Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"Now... Can Renqin give everyone a report on the outside factions?" Xiaoyun looked over to Renqin.

"Yes Boss... Currently, there is no major faction in Guangdong that could threaten us at all. Our biggest rival, the military, had left Guangzhou entirely and was heading north to an unknown location.

However, several traders had reported sightings of the military going to Shaoguan in the north. So, I sent several agents out to confirm it, but they haven't reported back yet... Still, it is most likely true since Shaoguan has less than a million people. Its a much better location for a base than Guangzhou."

All the majors immediately let out a sigh of relief upon hearing the news, as most of them could still remember the military's bombardment that almost wiped out the massive zombie horde that was heading toward the town.

"Outside of Guangdong province, the intel is much harder to gather. So far, we have gathered that there are still no major factions in the Guangxi province, but several minor factions have already been leading the struggle to drive back the zombies.

One of the most prominent factions there was built upon the former border patrol initially designated to deter Vietnam. They had been separated from the Southern Theater despite being under them."

Just as Renqin was about to move onto the East part, Xiaoyun interrupted him.

"Do you have any news in other countries?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"No, almost all the communication had been mysteriously cut between countries as soon as the outbreak began...

There had been a conspiracy theory that some organization was behind all these, but there is no evidence to prove it." Renqin explained.

"I see... You can go back to the report."

Renqin took a sip of water and then resumed his report again.

"In the east, Fujian province had almost no intel at all... Due to the difficulty of the agents traveling there, I had to rely on the traders who had traveled there.

So far, the coastal cities are entirely under the zombies' control... But most of them are stuck there as the Eastern theater of the military has blown up all the bridges that go toward the city.

Coincidently, they are also the only faction located in Fujian, as they mostly cleared all the inner city of the zombies. And they seem uninterested in trying to clear any of the costal city."

"That seems a pretty short-sighted move." Yezi suddenly commented.

"Yes, I would agree with you. But considering the number of zombies that would have totaled up in Quanzhou, Xiamen, and Zhangzhou, They might be sacrificing most of the population in Fujian to protect the inland cities." Renqin explained.

"This doesn't seem humane at all," Yueyue commented.

As she pointed out, almost the entire civilian branch agreed with her, as everyone sitting at the table was living in the biggest coastal city in the south. With few of them having friends who lived there.

"We're not here to discuss what's humane or not... Renqin, can you go on to the next part?" Xiaoyun signalled.

"Yes Boss... And to our northwest is the Henan province. There are two large civilian factions just like us... Although they are civilians, one seems to be heavily influenced by the military from the former Central theater."

Renqin pointed at the map on the board.

"The first one is called Zhongxiong self-defense force. Their main base is located on the outskirts of Changsha. As of last month, they claim to have a record of one hundred thousand soldiers..."

Everyone immediately raised the alarm as the city they had built wasn't even near that number yet.

"However, this is highly exaggerated as they used a system where every civilian under them was a soldier. They are also highly underequipped, so they only operate on the outskirts of most cities.

Still, they have a massive population due to their geolocation being the crossroad for people in the south to going up north and vice versa, and it had been very lucrative in terms of raw material since every trader that goes through them has to pay taxes.

They also seem to enjoy strong support from their people as they use a self-governance style, sending a representative to the main base to represent each of the small towns they had set up. It is very similar to a republic.

Oddly, they also have a military governor who is not elected, but that person doesn't seem interested in taking power over the civilian branch... His name is Zhongxiong, which explains their faction's name.

Several reports have stated that Zhongxiong is connected to the Central theater, but it's purely rumors from the traders that had traveled here."

Renqin paused for a second to flip over to the next page.

"Next, the faction is located northeast of us in the Jiangxi province. Their capital is located at Ganzhou, and they called themselves the Ming Empire——"

"Ming empire? Really? You're not joking?" Xiaoyun interrupted Renqin to ask the question that was on everyone's mind.

