Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 528 Bandits and Messages

Claude thought he had gotten used to the barbaric behavior of people around the world, but now he finds out what it means to be stupid and truly barbaric...

“... Marshal, after the count, more than 1,300 items belonging to the town of Macharine were searched from this tribe, and many of the items registered as looted bear blood on them. We even found commodities that were stolen from the town hall, with the Macharine Town nightingale engraved on it. As for those in Macharine who were taken away by the Marshals, we also found their whereabouts, but..."

Lieutenant Colonel Mason Hughes paused and was somewhat saddened: "Women are still alive, and men in the tribe need to exasperate themselves to give birth to more children for the tribe. But the men, the young and the strong, there are still a few who live, and they are treated as slaves. And the older ones, and the older ones who got caught, were all killed a few days before they came to the tribe, because the tribe needed to make a bowl of drinkers out of their skulls..."

A small town called Macharin near Likumada Hill District in the Kanas region was looted by horseback bandits the previous day, and the horseback bandits had left after receiving information that Thunder Corps troops had arrived. The town of Macharin has become a rubble, with fewer than half of its original population of more than 3,000, and more than 400 people still missing as a result of killings by horseback bandits. No doubt, it must have been looted by horse bandits.

Claude was furious. How dare you? It was too old for him. It took more than half a month to trace and quickly find this medium-sized tribe with a population of nearly 10,000. After a less intense battle, at the cost of three deaths and nearly a hundred injuries, a regiment of light cavalry captured the tribal makeshift camp.

When Claude got the list of the missing people in Macharine, the abductees, it was a little strange. Why was there an old man of fifty or sixty on the list of the missing people? Did these horse bandits specially take the old people away from their children because they lacked love to feed them? Now that I've listened to Lieutenant Colonel Mason Hughes's report, it turns out that the horse bandits are looting these old men for something...

“I remember that there were a lot of dealers and hawkers selling daily merchandise in the Northern Bay area, and this tribe could totally trade wool and sheep for these copper bowls and wooden bowls and stuff, which were inexpensive and looked beautiful. Why would they do something so cruel, make a bowl out of an old man's skull?” A senior staff member at the Legion Command was puzzled to ask.

“I questioned some prisoners who replied that it was a tribal tradition.” Colonel Mason Hughes replied: "The nomadic tribes on the Kanas prairie have always believed that the older people are, the more intelligent they are, so they will kill the dying elderly in the tribe and use their skulls as bowls for drinking. They feel that if they do so, the wisdom of the elderly will be poured into their bellies as the liquid drinks, making them more and more intelligent until they have inherited the wisdom of the elderly completely.

It's just that there can't be so many elderly people in their tribes waiting to be killed, so these grassland nomadic tribes love to go to other tribes, other towns, to rob the elderly. And the elderly need to live when making the head bowl. They think that the pain of sawing the old man's skull will condense the wisdom of his life on the skull... "

“Disgusting, cruel, ignorant, barbaric customs, do they think they don't need to learn knowledge to gain the wisdom and insight of others without labor? It's disgusting!” Another senior combat staff member standing beside him scolded angrily.

“In fact, not all nomadic tribes on the Kanas prairie have such cruel traditional practices. Like the Camido tribe, it was the first to open the most basic elementary education in the occupied Northern Bay commercial district, the Likumata Hill Mineral Resource District and the Grand Duke of Bomalis Agricultural Area, and some semi-calibrated settled grassland tribes have abandoned these silly ancient traditional practices...

Only such pastoral tribes, which have maintained nomadic practices, will adhere to such disgusting traditional practices. They believe that settled prairie tribes are the rebellion of werewolves, who should wander around and only watch dogs stay in one place. So they never see these settled grassland tribes as their own compatriots, but as enemies, when they do it, they do it, not softly. ”Deputy Mason Hughes, who saw a lot of the information, explained.

Claude stood up and walked out of the tent, laughing at the high-ranking officers who followed him: "That Camido tribe Jamiead. Dolbaj. Chieftain Camido, because he traveled with the merchants on half the Farea continent when he was young and gained insight, went back to the tribe to become Chieftain and made the Camido tribe the number one nation in the Nasseri region.

At the same time, it took three generations of Grand Duke Kanas 60 years to cultivate the people of the Camido tribe into civilizations like ours, no longer savages. And we are now the new conquerors and occupiers of this area, but we do not have 60 years to educate these savage barbarians, so we can only show respect and understanding for the traditional customs of these primitive peoples. Mason Hughes! ”

“Marshal, I'm here, please direct! ”

“Is it said that during the grassland nomadic tribes' war, the annexation of weak tribes would kill all the elderly and men above the wheel, taking only young women and children?” Claude looked at the makeshift camp of the pasture nomadic tribe not far away and asked, where the battle was over, where the lightweight cavalry of the Thunder Corps could be seen driving the captives together, and someone disembarked to make up for the dead body of the enemy on the ground...

