Chapter 229 Levi's Piltover Strategy
After the meeting, Amystan was in a bad mood.
On the other hand, Levi, Mel, Victor and others who had finished the meeting were also not satisfied with the current situation.
"Levi, have we made too many concessions to Noxus?" Although the Supreme Council meeting before the meeting had passed the relevant resolution by a majority vote, some radicals represented by Victor still had opinions on this.
In Victor's opinion, it is far from enough to just move away factories, companies, universities, scientists, engineers and students.
He believed that the Leader could use the power of the Goddess to drive Noxus out of the Twin Cities in one fell swoop; instead of dividing Piltover as it was doing now, and then continuing to confront Noxus across the river.
"Victor, we've talked about this before," Levi explained to Victor. "We're moving too fast and too fast."
How long has it been since Leader was founded? Only half a year.
Just two months ago, the Wind Leader Association had just occupied a small territory in Zaun.
However, the Leader now controls a population of more than 2 million in Zaun, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people in Bilgewater who have been newly brought under control.
Among this population of nearly 3 million, there is a huge number of criminals who used to rely on gangs, pirate groups, chem barons and other reactionary forces of the old society for their survival. They need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to accept and reform them.
"There are tens of thousands of full-time professional pirates in Bilgewater alone. And in Zaun..."
Not to mention Zaan.
Even if they are not thugs working for the gang, there are few people here who are not criminals.
In order to survive this hell on earth, who among the Zaun people has not fought, stolen money, robbed things, or even killed people?
Even Levi himself has killed people and his hands are stained with blood.
"To absorb so many people at once, to help them get jobs, shelter, and income, to correct their mistakes, to change their minds, and to stop them from going back to crime, the amount of work required is unimaginably huge ."
"We are now seriously understaffed in terms of grassroots cadres, and the administrative system has expanded to its limit due to overexpansion."
"If we take over Piltover now and accept its 2 million people, we won't even have to worry about the enemy sabotaging us. We will be in a state of administrative collapse and chaos due to lack of manpower and management chaos."
Li Wei said seriously. This point has actually been discussed before.
But Victor had a different opinion: "Levi, the situation in Piltover is different from that in Zaun and Bilgewater."
Zaun and Bilgewater are both lawless places. If you don't quickly rebuild the order after breaking the old order, the people of Zaun and Bilgewater will let you know what the "gunfight dream of 3 million lawless maniacs" is in minutes.
But the public security in Piltover has always been impeccable.
"We can definitely take over Piltover first, but we are not in a hurry to transform it. At the same time, we will retain a large number of old staff from the Piltover Government Office, including the former Piltover Law Enforcement Officers, and use Piltover's ready-made administrative system to manage the city and maintain public order."
" After a while, our cadres will be trained and have enough manpower. Then we can slowly transform Piltover."
Victor's suggestion seems to be very feasible.
"But..." Levi's expression was subtle.
There are some things he didn't say in the previous internal meeting. Some things are too clear, which makes people uncomfortable. In fact...
"Leaving aside the important reasons from Noxus' side—"
"It is precisely because the situation in Piltover is much better than that in Zaun and Piltover that we cannot rush to take over Piltover."
Piltover is not only better than Zaun in terms of law and order, but it is better than Zaun in every aspect.
The more than 2 million people in Piltover are rich, every family is well-off, and everyone is a petty bourgeois.
The more than 2 million people in Zaan are so poor that they can only afford to buy trousers. Everyone is a beast of burden, and every family... only a few of them can have a home.
"If we take over the entire Twin Cities now and let the Zaun people and the Piltover people live together, then there is a problem—"
“Should we treat Zaun and Piltover people equally and let Zaun people live the same as Piltover people?”
"This..." Victor was slightly stunned: "Of course."
The ideal of the Wind Leader is to liberate all mankind and make everyone equal. Of course, people from Zaun and Piltover should be treated equally.
