Chapter 325: Lack of manpower
The clouds were a fiery red in the sunset, refres.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 wors.h.i.+p.
“I didn’t think Helen Tina was this beautiful, no wonder Benedict of the Na.r.s.en 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!” d.i.c.k chuckled at the pain of others, making malicious speculations about how ugly the situation would be after Benedict learned of this.
“Your Lords.h.i.+p, 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 d.i.c.k, “d.i.c.k, 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 pa.s.s the news to them, but I’m afraid that they won’t come out of contempt.” d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k in a neither fast nor slow manner.
Nodding his head, d.i.c.k promised, “Alright then, I will definitely notify them.”
d.i.c.k was also a mountain man. He had already had contact and even secretly maintained a good relations.h.i.+p 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, d.i.c.k understood that his stubborn people would definitely eat a bitter loss if they provoked Han Shuo.
Therefore, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 lords.h.i.+p, 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 h.e.l.l 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
The first thing Han Shuo could do now was secure the safety of the city before gradually turning to expansion of other aspects. He then could slowly attract people from other cities to inhabit Brettel City through good security conditions that are beneficial to their development.
However, this wouldn’t be an overnight process, it required quite a long transition period. At least, the pillaging and threats from the seven grand duchies had to be halted before the Brettel City could slowly prove to outsiders that it was safe. Only then would fear and panic be dispelled.
“Mhm, I know this is indeed our biggest problem. We temporarily have no way to attract new residents. However, as long as we can stop the pillaging of the seven grand duchies and spread the news that the Brettel City is safe, some original inhabitants missing their hometown might be willing to come back. We will tackle this problem from multiple angles. I think Brettel City will be much more bustling sooner or later.”
“First, about the lack of staff and soldiers, we can start from the mountain people in the surrounding mountains. This is why I’ve invited them to the city. I heard from d.i.c.k that there are thirty, forty thousand of them, of which around ten thousand have the ability to fight. If we can firmly grasp and use this force, in addition to being equipped with six advanced magic crystal cannons and a st.u.r.dy city wall, our odds of successfully blocking the invasions of the seven grand duchies will be much higher.” Han Shuo had considered this issue early on. He explained himself leisurely regarding why he’d invited the mountain people.
“If my lord has made careful considerations already, then I will say no more. On the other hand, young master Lawrence will soon send over several talents who are knowledgeable in city and financial management. The military of Brettel City is also getting on track.” Faulke said respectfully.
Nodding his head, Han Shuo said noncommittally, “Mm, for the time being these things are under your arrangements.”
At the present, there were hundreds of things are waiting to be done in Brettel City. All kinds of talents were greatly lacking. Lawrence’s arrangements of talented military and political personnel would indeed play an important role. However, since they were arranged by Lawrence, it would be difficult to remove them once these military and political talents officially took control.
If this situation was left to develop as it would, if Han Shuo still continued to use Lawrence’s people, then this subconscious infiltration would slowly turn Brettel City into Lawrence’s territory. Han Shuo was now much more mature than in the past and understood clearly this drawback clearly. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any of his own people to use at the moment. He also temporarily couldn’t identify if Lawrence’s help was out of good intentions or other purposes. What Han Shuo currently lacked the most was manpower, so he could only leave things as they were.
However, Han Shuo had started thinking for the future and was seriously considering using his own trusted people. Be it developing or discovering these people, neither were simple matter. He slowly walked to his room with this idea in mind.
Staying in the city lord’s mansion for two days, Han Shuo monitored the progress of enhancing the city’s defense facilities during the day, and tirelessly practicing demonic cultivation and necromancy magic at night. However, breakthroughs in cultivation became harder the more he progressed, and there weren’t many gains to be had in his boring regular day to day practices. On the other hand, since his mental strength was at the grand magus rank, his grasp over necromancy magic actually made rapid progress.
Therefore, Han Shuo put more effort into studying necromancy magic. Using the secret chamber in the city lord’s mansion, he could easily transport to the Cemetery of Death – the most perfect training grounds for necromancers. Not only the scent of death here dense, this place even had plenty of magic tools and laboratory. Han Shuo stayed here alone every night and captured some live magic beasts to practice the spell “Soul Tremor”.
For a demonic pract.i.tioner at the separate demon realm like Han Shuo, their soul had become the even more mysterious consciousness which possessed some truly wondrous uses. Based on his study of the soul, in addition to his memory of demonic magic, Han Shuo gradually felt that there was a link between the understanding of the soul in necromancy and the changes in the consciousness in his demonic cultivation.
Especially at this realm, the consciousness had miraculous abilities to sense the presence of all creatures in the surroundings, to create illusions and implant magical brands on the soul, and seemed to be able to communicate with the magic elements that existed everywhere in this world. Han Shuo suddenly had a whim to consider if it was also possible to integrate demonic cultivation and magical training so they could complement each other.
However, this wonderful idea was still extremely difficult to implement with Han Shuo’s current situation because his knowledge had yet to reach true proficiency in any field. There would be a long process of exploration if he wanted to master the two aspects. It seemed this wouldn’t be able to be applied for a short while.
This spell “Soul Tremor” used the consciousness to attack the opponent’s soul. Han Shuo had experimented it on living magic creatures over the past two days. Moreover, he had certain reflections in some areas of using the mind to attack, gradually grasping some key parts of this spell in two days.
Han Shuo walked out from the Cemetery of Death on the third day. Bathing under the warm suns.h.i.+ne, he felt a very leisurely pleasure. While he was checking on the progress of the city, d.i.c.k ran out from an unknown location to Han Shuo’s side and said respectfully, “My Lord, I have sent out the invitations according to your orders. The five mountain leaders on the surrounding mountains all agreed to come to Brettel City seven days later.”
Smiling lightly, Han Shuo looked at d.i.c.k deeply before finally saying, “d.i.c.k, you are also a mountain man. I know that you wouldn’t let me down if I placed this in your charge.”
“But of course. Otherwise, with your methods, all the leaders who didn’t come with definitely meet with some accidents. I didn’t want to become the villain of my people.” d.i.c.k thought inwardly, his expression still respectful as he said smilingly, “My Lord has gained the mountain people’s trust after you exterminated the Red Beard bandits. I think they’ll be coming here with hearts full of hope.”
“Perhaps with more fear than not, haha!” Han Shuo laughed heartily with d.i.c.k. How could he not know what these people wanted to do? d.i.c.k had said all that needed to be said, and so they naturally knew what to do.
“Eh… They actually are a bit afraid. Heh heh!” d.i.c.k answered with a laugh. He looked into Han Shuo’s eyes and felt as if the latter knew the thoughts in his mind. d.i.c.k involuntarily felt scared in his heart.