Chapter 1211: 1131 South Island Uprising
In an office managing construction projects on South Island, two staff mbers basked in the bright sunlight and refreshing air.
They could read newspapers from two days ago and listen to the radio. The electricity supply on the island had stabilized enough for electric lights and fans to be used at will.
Frankly, the air quality here was indeed better than that of the Great Tang Empire. One reason was the lack of large-scale industry, and another was the sea breeze whisking away unpleasant odors.
There were always those envious of places with good air quality. In truth, beyond an absence of industrial pollutants, natural environntal factors played a crucial role. So places were simply blessed by nature, and no amount of envy could change that.
South Island was destined to be a place with fresh air. It was never ant to develop into an industrial hub for the Great Tang Empire—at most, a port city. Consequently, environntal protection would undoubtedly be well-maintained.
Since the workday hadn’t officially ended but the tasks had mostly been completed, the two began to chat idly.
One of them had gone out earlier that afternoon on an errand, and, feeling proud, started recounting sothing they’d learned. As was customary, they began with the least aningful of questions: “Sothing happened this afternoon. Did you hear about it?”
With nothing better to do, the other was more than willing to play along, putting on a curious expression and asking, “What happened?”
Hearing their colleague’s inquiry, the conversation naturally continued. The storyteller began: “A village up north got restless. So goblins believed they were being mistreated and started making a fuss, planning an uprising. Turns out, there were hardly any guards there—just two n with a few magazines of ammunition. They had to fire as they retreated.”
The listener’s first reaction was to check whether the Great Tang Empire’s warriors were injured: “What? Were they hurt?”
Of course, he only cared about their own people. As for the goblins, in his eyes, they didn’t even qualify as “people.” They were disposable labor, used and discarded like consumables.
The storyteller waved dismissively: “No, no one got hurt. When we humans run, do you think goblins can catch us? That bunch of troublemaking goblins ran straight out of their camp and bumped into so orc laborers building a road…”
“Ah… this…” As soon as he heard the ntion of orcs, his colleague’s expression beca animated. Orc n were truly ugly, but… the orc barmaids with cat ears in Beiyuan City—now those were sothing else…
Thinking about this, the man licked his lips and swallowed hard. Better not dwell on it; any further thoughts might trigger an involuntary physical reaction.
The storyteller sneered with obvious disdain as he continued about the goblins: “That group of goblins hollered at the roadside orc laborers, trying to get them to join in the riot.”
The listener, sensing the goblins weren’t entirely foolish for thinking of drawing in reinforcents, grew a little tense. “And then? What did the orcs do?”
“And then? The orcs grabbed tools and started brawling with the goblins,” the storyteller said with excitent, gesturing as if he were the general leading these orc laborers into battle: “It was a sight to behold…”
“Heh! Blood spilled?” the listener asked eagerly. A jaded spectator of chaos, he wasn’t averse to escalating situations. In fact, he only found stories thrilling if bloodshed was involved.
“Spilled blood? Four hundred goblins went against eighty orcs, and the goblins got chased down by shovels and crowbars. In the end, over thirty goblins were dead,” the storyteller revealed with a grin.
The listener laughed along. A labor victory for the Great Tang Empire, after all, was still a victory for the Empire: “I knew it. Those orcs—hauling rocks and lumber, paving airstrips by hand—how could those short little goblins possibly asure up?”
As it turned out, a brawl with crude weapons highlighted the physical disparity. If the goblins had armor, swords, and shields and ford a proper formation, the outco might not have been so lopsided. Unfortunately for them, without protective gear or adequate weapons, their 1.45-ter stature was no match for the orcs.
Orcs in this world weren’t the towering two-ter hulks loaded with muscles depicted in gas. They were roughly human-sized, typically standing above 1.7 ters tall…
The two sides were on completely different levels in terms of physical combat power—especially since these orcs were essentially “construction workers.” Their daily labor involved chopping wood, breaking stones, and other back-breaking physical tasks.
Within the Great Tang Empire, these orcs were used as manual railway-laying machines, hoisting iron rails on their shoulders. Now ard with shovels, crowbars, and hamrs, coupled with their ghastly looks, they could genuinely be regarded as the pinnacle of lee combat.
The storyteller smacked his lips and nodded in agreent with his colleague’s analysis: “Exactly. By the ti two of our soldiers returned with reinforcents, well… over three hundred goblins were squatting on the roadside, hugging their heads in perfect order.”
“Hahahaha!” The two laughed together, the air around them full of mirth.
