lovenovelstory Chapter 65: Mass Production! Attack the 5th Ditch Gold Mine!
Chapter 65: Mass Production! Attack the 5th Ditch Gold Mine!
Chapter 65: Mass Production of Troops! Attack the Wugoutou Gold Mine!
"Holy crap, that damn Tartar is absolutely wicked!"
"This is outrageous! How could someone be so wicked?"
When Rock shared his deductions with the others, his system soldiers were filled with righteous indignation, feeling that this man was far more wicked than they had imagined!
But Lu Xiong only sneered at the news.
He felt that Rock and his group were a bit naive. They had never seen how truly evil the Qing Dynasty could be, nor had they seen how despicable those officials and nobles could be in their daily lives.
He had a lot of contact with these people when he was training martial arts with his master.
After all, those who learn both literary and martial arts are often destined to serve the wealthy and powerful. While guarding the homes of the rich and powerful, he had already witnessed countless chaotic scenes that shocked him.
For example, the servants in many officials' households were essentially no different from objects, or even worse.
After all, the money to buy five maids and servants at a brokerage firm is equivalent to the price of a cow, and the price of a cow is nothing to many officials; they can even eat that amount of money in one meal!
Lu Xiong had even witnessed a local gentry family where the old father had died. To show filial piety, the gentry specially bought a pair of children, a boy and a girl, from a poor family and burned them like paper figures for his father!
Lu Xiong had always thought that only rich people would think of burning people at funerals, while poor people couldn't even afford to hold a funeral. But when he saw that scene, his understanding collapsed.
It was only then that he realized that in front of these high and mighty lords, two living children were no different from ordinary objects, except that they were just slightly more sophisticated paper figures.
That's why he wasn't surprised at all when he learned that someone was secretly mining gold by killing living people to create zombies.
After telling the other soldiers about this, Rock slammed his fist on the table and said, "Gentlemen, I'm going to take this opportunity to send troops out and just take over that gold mine!"
"Whether it's the scraps the bandits eat or the gold mine secretly being mined in Wugoutou, I'm prepared to take it all!"
"Damn it, these guys are going against the natural order to dig for gold. Since this mine isn't an official government mine, but one of those shady black mines, then I might as well be ruthless!"
Rock was indeed unwilling to confront the imperial court on a large scale before he had fully developed his abilities, but he felt that he could easily handle a sneak attack on such a shady black mine.
There might be some Eight Banners border guards and Green Standard Army auxiliary troops stationed around this black mine, but the Shengjing General would never prepare for a major war just because a few sentries have gone missing.
Moreover, according to Rock's understanding, if nothing unexpected happens, the person busy secretly mining black gold here should be Wan Fu, the garrison commander of Kaiyuan City.
No wonder he allowed the bandits to get a share of the profits, because after they took the money, they had to keep it a secret for him and even help him maintain the gold mine. This could be considered a way to avoid disaster by paying money!
This guy abused his position to secretly mine gold without the court's permission. If this news gets out, he could lose his head.
So even if Rock stole the gold mine, could he report it to the imperial court and have the court send troops to punish Rock?
If what happens here is exposed, it's hard to say what will happen to Rock, but he will definitely be in big trouble. At best, he will lose his official position and have to give back all the gold he has earned from mining over the years.
Therefore, Luo Ke boldly guessed that even if Wan Fu knew that the gold mine he had secretly mined had been occupied by Luo's army, he would ultimately have no choice but to swallow his anger and not dare to utter a sound, and could only suffer this injustice in silence!
If there was no large-scale deployment of Qing troops, and he was only dealing with some Eight Banners guards patrolling the perimeter of the gold mine, as well as the three powerful bandit groups, he felt that he should be fine.
After taking stock of his soldiers and looking at the significantly increased population, Rock was now feeling a bit arrogant.
"Mass up troops! Massively recruit troops now!"
"From this day forward, our Luo family army will rise to power!"
During these days, compared to before, Rock had increased the population quota by nearly 1000 people, which was a major benefit for him in establishing stable control and winning popular support.
With such a large population quota, he could recruit a powerful army. As for how to maintain this army, he wouldn't need to worry about that after he conquered the gold mine!
