Claude didn't think that Borkal would actually accompany the nikancha emissary to Cobicus to find him and settle them down.
After instructing Zakarrason to cooperate with the relocation of the nikancha settlements, Claude spent the entire afternoon chatting with Borkal.
Claude finally understood why Eiblont left the matter of contacting the nikancha nation to Borkal. To put it bluntly, Borkal was the representative of the nikancha nation. Even Bolonik wasn't as trustworthy as Borkal was. Any agreement they made with the nikancha nation required Borkal's signature as a guarantee before they could trust him.
"How did you do it?"
Claude looked at Borkal curiously and satisfactorily. Borkal wasn't as fat as he used to be. Even though he still had a lot of flesh on him, he could already be considered well-built.
The colonel's uniform made him look a little more like a soldier. He no longer looked like a corrupt logistics officer with his big belly.
"Ugh, don't mention it. I've been through life and death!"
Borkal didn't stand on ceremony with Claude. He chose a bottle of good wine from the cabinet and poured himself a drink. After finishing a cup, he told Claude about his experiences over the past year.
Before the theatre took over Port Vebator, Borkal was quite popular in the city.
The Shiksan garrison was trapped in the city and could only watch as Thundercrash's light cavalry rampaged through the lands outside the city.
As time went by, even though they didn't have to worry about food and water, other resources became scarce, especially luxurious consumables. They couldn't buy them even if they had the money.
Borkal used the name of Wild Bull to smuggle a steady stream of luxury goods into Port Vebator to satisfy the needs of the nobles and officials trapped in the city.
At the same time, he became the most popular person in the city, a guest of the local officials and nobles in Port Vebator. He could practically do whatever he wanted in the city.
According to Borkal, that was the most comfortable period of his life. The local officials of Port Vebator welcomed him with smiles and noble ladies threw themselves at him just because he could get his hands on so many luxuries.
After that, Port Vebator was captured. Borkal led the way and provided guidance during the battle, earning him great merits.
After the war, he returned to the Intelligence Department of the Theater of Operations Command. Since the colonial war was over, he had nothing to do for a while.
Borkal returned to Port Vebator due to the incident at the Wild Bull Trading Company. Realizing that there wasn't much business to be had, he went hunting with a few of his good friends in the army and happened to bump into a group of nikancha being chased out.
An idea popped into his head and he decided to look for business opportunities with the nikancha.
So, Borkal went to the nikancha country in the north under the guise of the manager of the Bison Trading Company.
Borkal's life after that was like a legend. He spent half a year wandering around the nikancha's country, getting to know all sorts of nikancha people and gradually gaining their trust.
During that time, he ran into quite a few dangers and was even dragged into a nikancha attack on a Shiksan mining colony. He almost lost his life there.
As for the nikancha's fighting prowess, Borkal felt that while they were brave, they didn't have any brains at all. They would charge forward without a care in the world. Muskets weren't even as useful as spears in their hands.
For example, during the attack on the mining base, a thousand nikancha attacked a stone building defended by a hundred and thirty Shiksans. They had a ten to one advantage in numbers and more than seven hundred muskets. The advantage was obvious.
Yet, the nikancha suffered a crushing defeat and lost more than 400 of their men.
The reason for that was because they were brainless. They could have just been lying on the ground or hiding to snipe at the enemies in the building. Eventually, the enemy would be overwhelmed and exhausted.
But after shooting for more than half an hour, one idiot became impatient. He raised his gun and rushed forward. Then, even more idiots rushed forward.
Borkal said that he was dumbfounded. He didn't understand what the nikancha were trying to do.
The enemy was hiding in the stone building. The first floor didn't have any windows and the main door was a thick metal door.
The idiots could only use their guns or spears to hit the walls and door. They couldn't charge into the building at all and could only shout outside, trying to scare the enemy into coming out and surrendering.
In the end, the Shiksans fired two rounds of rapid fire through the windows on the second floor. They were practically aiming for the enemy's head.
Nearly a hundred muskets fired twice in a row, and a hundred and fifty to sixty of the nikancha below immediately fell. This kind of casualty finally woke the nikancha from their stupor. They screamed and turned to flee, unable to be held back.
The moment they ran, the others followed suit. The Shiksans hiding in the building took the opportunity to charge out and counterattack. That was how the defeat came about.
