In Li De's eyes, the power of public opinion was no weaker than having every resident sign a soul contract with him.
Its might surpassed even the magic of a legendary mage.
Because public opinion could control how people thought.
It was a truly terrifying power.
Fortunately, Li De was lawful by nature. What he instilled in the residents of Dawn City were mostly positive ideals, love for Dawn City, support for its military, admiration for the saintlight vampires, hard work, and diligence to achieve prosperity.
Otherwise, if he were like those evil gods, he could create a horde of fanatical lunatics in minutes.
That was why Li De had established the Propaganda Department as a standalone division. Moreover, aside from him and Harrison, no one else had the authority to command it.
He oversaw the Propaganda Department personally.
This weapon was simply too powerful. Even in the modern world, with information so widely available, people still got brainwashed by garbage media. Let alone a world like Glory, where knowledge was scarce and commoners were poorly informed.
If wielded properly, this was a trump card among trump cards.
The reason Li De had gained such rapid, unwavering support and reverence from the people was not only because the residents had indeed benefited, credit had to be given to the Propaganda Department as well.
Harrison's voice interrupted Li De's thoughts.
"Yes, Patriarch.
The Construction Department already has a plan for building the school.
The batch of Grand Scholars we brought back from the raids hasn't been assigned yet. Should we have them participate in designing the school as well?"
Li De came back to his senses and nodded slightly.
"Among the Grand Scholars, I'm sure quite a few understand architecture or how a school should be built. They're high-quality assets, if we don't put them to use, what did we go to all that trouble to bring them back for?"
He didn't care whether those people had developed any sense of belonging to Dawn City yet. Let them work first, other issues could wait.
Even if those elite returnees from Solins City were dissatisfied, they could only obey.
Rebel? Just try. Let's see how you like labor reform. Ever heard of the Doghead Guillotine?
[T/N: Doghead Guillotine is part of a set of guillotines created by a character from a novel and was used to specifically execute commoners.]
"Yes, Patriarch."
Harrison immediately jotted it down in his notebook, like a diligent student taking notes.
Li De stretched comfortably on a soft gray sofa by the window.
"The school will take at least a full winter to construct. As long as it's completed before May next year, that's fine."
His thoughts continued churning. There really was a lot to build this time around.
"Harrison, the current livestock farm is at full capacity. With the growing population, one facility is no longer enough.
I need you to expand two additional livestock farms around the current one, and designate that whole area as a restricted zone, no outsiders allowed.
Also, be sure to reserve enough land to build at least ten livestock farms in the future.
Three farms definitely won't meet our long-term development needs."
That was the beauty of having ample land, he could just wave his hand and allocate a plot on a whim.
Lately, the livestock farm hadn't just been the food source for the whispering bats, it had also greatly enriched the city's meat supply.
Elsewhere, it was a luxury for commoners to eat meat.
But Dawn City's livestock farm used a highly modern management model, with convenient infrastructure like running water. The farm had a high production rate and fast turnover.
Especially since he had stationed a number of mages there to magically disinfect and sanitize, which significantly improved the survival rates of the animals.
So the farm not only met the needs of the whispering bats, it also supplied some meat for the city's residents.
But now that the population had surpassed 30,000, the original farm, designed to raise just over ten thousand pigs, was clearly insufficient.
More critically, with the arrival of the goblins, the current thousand-strong whispering bat population could no longer meet his demands. To increase their numbers, he had to expand the livestock farm to provide enough food for these magical beasts.
Now that he had the goblins, alchemical bombs weren't far off. Goblin bombs were part of Li De's preparations for creating an air force in Dawn City.
Once an air force was established, the whispering bats would inevitably become the dominant force on the battlefield.
In theory, the upgraded form of the whispering bats, Dawn Bats, should be the backbone of Dawn City's future air force.
But due to a lack of faith energy, there was only one king of the whispering bat race, Castro.
So for now, the air force had to rely on the currently existing whispering bats.
Maybe in the future he could replace them with Dawn Bats, but that wasn't feasible in the short term. There were far too many demands on his faith energy already, and he couldn't spare much for this.
The dungeon still held the level 18 beastman king Kap. Just that guy alone would consume over ten thousand units of faith energy, and he was one of Li De's key targets.
"Yes, Patriarch." Harrison played the role of yes-man perfectly. As a second-generation bloodline descendant, he knew Li De's temperament well, he never interrupted until Li De was finished speaking.
"One more thing. The current thousand-strong whispering bat force is nowhere near enough to meet our air force needs. By next spring, I expect to see no fewer than 3,000 whispering bats.
Assign this task to Odys. It must be completed."
If possible, Li De would love to immediately mass-produce tens of thousands of whispering bats. But Glory wasn't a video game, he couldn't just spam out units and ignore the consequences.
Producing over ten thousand whispering bats wasn't impossible, but what would happen after that? The massive daily logistical consumption alone could drag Dawn City into collapse.
You had to eat one bite at a time. Trying to ascend to the heavens in a single step was simply unrealistic.