Chapter 325: Lack of manpower (1/2)
Chapter 325: Lack of manpower
The clouds were a fiery red in the sunset, refreshing gentle breezes blowing happily through people’s hearts. All of the potholes and scars in Brettel City had been fixed during this period of reparation.
The main city gates had two huge magic crystal cannons stationed at them. They shone a faint red halo under the sunset. seemingly ready to spit out enormous flames at any moment.
Helen Tina was currently standing in front of the city gates after having been forced to sign the contract. She looked up at the two magic crystal cannons that’d originally belonged to her, unsure what to feel. Han Shuo stood on the city’s walls, smiling merrily as he held the contract aloft and waved goodbye, “Dear honorable Duke Helen Tina, we won’t be seeing you off.”
Helen Tina inwardly gave eighteen generations of Han Shuo’s ancestors a good cursing. However, she was worried that rebellion that could break out any time in her Helon Duchy. Having recovered her mental strength, she slowly floated up using levitation skills. Her shining eyes glared fiercely at Han Shuo as she gritted her teeth and lowered her voice, “Greedy evil demon, I’ll definitely be back for revenge!”
“Have a safe journey. Remember that you have to pay back the gold coins you owe me in three months!” Han Shuo beamed radiantly, waving the contract in his hand as if telling Helen Tina not to try to weasel her way out of her debt.
“Hmph!” Helen Tina turned her head angrily. She transformed into a fiery shadow, slowly flying towards the direction of Helon Duchy. The fiery shadow looked like a rainbow across the horizon beneath the sunset.
“My Lord is truly too evil. Not only did he take this poisonous beauty, he even exhorted a huge amount of gold coins. Truly eating people down to the bones!” Chester shook his head emotionally, his eyes looking at Han Shuo full of worship.
“I didn’t think Helen Tina was this beautiful, no wonder Benedict of the Narsen Duchy is so obsessed with her. A pity, ah, a pity. He definitely wouldn’t expect that our lord was one step ahead to pluck this flower!” Dick chuckled at the pain of others, making malicious speculations about how ugly the situation would be after Benedict learned of this.
“Your Lordship, I think that with her malevolence, Helen Tina definitely won’t be willing to let this go after she leaves. Hmph, if she spreads the news about our Brettel City extorting four hundred thousand gold coins from her, I think it will give rise the greed of the seven grand duchies.” Faulke approached Han Shuo, saying worriedly as he watched Helen Tina depart.
Han Shuo looked at the red clouds spread throughout the sky, silently frowning for a bit. He then casted his eyes at the blurry outlines of the mountain ranges around Brettel City. He told Dick, “Dick, send people to the surrounding mountains, ask the leaders of the mountain people to pay a visit to Brettel City. Just tell them that I invite them for a meal.”
“My lord, because the former city lords were all incompetent and mediocre leaders, they couldn’t help the mountain people resist the bandits. So the mountain people have never harbored any good impression, let alone respect, for the city lord. I can pass the news to them, but I’m afraid that they won’t come out of contempt.” Dick revealed a difficult expression and explained to Han Shuo after some hesitation.
“Now is different from the past. Fulkin of Mount Tali will come for certain. If he informs the others beforehand, the other leaders will know of our strength. I think they’ll be willing to come, heh heh. The past is the past, the present is the present. The entire Brettel City is my territory, they are all my people. If these people really can’t tell good from bad, then I will make them know how to respect a city lord.” Han Shuo said to Dick in a neither fast nor slow manner.
Nodding his head, Dick promised, “Alright then, I will definitely notify them.”
Dick was also a mountain man. He had already had contact and even secretly maintained a good relationship with the people in the surrounding mountains before Han Shuo had arrived in Brettel City. He’d had no hope in Han Shuo originally. Now that he’d witnessed the knowledge, power, as well as the schemes of the latter, Dick understood that his stubborn people would definitely eat a bitter loss if they provoked Han Shuo.
Therefore, Dick was determined to persuade those stubborn fellows to come as soon as he heard Han Shuo’s words. He didn’t want any of those people to die at the hands of Han Shuo’s undead army.
After Dick left, Han Shuo said to Faulke, “Use the gold coins we have to arm and power up the entire city with everything we’ve got. War chariots, catapults, oil, goblin missiles, etc. As for equipment, I have entrusted some merchant guilds to transport them here. What you have to do is tell the masons to reinforce any fragile areas of the city’s walls. Make it taller in areas where it isn’t tall enough.”
“Your lordship, the craftsmen have already increased their overtime to do these things. What we lack the most now are soldiers with sufficient combat effectiveness. Brettel City has suffered through many battles with devastating effects from fire. The total population in our city is only fifty thousand or so, this is really miserably few compared to some big cities of millions. The number of young people is even fewer. We have been conscripting men through providing enormous temptation in recent periods, but have only recruited two hundred or so. The number of our people is far from enough!”
“Brettel City is so big that it’s simply impossible to protect all four gates with only roughly three thousand soldiers in the city. Even if we have strong firepower, we still need people to operate it! If the problem of the population can’t be resolved, I think Brettel City will still remain in this half dead atmosphere.” Faulke was indeed a knight who’d been tempered by the fires of war. He only took one glance to point out what the city lacked the most, which was also it’s current biggest weakness.
This was truly a difficult problem. Han Shuo also knew that what Brettel City lacked the most was people, but he didn’t have a proper method to solve it. Brettel City had always been in the midst of war and had become a hell on earth due to the number of departing citizens throughout so many years. Even ordinary citizens of other cities might not be willing to migrate to the Brettel City, not to mention the natives who had left