"Yes, I know it sounded ridiculous and backward, but that's what they call themselves."

Seeing Renqin's face being fully serious, everyone realized he wasn't joking.

"Okay, you can continue." Xiaoyun waved.

"As I was saying, they call themselves the Ming empire because their leader claims lineage tracing back to the last Ming emperor, Yongli emperor's son.

And as the name implies, they are an absolute monarchy ruled by a man named Zhu Guangming... I had tried to learn more about them, but they are closed off from Outsiders, and the distance is too far to send any volunteers willing to go there.

However, many of the traders have reported that they have been in constant clashes against Zhongxiong's self-defense force. Although there is still no full-blown war yet as both sides still have to deal with the zombies in their perspective city."

As Renqin flipped over to the next page, Yuqi decided to speak up.

"How backward do you have to be to declare yourself emperor and make some bullshit claim with lineages?"

"Well, it's the apocalypse. It's only a matter of time before someone decides to go with that idea." Xiaoyun replied.

"Ahem, um, the last part is to the south of us... Which is extremely close, so I had sent most of my agents towards to get as much info as possible."

Renqin pointed at the three big cities south of Guangzhou.

"Shenzhen has hundreds of minor factions fighting and dealing with the massive number of zombies in the city. Same with Zhongshan and Jiangmen. They cannot form any large faction at all, as they are mostly evenly matched to each other...

Of course, they are nowhere near our size, and they haven't received any help from the military... Naval ships off the coast occasionally go to a nearby port to recruit people for their boats. They mainly operate around Zhuhai, not in the big three."

As Renqin took a small break to drink water, Xiaoyun asked a question.

"I completely forgot about the navy... They are mostly unaffected by the outbreak, right?" Xiaoyun asked curiously.

"Not exactly. It seemed that there had been an outbreak in the ships as well. I was able to interview several people in the town who escaped through a lifeboat and traveled to live here. So the ones in Zhuhai are the only remnant that survived the initial outbreak." Renqin clarified.

"So, a potential ally or an enemy in the south..." Xiaoyun mumbled.

"Perhaps. But it's hard to get in touch with them since they are always on the sea."

After explaining the four cities, Renqin finally moved his pointer to the last two major cities below Guangzhou.

"And for Macao and Hong Kong... I don't have any info on them at all. All the traders had said that the bridge is completely jammed and nobody can go in or out of the city."

"Probably not that good if I can imagine..." Xiaoyun commented as he considered the two cities so densely populated and having nowhere to go would almost certainly be a death sentence.

"Yeah. That's all the outside factions near us that I had gathered. Any further ones in the far north are either outdated or unreliable."

Renqin pulled out another pack of paper in his bag.

"Now for our ally in Qingyuan... They had been able to maintain themselves and cleared their cult stigma to be a much more attractive survival camp. And thanks to the city being mostly cleared, it now has almost the same population as us."

"Really? Same as us?" Xiaoyun couldn't believe the statement.

"Yes. Since the cult no longer existed, most people started flooding towards it when traders started spreading the positive news about it." Renqin explained.

"I see... Well, that's good to hear from our ally." Xiaoyun didn't think much of it and moved on.

"And for our ally in the countryside, they had been growing steadily as they started merging with several other towns and forming defensive alliances."

Renqin suddenly looked at Yuqi as if he wanted her to say something.

"They had been sending people and trading with us more and more often... They even asked us when we would make our flag so they could put it up." Yuqi replied.

"Really? When did they become so close to us?" Xiaoyun asked curiously.

"When their village leader visited our city a few months back, and I specifically showed him all the soldiers at the training field... I remember this was during your expedition to rescue people from the city." Yuqi explained.

"Oh right, I remember you told me there was a visitor. Tell him that we're not going to make a flag. That would make us a public enemy to the entire country... Ahem, Renqin, you can continue." Xiaoyun shifted everyone's attention back to Renqin.