Besides the most advanced crystal processors and cyberwarfare units, the two "Super Swirl"-level warships naturally still needed crews.
While Xiaoming, Wenwen, and the Fist King could reduce half of the posts on board through the fully-automatic operation system, the agility, independence, and creativity of human beings in the key posts could not be replaced by piles of data.
Li Yao chose the reliable soldiers in the Big Bai Pirate Gang who knew the truth of the federation and who still had family in the federation, as well as those in the Cultivators' fleet who held bloody grudges against the Immortal Cultivators, as the crews of "Xiaoming" and "Wenwen".
Those people either considered the federation as their homeland or had the deepest hatred against the Imperium. Their loyalty was certainly not a problem.
The question was how to explain what Xiaoming and Wenwen were to them.