"But the total amount of the pie in the two cities is only this big. Before this, the rulers of Piltover had earned excess profits from the world through the exploitation of Zaun, an economic colony, and through financial and technological hegemony, and the benefits they gave to the people of Piltover were already good enough."
"Zuan is now in a mess, and everything needs to be rebuilt. It costs money to build a city, develop industries, and manage the environment. There are many places where money needs , and the amount of money that needs to be invested is simply an astronomical figure."
In the past, the Chem-Baron was only concerned with exploitation and not construction, and he almost turned Zaun into a chemical wasteland and a living hell. Now that the Wind Leader has arrived, of course he can no longer do that.
The Leader needs to build Zaun, and construction, especially infrastructure, is very expensive.
Therefore, the Leaders Association must have money in hand, and it must take a large piece of the pie. And it will take many years for this money to generate benefits and recover the cost.
"So even if we distribute it better, we can't give them better benefits."
The people of Piltover have meat for every meal, every family has a car, and they have apartments and houses, and they live a very comfortable life.
The harmonious society that many Zaun people imagine is at this level.
For a long time in the foreseeable future, the Leader will probably not be able to allow the combined population of Zaun and Piltover, which is more than 4 million people, to live such a high quality of life at the same time.
"what does that mean?"
This means that once the Wind Leader monopolizes the two cities and treats Zaun and Piltover equally -
The life of the people of Zaun will get better;
The people of Piltover suddenly have more than 2 million poor relatives who need to share the cake, and their lives will inevitably become worse than before.
“Not all ordinary people care so much about theories, doctrines and ideologies.”
“For most ordinary people, a doctrine that can make their lives better is a good doctrine, and a doctrine that makes people’s lives worse is a bad doctrine.”
“And if we take Piltover and the people of Piltover are worse off than before — what will they think? Will they still support us?”
"This..." Victor was silent.
Indeed, if you think about it for a moment you will know:
Seeing their poor relatives in Zaun becoming rich, while their own living standards are slowly falling to the same level as those of the people of Zaun...the people of Piltover must hate the Leader very much.
The people of Piltover will never understand that their previous good days were actually built on the suffering of the people of Zaun.
They would not acknowledge that this was just the people of Zaun getting back the compensation they deserved on an equal footing.
The people of Piltover will only think that it was the Windleader who brought those Zaun bandits and took away their former good life.
“The citizens of Piltover will only miss Camille and the Piltover Council. Perhaps in the near future, we will become the bad guys and Camille will become the good guy.”
Levi said faintly.
"This..." Victor looked stunned.
But he finally figured it out: "Levi, so that's why you're not in a hurry to take over Piltover and you've moved all of Piltover's high-tech companies and universities back to Zaun?"
If we don't take Piltover, we will be throwing the responsibility of governing Piltover to Amystan.
Moving companies and universities away actually means taking away Piltover's technological hegemony and the excess profits that Piltover used to have exclusively enjoyed.
then……
"It won't be long before the people of Piltover find that their lives are getting worse and worse."
"They will start to face pay cuts, unemployment, internal competition, and gradually they won't be able to afford big steaks or big mansions. They may even have to queue up in factories to screw in like the people of Zaun—"
"That is, from being a 'high-level worker' bought by the excess profits of developed socialism , to being a humble student receiving 'direct education from socialism'."
In the past, Piltover could have diverted conflicts by hating the people of Zaun.
But now... after witnessing the supreme power of Goddess Janna, how dare the Piltover newspapers still say this about Zaun?
Life has become worse, but I can’t blame Zaun. Who should I blame?
"Of course we can only curse Amystan and Noxus."
On the other hand, because of the technological advantage gained through military superiority, as long as the people of Zaun can endure the hard days of initial investment and construction, the living standards of the people will surely increase rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Then the people of Piltover will find that their lives have become worse under the rule of Noxus;
Under the leadership of the leader, the people of Zaun have turned their fortunes around and every family has achieved a well-off life.
What will they think?
"When we attack again, we will see the people of Piltover preparing food and drink to welcome the king's army."
