"This is the other side of Lanu, separated by Lake Lanu. It's the triangle where Camel River flows into Lake Lanu.
This piece of land was very fertile and was very suitable for opening up wastelands and turning it into good farmland.
We lacked manpower in the past, but with these immigrants, we'll be able to sustain ourselves in just two years.
"Of course, it won't be enough to sustain the entire war zone, but it should be more than enough to supply the four mountain cities.
"We'll set up Camel Town here and six to seven other towns along the banks of Camel River. The triangle will be able to accommodate 70,000 families working as farmers, allowing half of Anfiston's flatlands to be completely developed.
"However, I don't think there'll be that many of them willing to work as farmers.
For the first batch of more than 17,000 immigrants, other than the 1,000 families that were recruited by the mining and commercial association, there are more than 2,000 immigrant families that are willing to accept interest-free loans from us to open small workshops and small shops because they have their own skills. These immigrant families have been arranged to live in Lanu Town and the four mountain cities … "
Claude was stationed on the other side of Lanlop, listening to Sir Bennett, who was in charge of civil affairs, explain the settlement of the immigrants.
Claude was glad that Sir Bennett wasn't a politician who only knew how to talk. Instead, he was a civil official with plenty of experience.
He managed the distribution of property for the immigrants in an orderly manner and saved Claude a lot of trouble.
"Sir Bennett, do you have any problems here?" Claude asked.
"Yes. Our biggest problem right now is the lack of manpower."
Sir Bennett nodded, "Although we only need to give these immigrant families uncultivated land as their property, they can build their own houses and reclaim the uncultivated land themselves, and we don't need to worry about it.
We don't need to worry about that, but we also need to build underground sewers and roads to connect the towns.
"But we don't have the manpower to do that, nor do we have the funds to hire them.
"Even though Marshal Michelic ordered the 30,000 men of Ranger to participate in the construction, they're currently in charge of the expansion of Lanu. They can only spend a month at most to finish building the sewers in Camel Town before they can return to the kingdom.
Without the 30,000-odd Ranger soldiers, we won't be able to complete the infrastructure construction in the next six or seven towns. "
This was really a difficult problem. The arrival of immigrant families did not mean that they could just point to a piece of land and tell them that it belonged to them, so they could just leave it be.
Cities and towns needed to be built, roads needed to connect the various cities and towns, as well as supplies and daily necessities needed by the immigrant families.
However, at present, the war zone could only provide these immigrant families with food and temporary accommodation. They lacked the funds to hire labor to build the infrastructure and roads in the towns.
"Then do you have any solutions?
Sir Bennett … "
"Yes," Sir Bennett nodded. "But I need your help."
"Then tell me, what is it?" Claude asked.
"Doesn't every immigrant family have a retired soldier who wants to re-enlist?"
Sir Bennett said, "Once they join the army, they'll be like the soldiers from Ranger. They'll help us with the basic construction for half a year. That way, we won't have any problems settling down these hundred thousand families …"
Oh, so this is what this Sir Bennett has in mind.
A hundred thousand immigrant families and a hundred thousand retired soldiers. That's a hundred thousand free young labourers.
However, after some thought, Claude rejected Sir Bennett's suggestion.
"No, Sir Bennett.
After they re-enlist, they'll have to undergo recruit training again to familiarize themselves with camp life.
You should know that they were all conscripted during the five-year war in the eastern region. They received a short military training before going to the battlefield.
After the war ended, they were forced to retire. It's been five to six years since then.
For a soldier who has undergone long periods of training, it'll take them some time to get used to camp life after being away from the army for such a long time.
On the other hand, the soldiers who were forced to retire after only a short period of training will need even longer periods of training to become soldiers again.
That's why the prefectures in the kingdom see them as a source of instability and are willing to help them migrate here.
The war zone's most important task at the moment is to form five reinforced folk capable of fighting against the Shiksan colony war.
However, apart from the 20,000 veterans transferred from Ranger, there were less than a quarter of the 100,000 soldiers from the two overseas corps that had been eliminated and eliminated.
