Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 408: Stray Children

On April 7, 591, Blovik returned to the Viberon estate in Lake Lan town.

The only headache Claude had was that his brother Browick was not a former squad man, he had brought back nearly sixty young boys and girls. It's nice to say that girls and boys are actually more than 60 minor children are street children, the oldest is 16 years old, the youngest is only 7 years old, of which 5 or 6 are disabled children...

Claude's mother and Kevin stared at each other and looked at the large group of street children who didn't know what to do. Alec's housekeeper, accompanied by two servants, could only laugh bitterly. On a journey back to the kingdom to deal with the family property, he was turned into a homeless child by this young Master Blovik. As a servant, he had no objection but to do his utmost to help these street children return to the estate smoothly.

Blovik did not care about the face of others. After returning to the estate with this large group of stray children, he instructed the servants to burn water for everyone to take a bath, go to the ready-to-wear shop to buy clothes, prepare the kitchen for food, and prepare the bedrooms for all stray children to rest and keep the servants of the estate busy with chicken dog jumping.

By the time Claude returned to the estate, the strays had already eaten dinner, taken a bath and changed into new clothes. Many children play on the estate's empty spaces, and those who don't know think they're on some campus. Even Big Gummy stood still for half a day, looked around and confirmed that this was the Vibrant Estate before escorting the carriage into the gate.

Soon the two brothers met in the study, only with a 15-16 year old girl by Browick's side.

“Second Brother, this is Adele, the daughter of old Soft..." Browick introduced Claude to the girl around him.

Old Soft, Claude knew that a very famous old Sergeant of the Thunder Division was also transferred from the Rangers to the Thunder Division. He has been in the army for almost two decades, and if he could read, he would not have been a sergeant foreman, perhaps already a lieutenant. Only in the Third Colonial War, Old Soft blended into enemy camps and died in the sand to cover the battle of Blovik, who this time returned to the mainland of the kingdom, half to deal with the family business of White Deer City and the other half to find the wife and children of Old Soft left behind in his hometown.

Soon Claude found out why his brother Browick brought back so many strays. It turns out that Blovik went to Old Soft's hometown to find out what was wrong with him. Six years ago Old Soft followed the Rangers to the Overseas Territories of the Nubian mainland, where he stayed with his wife and three children, a daughter and two sons, and left enough money for his family to live...

It was just that something had happened. In the third year, Soft's youngest child was seriously ill. His wife went to the doctor for her youngest son's illness. Unfortunately, she found a cheater pharmacist, who spent a lot of money but was getting worse and worse. In the end, her youngest son died of illness and the cheater pharmacist also fled. His wife couldn't stand the blow and lay down. The family had no heart, and Adele was only 13 years old.

At this point, a relative of old Soft hit on the idea of their house, on the pretext of helping them to cure their wife's illness and start lending them a loan at a high interest rate. When the debt was almost high, he tore off the mask of hypocrisy and drove them out using their house to pay their debts. Old Soft's wife was angry and sorry, and she died without a breath.

Adele, who was only fourteen years old, became a homeless stray and depended on her only brother to rob the garbage pile of abandoned food and fight with other strays. By the time I went to Browick to find their sisters, Adele had become the eldest sister of nearly twenty street children in their hometown...

Blovik told Adele about the death of her father, Old Soft, that Adele was indifferent and had not shed a single tear. She said that Old Soft had been gone for so many years and had not heard from her. She had long considered him dead, she had long had no father, and things were fine now...

Browick couldn't stand it. Old Soft died trying to cover him. He was going to give Adele a whole new life without wandering around town looking for food in the garbage. But Adele won't do it, she won't go back to Nubian mainland with Browick. In the end, Blovik haunted her for days and finally convinced her to have a happy and wonderful tomorrow for her brother.

Only Adele made a request that Blowick take in the 20 stray children she followed before she and her brother followed Blowick. Browick's eyebrows didn't even wrinkle. But Adele wasn't so savvy, and maybe there was a reason to deliberately try Browick, and on her way back, she just saw a stray child and stayed. As a result, when White Deer City was about to embark, there were more than sixty strays following Blovik...

