It has been nearly half a year since Dick took office in Laguge. Although it happened to be winter, which blocked the flow of a lot of information, rumors about him are still slowly spreading in the local area.
Therefore, Karacho, who had specially sent people to collect intelligence in advance, knew some information about the new governor. He knew that he had elven blood, so he looked younger than his actual age.
Dick also sent people to gather information about this "Karacho", who was the chief of the savage village "Nameless Valley". He was a well-known figure in the western mountainous area and had a high prestige among many savages.
The reason why this man became famous was that more than 20 years ago, he was oppressed by the then Governor of Laguge. He chose to rise up in resistance and assassinate the governor. After succeeding, he fled into the mountains and forests and hid there.
However, although Karacho was a wanted criminal and had been fighting against the Governor's Office of Laguge for many years, he was a real man with some backbone. He did not choose to associate with bandits, but hid in the mountains and forests, living a "carefree life" without having to pay taxes.
However, Dick's arrival gave Laguge a governor who was capable of doing things for the first time in a hundred years.
In particular, his swift and resolute anti-bandit actions won the applause of the people, but for the wild people hiding in the mountains, this was not necessarily a good thing.
Although the barbarians were also oppressed by the bandits, they knew very well that the Governor's Office did not like them and thought they were no different from the bandits. So when two out of three bandits in the western mountainous areas had been wiped out, both the barbarians and the villages that had contact with the bandits could not help but become nervous.
At this time, Dick took the initiative to send someone to deliver a letter to the Nameless Valley, asking Karacho to meet at the Blood Wolf Gang's stronghold.
After the Blood Wolf Gang was wiped out, Dick chose to use this place as an outpost. While sending prisoners and rescued hostages in batches, he also called in craftsmen to repair the place.
Compared to the Ghost Crying Peak where the Vulture Gang is entrenched, the Blood Wolf Gang's stronghold does not have a dangerous terrain, but its location is very good. It is a transportation hub in the western mountainous area and the intersection of many mountain roads.
After Dick sent someone to deliver a letter to Caraccio, he thought that the other party would have to hesitate for a while before making up his mind to come and see him. Unexpectedly, only two days later, the other party came alone.
When he saw Dick in person, Caraccio was mysteriously solemn. He seemed to have made some kind of resolution before coming here, and he spoke straight to the point as soon as they met.
"If I surrender, can you forgive the people of the Nameless Valley? I assure you that they are not colluding with bandits. They are just poor people who can't pay taxes. You can let them open up the wasteland. As long as they can live a stable life, no one wants to stay in the mountains."
Caracho spoke in a very humble tone. The easy destruction of the two major gangs had made Caracho realize the gap between the new governor and those useless people in the past. His good deeds of curing many patients with colds in winter had also spread in the local area. The recently promulgated land reclamation decree clearly stated that the wild people were allowed to move down the mountain and settle down again, and the Governor's Office could let bygones be bygones.
Although the wild people usually hide in the mountains, they have never completely cut off contact with the outside world. Occasionally, they will go down the mountain to purchase daily necessities such as salt, or even sneak into the city in disguise.
Karacho knew that the Nameless Valley was no match for the regular army if they fought with force, and the carrot and stick that Dick showed made many people waver.
This new governor is not a bastard, a beast, a beast, or a parasite.
He seems to be a pretty nice person!
So when Dick sent a ninja to place the handwritten letter of appointment directly on the table of Karacho's cabin, the backbone of the people and the hero who had killed the villain governor made a decision in his heart.
But Karacho was actually overthinking it. Dick asked Hongye to put the letter directly on his desk, which was indeed a demonstration. He also hoped that thousands of savages in the western mountains could come down the mountain and become ordinary people again, but he really didn't want to kill Karacho.
Dick actually admires this old man very much. He is a real man.
Moreover, although killing him could intimidate the savages, it would also arouse hatred and make the dead Caracho a totem of resistance for the savages, which was not what Dick wanted to see.
So Dick quickly asked the other party to stop and said that he came to "appease" him.
"You are a talented person, are you interested in working with me?"
"I'm a wanted criminal."
"I can grant you amnesty. The barbarians trust you, and you can be their village chief. If you do well, I can even promote you to town mayor."
Dick actually thought about breaking up the wild people who came down from the mountain and dividing them into different villages, so as to dismantle them. But after learning about the situation in the western mountainous area, Dick hoped to incorporate the Nameless Valley and set up villages and towns for them.
After all, the western mountainous area is also within the territory of Laguge. Moving people out is one solution, but immigration to the border is also an effective strategy to squeeze the bandits' living space.
