Chapter 327: Ross's Worries
The station town currently has only one street less than 200 meters long and dozens of scattered buildings; more than half of these buildings are wooden houses left behind by the original prisoner road construction team.
It is no exaggeration to say that when you stand on the steps of the station and look up, the whole town is within your sight.
Although small, it has everything needed for services to passengers, including a delicatessen, a hotel and a bar.
After getting off the train, the Kenyan investigation team planned to continue their journey . However, after learning that a pneumatic vehicle of the Transport Company would deliver goods to the depths of Tarantan every morning and that they could hitchhike, they stayed in the only hotel in the town.
Also staying in the hotel was a group of mercenaries who had just come out of the Sorenson Mountains.
“Hey guys, are you from Kenya?”
When Rhodes and his companions had arranged their luggage and horses and were walking in the hotel lobby, this group of mercenaries who were playing cards in a corner of the lobby greeted them casually.
Ross gave Gejier a look, and Gejier walked towards the corner occupied by the mercenaries with a smile on his face: "Yes, we are from Kenya. My name is Gejier, what are your names?"
After chatting for a while with this group of mercenaries who had gained a lot, Gejil returned to his companions.
More than half of the hotel lobby is arranged as a leisure area, providing entertainment such as chess, cards, darts and billiards. If you want to drink, you can pay a few copper coins to the waiters in the bar next door to bring it to you; but there is no more "relaxation", at least not provided by women and little boys.
Ross and his friends occupied two pool tables to gamble for a little money. Gejier sat next to Ross and picked up the rum sent by the next bar. He lowered his voice and said, "This place does do business with adventure teams and mercenary groups, but the mercenaries who go in and out of Sorenson have only taken the Innadri train, not the pneumatic train... Those pneumatic trains of the Innadri Transport Department only take this route to the depths of Tarantan."
Ross nodded slightly, his brows unconsciously knitted.
The only country on the continent of Napalm that has the ability to produce pneumatic vehicles is the Kenya Empire.
Each gas-powered bike is expensive and is usually only seen in larger cities, and rarely leaves the urban area.
As soon as Rhodes heard the station staff mention that the Innadri Transport Company used pneumatic vehicles to transport supplies to the road construction team deep in the Tarantan Desert, he knew that the pneumatic vehicles used here were definitely not made in the Kenyan Empire.
The reason is simple - the Empire prohibits the sale of pneumatic vehicles that can be used to transport supplies on non-urban roads!
Whenever the pneumatic cars were sold to other countries, the Empire would deliberately install a very low chassis; and for many years, it launched a propaganda campaign to make people believe that the lower the chassis of the pneumatic car, the safer and faster it was.
This kind of vehicle, which can only be driven on flat roads, should never be used for transporting supplies during wartime...if it is driven on a slightly rugged terrain, the chassis will be scratched badly.
When you come out of the station, you can see the road extending to the west end, parallel to the unopened railway.
A road with a roadbed and a surface pressed by some heavy equipment must be much smoother than an ordinary country road, but it is also different from the road in the city - because of the abundant rain in the summer, the road surface has been soaked in rain for a long time and many wheel marks have been pressed by the wheels, and obvious bumps can be seen.
The pneumatic vehicles that the Empire allows for sale would have no chance of running on this kind of road surface.
This was obviously not good news...Rhodes became even more worried.
"If the pneumatic vehicles that can be used for transportation on bumpy roads are sold to Middle-earth by Nightmare Butcher... the difficulty of the Empire's control over Middle-earth will double!"
Rhodes is a person who is qualified to access the core strategy of the Kenyan Empire. He understands very well the advantages of the Empire's interference in Middle-earth politics - although it is an away game, the Empire's logistical transportation capabilities are far superior to those of Middle-earth countries fighting at home.
And this advantage is not based on the empire's much-publicized airships, nor on the magic steam trains.
Although the airship has strong air transport capabilities, it is just a slowly moving target floating in the air - not to mention that it will definitely crash if attacked by a high-level spellcaster, a ranger secretly shooting an arrow at it during takeoff or landing will also cause the airship to crash.
As for steam trains, they had to stop operating if a section of the railway was severed by an alchemical bomb.
What really makes the logistics of the imperial army fighting away from home worry-free is actually the land pneumatic vehicle transport troops.
If the people of Middle-earth could also possess similar means of logistics and transportation... then the Empire would not only be able to continue conquering cities and seizing territories in Middle-earth, but the intensity of security warfare in the countries and regions it has already controlled would also suddenly increase.
"If we can't curb the Nightmare Butcher as soon as possible, the empire may... no, it will definitely face endless troubles." Ross sighed secretly.
Ross was worried when he heard noisy footsteps outside.
"Please don't worry about it. It's just that the female prisoners in the prison came back from work for dinner." The employee serving at the pool table smiled and explained to the guests who were visiting the station town for the first time, "Those female prisoners do the hard work of clearing the land, and their appetite is no less than that of the men. The correctional officers are too busy to take care of it, so they have entrusted the prison's three meals a day to the delicatessen next door in the logistics department."
Ross and Gejier looked at each other and signaled the others to continue to relax. Only the two of them walked to the door of the hotel to see what was going on.
The open space in front of the delicatessen next door was already filled with female prisoners. These women were all sweating and covered in mud. Their faces, necks and arms were red from the sun. They were being directed by four or five correctional officers to line up.
