Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 127: Mayor Robert's Program

Claude was curious as to what kind of defensive regiment the mayor, Baron Robert, had put forward to piss off all those attending the meeting. Especially how much hatred Verricolo's father, Kubrick, could turn his face on the spot and whisper without saying a word and threaten to report it...

You should know that all the retired veterans of the town can be recruited to participate in the formation meeting of this guard team. Bai Lu Town, though small, has more than forty or fifty, and the formation of a guard team cannot bypass them. The mayor, Baron Robert, had to have at least two thirds of them agree to form a guard corps before he could do so, as expressly provided for in the laws of the Kingdom.

Sterling IX, who had travelled the entire Farea continent before his arrival, was appointed by his father, Sterling VIII, as Minister of Monitoring, responsible for the restructuring of the national guard force. In carrying out this task, he found that many places were filled with groundhogs, with no fighting power, and that it was best to oppress people to extort civilians and businessmen. More often than not, they become vicious claws of lords and local officials, nominally armies of kingdoms, and in fact militias of certain ambitious families.

Sterling IX eventually had to kill a lot, reorganize discipline and reorganize these local guard forces and punish all the gangsters for their crimes, which earned him a great reputation in the civil sphere, as well as the hatred of countless lords and local officials. This is also why almost all lords and local officials have stood on his side since the outbreak of the civil war in the Kingdom.

Still, Sterling IX won the final victory in the Kingdom's civil war. Following his arrival, very detailed legal provisions were put in place for local guard forces to eliminate the possibility of local guard forces becoming private militias and claw teeth of local officials, at the very least so that local guard forces, while having some fighting power, would not become a source of insecurity in the area.

The Kingdom's troop strength is broadly divided into three components: a field force and a field corps stationed in strategic locations. These field regiments have the widest range of recruitment sources, even if it is the gangsters, who sometimes organize forcible recruitment campaigns, forcibly recruit local civilians who do not have a regular job, and forcibly recruit idle gangsters, all the more so. Anyway, there is strict regimental discipline to restrain them, and after a period of rigorous training they become qualified cannon dust.

The second component is the local guard battalions, which generally have one local guard battalion in each county town, with approximately 800 to 900 personnel, divided into four guard battalions, each with more than 200 personnel. Most of the members of the guard battalions come from retired and rehabilitated officers of the Field Legion, as well as a large number of veterans from the Field Legion.

For example, if a soldier has to serve in the army for 15 years in order to acquire national identity, he may serve in the Field Corps for 78 years and then transfer to the local guard battalion for the remainder of his military service. For the Kingdom, the local guard battalion is a second-line force responsible for local security alert tasks, which can be rapidly expanded during the war to fill the shortfall in the front-line.

The third component is the local guard force. In fact, the Kingdom does not have a large number of local guard units, the largest of which is the guard brigade, which is responsible for the stationing of strategic points in the interior of the Kingdom. Local order was maintained during the war, traffic roads were kept safe, logistical heavy supplies were cared for and, in some cases, military departments were recruited to the front line as guards for prisoner of war camps.

Since funding for the formation and maintenance of the local guard force is not borne by the Royal Military Ministry, it is financed locally. Therefore, the formation of local guard forces is regulated in great detail by the laws of the Kingdom because of the fear that the local guard forces will become private fighters of local power. For example, the use of veterans, supported by innocent civilians, is strictly forbidden to recruit hooligans or even civilians with criminal records of immediate family members.

Velricolo's father, Kubrick, cursed at the mayor, Baron Robert, and finally quenched his breath and drank another bowl of rye, which gave the mayor Baron Robert the idea of forming a White Deer Town Guard.

The order of the county was that White Deer Town form a guard battalion of 224 men, and that the Kingdom's military system consists of 44 units, that is, four guard squadrons comprising a guard squadron and four guard squadrons comprising a guard squadron. The county will then allocate armaments to a garrison in Bai Lu Town, but funding for the formation and maintenance of the garrison will need to be raised by Bai Lu Town itself.

With regard to the need for qualification clearance at White Deer Town Hall for the recruitment of Guard Corps personnel, the County Council ordered more than a dozen officers and veterans from the Guard Battalion to join the Guard Battalion as instructors and inspectors, as well as commanders, so that a further pool of middle-level officers would need retired White Deer Town veterans to fill the vacancies.

Baron Robert, in his capacity as mayor, convened a meeting of retired veterans of White Deer Town to form a guard brigade. He opened the door and said that the town hall was unable to accomplish the task due to financial constraints. There are only two remaining methods, a temporary tax levied on the inhabitants of each or every Bai Lu town to finance the formation of the garrison. The second is donations to enable White Deer town merchants and wealthy households to raise funds to carry out this task.

The meeting was attended by retired veterans of the town, who, by virtue of their national status, belonged to a wealthy class and had no objection to what the mayor, Baron Robert, called temporary taxation or voluntary donations. With the exception of older persons and persons with disabilities, at least half of those attending the meeting could seek an officer position in the guard unit, which would greatly benefit them in promoting their status in the town and they would be happy to be part of the guard unit even if the monthly salary subsidy was small.

It's just that all of us were surprised when Mayor Robert said the amount of his taxes and voluntary donations, which was a little too much, not to mention a guard battalion, even a guard battalion could be formed. In particular, Mayor Robert added that this time it was only about raising funds for the formation of a guard unit, and that the next step in maintaining the guard unit would need to be to find a way to do so, preferably by converting a temporary tax into a regular one, which would be collected twice a year, so that the guard unit could be maintained.

