Tumen City.
Official Shelter.
"Truly arrogant."
"And still subsidizing refugees."
"They're acting like the federal government."
As the director of the official shelter, Gong Li was theoretically the highest ruler of Tumen City.
Watching the television report from Jianghe City, his dissatisfaction was evident.
"What should we do then?"
"Condemn them?"
His assistant, Tang Zhixin, looked somewhat helpless.
She knew that her long-time friend was projecting the influence from Jianghe City onto the Moon Shadow Group.
It was purely a case of misplaced anger.
But then again, the Moon Shadow Group's shelter had outperformed their official shelter over the past six months, becoming the largest force in Tumen City.
If they took a few more steps and managed to incorporate the official shelter, it would essentially mirror the current state of Jianghe City.
It wasn't unfair to say they were quite similar.
After being momentarily stumped by his assistant, Gong Li's anger subsided considerably.
He remained silent for a moment before shaking his head.
"No, we should negotiate with them."
"See if they're willing to offer a price to acquire our local residents."
"Even if we can trade one person for a few pounds of food, it would be worth it."
Dissatisfaction aside, when it came to interests, all personal emotions had to yield.
Currently, Tumen City was facing a shortage of energy and food in the official shelter.
They were barely able to support the number of people within their own shelter.
Rather than allowing these starving individuals to riot or defect, it would be better to package them up and send them to the neighboring city.
They would likely be willing to subsidize and shelter refugees who were thousands of kilometers away and unrelated to them.
They probably wouldn't mind spending a little bit of resources to take in strong, healthy ordinary civilians who were right next door.
"That works."
"I'll reach out and see what I can do."
Tang Zhixin pondered for a moment and agreed that this was the best course of action.
After all, the neighbors had already become an untouchable behemoth.
There was no need to worry about aiding the enemy.
It would be better to take this opportunity to shed the burden.
Southeast of Jianghe City, along the river.
There were not just one but several parties with similar ideas as the official shelter in Tumen City.
Even within Tumen City itself, the other two major forces parallel to the official shelter also had thoughts of selling off their population.
In the apocalypse, having too many people was not a good thing.
Without sufficient space and job opportunities, every additional person became a heavy burden for the rulers.
It was better to sell them off at a discount as resources, at least they could exchange for something useful.
Jianghe City, a rural courtyard.
Su Wu had entrusted Chen Xin with the specific negotiations with external forces.
As for himself, he freed up time to consider the future of Jianghe City.
Currently, the entire Jianghe City had reached a population scale of over ten million.
But aside from the population, everything else was nearly nonexistent.
Su Wu had essentially crammed all these people into cages designed for eight individuals.
Then provided them with a small area to move around and just enough food to avoid starvation.
There was nothing else.
"Although it's a time of rebuilding."
"Still, we're talking about a population of over ten million."
"In ancient times, that would have been the total population of several dynasties."
Not hesitating to appreciate his achievements over the past days, Su Wu's gaze swept over the bustling crowds in the various affiliated shelters.
Only then did he retract his gaze and focus on planning.
At present, the surface temperature had just dipped below zero.
The heavy rain and floods had receded.
Although in some areas, sporadic snowflakes had begun to fall, overall, it was still the most suitable environment for ordinary people to engage in large-scale activities since the apocalypse began.
"From now until the temperature drops to minus 40, no, minus 50 degrees."
"It will be the best time for outdoor activities."
"We can take this opportunity to maximize the value of our tens of millions of laborers."
The greatest limiting factor for human activity was the environment.
Now that the surface environment was no longer so harsh, many tasks that could only be done on the ground could be directly assigned to humans without needing to go through robots.
So, what kind of work could accommodate millions of laborers on the ground?
After a moment of thought, Su Wu quickly directed his attention to the urban ruins of Jianghe City.
This area had been continuously excavated by Su Wu for several months.
The amount of construction waste and various material scraps contained there was still calculated in hundreds of millions of tons.
"At least it's a usable resource."
"It can't just be left on the ground unattended."
"Let's take this opportunity to gather it up early."
With a decision made in his heart, Su Wu immediately launched a massive cleanup operation.
The first batch of over a million young laborers was quickly assembled under the screening of artificial intelligence.
After distributing simple labor tools, such as warm clothing, sturdy shoes, gloves, and tools like shovels, picks, hammers, and crowbars, they were released from their respective shelters.
They began preliminary sorting and categorizing of the nearby construction waste.
Subsequently, a large number of engineering vehicles appeared on the surface.
With the guidance and cooperation of this initial batch of laborers, the sorted construction waste was loaded onto trucks and transported to various affiliated shelters.
There, it would be mechanically crushed on-site.
Then, through manual selection, it would be categorized into concrete powder and other materials, stored in different warehouses.
Once this waste recycling system had been running stably for several hours, and after multiple adjustments by the artificial intelligence to address any inefficiencies, the scale of the entire system began to expand further.
This time, it was no longer limited to just young laborers.
Any elderly person who could still move, as well as schoolchildren who were temporarily free after classes, were also mobilized to engage in relatively lighter sorting work.
Under the concentrated distribution and command of the artificial intelligence, just a few hours later, the entire population of over ten million in Jianghe City was operating like a massive machine.
Bit by bit, they began to consume the equally vast urban ruins on the surface.
"The current peak is processing 300,000 tons of construction waste per hour."
"That's a terrifying number."
After allowing the artificial intelligence to fully mobilize all idle laborers in the shelter, Su Wu received the final report the next day.