The Shiksans were like turkeys in a pen, easily reloading, aiming and firing.
One after another, the fleeing nikancha were shot in the back and fell to the ground, struggling for their lives. None of them even thought about using their guns to counterattack.
Borkal had to escape as well, but he was unlucky. Just as he was about to make it out, he ran into the nikancha leader and elder. Due to their weird attire, they were targeted by a group of enemies. Knowing that the two of them were probably the leaders, they chased after them in an attempt to capture them alive.
Back then, Borkal only had three people with him, a guard, and an orderly. They didn't have any guns with them and only had two short swords and a dagger with them.
However, Borkal still decided to save the nikancha leader and elder. They picked up three guns and two pouches of ammo from the corpses on the ground and shot the two Shiksans chasing them from behind. Then, they escaped to a cliff with the nikancha leader and elder.
Borkal and the other four were trapped there for half a month. If it wasn't for the fact that there was only a narrow path up the mountain, the Shiksans would've long charged up and torn them to shreds.
They launched three attacks, but Borkal and the guard managed to fend them off.
The nikancha leader and elder managed to gather some rocks and tree trunks to use as defensive weapons. The Shiksans left four to five corpses behind and didn't launch any further attacks.
Borkal felt that he was quite lucky. The Shiksans didn't have many people and probably didn't want to waste their lives on the cliff. Instead, they decided to surround them and starve them to death. They knew there was no food or water on the cliff.
Borkal didn't know how he managed to survive that half a month. If it wasn't for the orderly who brought their luggage up the mountain, they probably wouldn't have lasted more than three or four days.
The three of them had three days' worth of rations and three sheepskin canteens in their luggage. If the five of them had less, they could probably last five or six days.
That was when the nikancha leader and elder finally showed their prowess. They gathered all sorts of edible wild vegetables and vines on the cliff and used the sheepskin inside their coats to make a filter for collecting dew. Every morning and night, they could collect half a canteen of water from the shadows of the cliff and use it to quench their thirst.
Just like that, the five of them endured on the cliff for half a month. Borkal said he was so hungry and thirsty that his mind wasn't clear. He only knew that he lost a lot of weight during that time.
During that time, the Shiksans at the foot of the mountain thought they were done for. Ten days later, they sent people up the mountain again, only to be ambushed. One of them died and the other was injured.
Borkal said that he wanted to climb down and take a bite of the corpses at the top of the cliff, but he didn't have the strength to go down, so he just lay there in a half-conscious state.
Another seven days passed just like that. When they couldn't take it any longer, the nikancha sent more troops and the Shiksans had no choice but to retreat back to their mining base. Borkal's group of five were finally rescued.
After that incident, Borkal was treated as one of the nikancha's own. He obtained the exclusive trading rights in the nikancha nation and all the resources the nikancha possessed were opened to Wild Bull Trading Company.
At the same time, Borkal became the nikancha's agent and helped them purchase all sorts of resources from the war zone.
Based on Borkal's observations, the nikancha nation was more like an alliance of settlements rather than a unified nation.
They were used to distributing territory according to the size of the settlement. The more people there were, the bigger the territory.
The largest settlement at the moment had around 70,000 people and more than ten vassal tribes.
It was impossible for such a large settlement to appear in the colonies. Even the largest Nikancha settlement in Tyrrsim and the other two colonies only had a population of around five thousand.
Currently, the nikancha nation had a total of six large settlements. Next were their respective vassal settlements, and these vassal settlements also had their own vassal settlements. Just like that, the vassal settlements came down one by one.
Borkal had been to the smallest nikancha settlement before. There were only about 30 people there and they were all living together because they were related by blood.
When Claude asked about the progress of the nikancha nation's attack on the Shiksan colonies, Borkal only shook his head with a bitter smile.
He said that the war was already over. Only the nikancha settlements at the frontlines felt insecure due to the presence of the Shiksan mines. That was why they sent people to attack, all so that the enemy wouldn't appear near their borders.
According to Borkal's estimations, the nikancha nation only had around two million people. The territory they occupied was so large that it was enough for them to live a carefree life.
Also, ever since they started their war against the Shiksan colonies, they were starting to get tired of the war and didn't want to continue.
The leaders of the few largest tribes were clear-headed enough to know that they couldn't coexist with the Shiksan. However, they used up a lot of firearms and didn't know how to maintain them. Coupled with the losses they suffered on the battlefield, they didn't have many firearms and ammunition left and weren't willing to waste them on the battlefield.