Maybe because their energy and physical strength had been exhausted, or because they were used to it, none of the more than 100 female prisoners showed any intention of being disobedient or deliberately making trouble. They moved wherever the correctional officers pointed, and it seemed as if they had more strict discipline than the military.
Ross saw the female prisoners line up as required, and after the correctional officers raised their hands, they all sat down cross-legged in unison, almost in unison...
If Ross hadn't known that these were female prisoners serving their sentences, he would have thought that they were female militia specially trained by Innadri.
Just as Rhodes was shocked at how these few correctional officers had trained the prisoners to be so obedient, an employee from the delicatessen next door pushed a cart loaded with large wooden barrels and tableware and ran quickly into the group of female prisoners. They deftly filled the cart with food and distributed it to the female prisoners who were eating on the spot.
Although the station town is a desolate place, there is no shortage of supplies.
After all, this is the only way to transport supplies to Tarantan, and it can also do some business with adventurers or mercenary teams from time to time; plus, the Transportation Department, which is in charge of railways and transportation, is currently the department with the most financial funding from Innadili, so there is no way they can treat their own people unfairly.
Thanks to the Transport Department, the female prisoners detained here, although doing the hard work of clearing land, were not starved for food - not only were they provided with three meals a day, but eggs and milk were often included in the meals.
Roz, who had good eyesight, saw that the female prisoner closest to the hotel was given a plate with a large ball of greasy noodles mixed with sauce and a small ball of fried side dishes. Although simple, it was not necessarily worse than the food sold in the delicatessens in the city.
No matter whether it was a former slave trader who had eaten delicious food before being arrested, or a female prisoner who was arrested for theft or fighting, they all slurped up the food after receiving it... People who do heavy physical labor such as land reclamation will not have the leisure to be picky about whether the food is exquisite enough.
The female prisoners were given ten minutes to finish their dinner. The correctional officer waiting nearby blew a whistle, and the female prisoners who were sitting on the ground to eat stood up in unison and left in silence and orderly according to the order they had queued for dinner.
Ross and Gajeel, who witnessed Innadelli's disciplinary methods with their own eyes, looked at the backs of the group of female prisoners disappearing at the other end of the street with indescribable expressions on their faces.
"How on earth can the people here make criminals so docile?" Ge Jier said in disbelief, "In my uncle's factory, the female workers who were paid to work there were not so obedient."
The delicatessen employee who was clearing the dishes heard this and boasted a little proudly, "This is a method that only the agents of our City Hall have. Not to mention the female prisoners here, the vicious male prisoners in the wilderness are also so honest."
This time, Ross didn't need to give any signal. Gejier, who was good at dealing with all kinds of people, approached and started a conversation with him.
Ross returned to the hotel lobby leisure area and waited patiently for a while. Having found out a lot of information, Gejier came back with a puzzled look on his face.
This time, Gejier lowered his voice even more: "Rhodes, the prisoner policy that Walton mentioned...maybe it's true. "
"Huh?" Ross frowned.
"They will really release the prisoners." Ge Jier said with an unclear expression.
Ross's expression remained unchanged, but his heart skipped a beat.
The way countries on the Napalm continent deal with prisoners... is surprisingly consistent: most people who enter prison are unlikely to leave alive.
Taking the Kenyan Empire as an example, most male prisoners would work themselves to death in the mines, or die in a mining accident.
Female prisoners would be worked to death in fully enclosed factories, or they would be transferred to some dark place and sold as commodities based on their original capital.
After all...prisons make profits by squeezing the blood and marrow out of criminals. Apart from the prisoners' own ability to work, "parts" such as hair and teeth will also be taken from the prisoners without hesitation when there is a buyer to pay.
Among those who are imprisoned, only a very lucky few can escape with their lives after their families pay a large ransom... no, an atonement.
Even the newspapers were too lazy to report this cruel fact of cannibalism in prison, and even if they did, it would not cause any stir.
This is not to say that the world has no bottom line, but that in a pseudo-civilized society, all "inaudible cries" can be tacitly assumed by the mainstream society to be non-existent - in a country on earth where human rights are loudly advocated, private prisons exploit prisoners with impunity, and illegal immigrants can have their organs taken away openly, and still no one cares.
"Those who behave well during their sentences can get their sentences reduced." Gejier did not notice Ross's reaction. He was already quite shocked. "Those who are recognized by the prison guards and released can receive compensation for their work during their sentences, and even get job recommendations. This is really - unheard of. Don't people here worry that the released criminals will continue to commit crimes?"
Roz remained silent.
This nobleman, who came from a great noble family, had never considered whether the criminals in prison were eligible for forgiveness and salvation.
For people like Ross and Gajeel, prisoners are too far away from their world - even farther away than the dimensional demon world across the plane.
It is impossible for a noble to go to jail, and everything a noble does must be reasonable and legal.
Even if they failed in the territorial wars that were most likely to lead to the downfall of a family, the worst outcome for the nobles was to pay war reparations and then make a comeback somewhere else - such as the former Walton family and the Bartles family who had already fled to the north.
Since they were an isolated group of people who had nothing to do with him, Ross certainly wouldn't waste any energy thinking about them.
It was not until now, after seeing with his own eyes that four or five correctional officers were able to keep more than a hundred female prisoners in check, that Ross belatedly and horrifiedly thought of a horrifying fact:
Even prisoners can be organized and managed so meticulously, then... when the Nightmare Butcher needs to mobilize his subjects to achieve one of his goals, what terrifying potential will the territory he controls unleash?