Besides, there are mines in the western mountains!
Although the local mining industry is mainly based on cold iron, that stuff is a special supply to the royal family and is subject to extremely strict control laws. Since it cannot be bought and sold freely, it does not generate much economic benefit. In fact, for a long time in the past, it has even been a burden on local people.
Dick already has a plan to develop the eastern plains, but the development of the western mountains can also be carried out simultaneously. If Karajo can bring most of the wild people to join him, then the next thing to do will become much simpler.
044. Assassination and Counter-Assassination
Caraccio's surrender saved Dick a lot of trouble.
Dick found out through questioning that this was thanks to the "assist" provided by the Deer Head Gang.
According to Karacho, (a part of) the wild folk forces headed by the Nameless Valley have always been at odds with the three major bandit gangs in the western mountainous areas, but most of the time they have maintained a state of non-interference.
However, with the successive demise of the Vulture Gang and the Blood Wolf Gang, the Deer Head Gang, not wanting to sit idly by, repeatedly proposed to the Nameless Valley to join forces to fight against the Governor's Mansion, but was sternly rejected by Karajo.
In Caraccio's own words, he is a rough man, not smart but not stupid either. If he is asked to choose between "a governor with a not bad reputation" and "a group of mentally abnormal cult lunatics", he will not choose the latter even if his brains are kicked by a deer-headed spirit.
In fact, when the Vulture Gang was first destroyed, Karajo wanted to remain neutral. He didn't want the barbarians who were already living a poor life in the mountains to be involved in this conflict that would kill them. If it didn't work, he would just follow their old strategy to deal with the encirclement and suppression and take people to hide in the mountains.
But the cultists of the Deer Head Gang did something outrageous at this time... They attacked the Nameless Valley by surprise, robbed the few remaining food items from the wild folks, and set fire to the village.
This sneak attack completely enraged the Nameless Valley, but also forced them into a desperate situation.
Without enough food and in a season when the ice and snow had not yet melted, they could not escape the fate of starving to death whether they stayed in the valley or retreated into the deep mountains and forests.
In desperation, Karacho finally decided to use his head to buy a way out for the wild people who had always trusted him. This was the only solution he could think of.
After understanding the general situation, Dick immediately said that there was no need to worry about the food problem. As long as the hundreds of people in the Nameless Valley were willing to become re-naturalized subjects of Laguge, he, as the governor, would not ignore their lives. However, they would have to obey the orders of the governor in the future.
As for Caraccio, Dick had a good impression of him, so he said with a smile.
"I want your head, but I'll put it on your neck first, and then you can do things for me."
"You really won't kill me."
"Do you really want to die?"
Dick asked back with a smile, Laguge is a place where the emperor is far away, as long as the annual special supply of cold iron is not short of weight, the people above will not bother to care about such a faraway place, and the governor is a person who can cover the sky with one hand here.
In fact, Dick checked the territory records and found that in the past twenty years, the "evil villain Caraccio" had been beheaded no less than three times, as if Caraccio was immortal and his head could grow again after being cut like leeks.
These former governors all used the name of suppressing bandits to make money for themselves and seek credit from their superiors, but Dick did the opposite. He really suppressed bandits, but concealed his achievements.
Dick kept his word and urgently allocated a batch of food to the mountains the next day. He personally led a hundred private soldiers to escort the food to the Nameless Valley.
Caraccio, who was following Dick, saw that the private army was familiar with the route, and thought of the letter that had been sent to his home without anyone noticing, and Caraccio began to feel suspicious.
It turns out that the lair they thought was very secretive had actually been located by someone else long ago.
When the private army arrived at the Nameless Valley, they caused quite a commotion in the village. It was not until Dick came forward to state his identity and purpose, and with the help of Caracho, that everyone was calmed down.
Looking at the ragged, skinny and sallow people in the dilapidated village, Dick thought that even if they hid and didn't pay taxes, these people didn't live well.
At this moment, Dick thought of something and turned to ask Caracho.
"Is there anyone else suffering from the cold in the village?"
"Have."
After receiving a positive response from the other party, Dick immediately called Natasha and asked her to take the pre-prepared medicine to rescue people first, and then asked the cook accompanying the army to start cooking.
When Dick came to Lagoge to take office last year, he purchased a large amount of lard and cheap coarse grains.
The cook put lard, coarse salt and water directly into the pot to boil the soup, then smashed the black bread that was hard enough to crack a person's skull (it couldn't be cut), poured it into the boiling soup and cooked it together until it became a paste.