The second reason was the high number of casualties. There were around ten thousand of them and most of them were trained by the officers sent by Thundercrash.
Without the nikancha soldiers who had gone through basic military training, their fighting prowess was greatly reduced. That was why Borkal had witnessed the scene of a thousand men besieging a mining base with only a hundred or so, only to end up with four hundred injured and dead. It was a complete rout.
Although the nikancha's country was an alliance of settlements, the one with the highest authority was the Council of Elders, which was made up of the elders of each settlement. All political matters concerning the nikancha were decided by the Council of Elders.
The leader of the tribe was actually the highest military officer and held the right to command the tribe's armed forces.
Interestingly, half of the young men in the armed forces of a large settlement were provided by the subordinate tribes, and the armed forces of the subordinate tribes were made up of half of the young men provided by the subordinate tribes. In this way, the armed forces of the subordinate tribes were suppressed one level at a time.
When a war broke out, the leader of a large settlement would send someone to pass on the order that the vassal tribes and their vassal tribes would all bring their men and horses to participate in the war.
It was similar to the feudal feudal states on Freia.
Borkal stayed in the nikancha country for half a year and wrote a detailed report about the neighboring country after he returned.
The warzone was pleasantly surprised. The report was useful in understanding the nikancha nation, so Borkal was given another huge merit. He was promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel because of that.
Borkal came to see Claude for two reasons. One was to show off his promotion and the other was to discuss the migration of the nikancha people in the three colonies.
Unlike the nikancha nation Claude imagined, which refused to accept their people, the nikancha nation was happy to have so many of their people move to their territory.
According to the tradition of their vassal tribes, the migration of three million nikancha people would only increase the number of vassal tribes in their territory and greatly increase their power.
So, Borkal tried his best to explain that the migration of three million nikancha people would cause problems for the war theatre, such as the cost of transportation and the consumption of food.
In the end, the nikancha elder council was willing to pay a million crowns worth of resources and gold and silver as compensation for the war theatre.
However, in order to obtain the gold, silver, and mineral resources that were worth millions, the Nikancha still needed the war zone to trade with them a batch of military supplies. They asked for 100,000 guns and corresponding ammunition reserves. At the same time, they also needed to provide a large amount of food and send a group of basic officers to help their young and strong soldiers undergo another six months of military training.
If the war theatre agreed to those conditions, the nikancha nation was willing to pay another million crowns worth of gold and silver.
That wasn't something Borkal could decide on. He could only bring the nikancha nation's envoy to Lanu to see Bolonik.
Bolonik, on the other hand, agreed to the nikancha nation's request after eagle messengers with the other generals in the war theatre.
Claude had also received an eagle message regarding this matter and General Skri was very much in agreement with it.
In any case, they had obtained more than 300,000 flintlocks and ammunition from the Shiksan captive army and armoury.
They weren't as advanced as the aubass mark 3 muskets Thundercrash was equipped with, so they could only be left to rust in the warehouse.
They could be sold to the nikancha nation in exchange for gold and silver and continue their fight against the Shiksan colonies.
As for the military instructors, Borkal had already ordered Eiblont to pick a hundred or so low-level officers to train the nikancha soldiers at the basic level.
As for the food aid, Borkal said that it was in name to provide rations, but in reality, they were asking for refined wheat flour for the enjoyment of the nikancha nation's higher-ups.
That was mainly because the nikancha's staple food consisted of potatoes, tapioca flour and oats, which were easy to grow in the mountains.
On the other hand, few nikancha were willing to grow barley. They felt that it was too tiring and required them to plough the fields, pull out the weeds, and take good care of it. Given the nikancha's habits, they couldn't be bothered to do that without the threat of a whip.
Borkal said that they could use that to trade with the nikancha for gold and silver in the future.
Claude, on the other hand, found it strange. Did the nikancha have a lot of gold and silver?
Where did they get it from?
A lot.
Borkal answered with certainty.
He explained that in the third of the Shiksan colonies occupied by the nikancha, there were more than ten small and medium-sized Shiksan gold and silver mines.
The nikancha annihilated the Shiksan miners and seized a lot of refined gold and silver. Now, they are using the Shiksan captives and Etatean captives to mine for them.