So Mayor Robert decided to leave the tax scheme to you, sign your own name, and then submit it to the county council, and when it's approved, the town hall will be able to implement it under the scheme.

No one was a fool, and several veterans with better mathematics pointed out on the spot the unreasonableness of the amount in the tax scheme and thought that the tax scheme proposed by the mayor, Baron Robert, was simply to put the blame aside on the veterans who came to the conference and then sit down and enjoy the success. And these taxes ended up not being monitored, and who knows if the money would be spent on the guard corps?

Mayor Robert argued that it was none of his business, as the treasurer was similarly arrested this morning on charges of endangering the security of the Kingdom. The town hall's financial accounts have not been cleared up and the directors are gone, and it is now a mess. So he can only roughly estimate an amount of money, but it's always good to have more money anyway.

Well, the chief of administration, treasurer and patrol chief of the town hall has become a hall of speech for the mayor, Baron Robert, after the arrest of the troika this morning. The veterans, however, did not give him face and, whatever he might say, disagreed with the two options. Obviously, everyone saw through Baron Robert's intentions, and he clearly wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to form a garrison to make a fortune.

As a result of unanimous opposition from the veterans present, Mayor Robert stopped insisting on both taxation and voluntary contributions. He was angry to say that even if you didn't want to contribute to the formation of this guard unit, there were people willing to contribute to White Deer Town. He then launched another option for the formation of a guard brigade.

Mayor Robert says the owner of the fishery processing plant, Bedrill. Brünch is willing to donate funds for the formation of the brigade and promises that he will also bear the maintenance of the brigade in the future. The only requirement is to assume the position of Squadron Leader in the Guard Brigade and to be responsible for the recruitment of the personnel who will form the Guard Brigade.

If the two fund-raising schemes that the mayor, Baron Robert, had just proposed had only sparked a little flux, then the scheme would have caused a dramatic wave. The veterans in this room have returned to God, angry, questioning what Mayor Robert wants. Kubrick furthermore yelled outrageously and threatened to report Mayor Robert's intent to rebel...

“Is he crazy? How did you come up with such a plan? It's like putting his life on that Bedrill. Brunch can't run away at all...” Claude is really surprised that the mayor, Baron Robert, must have been kicked in the head by a donkey to come up with such a plan.

As long as you're a resident of White Deer Town, you don't know Bedrill. Brunch is what kind of man. He is apparently the owner of a fishery processing plant with over 200 servants. But he's actually the boss of the Black Snake Club, the actual owner of the Old Street of the Moon and Feng. His shadow was behind almost all the crimes committed in the Glades. The nickname Bloody Bill is not whispered, and there are rumours that at least two digits of innocent people have died on his hands.

But Bedrill. Brunch is also known in the slums as the boss, and even if his family had a fortune, nobody in the upper classes of Bai Lu Town was willing to take care of him. Mostly his reputation was so bad that no one wanted anything to do with him until Baron Robert became mayor, Bidrill. Brunch only had a few chances to be at Baron Robert's family banquet.

Though Bedrill... Brönch has always claimed to be a law-abiding citizen and workshop owner, and taxpayers are very active in charity. Even at the family banquets held by the mayor of Robert, the face of Baron Robert was obstructed by a lot of people and Bedrill. When Brunch said two words, he immediately sought an excuse to leave, isolating him invisibly.

That is, Baron Robert doesn't dislike Bidrill. Brunch's money's a little dirty. He's trying so hard to pull Petrell. Brönch, who wanted to push him into the upper echelons of White Deer Town as his own patronage, was slow to make progress with the boycott of the town hall's three giants.

Now the three men in the town hall who did the right thing with Baron Robert have been arrested. Baron Robert thinks he's the mayor of the town, and he can hide his hands in the town hall, and he wants to take advantage of the formation of a garrison to take Bidrill. Brunch, push ahead. Everyone knows that becoming a squadron leader of the guard brigade means that he has become a new dignitary in White Deer Town.

None of the retired veterans who attended the meeting didn't know about Bidrill. At the root of Brunch, it also makes sense for Cooper to scold the mayor of Robert for plotting against him. First of all, Bedrill. Brönch is only a civilian, not a national, and what qualifies him as Squadron Leader of the Guard Brigade.

Secondly, Bidrill. Brunch asked to be Squadron Leader and to be responsible for the recruitment and formation of his own Squadron, and it was clear that he would only be recruited as a member of the Black Snake Society, in violation of the Kingdom's legal provisions on the recruitment of members of the Guard. Those thugs recruit in, they only listen to Bidrill. Bronch's orders, this is to stand on the hill in the guard battalion.

Thirdly, Bidrill. Brönch said he would bear the maintenance money of the guard brigade in the future, and everyone knew that the most important thing besides personnel rights was financial rights. If the maintenance of the guard brigade is later funded by Bidrill... If Brönch is in charge, will this guard force become a mere obedience to Bidrill? Bronch ordered the militia?

At the end of the day, the meeting was dispersed and no agreement was reached. It is believed that Baron Robert's failure will clear his mind that the formation of a garrison in the town cannot bypass the retired veterans of Kubrick. If he dares to exclude all veterans who oppose him from the garrison, then he is really looking for a way to die, especially at the current junction of the military...