It's strange, Claude. When will there be so many strays in the kingdom? Blovik explained that he had already checked on board, that most of the street children were orphaned by soldiers killed and wounded in the five years of the Eastern War, that a handful of disabilities were abandoned by their families, and that the rest were either fathers killed in battle, mothers remarried or died of illness, and that they either ran away from home or were homeless.

Blovik decided to adopt these street children, most of whom were twelve or three years old, who wanted to go to school and find a way out in the future. As for the expenses, he felt that his share of the proceeds from that hidden military expenditure of the Kingdom of Hicks was sufficient to raise the children until they reached adulthood. From this point of view, although Blovik's temper was sometimes grumpy and irrational, his heart was good and Claude was pleased.

Claude waved and asked Browick to take the girl Adele out first and figure out what to do with the strays himself. Adele's brother has no big problem, her father is old Soft, the sergeant of the Legion of Thunder, not to mention that the immigrant's eligibility and personal property land replacement alone will give their sister fifty acres of good land, enough to build a small estate. And Claude repaid Old Soft for saving his brother Browick's life, putting together a 100-acre estate without a problem.

But the rest of the 60 stray children are in trouble. First of all, they are not the orphans of the Thunder Legion or the Rock Legion soldiers, and this immigrant treatment does not take care of them. Secondly, Claude would never allow his brother Blovik to adopt them because he was not married and he was single. Adopting so many stray children is likely to have a huge impact on his future marriage. It is not a question of having the money to raise them, but of not having any unmarried lady willing to be the godmother of so many stray children.

Claudella rings the bell rope to summon housekeeper Alec into the study, and he wonders why Alec housekeeper didn't stop his brother Blovik from harbouring so many stray children.

Claude just had no idea that Arik Butler had given an unexpected answer. Arik Butler said that Young Master Blovik seemed to have special feelings for Miss Adele. He allowed Miss Adele to do whatever she wanted, even if she was pranked, and didn't care, as if a brother had tolerated her sister, so he remained silent on her taking in stray children all the way.

As a housekeeper in the Fields family, Alec's housekeeper should have stood up and stopped Miss Adele from doing anything. However, in view of the lack of manpower in the Fields family, Yarik Butler decided to endorse the hosting of these street children by Young Master Blovik. Many old-fashioned aristocratic families, who are well equipped in all aspects, mainly choose their children from the family's generations of servants for upbringing and future use by their children and grandchildren.

And the Fields family flourished only in the Claude generation, and the family lacked talented people and relatives, and now servants are hired outside, making it difficult to guarantee their loyalty. So Yarik Butler believes that these stray children hosted by Young Master Blovik are inevitably not an opportunity, and if they can be cultivated as talents, they are naturally more suitable than those hired from outside.

These homeless children are already suffering at such a young age that Claude would be grateful to Claude and the Fields if he were willing to spend money to nurture them. Then, in just five or six years, you will have a strong staff loyal to the Fields family, if not talented enough to serve and serve the family.

Claude nodded, and that's what Alec Butler said. Perhaps he just persuaded himself based on the practices of the old aristocratic families, but it's not a good way to strengthen the Fields family.

It's ridiculous, Claude never thought to do it before, just like he was in the army, born to die and climbed to this point. As Lieutenant General of the Kingdom, the Legion Commander of Thunder Legion, but in the army, his true heart is just a few of Maggie, Big Gummy, his brother Browick, and Berklin, Muriel, and Diaved. Although the status is getting higher and higher, sometimes it feels like nobody is available, mainly because of mutual trust issues...

Asked Arik Butler to bring his brother Browick in, Claude told him his decision, and the family would adopt the stray children, but would not let them stay at the Viberon estate, but would send them to their sister Anna's ranch, where they would hire teachers to teach them to read, write and exercise, just as their own family would run a national primary and secondary school on the ranch.

In addition, Claude asked Blovik to take these children to Anna Ranch tomorrow and secretly test them for magic talent, if any, and pick them out for magician training. The Fields need to master a magical power, even if they can't be trained as battle magicians, it would be nice to find some magic assistants for their sister Anna and Lady Sonia...

