Chapter 351: Chapter 27 Revodan
Three days after the conscription orders reached Wolf Town, dawn broke on the third morning.
As the sky began to light up, lines of four-wheeled farm carts stread out from the estates of Wolf Town, converging in the town center before making their way toward Revodan City.
Over a hundred carts stretched out in a long line on the road, with the front and rear being a kiloter apart, their squeaking axles audible from a great distance.
Fully ard and agile riders occasionally dashed past the sluggish carts, patrolling back and forth along the caravan.
Following the lay of the land, the road andered and twisted into the distance, with most of the journey crossing through deserted areas.
The wilderness and adows dominated the scenery along the route, and whenever the caravan passed through a forest, everyone’s nerves instantly tensed.
Even the laziest of drivers would snap to attention, pulling out daggers and crossbows to keep at hand, vigilantly watching the dark woods on either side of the path.
Only once the caravan had left the forest would the drivers dare to breathe a sigh of relief, kicking their weapons back under their seats and slipping back into their usual listless deanor.
The riders patrolling at the very front of the caravan were none other than Winters and Gerard, and the riders were Dusacks hired by the estate owners.
Although Wolf Town had received conscription orders, life still had to go on.
The farrs’ crops needed to be harvested, and the autumn sowing had to be done; tobacco, cotton, and beets harvested by the estates needed to be sold.
The output of most estates had already been secured by rchant houses through advance paynts.
But for the rchants, the risk and cost of transport were too high, so the estate owners had to transport their goods themselves to Revodan City for delivery.
Therefore, every year around this ti, the estate owners of Wolf Town would arrange a ti to jointly transport their goods to Revodan City, which was why the grand caravan seen now had co into being.
Band together for warmth, a asure born of necessity.
Oppressive governance, oppressive as a tiger—the authoritarian policies of Palatu’s higher-ups in the Newly Reclaid Land inevitably led to rampant banditry.
Theft, poaching, tax evasion, unauthorized farming… Any one of these charges could drive otherwise law-abiding farrs to desperate asures, exchanging violence for sustenance and devolving into robbers and bandits.
If the tis turned tough—if temperatures remained low all year, sumrs were cool and damp, winters were long and icy—crop failures would occur, and famine would follow.
Then it wouldn’t just be the Newly Reclaid Land, the Republic of Palatu, or the Senas Alliance… Across the entire continent, nurous farrs would go bankrupt, starve, and turn to banditry.
[Note: The people of this era were not aware that they were experiencing what later generations would call the “Little Ice Age.”]
Most of the Newly Reclaid Lands of the Republic of Palatu were covered by pristine forests and adows, scattered with sporadic villages and a few small towns with populations of just one or two thousand.
The only larger city was Maplestone City, the capital of the Newly Reclaid Lands Province, where the legion was stationed.
In such sparsely populated frontier regions, without the protection of city walls or the vigilance of neighbors, any lonely farmhouse encountering a few strong n ard with makeshift weapons could only submit to their rcy.
As a result, most farrs in the Newly Reclaid Lands lived in close-knit communities, with few isolated farmhouses far from villages.
Rural dirt roads, the borders between towns, and the forests near cities—these places all lay beyond the reach of help and were rife with banditry.
In Wolf Town, thanks to Gerard Mitchell at the helm, the days were peaceful.
Gerard ruled with benevolence, supported wholeheartedly by the Dusacks, so Wolf Town itself did not breed bandits.
Outlaws from elsewhere found no assistance from the locals, ending up like fish out of water. The brighter ones would flee imdiately, while the dimr ones were easily eradicated by Gerard leading the Dusacks.
After disposing of a group of bandits with so notoriety, few rogue villains dared to cause trouble within the jurisdiction of Wolf Town.
But there were one hundred and twenty-four administrative regions in the Newly Reclaid Lands at the sa level as Wolf Town; the peace in Wolf Town had little to no effect on the larger environnt.
To the gangs of thieves, the heavily laden, slow-moving, defenseless farm cart caravans were simply an irresistible feast.
Each year at this ti, small groups of bandits would even spontaneously band together to form larger gangs to rob the rchant caravans on their way to the city.
After paying a bloody price several tis, the estate owners of Wolf Town thus banded together for warmth, hiring riders from Dusa Village to protect the caravan.
“A few years ago, there was a particularly notorious bandit, nicknad ‘Bloody Hand Schutte,'” Gerard recounted vividly to Winters as they rode side by side, sharing the legends of the robbers of the Newly Reclaid Land: “That guy didn’t just rob and kill, he would even chop off people’s hands and pickle them in salt barrels. It’s said that when the legion gendars caught him, they found over a hundred severed hands, unable to tell which belonged to whom.”
Winters, indignant, said, “It took the murder of dozens before he was caught, what were the gendars of the Newly Reclaid Lands doing? I was a gendar too, if my old commanding officer Colonel Field were here…”
Words stirred mories, and suddenly recalling the fallen Colonel Field and the pacts made over heavy drinking in Golden Harbor, Winters’s voice grew quieter and quieter, until he could no longer continue.
“It’s the local governnt’s responsibility to capture thieves, the stationed legions don’t get involved,” Gerard sighed, “The legion gendars only went after Bloody Hand because he overstepped, robbing the legions’ own supply convoys.”
Sergei, who was nearby, perked up and interjected enthusiastically, “There’s also a joke. It goes like this: a peddler was on his way to the city when he encountered a robber. Just then, a troop of gendars happened by. The peddler shouted for help, but the gendars ignored him. Desperate, the peddler yelled, ‘I haven’t paid my taxes,’ and imdiately the gendars charged over, drove away the robber, and took the peddler all the way to the city.”
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