Chapter 275: Intensify the Efforts
When the old mayor, the militia captain, the club owner and other people fell into Yang Qiu's hands, Yang Qiu's first thought was to hang them on the city wall to dry.
Considering the need to build a railway, Yang Qiu suppressed his desire to watch others work and temporarily tolerated these people to survive.
Regardless of which dimension, large-scale construction projects will always result in casualties, especially in countries and regions with underdeveloped productivity and no safety construction standards at all - countless corpses of Chinese workers are buried under the railroad sleepers in the United States.
Rather than letting civilians sacrifice, it is better to let these bastards with bloody hands die, at least they can get some surplus value... Yang Qiu's idea is so simple.
Hal Maxwell, the chief supervisor of the railway project and the first warden of Innadri Prison, also understood Yang Qiu's thoughts. Whenever there was work on the construction site with uncertain safety factors and prone to accidents, Hal would unceremoniously push the most heinous prisoners to the position - those who ran brothels, casinos, those who had engaged in human trafficking, and those who had profited from human trafficking - all of them were excellent candidates to take on the minefields.
Of course, Hal would not just watch the serious criminals die. He still had to be a little humanitarian... Anyone who survived would be fed with cheap alchemical potions provided by the town hall and fed for a few days to nourish their bodies. After they recovered, they could continue to mine-wrecking.
Only a hundred people died when the railway project reached the border of Tarantan, and the low-level alchemical potions handed in by the living players played a big role.
Even Hal himself thought that he was very kind and a good person - if he had been more unkind and directly embezzled the batch of low-level alchemical potions, the number of casualties would have been unstoppable.
Of course, the most real thought is that Hal is also worried that too many prisoners will die and the railway project will take too long, so that he, the unlucky supervisor, will not be able to return to the city to live a comfortable life...
There were eleven "fresh laborers" sent to the prisoner road construction team together with Gold. Hal hastily presided over the collective funeral, and left the tedious matters such as burial and erecting a tombstone (after all, they sacrificed their lives for building the railway, and it was not too much trouble to leave a name for a serious criminal) to Pansy. He came to the prisoner barracks in high spirits to inspect the quality of the new goods.
After the railway in Westram was completed, the railway project was only half done. The next step was to build a section of about 360 kilometers directly to the exile town, which would inevitably require a steady influx of prisoners from all over Innader.
If Yang Qiu was not so unfamiliar with the neighboring territories for the time being, he might have instructed Rex to purchase criminals from other territories... ahem.
"Four robbers, a rapist, five thieves... Hmm? A malicious assault?" Hal became interested when he saw the last person on the list of prisoners. "Who is this? There is such a vicious prisoner?"
Thieves are not worthy of being on the table, rapists are trash who only look for women to vent their stress, robbers mostly act in gangs, and the fact that there are no murders or injury charges shows that these people are only after money and have never hurt anyone. Just looking at the crimes listed, this malicious injury offender is undoubtedly the most brutal one.
The security officer who brought the prisoner in sneered and pointed at Gold, who was shivering in the corner of the newcomer barracks: "Hey, this."
Hal, who was originally very interested, took a look at the guy hiding in the corner, and the expression on his face disappeared.
"Is this the kind of stuff?" Hal asked suspiciously.
"Don't look at him like this now. He was so powerful before he came in." The operator sneered, "This guy is from Westham. He attacked Caroline from Westham - the girl who dared to do business on credit with Mr. Rex. Not only did he slash her, but he also brazenly said that he would never marry her, as if he was so popular with girls that they would be willing to marry him no matter what kind of person he was."
Normal men would never bear to see women being hurt. People like Gold, who hurt unmarried young girls and then had the audacity to ask whether to marry them or not, are particularly disgusting.
"Another piece of trash." Hal pouted, no longer interested in Gold. He signed the prisoner handover document and handed it to the operator. "I received the prisoner. Wait a moment. Pansy will go to count the supplies after he is done."
The officers from the Public Security Department handed over the task to Hal more than once, and then smiled and shook their heads. Hal never did such tedious work as handing over materials. If Pansy asked, and Pansy was busy, then it would be better to ask the Undead Engineer instead of Hal.
After the operators handed over the prisoners, they went to work on handing over supplies. Hal turned around and squinted his eyes at the new prisoners who looked like quails in the room. He waved and called the dark-skinned Sokri mercenary outside in: "Take these two to the first team, and the others to the third team."
