Winters was not surprised that the militia took down the gang without any difficulty.
He brought three arrows and nearly forty people. If he still couldn't kill more than twenty bandits, wouldn't he be leading everyone to hunt for nothing?
Angelou accidentally said something right - "It's much easier to fight bandits than to hunt."
For the "fishing and hunting tribe", hunting is equivalent to military training.
Laying out the route, planning the time, and attacking separately are typical military operations.
When Winters migrated with the Red River tribe, he discovered that the Hed people set up and broke out of camp every day during the migration. In fact, it was no different from marching.
Winters led the militia team to hunt the herds of animals several times. On the one hand, they really had no food and needed to participate in production; on the other hand, they also had the intention of training their subordinates.
…
The militia team arrested the gangsters and ransacked their homes.
"A total of twenty-two bandits were captured alive. There were two more who tried to resist, but they were killed." Pierre could not be said to be happy or angry. He said helplessly: "There are a few broken swords and spears, and the food is only Bags of wheat and rye.”
Winters also sighed: "Why are they so poor?"
"If you're not poor, you won't be a robber anymore." Pierre asked in a low voice: "Let him go? Or?"
He made a gesture of wiping his neck.
Winters thought for a while and said, "If we let them go, they will still become bandits."
"Then I'll go and deal with them all." Pierre turned to leave.
"I haven't finished speaking yet! Don't worry." Winters stopped Pierre, and he noticed that the boy's hands were getting darker and darker.
Pierre waited quietly for Winters' order.
Winters was also very troubled: "If we kill them indiscriminately, what will happen to us? These are farmers who are dedicated farmers and they only ran out when they couldn't survive."
"I'll do it, don't worry." Pierre said softly.
"That's not what I meant." Winters patted Pierre's arm: "Single out the habitual criminals and deal with them. Take the others back to Wolf Town."
Pierre's eyes widened: "Are you going to recruit them?"
"Of course not." Winters shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Where can I get so much food? If you really want to collect it, you have to choose the right ones."
"That……"
Winters made up his mind: "Give them something to eat, find something to do for them, let them settle down first, and take it one step at a time. There is not enough food, so we can just find a way to buy it and exchange it. We can hold on until Let’s talk about it after the autumn grain comes down.”
"Then... in what name should we restrain them?" Pierre thought quickly: "If they are not militia."
"What about the labor force prisoners?" Winters asked, "Anyway, they all became bandits and should be hanged according to the law. We don't kill them, but it is reasonable to let them serve in labor force, right? Tell them clearly that they are not serving a lifetime of hard labor. If possible, let them return home."
"I think it's okay." Pierre nodded heavily: "I'll make arrangements."
After saying that, he raised his hand in salute, turned and left.
Winters looked at Pierre's back and didn't know what to think.
Pierre is a good young man, smart, reliable and capable.
Winters could trust Pierre with his life, and Pierre would trust him with his life without hesitation.
But Pierre has changed, he is no longer the carefree little Dussac he once was.
Perhaps the world has changed, and Pierre chose to respond with a cold heart.
Winters has a brother-like affection for Pierre, and he hopes to protect Pierre so that the latter will not go astray.
But he is not sure what the future will be like.
Winters sighed, why did he have the right to worry about Pierre? He himself has changed.
"Working prisoners?" Winters smiled bitterly and shook his head: "This has really become a slave fishing and hunting tribe."
…
Mid July.
sunny.
Outside the village of Senges Valley in Blackwater Town.
A simple two-story round wooden village stood alone at the edge of the forest.
The village is very small, less than twenty meters in diameter.
This wooden village was originally a place for the villagers of the Senges Valley in Blackwater Town to hide from bandits, but instead it was occupied by a group of bandits.
Pierre held up a door panel as a shield and approached the wooden village in three steps and two steps at a time.
"Listen to the bandits inside! Surrender immediately! Otherwise we will set fire to it!"
When Pierre went to convince others, Winters was leading three arrows to build a simple battering ram outside the range of the crossbow.
In just one week, the militia team wiped out several groups of bandits near Wolf Town.
As Winters said, militiamen and bandits were inherently at odds.
The bandits brought harm to the common people, no less than the grain collection team.
In addition to the above-board reasons, Winters also had a more obscure idea: he wanted to get some food from the bandits.
Where can I get enough to eat just by hunting? Moreover, the best parts of the prey are exchanged for grain, and the rest are offal and offal.
No one can resist drinking wild vegetable and large intestine soup every day.
