After a long night of brainstorming, the official statement of their recruitment was finally sent and published in the intracommunity network of news. The first day or so, there weren’t that many people who were interested in joining U1B. That being said, there were a few familiar faces that came by to check it out. Chen Di which Baron, Guan Yu, and Yue Fei had met during the aerial Sun Alliance tournament decades ago came by to register. The reason that he wanted to join was that he saw how generous the benefits were for a faction that just started and hoped to see it grow. That particular reason coupled with the fact that he knew what the faction leader was like helped him cement his decision.
Continuing from that, commander Ke and commander Ba each separately visited U1B headquarters and came in to talk themselves into an inner circle position. To which Baron rejected both and instead told them that they could be positioned in elder roles and once they proved their loyalty, they would be able to become inner circle members. At first, they were unsure whether or not they should accept, but in the end, only commander Ba of defense joined in to become an elder. Commander Ke of offense decided to wait for opportunities elsewhere.
Slowly, some of the acquaintances and people that have been helped out by Guan Yu, Yue Fei, and Xu Da flocked in to check out the promising new faction. A few joined, but not a lot. It was a great atmosphere getting to catch up with friends, introductions to allies new and old, regaling of stories of warfare and close times. But alas, that did not last long as most everyone seemed to be here just to look around.
Seeing as how slowly the pace was going for them, Baron decided it was finally time to get the big guns out. A notice was sent to the publishers of news that Baron’s faction would be selling one type of blueprint, it was one that Roxi had brought to this world, the wooden M4a1 that was not as powerful as a regular M4, but much more versatile. The plan was that this publicity stunt would attract new talents to their cause. The price that was set was 1,000 coins. Normally, every gun blueprint would cost upwards of five thousand coins for the very basic ones. For something like what Baron was willing to sell at such a low price, the moment it hit the news cycle, thousands flocked to Baron’s HQ.
On the 4th day onwards, things started to really ramp up in terms of registrations and admittance into the faction. Most of it was due to the insane marketing that the blueprint they were selling. What Baron and the gang were preying on was that the majority of the lower class of citizens in the Chinese community was still fighting with primitive guns such as those used in the colonial times, around the late 1600s.
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There was one other thing that the news relayed out for Baron, it was that whoever joined into the already generous Under 1 Banner faction would be able to buy the blueprint for a quarter of the price. In the Chinese community, it was not a small matter to join a faction. It took Li Xin a couple of decades just to leave the Sun Alliance faction. So whoever joined would have to be serious in joining as well as staying in for at least a few decades.
Things were starting to look up for Under 1 Banner as they had managed to get a few hundred applicants by the fifth day. These people were then cycled through an interview process that included 2 stages. One was for an initial interview from Baron, Guan Yu, Yue Fei, Xu Da, Chen Di, commander Ba, and Ban Chao. This first step weeded out those who had no interest in actually being active in the faction once they got in.
The second step was just a short conversation with Han Xin, this step was nothing more than a judge of their character of which Han Xin was extremely apt at. As the days went by, the U1B faction gradually began to swell up in terms of numbers, from just under a dozen to hundreds. However, this was still not enough, they needed to do something more. Much, much more.
Finally, the two dragon factions led by Zhang Da Zhi and Qi Ji Guang released their recruitment posters into the press cycle as well and things took a worse for U1B. Without the dragon factions doing much, they were able to get about half of the number of recruits. Something that Baron was a bit jealous of. Nothing could be done about this matter, after all, it seemed that those two factions seem to be much more popular in the eyes of the Chinese community citizens. They were ranked higher in the Sun Alliance tournaments, and they were able to win in two of the faction selection tournaments to Baron’s one. Undoubtedly, they had achieved much more than Baron’s group has up to this point.
Unfortunately for them, there was still one more trick up Baron’s sleeve. If this did not work, then Baron would have to bide his time until he managed to get a few more achievements under U1B’s name to attract more talents to his cause. The very beginning was when most factions experienced the highest surge in numbers, but after a while, that would not be the case unless that faction gained support from a larger faction or something similar.
The plan that Baron had in mind was for every faction member that made it in to receive another blueprint for absolutely free. It was not a weak blueprint either, it was the Mark V tank. Something that not a lot of people could match. This was something that was never before done in the Chinese community, and it worked.