-level metropolitan cities would find it difficult to achieve this.
"How did they manage that?"
Some people grew curious.
"If they can build such a large factory, the living conditions there should be better, right?"
There were also those living in hardship who felt a flicker of longing.
But regardless of how people's hearts swayed,
before they were truly at their wits' end,
ordinary people found it hard to risk everything and leave the shelter to seek refuge in distant cities.
On the surface of Tumen City,
two courier-grade drones took off from the watchtower next to the newly established communication signal tower.
They circled closer and closer to the direction of Jianghe City,
fulfilling their reconnaissance mission,
while periodically dropping small, simply camouflaged monitoring devices in relatively concealed locations.
This was a habit Su Wu had developed since the super earthquake in Jianghe City,
to lay out a monitoring network on the surface as much as possible.
Collecting various data and monitoring abnormal phenomena,
to provide early warnings for potential natural disasters.
After all, many times,
even discovering a disaster one or two minutes earlier can lead to drastically different outcomes.
As the drones spread out the monitoring network,
Su Wu did not give up on exploring the situation in Tumen City through other channels.
For instance, at this moment, he could access several local radio stations within Tumen City.
Unlike Su Wu's communication signal tower,
these local radio stations, limited by their equipment capabilities,
could only broadcast sound.
The information they transmitted was very limited.
Even so, for most ordinary people deep within the underground shelters,
it was generally difficult for them to listen to these broadcasts.
The true audience for these radio stations were at least the wealthy who had the means to build their own small shelters.
After casually listening for a while,
feeling that continuing like this was inefficient,
Su Wu simply let the artificial intelligence take over the monitoring.
Then, after monitoring several radio stations for about ten minutes,
Su Wu managed to obtain a basic intelligence report about Tumen City from the AI.
The entire Tumen City
is currently mainly composed of three forces.
One is a large corporate shelter that was listed on the East Continent financial market before the apocalypse,
with a market value of hundreds of billions.
The second is a local influential family.
The last and weakest force is the original official shelter.
These three major forces dominate over 90% of the population in Tumen City.
Even some privately funded and constructed personal shelters
are mostly registered under these three major forces, obeying their commands.
In terms of governance strength,
each of these three forces is stronger than the former official shelter in Jianghe City.
This tendency towards local gang-like rule
naturally leads to more intense conflicts and injustices among ordinary people in the shelters.
Analyzing the messages revealed in the occasional casual remarks from the radio stations,
it became clear that Tumen City has yet to achieve even the most basic self-sufficiency in food.
In fact, there have been multiple instances of large-scale famine.
"Comparing this,
the official shelter in Jianghe City actually did quite well in the past."
Regarding this reality,
Su Wu found it somewhat difficult to evaluate.
After thinking for a moment,
he temporarily set aside the idea of contacting the various forces in Tumen City.
Given the domineering style of these forces locally,
no matter what he wanted to do, it would likely lead to bloody conflicts.
It would be better to avoid them as much as possible.
First, he should focus on bringing back the refugees scattered outside to his own shelter.
Now is not the time for conflict.
After all, the difference in obtaining other resources is not significant whether it's early or late.
But for the refugees, if they arrive a little late,
it could truly mean death for them.
Silently watching as the monitoring network nodes lit up and expanded on the map,
Su Wu's gaze unknowingly fell on the newly built communication signal tower.
The watchtower next to the communication signal tower
actually also served part of the base's function at this time.
The courier-grade drones took off from there and also recharged and equipped various monitoring devices there.
In the future,
if the monitoring network in Tumen City encounters problems, or if a device at a certain node malfunctions,
repairs would also need to start from the watchtower.
Additionally, if a trading caravan needs to be established with Tumen City in the future,
or if minerals need to be explored and mined in Tumen City,
it would also be centered around the communication signal tower.
"When things develop in the future,
these communication signal towers in remote areas will become increasingly important."
"However, relying solely on one watchtower for defense seems a bit insecure."
Su Wu pondered.
He wanted to strengthen the military presence and scale there.
But after considering the costs and risks,
he quietly dismissed that idea.
Instead, he chose an alternative plan.
That was to build a simple small runway no longer than 50 meters next to the watchtower.
By using fixed-wing drones with greater flight distance and carrying capacity,
he aimed to enhance the connections between them and the farmhouse on this side.
This would facilitate quick delivery of supplies and support from the farmhouse when needed in the future.
"The flight speed doesn't need to be too fast."
"The load doesn't need to be too high."
"It just needs to be able to deliver a regular Spider Robot along with some extra ammunition."
"It can be set at around 600 kilograms."
"In that case,
it should significantly reduce the requirements for the runway."
"Just leveling the ground a bit, and it wouldn't even need to be specially hardened to be used directly."
According to the requirements, Su Wu quickly found a design blueprint for a small fixed-wing drone in the database.
However, this blueprint could not be used directly on the current surface.
It needed to be designed with rainproof features,
and the original fuel-powered design had to be replaced with an all-electric drive, among other modifications.
--Support me in Patreon for more chapters 35+ chapters in there
patreon.com/LegendaryTL
Thanks!