But so far, this plan has come to nothing. Alas, the bandits had no food left.
But the bandits still have to be suppressed, even if there is no reason, and even more so if there is a reason.
The Senges Valley gave Winters a very good reason: two large carts of wheat.
Not barley, not rye, not oats.
It's wheat, the best grain.
The news that the Wolf Town garrison was back spread to nearby villages and towns, and the news that the Wolf Town garrison was leading troops to suppress bandits also spread like wildfire.
The villagers of Senges Valley, who were driven into despair by a group of bandits who committed evil deeds, heard the news and immediately sent for help.
The village chief of Senges Valley rode a donkey and drove a day and a night to Wolf Town to request Winters to enforce the law across the border.
And he promised that Winters could take away everything the bandits owned as trophies.
Except the women—the women of the Vale of St. Guis.
Yes, this gang of gangsters not only robbed food and money, but also harmed women.
A dozen women from the Senges Valley were snatched into the village by bandits, five of whom were not even married, and the youngest was less than fourteen years old.
Needless to say, Winters was angry. When the militiamen heard this kind of thing, they were also itching with hatred.
Winters has to deal with people like this without any reward.
There was no need to boost morale at all, everyone rushed to the Valley of Senges overnight with weapons.
Winters originally wanted to lure out the bandits and ambush them in the wilderness.
But the bandits were very alert. When they discovered that the sentinel had been touched, they immediately retreated into the wooden village.
The battle reached a stalemate for a while.
After a while, Pierre ran back.
"What do you say?" Winters asked.
The militia was extremely lacking in siege capabilities. Winters had no functioning muskets, no cannons, and very little gunpowder.
He did not want to see his soldiers climbing ladders and fighting for their lives to attack the city.
Pierre's face looked a little strange. He licked his lips and said, "The bandit leader made a condition."
"What conditions?"
"He...he wants to challenge you."
…
The bandit leader was a burly man, nearly two meters tall, who looked as ferocious as a bison.
He was wearing plate armor, not an ordinary infantry plate cuirass with a skirt, but a set of officer's three-quarter heavy plate armor.
He didn't know where he got a pair of cavalry leg armor and a boat-shaped helmet.
Although the combination of this armor is a bit nondescript, it can be called luxurious.
Because even his opponent, the young resident officer, didn't have plate armor.
However, the bandit leader is currently lying on the ground with a pig-hunting spear stuck in his face. He should be dead.
The village that was noisy and cheering just now suddenly became silent.
Winters took a deep breath. He had not encountered such a request as a duel before the formation for a long time.
This feeling... is really nostalgic.
"Who else?!" A thunderous voice swept through the forest.
Winters asked again, "Who else?!"
First a small crack was exposed, and then the village door suddenly opened.
…
First control the bandits, then screen them.
Find out the habitual bandits and leave behind those simple farm children and those who have not been infected with the lawless banditry habits.
The Wolf Town militiamen are already familiar with this process.
The village chief of Senges Valley promised two carts of grain, but Winters brought four carts with him - hoping to pack the spoils.
Everyone is doing their job, and Winters doesn't need to intervene.
He stayed next to the body of the bandit leader and inspected the plate armor on the other party's body.
After the inspection, Winters raised his eyebrows slightly: "This is really an officer."
"It should have been stolen or robbed." Ciel whispered.
Pierre came out of the stockade and walked quickly back to Winters.
His lips trembled and he whispered: "You...come and take a look..."
Pierre led Winters into the stockade. In the two-story building of the stockade, Winters saw a dozen women who had been tortured into disgrace.
Some are still alive and some are dead.
The bandits were not raping them, the bandits were killing them.
A very young girl, no older than Ella and Scarlett, sat in the corner of the room, her hands tied to the wheel, her head hung low.
The militiamen covered the girl's naked body, stained with blood and mud, with their clothes; she was gone.
One woman was still alive, and when the militiamen tried to clothe her, she seemed greatly aroused.
She desperately hid back, waving her arms randomly and letting out a blood-curdling scream.
She has gone crazy.
Pride, complacency, the excitement of the duel, the joy of victory... these emotions in Winters disappeared in an instant.
There was only sadness, powerlessness, and anger in his heart, the kind of anger that could burn the world.
The militiamen also stood in silence, clenching their fists and gritting their teeth.
"Bring them here!" Winters breathed heavily and said with difficulty: "Untie her."
The bruised and swollen gangsters were brought to the girl.