Five reinforced folk require a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, but we're still short of a hundred thousand.
Marshal Michelic has been urging us to complete the formation of the five folk as soon as possible, but we can't do anything without qualified soldiers.
Now, everyone's placing their hopes on the hundred thousand veterans and hoping that they can arrive as soon as possible so that we can regroup and train them.
That's why I can't agree to your request. Letting the hundred thousand veterans join the construction will only delay our regrouping plans. "
Even though Claude rejected it, Sir Bennett had already expected it. He knew that Claude was telling the truth.
The most important thing for the war zone wasn't to settle down the immigrants, but to form five reinforced folk to ensure that they could defend against the Shiksan invasion. At the very least, they had to defend Anfiston.
Sir Bennett furrowed his brows and thought for a while before speaking again, "Sir Commander, if we can't use these retired soldiers who have re-enlisted to do labor, then can we ask the logistics department to allocate more rations and daily necessities?
Perhaps we can use them to hire the nikancha youths to build infrastructure and roads, but we'll have to pay extra manpower to watch over them. "
That was the only solution. The war zone was short on funds and didn't have the budget for such construction.
Just like Sir Bennett said, they could use the rations and daily necessities captured from Shiksan to hire the nikancha youths to do the work.
It was just that the nikancha were useless. Their work efficiency alone was enough to make you despair.
If they didn't hire a large number of overseers to supervise them, it would take them three to four years to build a 100-metre-long road. In any case, they would always find ways to slack off and cut corners to get it done.
Claude nodded. "Alright. The rations are provided by the three colonies in the rear, so we can claim some losses. The daily necessities in the warehouses were originally intended to be sold to the immigrant families, but now, we can use them to hire the nikancha to do the work.
However, you can also use the daily necessities to hire the families of the immigrants without them having to do anything. Supervising the nikancha should be an easy task, right? "
Sir Bennett gave it some thought and agreed. "That's a good idea. I'm sure the families will be happy to accept the offer.
They've just moved here and are lacking daily necessities. If we use them as payment, they won't have to go out and buy things. It'll save us some money.
Perhaps we can also use dried meat, fur and rations as payment. Winter is coming soon and I believe the families will need to stock up on supplies. "
After solving that problem, Claude rode back to Lanu. The moment he entered HQ, he saw Colonel Hazorak waiting for him in the guest room.
Claude hurriedly went up to him and apologised for making him wait.
On the other hand, Colonel Hazorak bowed respectfully to Claude as a subordinate and indicated that the matter Claude asked for had been settled.
After entering Claude's office, Hazorak took out three documents from his briefcase and placed them in front of Claude.
The first document was a confession, which was what Claude wanted. The merchant who came to purchase large amounts of supplies confessed that he was a Shiksan spy sent to investigate the colonies' war preparations.
He used women and money to bribe General Fansnik and obtained a large amount of military intelligence from him. Finally, he wanted to buy back the military supplies captured by Ranger through General Fansnik to save time and transportation costs for the next colonial war.
Claude was quite satisfied. With that confession, General Fansnik's crime would be confirmed and he wouldn't have to be accused of insubordination.
Marshal Michelic had a way out of this embarrassing situation. He could use this confession to kick that useless general Fansnik out of Ranger.
What surprised Claude the most was that he couldn't tell that the confession was fabricated at all. There were all sorts of witnesses and evidence, including the testimony of the three maids who accompanied General Fansnik at the tavern in Grinosburg. They heard General Fansnik say that he didn't care about the identity of the buyer as long as the buyer was willing to pay.
The second document was the real confession. Compared to the first confession, the second confession was more likely to be fake.
In fact, the merchant who bought the supplies was indeed a Shiksan, but he was only a smuggler.
His goal in the colony was to buy some rations to sell to Colony Vebator. As Shiks focused more on mining and didn't place much emphasis on agriculture, they had to buy large amounts of food from outside.
Ever since the colonial war broke out with Aueras, the seven colonies cut off all trade with Shiks, causing the price of food in Shiks to rise rapidly.