Having secured the gold mine and possessing gold, would he still worry about not being able to buy food?
If all else fails, he can simply use the gold from this gold mine to refresh the system and then temporarily buy supplies from the system to sustain himself.
Although the supplies in the system are ridiculously expensive, this option is pretty good if it's just for temporary emergencies. At least after spending money, Rock can receive the supplies immediately and will not be affected by anything.
"Oh right, I can't fill all the population quota yet. I need to reserve some quotas to recruit miners to mine gold!"
Suddenly, Rock realized this and quickly reminded himself.
Regarding the gold mining project, Rock did not intend to recruit villagers from outside to mine, because recruiting villagers to mine was a very uneconomical and troublesome matter.
In most cases, if ordinary people had other livelihoods to choose from, they would not be willing to go into mining.
Mining is inherently a dangerous, arduous, and exhausting task. Even in modern times, being a miner remains a very difficult job. In this era, miners were essentially no different from slaves, merely being used as consumables.
When mining, it's perfectly normal for collapses to occur from time to time, resulting in the accidental deaths of a few people.
This can even be calculated mathematically: how many people die to obtain how much ore. It can be said that almost every mine is covered in blood.
Therefore, Rock knew that if he simply tried to recruit villagers to mine with kind words, most of them would not be willing to go unless he was willing to offer them exceptionally high salaries.
If he forces the villagers to mine, he will become the very thing he hates most, ultimately making himself no different from those Tartars, and easily provoking villagers to rebel, thus causing a decline in popular support.
His system has three levels of public support, and there is no rule that public support cannot decline. Once public support declines, his current population quota will shrink rapidly, making it impossible to continue to produce troops.
According to the system's description, if his troop strength exceeds the population limit and he fails to resolve the issue for three consecutive months, his soldiers will randomly die suddenly until his troop strength drops below the population limit.
In comparison, Rock felt that mining with slave rats would be much easier.
Slave rats are very cheap; you can recruit one for just five taels of silver.
Moreover, due to the cannon fodder nature of the slave rat unit, it doesn't even require maintenance costs in the system!
Needless to say, the slave rats among the Skaven have very low requirements for food and treatment. They can survive on scraps, and many slave rats even eat clan rat feces!
Furthermore, these giant rats are exceptionally skilled at mining; the Skaven are arguably the most adept miners in the Warhammer world.
They're a race that digs tunnels.
The giant rats can even dig out the huge underground network that runs through the entire planet. There are ratmen active in the underground of almost any city in the world. With such incredible abilities, wouldn't it be perfect to let them mine?
Rock even had readily available overseers—those Skaven grenadiers could be considered high-ranking ratmen, and what these high-ranking ratmen were best at was going to great lengths to exploit their own kind.
With these ratmen acting as his supervisors, Rock was fully confident that they would unleash the full potential of the slave rats!
So after some deliberation, Rock chose to recruit three additional squads of young guards, giving himself an extra 480 soldiers, which cost him a total of 36,000 taels of silver.
These 480 soldiers, plus the soldiers that Rock currently has, can make up a force of about 800 men.
With this team, plus the two spells he has mastered, he has almost nothing to fear from any enemy in this region, as long as he doesn't provoke the imperial army.
Looking at the rows of infantrymen standing on the drill ground, at the jungle of rifles and bayonets, a look of boundless pride immediately appeared on Rock's face.
"Brothers, let's get ready to go on the next campaign!"
"Our objective this time is to head to Wugoutou, drive out the bandits there, and seize the gold mine!"
"Let me make this clear beforehand: our attack on the gold mine may require eliminating some government troops. So if any of you are unwilling to join the operation, please let me know in advance and leave the Luo family army!"
"The imperial officials and soldiers are cruel and inhumane. They secretly mine gold themselves, but they don't allow our people to mine. They even plunder and kill refugees, turning them into living corpses for the purpose of mining gold. Now, my Luo family army is attacking the gold mines to act on behalf of Heaven!"
After saying this, Luo Ke immediately looked at the soldiers who had just joined the Luo family army, wanting to know if any of them had wavered.
If someone is truly unwilling to follow him, it's best to kick them out of the group as soon as possible, lest his soldiers suddenly turn against him at a crucial moment!