The two he was referring to were Gold and the rapist.
Before Gold could react to what the division meant, the Sokri mercenary, who was taller and stronger than him, walked straight over to him, grabbed the chain hanging around his neck, and dragged him and the rapist away like dogs.
Gold was afraid that he would fall and be dragged like a dead dog, so he had to bend his body awkwardly, grab the chain around his neck with both hands, and move his feet faster to trot.
After being dragged out of the prisoner barracks where he had been for less than half an hour, Gold turned his head unconsciously and was horrified to find that the robbers and thieves who were escorted in the same carriage with him did not receive the same treatment as him and the rapist. Instead, they were "politely" led out of the barracks and walked in another direction...
"Where are you taking me?! Where is the first team?" Gold screamed in horror.
The Sokri mercenary who was dragging him turned around and gave him a half-smile, then chuckled, "Don't panic, kid. It's not time to panic yet. Today is your first day here. If you can work for half a day, you can earn two meals. This kind of good thing doesn't happen often. Seize the opportunity and work hard. If you can't even earn enough to eat on the first day, the rest of your life will be hard."
Gold wanted to struggle, to resist, to shout that he was framed, that he was not a criminal, and that he did not deserve such treatment, but the Sokri mercenary had no intention of listening to his explanations and pulled the chain around his neck even faster.
After being dragged for about ten minutes, Gold and the rapist were stuffed into a simple wooden-track horse-drawn freight rail car. They bumped along the simple freight track that was only two horses' butts wide for nearly half an hour before being pulled to a large construction site.
Seeing the situation on the construction site, the two newcomers couldn't help but tremble...
This construction site is a quarry.
Westerham is close to the Sorensen Mountains, which are high and mountainous. Due to the lack of mountain-cutting equipment, the railway needs to go around the mountains, adding dozens of kilometers to the distance. But at least the ground is relatively smooth and dry, so the construction difficulty is not too high.
Near the Tarantan border, there are fewer hills, but there are more swamps, natural pits and other places. If we want to build a railway there, we need to dig deep roadbeds in many places and fill them with a lot of gravel.
The first team, composed of serious criminals, is responsible for the most dangerous task of quarrying.
On the hillside where a pale mountain was blown out, broken rocks of all sizes rolled down from the pale mountain and slid onto the giant stone pestle on the slope from time to time; hundreds of serious criminals wearing thick uniforms and strange bright yellow helmets were busy numbly at the foot of the mountain, transporting the stones needed for the roadbed like ants moving a mountain, and transmitting them into strange machines that were larger than houses through tracked devices.
The terrifying machine with a weird big belly continuously spewed out black smoke and dust and made a deafening roar. It crushed the large and small rocks it swallowed into its belly into gravel suitable for the roadbed, which then rolled out from its butt.
One prisoner seemed to be so tired that he was in a trance. When he was shoveling gravel, he accidentally got a little closer to the huge big-bellied machine. He was kicked hard by the Sokri man who was supervising him and cursed: "If you want to die, get out of here and don't get your blood all over me!"
The Sokri mercenary who brought Gold over pulled the two men out of the car and said gloatingly, "Come this way, follow me to get your work clothes and go to work. Don't blame me for not reminding you, be careful when working here, stay away from places where you are not allowed to approach, otherwise if you die, others will have to work hard to dig up your bodies, and they may not even find a complete body."
Gold felt dizzy and wanted to faint on the spot.
He began to miss the workshops in the Innadelli factory area, the boring and monotonous assembly line work, and those small machines that were noisy and annoying but at least did not frighten people.
Unfortunately... people always have to pay the price for the choices they make. The mediocre life that he once discarded has now become a distant paradise that he can never return to.
When Gold, whose life trajectory was completely turned upside down, risked his life for his two meals a day, the application for reporting and publicity issued by Lord Tattle Joe of Westham was also delivered to the desk of Lord Charlie Rex of Innadri.
Tuttle Joe demanded that everyone in the territory know Gold's name, but the Nadler Weekly did not recognize the reporting value of this matter and declined Tuttle's request.