The exaggerated figures on it made him momentarily speechless.
He had observed what tools the shelter residents were using for labor.
With those purely human-powered, almost primitive tools, combined with around two thousand transport vehicles and hundreds of excavators and bulldozers, achieving such results could only be described as a miracle.
However, after the initial surprise, upon carefully examining the more detailed labor data, Su Wu couldn't help but frown again.
He saw the almost ruthless exploitation of humans by the artificial intelligence behind this astonishing labor efficiency.
It was nearly pushing humans to their physiological limits.
Driving them to work like this might be feasible in the short term.
But if it continued for even a slightly longer period, large-scale fatalities would easily occur.
After all, the fragile human body could never compare to true mechanical parts.
If they were pushed to their limits, they would indeed perish.
"Although we're pressed for time."
"It doesn't have to be this rushed."
After some consideration, Su Wu made significant cuts to the artificial intelligence's arrangements.
First, the number of people working on the ground was limited to under two million.
The rest were all sent back to wait for eight hours before being rotated in to replace those working on the surface.
Then, the labor intensity for those still working on the ground was reduced to one-third of the original.
This was a workload Su Wu determined based on his own physical strength and past experiences.
When he had just built the shelter in the rural courtyard, Su Wu had also personally operated a power drill for several hours.
At that time, he was using electric tools to face walls made of much softer red bricks compared to the concrete in the urban ruins.
Even then, he had nearly exhausted himself just to create a two or three-meter-wide gap.
Based on this situation, those working on the surface with more primitive tools and doing heavier work shouldn't exceed Su Wu's previous workload by much.
"If work requires exhausting one's body as the price."
"Then it's not labor; it's slavery."
Su Wu found it hard to bear even just thinking about such things.
Naturally, he couldn't impose such demands on others.
After Su Wu made these significant reductions, the speed of processing construction waste on the surface dropped from 300,000 tons per hour to around 40,000 tons per hour.
This was just a little over one-tenth of the maximum value.
But this reduced efficiency, in Su Wu's eyes, brought him greater peace of mind.
Because it represented health and stability.
After utilizing all idle laborers in the shelter, Su Wu's gaze temporarily shifted away from the city ruins, which had gathered millions of people and had become a massive construction site.
He turned his attention to the mountainous area.
At this time in the mountains, the 200,000 residents who had once lived there had mostly been transferred to the urban shelters of Jianghe City through underground tunnels.
Only a portion of the supplies had yet to be moved.
The limestone and iron ore mines located there, having been free from the interference of heavy rain, had now resumed their designed maximum output.
Producing 120 tons of cement and about 800 tons of iron ore daily.
"There's no need to turn all the excavated limestone into cement."
"It can also be stored as raw material."
"The same goes for iron ore; if we can't smelt it in time, we should store it."
"We should try to bring back as much of the excavated ore as possible before the surface environment deteriorates further."
Su Wu pulled up the real-time scanned structural diagrams of the two mines.
With the help of artificial intelligence, he quickly calculated their theoretical maximum output without limiting labor input.
He discovered that they could excavate about 20,000 tons of limestone and 5,000 tons of iron ore daily at most.
This amount seemed substantial.
But compared to the reserves of the two mines, it was still somewhat insufficient.
At this rate, it would take at least two years to completely excavate the small limestone mine.
And excavating the small iron mine would take even longer, nearly three years.
"Unless we can improve the excavation tools next."
"Otherwise, this is all we can manage."
Su Wu felt a bit regretful.
Looking at this result, it seemed unlikely that they would even manage to excavate half of the reserves before the surface temperature dropped to minus forty or fifty degrees.
In this situation, the best response was to reinforce the underground tunnel between the mountain shelter and the rural courtyard.
Then, through the mountain shelter, gradually transfer the output from the two mines.
This way, even if the surface environment worsened in the future, it wouldn't affect the transportation from the mines.
"Based on this situation."
"If we discover mines elsewhere in the future."
"It won't be possible to quickly deplete them either."
"Long-term mining and transportation in harsh low-temperature environments will still pose a significant challenge."
"It's time to consider designing a vehicle better suited for low-temperature and tundra environments."
"Then, we also need to quickly form several trade caravans to engage in trade with other regions and gather refugees from there."
"The later it gets, the more difficult these tasks will become."
"They must be completed as soon as possible."
Rubbing his forehead in frustration, Su Wu realized that the tasks awaiting him seemed to be countless.
November 10.
On the surface of the rural courtyard.
This place was no longer desolate.
In addition to the small fortress built early on, several large temporary cement warehouses and a vast square paved with rapid-setting cement had been newly constructed.
At this moment, on the square, a fixed-wing drone measuring 9 meters in length and 13 meters in wingspan was quietly parked at the end of a planned runway.
"Azure Sky-class transport drone self-check completed."
"Beginning takeoff."
With the prompt from the artificial intelligence in the underground control center, the drone began to slowly taxi down the runway before gradually accelerating.
It soared into the sky.
Then, it adjusted its flight direction, heading towards the location of the communication signal tower in Tumen City.
"Flying at an altitude of 550 meters."
"Speed 160 kilometers per hour."
"Flight posture stable, no abnormal faults."
Su Wu sat at the control console.
Watching this newly developed and produced aircraft, currently the largest in his possession, a sense of satisfaction arose in his heart.
"With this long-range transport drone capable of carrying 600 kilograms."
"The twelve communication signal towers in the southeast will no longer be isolated."
"They can receive supplies and armed support from the air at any time."
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