“Yes, Marshal. The pastoral nomadic tribes have such practices that they capture only those who are useful to them, young women give birth to their children, and when their children grow up, they become loyal slave fighters to their tribes, because they are smaller than the height of the wheels and do not remember the hatred of extermination. And children above the wheel will remember extermination and killing their father to take their mother's vengeance, and adopting them would be burying the roots of rebellion in the future of the tribe, so killing them clean...” Deputy Mason Hughes hastily explained, these are documented in the literature.

“Well, as newcomers to the prairie, we must respect the traditional customs of these nomadic tribes. By order, the prisoners of this tribe are disposed of in accordance with their traditional customs. Men above the wheels are decapitated, no, shot, which also makes us more civilized. As for the remaining young women and children, take them back to the victims of Macharine town to compensate them for their tragedy..." Claude Cold Ice gave a cruel order.

“Oh... Marshal, I...” Lieutenant Colonel Mason Hughes seemed to want to say, but when he saw Claude's face he woke up: “Aye, aye! ”

The atmosphere on the ground was somewhat rigid, after all, and Claude had just issued a cruel order, which was incredible to these high-ranking officers in the Autonomous Territory. Because Claude has always been a prisoner-friendly advocate, and in colonial warfare, Claude once said that it is the duty of the military to spell you to death in battle. But when the battle is over, as winners, we should be tolerant towards the losers, who are just doing their part as soldiers.

But if you think about the massive skull bowls that Lieutenant Colonel Mason Hughes reported just now, the high-ranking officers here also understood why Claude gave the order. It's simple, to deal with brutality and ignorance, you have to be more fierce and cruel than they are in order for these pastoral nomadic tribes to feel scared and scared. Otherwise your tolerance will only be perceived as weak by them, they will never remember your generosity and will only treat you as an easy object to bully and deceive...

“I find it strange why grassland nomadic tribes came here and attacked the town of Macharin. According to the survivors of Macharin town, they have not been looted by horse bandits for more than three decades, so they are not at all prepared...” a senior staff member questioned in suspicion.

Claude turned his head: “I can answer that question, and you can see from the map that the topography of the Kanas Prairie is on the map of the eastern part of the continent, like a big green scar in the upper right corner. It's not much smaller than the Nasserli kingdom.

And the Principality of Kanas is a principality, not a kingdom, because Grand Duke Kanas really controls only this narrow area of the coastal zone and the upper right corner of the savannah, and he does not control the depths and interior of the whole savannah.

Inside and deep in the grasslands, countless pastoral nomadic tribes roam. Grand Duke Kanas and their deal is to organize a merchant corps every year, to trade with these pastoral nomadic tribes and to trade them with all the necessary necessities, while these pastoral nomadic tribes pledge not to attack areas under the jurisdiction of Grand Duke Kanas.

But after Grand Duke Kanas ran away, the deal was nullified. This is why tribes like this one came to the area, thinking that the Grand Duke of Kanas had broken the deal, and that's why they looted the town of Macharine in retaliation against the Grand Duke of Kanas.

Looks like we're going to be strengthening surveillance and guarding the perimeter of the jurisdictional area in the future, and I'm sure there will be more nomadic tribes like this coming out of the depths of the prairie and closing in on us. If they are not taught a few times so harshly that these savages can learn to fear and teach them lessons, they will never let go of their knives. Only by making these savage barbarians feel scared and heartbroken will they ask us to trade and negotiate with a white flag... "

“But, Marshal, the horse bandits we are facing are not just one of these grassland nomadic tribes. Even more troublesome are the old parts left behind by the Grand Duke of Kanas, who are hiding in the folk, attacking our soldier alone, and we are unable to find the bandits hiding in these shadows..." another senior staff officer said.

“Things have to come one by one.” That's another battlefield, "said Claude." It's not for us soldiers. While it is harder to deal with bandits hiding in the shadows than these pastoral nomadic tribes, it does not mean that we have no choice. In the meantime, our Thunder Regiment has strengthened security and traffic control throughout the Northern Gulf region. You see, the reports of attacks by small groups of horse bandits just disappeared.

The reason for this is very simple: because we have tightened traffic and security controls and are unable to send intelligence, the outlying horse bandits continue to lurk without information. Secondly, these small groups of horse bandits are afraid that our present soldiers will be strong enough to carry out the attack. And we ignore these little bunch of horse bandits for the time being, mainly because they're targeting our troops, not ordinary people, and we can just sit around and wait for them to come to the door and practice with them...