This was not because the editor-in-chief of the weekly had been threatened by Tuttle's friend Hal and was taking personal revenge, but because the newspaper considered its own position and felt that this matter would not attract much social attention and was not worth occupying space. In order to avoid Tuttle Joe's resentment, the newspaper also wrote a letter to Lord Rex to explain the matter.
At this moment, the newspaper's letter of explanation and Tuttle's angry and vehement application were placed side by side in front of Rex.
Rex naturally attached great importance to Tuttle's opinion. The former think tank of the thieves' gang was much more cooperative than Hal, the guy who only knew how to mess around. However, the newspaper's explanatory letter also explained the reason very clearly, which gave Rex a headache.
Zhao Zhenzhen wanted to laugh when she saw him scratching his head anxiously: "Is this matter so difficult for you?"
"...I can't force the newspaper to bow its head." Rex said reluctantly.
This was Tuttle's first application, and Rex didn't want to disappoint him; but the newspaper didn't take a penny from the city hall, and often used its influence to cooperate with the city hall to promote government policies... Rex really couldn't lose face in front of the newspaper.
"It's easy to understand the newspaper's considerations." Zhao Zhenzhen smiled and said something that was not gentle at all. "This kind of incident where someone maliciously hurts someone because they can't get what they want is indeed difficult to attract much attention, unless the newspaper editor is allowed to describe the victim as a vain, materialistic and shameless woman, which would easily arouse public outrage."
Rex looked horrified: "???"
"The public's interest in social news is not because they want to see the truth, but because they want to find a villain suitable for attacking from the events that happened to others, and then focus their anger on this stranger." Zhao Zhenzhen said, "The Weekly is Innadelli 's mainstream newspaper, and it is closely connected with the City Hall. They are embarrassed to take the path of sensationalism, so they will naturally deny the value of reporting this incident."
Rex had a hard time understanding what Zhao Zhenzhen meant, but that didn't stop him from expressing his opinion: "This attitude is not acceptable. The public regards exploring other people's private lives as a collective carnival, and it is natural not to go along with it. How can we take a laissez-faire attitude?"
"So, we can't rely solely on private organizations to promote positive trends like this." Zhao Zhenzhen laughed. "If the weekly newspaper doesn't want to report it, then why don't our radio station step up its efforts? We can make a radio drama, and choose Caroline as the protagonist. We can write a radio drama around her struggle. Gold is the villain who emerged during Caroline's growth. His sinister intentions towards Caroline can be fully expressed in the form of drama, so that the audience can understand the whole process of this incident like listening to a story. Isn't it better than dry reports and more educational?"
Rex's mouth dropped open.
"It just so happens that there are talented performers in our resettlement site. Their dancing skills are not needed for the time being, but their singing and opera singing skills are just right." Zhao Zhenzhen said, "Look for someone with more artistic talent and who is willing to listen to guidance, and then find him to be in charge of this matter."
Rex nodded like a chick pecking at rice.
After getting some advice from Zhao Zhenzhen, Rex immediately took action...
The task of writing the radio drama script was obviously best suited for the local nobles who had surrendered to the City Hall, but Rex was worried that the scripts they wrote would not meet the City Hall's propaganda requirements, so he shamelessly called Bishop Lowell in Port Moses.
Bishop Lowell was enjoying his relaxing days in the Crescent Manor in Moses Port, without any harassment from the undead and without any mental pressure from some evil black magician. When he had nothing to do, he would listen to Innadri's broadcasts on the radio in the manor. Upon hearing this, he immediately agreed and asked Rex to collect Caroline's information and fax it to him in detail.
After deciding on the scriptwriters, Rex immediately went to the resettlement sites in Xinfeng District and Westham Town Central Avenue, and selected a group of people with nice voices, who could sing, sing opera, and understand acting from among the inmates who had no ability to be self-sufficient and had to rely on the government for their livelihood.
When Tuttle learned that Rex was going to make a grand radio series to satisfy his demands, he remained cold and arrogant on the surface, but was very cooperative in action - not only did he personally collect information, he also brought the prototype characters of Caroline, Allen, Saipan, and Benjamin to the newly appointed radio drama actors for reference and study.
With the full support of the town hall and the city government, and the old literary youth who signed the script with Yang Qiu's stamp, the first radio drama "Our Struggle" produced by Innadri City Hall was officially released and promoted on all channels before the players completed all the exorcist missions in Moses Port.