In addition, given what happened to the Adele brothers, Claude instructed Browick to return with McJackie to visit the families of all the sergeants who had lost their lives in the Colonial War after settling the stray children on the ranch, and to bring them all to the ranch if an orphan was found, where the Fields would raise them as adults.

Blovik was pleased to accept Claude's assignment to settle the strays to bed and prepare to leave for the ranch after breakfast tomorrow morning. Claude promised to adopt these strays in the name of his family to relieve him, otherwise, going to discipline so many strays every day would also make Browick feel very headached...

The next day Claude came to Anna Ranch with his brother, Blovik, and the Yarik Butler, and they were going to live here. Their studies and lives are naturally arranged by the Arik Butler, and what Arik Butler said last night allowed Claude to put him on a credible affinity list, which is good news for the Arik Butler, who finally trusted Claude.

Both McJake and his brother Browick were sent to complete the visit of the relatives of the deceased soldier, who only had to go to the Logistics Department to check the list of victims. People are then scheduled to return to their immediate families at their addresses to migrate to the Overseas Territories war zone to receive immigration access for victims and personal property land displacements. If the immediate family is gone, find a way to bring back the victims' orphans to Claude, who will be raised by the Fields.

The same immigration access and personal property land displacements that had been proposed by General Benskry to the families of all soldiers who had lost their lives in the colonial war were endorsed by all generals of theatre command. However, the practice of the Department of Logistics was simply to send a military mail to the families of those who had lost their sergeants, informing them of the incident.

It's just that Claude now suddenly realizes that there's something very wrong with this. If tragedies like Adele's brother were to happen to the families of the sacrificial sergeant, they would not only not receive the letter, but perhaps also the families of the sacrificial sergeant would come forward to claim the immigrant's eligibility and personal property land replacement.

Claude, who arranged for McJackie and his brother Browitt to deal with the death of the Legion of Thunder, coincided with the rotation of family visits by officers at the grassroots level who could personally visit and notify the home of the deceased.

General Scully and General Bolognick were also informed that Claude could make a decision about the Legion of Thunder, but Claude was not in a good position to intervene about the Legion of the Rocks. General Skerry was also asked to strictly enforce the last inquiry gates to prevent cheating on the families of deceitful soldiers.

When these things were arranged, Claude went on to discuss the long rifle development with his sister Anna and Mrs. Sonia. Thanks to standardized production of copper shell bullets, Mrs. Sonia was able to carry out various barrel structure firing tests, and considerable progress had been made in the development of long rifles. Now the type of trolley long rifle closest to what Claude described has been shaped, although the body area of the gun is still swollen and heavy, requiring time for slow finishing.

What made Claude suffer was that Master Byrd completely ignored the development of this long rifle, and the old man was totally obsessed with the fire engine and had a hard time staying in the iron ore factory every day. Claude once told him the difference between a fire engine running on a hot air expansion link and a steam engine running on a steam drive link, and the old man kept thinking about making a steam engine. Because the thermal efficiency of the fire engines manufactured by the iron ore factory is low, it takes a long time to burn the fire to make it run...

After returning to Viberon Manor at night, Mr. Viberon arrived and brought back to Claude the latest news about Wang Du, which of course refers to what happened more than twenty days ago. Sterling X has been buried in the royal mausoleum. The only major thing left of the kingdom is Prince Widreck's boarding ceremony, but this boarding ceremony has been postponed repeatedly. The main reason is that the Wangdu bosses are worried that once Prince Widreck boards, Prince Hansburg will declare himself a king of the rebellion...

It is noteworthy that almost simultaneous mutiny took place in the three counties in the southern part of the former Principality of Eskirin and in the two newly established standing regiments in the former Principality of Rimodra, as in the case of the Blue Feather Regiment, where soldiers and grass-roots officers expelled senior officers from both regiments and announced their obedience to the orders of the Grand Prince of Hansburg. In this way, the Grand Prince has almost 200,000 troops in the hands of three regiments...