Even though some people had started farming, it was a huge investment and required a lot of effort. It wasn't enough to make up for the huge shortage of food. As a result, many smugglers came to the colonies to buy rations and sell them to Vebator. It had become a lucrative maritime route.
The Shiksan smuggler had two shallow sea flat-bottomed transport ships. They were usually used along the coastline and were slow due to their heavy load. They couldn't withstand the strong winds and waves of the deep sea.
However, they were very suitable for transporting rations and other goods.
So, he anchored the two ships at the fishing town and went to Grinosburg with his followers to find out where there was a large amount of rations for sale. He ended up getting acquainted with General Fansnik, who wanted to sell some military supplies.
That was a pleasant surprise for the smuggler. After all, compared to rations, those originally Shiksan military supplies were far more valuable.
If he could buy those supplies back, he could use it to build a relationship with the Shiksan military in Port Vebator. That would make it much easier for him to smuggle goods in the future.
That was why he spent a lot of money to bribe General Fansnik and bought all the supplies Ranger had.
The third document was a detailed list of the intercepted military supplies. Claude picked it up and was shocked by the red words on the first page. The red words didn't indicate Shiksan military supplies, but the standard weapons of the Aueran army. There were more than 400 aubass mark 3 matchlock muskets, more than 3,000 aubass mark 2 muskets, several barrels of gunpowder ammunition, four light infantry field cannons, as well as the matching gunpowder cartridges and so on.
"W-what's going on?" Claude asked as he pointed at the red list.
Colonel Saljorak replied without batting an eyelid, "We found them on the caravan. We interrogated the soldiers who escorted the caravan, and they said they were sold by General Fansnik as well.
The general said that they couldn't be brought back to Aueran anyway, so selling them would be more worth it.
The general even stamped all of these weapons on the logistical reserve list as war losses. "
"Lunatic!
Preposterous!
How dare he sell weapons of the kingdom to strangers? Does he really think he can do whatever he wants just because he has the bloodline of the Stellin royal family? "roared Claude as he stood up.
Three days later, Marshal Michelic returned from his inspection in Robisto and arrived in Lanu. Claude and Hazorak immediately handed him the two statements and the list of supplies.
Michelic tore up the second statement and ordered the guards to bring General Fansnik, who had been locked up for a week, to him.
General Fansnik came out of the cell with his clothes in tatters and his face covered in dirt.
The moment he saw Michaelic, he angrily berated Claude and the others for wrongfully imprisoning him. He even declared that he would take the case to the royal court to punish the culprits, Chazorak, and the others for their crimes.
Marshal Michaelic only asked him if he was selling the military supplies in reserve?
General Fansnik admitted it straightforwardly. He claimed that it was his duty as a logistics officer to deal with the surplus supplies and that everything he did was legal. Moreover, the money he sold them for came from Ranger's reserve funds and didn't go into his own pocket.
Misierc only had his aide, Nevis, read the Shiksan merchant's confession and Fansnik collapsed to the ground on the spot.
He knew very well how damaging the statement would be to him. It didn't take long for him to claim that he was framed and that he hadn't colluded with enemy agents at all. The statement was fake!
However, even if it was fake, Michelic would turn it into the truth. He called the guards over and had them remove Fansnik's golden sun epaulette on the spot. That meant General Fansnik would be stripped of his rank.
He then ordered the guards to bring the criminal back to the cell.
Michelic said that he couldn't punish Fansnik on the spot and could only strip him of his rank first and hand him over to Hansbach when they returned to the kingdom.
The main reason Michelic rushed back from Robisto was because the kingdom's envoy was about to arrive.
Unlike the immigrant families, the kingdom's envoys had to inspect the three colonies behind them and meet with their governors. That was why their journey was a few days slower than the immigrant caravan.
Two days later, the envoy finally arrived at Lanu.
He brought with him an official announcement that Ranger would be returning to the kingdom at the start of the eleventh month after their reorganization.
At the same time, he brought an official letter of appointment from the ministry of the army.
Claude was appointed as Thundercrash's line commander and promoted to major-general of the kingdom.