Chapter 766: Chapter 59: Counting Stoves_3 Chapter 766: Chapter 59: Counting Stoves_3 “I’m glad you agree. Didn’t you send your wife and children to Revodan the day before yesterday?” Winters said amiably, “I have brought them all back to Niutigu Valley. Weren’t you also hiding three horses ready to flee? They’ve been confiscated as well.”
The mayor of Niutigu Valley’s eyes went dark, and it was only with Winters’ support that he didn’t topple down from the watchtower.
Winters patiently explained, “With the battle looming, sending away your wife and children isn’t good. You are the mayor, and it’s your duty to defend our land. If you run, everyone else will follow to Revodan, and then Niutigu Valley would be indefensible. But as it is now, ‘if we hold, we live together; if we fail, we die together,’ that’s much better.”
The mayor of Niutigu Valley, who had just stopped crying, felt tears well up again.
“Don’t cry,” Winters comforted the mayor. “Rest assured, facing the Terdon Tribe, I’ve technically been victorious in every battle so far. Are you listening?”
“I’m listening,” the mayor of Niutigu Valley said, his eyes swollen from crying: “Victorious in every battle.”
“Good, as long as you understand, tell this to everyone in Niutigu Valley,” Winters patted his arm, “You can go now.”
The mayor of Niutigu Valley hadn’t recovered from the shock until Bart Xialing signaled him, and it was then that he snapped out of it.
Feeling like he had been granted a reprieve, the mayor left with frequent backward glances. As he stepped onto the ladder, he heard the magistrate’s gentle voice:
Like being seared with a hot coal, the mayor’s body tensed up, and he felt a chill down his spine. “Present! Your Excellency!”
“After this battle,” Winters said with a smile, waving goodbye, “hand in your resignation.”
“That son of a bitch, you really didn’t need to waste words on him.” Watching the mayor’s retreating figure, Bart Xialing said indignantly, “A duplicitous backstabber who inflates prices and incites townspeople against us. He should be drawn and quartered in public!”
“He wanted to flee to Revodan. The better we defend, the less able he is to leave,” Winters said, leaning on the railing. “So he tries his best to sabotage our preparations for battle. This is ‘burning the barn to steal some wheat.'”
“How can there be such people?”
Winters sighed softly, “There are plenty of such people, you might say… they are everywhere.”
A few company commanders became sullen for a moment.
“But still—there are more good people after all.” Winters saw the mood dip and smiled to lighten the atmosphere, “Humanity is like the vast ocean, though there may be some dirty water, there are still more good people.”
Tamas, Bart Xialing, and Samujin exchanged glances with each other, their expressions somewhat strange.
“What is it?” Winters asked with a chuckle, “Don’t you believe me?”
“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Tamas said, forcing himself to speak out, “None of us… has ever seen the sea.”
Winters took a deep breath and corrected his metaphor, “Human kindness is like the prairie. Even if it gets scorched to barren land by a fire, it will eventually come back to life.”
“That we understand!” Bart Xialing said with a beaming smile.
Winters gathered the company commanders not just for observation.
“How is the collection of wagons going?” Winters asked, his smile disappearing.
“We’ve conscripted all that we can,” Tamas immediately responded, adding in a softer voice, “just that the strong-arming of wagons is causing some resentment among the farmers.”
“Make sure to mark them, and register. Tell them, what is borrowed will be returned; what is damaged will be compensated.”
“Yes sir,” Tamas saluted. This text is hosted at novel•fire.net
Bart Xialing, gripping his sword hilt, asked, “Should we burn down the villages near Niutigu Valley?”
“No need, there’s no need to burn anything for now,” Winters said, shaking his head with a smile, “We can’t burn everything down—the common folk still need to make a living. If we burn a house now, we have to compensate for one later. The house burns, but the pain is in my heart.”
The company commanders smiled understandingly.
Then, Winters assigned new tasks to each company.
That afternoon, four companies of the Iron Peak County Infantry left Niutigu Valley, each constructing small fortifications along the riverbank.
There was also a logging team cutting down trees nearby Niutigu Valley, to build rafts and boats.
The fortifications of Niutigu Valley were basically complete, with the new defenses wrapping around the town of Niutigu Valley. What followed was the continuation of fortification—a task delegated to the civilians.
Samujin’s Volunteer Brigade was stationed in the town of Niutigu Valley. For now, their main job was still… making baskets.
At dusk that day, a previously unseen cyan horsehair banner appeared on the hillside west of Big Horn River.
The Revodanians had come.