Frankly speaking, Dick himself couldn't eat this kind of food that looked like vomit. He felt nauseous just by looking at it. But the villagers who had been out of food for several days ate it voraciously. The hunger made them too lazy to even think about whether it was poisonous.
Soon, the population data of the village was counted. It was more than Dick had expected, with nearly 700 people, but less than a quarter of them were young and middle-aged. This data looked very problematic.
Normally, winter in the mountains is tough, and young and middle-aged people should be more likely to survive than the old and weak. However, in the Nameless Valley, the elderly, the weak, the sick and the disabled make up the majority of the population.
As a result, when Dick asked, he found out that this was another sin committed by the Deer Head Gang!
Originally, there were only about 300 people in the Nameless Valley, but in the past one or two months, some barbarians who were in trouble came here to seek refuge. After Karaqiao asked, he found out that it was the Deer Head Gang that attacked them.
It seems that they are determined to confront the Governor's Office. The Deer Head Gang has been trying every means to increase its strength over the past period of time. The method is to attack those weak wild villages and force them to join them. If they refuse, they will fight with weapons and rob them directly.
Those savages who managed to escape had no choice but to take refuge in the Nameless Valley, and as a result, more and more people gathered there, and gradually the place reached its current size.
And just seven days ago, on the night when Dick launched a surprise attack on the Blood Wolf Gang, the cultists of the Deer Head Gang also attacked the Nameless Valley, forcing Karacho to surrender to the Governor.
When Dick heard about the Deer Head Gang's outrageous actions, he wanted to laugh but was too embarrassed to do so. He felt that if he laughed here, his career as governor would be over.
Dick was originally hesitant about whether to suppress or appease the scattered and complex wild people in the western mountainous area, but the Deer Head Gang came to his aid. They attracted those who were inclined to be bandits to his side, and the rest automatically gathered in the Nameless Valley, which helped him screen the crowd.
In the next few days, Dick began to make preparations for the war to wipe out the Deer Head Gang.
The main force of the private army of 300 people gathered at the outpost and were on standby, while in the Nameless Valley, Dick was personally in charge, reorganizing the wild people under his command.
Dick didn't expect to use these people as cannon fodder to fight the Deer Head Gang, but the Nameless Valley was indeed a very suitable place to establish a settlement.
So Dick renamed it "Valley Village" and publicly appointed Karacho, who used the alias "Lakacho", as the village chief, and allowed the village to form a 50-man militia self-police group.
Since it is a newly built village, it can enjoy the same three-year tax exemption preferential treatment as the pioneer villages.
Dick knew clearly that the barbarians would not submit to him so easily. Many people, including Karacho, were actually waiting and watching. After all, the influence left by so many previous Zerg Governors was still strong. It was not that Dick could immediately reverse the bad impression by doing a few things.
But it was precisely thanks to these "predecessors" before, whose brutal and beast-like rule in the local area had lowered the local people's expectations of the governor low enough. After Dick came, he didn't have to make any decent political achievements. Just the fact that he behaved like a human being was enough to surprise the local people.
After receiving relief food from the Governor's Office, Shan Gu Village temporarily became a shelter. The village rebuilt its walls and trenches to prevent possible sneak attacks from the Deer Head Gang. At the same time, it welcomed all refugees who came to seek refuge and built a large number of simple wooden houses as refugee camps.
Karacho specifically reminded Dick to be careful in identifying the refugees. He had suffered losses in this regard before. There were spies from the Deer Head Gang among the refugees he gathered, which led to the enemy's sneak attack.
But Dick smiled with ease.
"It's okay. I was afraid they wouldn't come."
Caraccio is a simple and honest man. The reason why he enjoys the prestige of a leader among the barbarians is not only because he used his strength to kill through the guards and chop off the governor's head with two battle axes more than 20 years ago, but also because of his generous and righteous character.
But after actually interacting with him for a period of time, Dick also discovered that this guy's personal charm is indeed not low, but his personal ability can only be said to be average.
Not stupid, that's all!
Karacho was also unlucky. He had been hiding in the mountains for so many years, and there had never been a military advisor who was smart enough and willing to assist him around him. Otherwise, the existence in the Nameless Valley might not be as easy to deal with as the Hidden Village of the Wild Folk.
Dick thought about it and didn't tell Caracho that there were actually spies and ninjas under his command watching the refugee camp, waiting for the Deer Head Gang's spies to sneak in. He only told him that he was prepared and told him not to worry too much, and that he would solve the problem of the Deer Head Gang before the spring.