…
“Bang!” A uniform volley of gunfire rang out across the desolate fields. Holding their weapons, the Tang Army soldiers stood by the armored vehicles, their cold eyes fixed on the goblin soldiers who had just fired.
The row of goblin soldiers lowered their rifles, waiting for other goblins to escort the rebellious villagers and prisoners to the execution site.
The area was already strewn with goblin corpses, but the goblin officers on the sidelines seed utterly accustod to the scene.
“Disobedience! Destroying the unity and collaboration between goblins and humans will end in this!” Standing with hands clasped behind his back next to the firing squad, a goblin officer bellowed toward the silent goblin captives and slaves in the distance: “Cooperate, and you’ll earn freedom on the Northern Island! Resist… and you’ll die!”
“Ready!” Another goblin officer raised his arm high. The goblin soldiers, who had just lowered their Shireck-1 rifles, raised them again. The crisp sound of bolts being pulled back was remarkably synchronized, indicating this wasn’t their first ti doing this.
These goblins had been brought from the Great Tang Empire’s mainland and were directly under the command of Shen Wuxiong, the Tang Empire’s designated goblin leader.
It was their job within the Empire to manage goblin labor prisoners and slaves, employing thods even more ruthless and efficient than the Tang Army itself.
“Fire!” As the arm swung downward, another volley of gunfire echoed across the fields. The rebellious goblins, their hands tied behind their backs, fell one by one, blood gradually seeping into the cracks of the soil.
“Is it really necessary to kill them all?” a human officer asked, pulling a cigarette from his pack and placing it in his mouth.
The nearby goblin officer imdiately pulled out a match to light it for him: “Sir, you don’t understand. If we don’t deal with them harshly, they’ll definitely cause more trouble in the future! We have to kill enough of them to instill fear—wipe out every last one of the clever ones…”
“But if you kill them all, who’s going to do the work?” The Tang Army officer exhaled a puff of smoke as he asked.
“What are you suggesting, sir?” The subordinate of Shen Wuxiong hesitated, unsure of the human officer’s true intentions. After all, no matter how low-ranking a second lieutenant might be, in their eyes, even a Tang prostitute held higher status than a Mirage Country princess.
“You’re the expert. I won’t give you any directives.” The officer tossed his nearly empty cigarette pack to the goblin.
Understanding that the officer had no intention of interfering, the goblin officer waved his hand and adopted a harsher tone: “Continue!”
“As a vassal state of the Great Tang Empire, all citizens of Mirage Country must comply with every decision of their overlords! Execute every order without question!” The Mirage traitor officers shouted with increasing fervor, tirelessly repeating the ssage.
This was their job: propagating the narrative that the Great Tang Empire was Mirage Country’s suzerain, solidifying their subordinate relationship, and forcing the goblins to accept their fate—to obediently migrate to the Northern Island for frontier reclamation…
Elsewhere, Shan Lu was distributing rewards to orc elders for the outstanding performance of their laborers during the incident. The rewards included an assortnt of supplies.
Among the items were chocolates, cigarettes, beer and soda, candies, honey, cakes, salt, canned ham, luncheon at, instant noodles, and bread. There was even so beef and lamb.
Wanting to avoid any delays to the project tiline, the orcs weren’t given a holiday, but the generous supply of goods made them feel a strong sense of happiness nonetheless.
“You all did a great job! Soon, we’ll have our own new holand!” Standing on a rock, Shan Lu waved his arms to rally the crowd.
The orcs raised their arms high, shouting and cheering. The atmosphere stood in stark contrast to the eerie silence at the execution grounds nearby.
In the distance, a burst of gunfire echoed, eliciting celebratory cheers from the orcs. The animosity between orcs and goblins was irreconcilable; there was no need for pretense.
The Ben Island of tomorrow was destined to be a paradise for orcs, yet it was also the ancestral holand of the goblins! Their conflict was unavoidable, leading to inevitable large-scale clashes on the island in the future.
Shan Lu didn’t care how the goblins viewed the orcs; he only needed to know how to deal with them.
“For the Great Tang Empire!” Shan Lu raised his fist high in the air. “For, His Majesty The Emperor!”
“For His Majesty The Emperor!” The orcs shouted back, unable to distinguish whether they were pledging allegiance to their own orc emperor or the human emperor of the Great Tang Empire…
In any case, they knew one thing: pledging for an emperor was always the right answer!
Looking at the gifts from the humans, the orc elders were very satisfied. Though their Paradise Island was still far off, the humans… had been incredibly generous.
They might be missing quite a few teeth, but who didn’t love chocolate and candy? In their many years of life, they had probably never eaten as many sweets as they had in the past few weeks…
Now, they could feast on even more.
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