There is also the reason that this is not our territory. If Wang Du's side progresses well, making the area off the coast of the Kanas region a territory of our overseas autonomous aristocracy, then the autonomous leaders will invest in the overall planning and development of this area, and then we will transfer the patrol police of the autonomous territories, who will be the main force against the horse bandits hiding in the civilian population. With their cooperation, those little bandits can't escape. ”

Speaking of territorial attribution, he saw three quick horsebacks from afar. He jumped off the horse and handed over a small handbag to the guard who stopped him in front of him. He took his horse and two companions together and turned to the stables of the back battalion. They need to replenish the three long-distance horses with horses and clean drinking water.

The guard with the small purse checked the contents of the lower purse and walked towards Claude. Soon the little purse was in front of Claude, with two sealed silver cartridges and two eagle messengers after opening it.

When we spoke about Wangdu, the news of Wangdu arrived. It's just that Claude is now bandits on the grasslands, three days from Campaster City in the North Bay. And the hawks on Wangdu's side are sent first to the Royal City of Polyvisia in the Nasseri region, and then to Campaste City by the hawks on Wangdu's side. Then the city of Campaster sends the letter to Claude's hand. The whole messaging process took about four to five days, that is, what Claude is seeing now is what happened four or five days ago.

However, the grassland nomadic tribes who committed the massacre of Macharine Town have been tracked down and exterminated, so that the return journey can be completed in another day, so Claude also looked easily at the hawk message that had just arrived. The first letter stated that the Prime Minister, the Marquis of Blancat, had been made aware of the claims of the overseas self-governing legislators, the marquis officers and the honorary nobility of the Kingdom, and that Speaker Bennett had handed over to the Prime Minister a map of the distribution of the patrimonial family territories along the coast of the Kanas region.

Claude looked at the date marked at the bottom of the letter, October 28, 601. It's November 7th. Strange, how could this hawk message be delayed by four days? However, after opening the second silver cylinder and removing the hawk message from it, Claude understood that it was not a delay on the part of the recipient, but whether the sender waited for the King and the King's ministers to respond to the territorial claims submitted by the Overseas Autonomous Territories before sending the hawk message, or whether it was linked to the first letter for the hawk to transmit.

After three days of closed negotiations, King Frederick I and His Majesty's Minister finally agreed to the territorial claims of the Overseas Autonomous Territories. The Northern Bay Commercial Zone along the coast of the Kanas area, the Likumada Hill Mineral Resources Zone and the Agricultural Growing Zone of Grand Duke of Bomalis, as well as part of the connected Kanas Prairie, are classified as hereditary family territories of the Overseas Autonomous Kingdom nobles, marquis officers and autonomous consuls.

Only His Majesty the King stated that this was an exceptional case in recognition of the great achievements of the two regiments of the Autonomous Territory for the whole eastern part of the Kingdom's reunification of the Farea continent. However, in order to punish the members of the Autonomous Territorial Council for their self-proclaimed division of hereditary family territories against the King's orders, His Majesty decided to impose a double land selection fee on these hereditary family territories of the Overseas Autonomous Territories...

In this hawk message, Sir Bennett stated that he had decided to stall His Majesty the King at the Great Dynasty on 10 November. Since His Majesty the King and His Majesty the King refused to grant preferential treatment and discounts to the Overseas Autonomous Territories in respect of their martial fees and land selection fees, so much so that the Autonomous Members of Parliament, after calculation, found that in order to acquire all the marked patrimonial territories of the Kanas region, the Overseas Autonomous Territories would have to pay nearly 100 million gold kroner as martial fees and land selection fees.

No autonomous consular councillor was willing to bear such a large territorial cost, and they expressed anger that the so-called martial fees and land selection fees were extortion and extortion of the overseas autonomous territories by the Kingdom! Speaker Bennett decided to take sixty large iron wooden boxes filled with gold kroner to the morning meeting just on November 10th, so that the 30 million brilliant gold kroner would shine in the eyes of all the aristocratic officials attending the Great Dynasty...

Claude is well aware that this should be a helpless decision that Speaker Bennett felt His Majesty the King and His Majesty the King would not easily compromise on these two costs. The real purpose is actually to argue for overseas autonomy, which means that we are not without money, but you are offering too much, nobody can afford this price, so we don't want any territory, bring this 30 million kroner we will show you, we will take it back soon...

If the price varies by 12 million gold kroons, then perhaps the past 30 million gold kroons will meet the target. But the difference is more than triple, it's really too far away, even the autonomous collar can't afford this huge sum.

It seems that this hereditary family territory can be water-drafted. If you want to get this coastal zone of the Kanas region, it would be better to flip directly with the Kingdom. Anyway, with the Kingdom's current military strength, you won't dare to flip directly with the overseas autonomous territories and fight another civil war...

The only problem is that the Overseas Autonomous Territories, whether military or civilian, regard themselves as people of the Kingdom of Auvellas. In a civil war with the kingdom upside down, no one is willing or even likely to have soldiers ambushing in the dark looking for an opportunity to shoot themselves as a traitor...