After seeing off Caracho, Dick continued to handle official documents in his tent, leaving only Joel, a beautiful and weak-looking female secretary, by his side.
However, at this moment, in the corner of the tent where the two of them were blind, a dark thing suddenly emerged silently from the shadows, transformed into a human-like upper body, and suddenly threw a flying knife at the back of Dick's head.
But before the flying knife could hit Dick, Joel, who was holding the documents in both hands, kicked it away with a high kick.
And his originally silly expression turned sharp the moment he entered combat mode.
"who!?"
The sneak attack failed, but the creature hiding in the shadows did not give up, but jumped up and tried to attack. Seeing this, Joel was about to attack to protect Dick, but he was shocked to find that he was like being immobilized by a spell and could not move.
This is also Joel's weakness. Although her physical fitness is extremely strong, she is a purely physical attack character and lacks the means to deal with supernatural abilities such as magic and sorcery.
Seeing that he was about to succeed, the shadow man who looked like "Kuro (the suspect in Conan)" showed a smug smile. But just as his right hand, which had turned into a sharp blade, was about to cut Dick's seemingly defenseless neck, Dick's figure suddenly disappeared on the spot as if melting, causing his shadow blade, which was as sharp as iron, to swing in the air awkwardly.
Before he could react, the real Dick popped his head out from the curtain under the table, holding a "magic shotgun" that was a complete copy of the M1897, and pulled the trigger at the black shadow man who was close at hand.
045. "Time Stands Still" - Joel
After decades of stealing Earth's technology, this world naturally has guns. And because some local magic technology has been integrated into it, the performance of the magic musket is no less than the prototype on Earth, and it even has more outstanding advantages in some aspects.
Military technologies such as guns and cannons have always been monopolized by the royal family. If the common people were found to be in possession of firearms, they would be immediately sentenced to death. If the nobles used firearms to arm their private armies, it would be regarded as treason.
However, although muskets were contraband, as a privileged class, the nobles could not openly use firearms to arm their private armies on a large scale, but it was not a taboo to secretly get a few to play with.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Dick, the son of a duke and the governor of a fiefdom, can take out a loaded shotgun from his space bracelet (there is no need to worry about accidental discharge in the storage space) and use it as a self-defense weapon.
Dick had actually expected that the cultists of the Deer Head Gang would send people to assassinate him, but he didn't know the time, place and method of assassination.
So Dick simply exposed a flaw to the other party on purpose. He stayed in the valley village every day, either visiting and comforting the newly adopted wild people, or handling official documents in the tent, deliberately sending away those guards who were there in the open.
But in fact, with Joel in the open and the three female ninjas in the dark, Dick, who was wearing a lot of protective amulets, appeared calm on the surface, but his heart was as tense as a fisherman holding a fishing rod.
Just when he was waiting in vain and wondering if the other party would be even more timid than himself, the cultists finally made a move, and right away they showed him "magic and cruelty" that he had never seen before.
To be more precise, this should be some kind of sorcery!
The moment the trigger was pulled, the black shadow man was like being hit by a heavy hammer in the chest. His entire figure flew backwards on the spot, broke through the tent and flew out.
Dick, who had crawled out from under the table, followed suit. With extremely fast hand speed, he loaded the gun and pulled the trigger continuously, firing all five shotgun shells with different damage attributes.
He was not sure what kind of magic or sorcery the opponent was using, but there was a high probability that one of these five elemental bullets would be able to restrain the opponent.
But the actual situation was just as Dick thought. The first three bullets only made the shadow man retreat repeatedly. Only the fourth "Holy Light Blessing Bullet" had an effect comparable to a "critical hit", breaking the opponent's defense on the spot and directly destroying half of his body.
So Dick quickly took out five more holy light bullets from his space bracelet and stuffed them into the shotgun whose magazine had just been emptied.
A "little knowledge" about the Hessian Empire: the Holy Land Church, which worships the gods of the divine realm, obtained special approval from the royal family by providing military priests to the Royal Guards, allowing them to "rent" a batch of light firearms from the Guards for use.
Because the Holy Land Church found that the revolver with special silver bullets was a powerful weapon for exorcism and was also very easy to carry. Using this thing to exorcise demons was much easier than chasing after the ghosts with a silver sword in one hand and a holy water bottle in the other, splashing and slashing.
And for some reason, Dick got the identity of an "apprentice exorcist" from the church, so he had a completely legal channel to purchase these guns and ammunition at his own expense.