Before Winters could speak, a skinny gangster suddenly knelt down and begged loudly for mercy: "Sir! Hammerhead and his associates forced us to do this! If we don't do it, they will kill us! Palin was the one who was Hammerhead killed him! The body was buried in the stockade!"
"Yeah." Winters drew Vashika's saber.
"Really! We were really forced!" The skinny gangster's nose was filled with tears and tears. He threw himself at another gangster with rosacea and shouted: "That's him! That's him! He's Hammerhead's accomplice! And him With him!"
"Yeah." Winters grabbed the rosacea gangster's hair and dragged him to the girl's body like a corpse, making him kneel.
The rosacea gangster was so frightened that he was paralyzed and incontinent. He begged desperately: "Sir! Have mercy on me! Show mercy!"
"Yeah." Winters put the saber on the rosacea gangster's neck.
The militiamen were waiting for that moment.
Winters stopped, let go of the rosacea gangster, and threw the saber back to Vashika.
"Thank you! Thank you, sir!" The rosacea gangster ignored the poop and urine on the ground and kissed Winters' boots with all his strength: "I'll work hard for you! I..."
Winters kicked hard, and the iron plate-nailed toe of his boot shattered the rosacea gangster's jaw.
…
The threshing floor of the Vale of Senges was turned into a makeshift execution ground.
All the villagers came.
Regardless of men or women, everyone has sadness on their face.
Fathers and mothers who lost their daughters cried and cursed, and they longed for justice.
In special times, keep everything simple.
After the accusation and trial, came the execution.
The rosacea gangster was tied to a stone mill.
Winters raised the wheel high and hit the rosacea gangster's left arm hard.
Accompanied by the sound of bones breaking, the rosacea gangster's left arm was bent at an unnatural angle.
Then the right arm, right leg and left leg.
The rosacea gangster was still alive. Charles and Pierre unhooked him from the stone mill and nailed him to the wheel.
An innocent girl once died on this wheel, and now one of her murderers is tied to the same wheel.
Rosacea gangsters are paraded like this until they die.
He will continue to be paraded after death, until vultures and crows eat away his carrion, until only his bones are left.
This is wheel punishment, one of the most severe and cruel punishments.
According to the new land reclamation laws, if a crowd was gathered to block the road and plunder, the first offender would be rounded and the accomplices would be hanged.
After the round of torture came the hanging.
Six habitual criminals were hanged and hanged.
Thirty-three accomplices were flogged.
The militiamen who carried out the execution did not spare any effort. After twenty lashes, some of the accomplices were whipped to death.
For the surviving accomplices, hard labor awaits them.
The public trial and execution came to an end quickly.
When the Langtun Town militia left, the village chief of St. Geese Valley held Winters' hand tightly and burst into tears: "Thank you... thank you..."
It was originally agreed that only two carts of wheat would be given, but the villagers of Senges Valley loaded two more carts of oats and rye, and tried their best to load more, hoping that the militia would take more.
"I..." Winters hesitated. He was emotionally unable to accept the food, but he needed the food.
He grabbed the old village chief's hand and said: "The resident officer of Cellini in Blackwater Town is my good friend. If this happens again in the future, you can come to me. There is no need to give food."
…
Winters made the journey back with a heavy heart.
After reuniting with Pierre and other old men, everything went well for him.
Although life is very difficult, although he is constantly angry with the gangsters every day, Winters lives a happy life.
Spiritual happiness.
Returning to the army made him feel like a fish in water. He naturally no longer suppressed his emotions. He laughed whenever he wanted and got angry whenever he wanted.
While chopping firewood at the Mitchell Manor, he had this thought more than once: "On the hillside in the distance, will the Hurd Cavalry rush out in the next second?"
But once he made up his mind to stay, and after he reestablished the Wolftown Militia, this thought never occurred again.
Winters is not only happy, he even has some pride and self-respect. He is very satisfied with everything he has done.
He is the resident officer of Wolf Town, and he has fulfilled the duties of the resident officer. He is rebuilding Wolf Town bit by bit, and he has protected the peace of Wolf Town-even if it is only temporarily.
"Why do I want to stay here?" he asked himself more than once.
There is only one answer: "I am unhappy, I want to protect something, and I want to change something."
But to what extent and how widespread the changes would be, Winters could not figure out clearly.
Is it possible to change Plato? One person against a country?
"This is too arrogant." Winters thought to himself. He is a spellcaster who advocates rationality, so he set a very small and practical goal: "Maybe just change Wolf Town?"
But his experience in the Valley of St. Guis told Winters bloody: "It's not enough."
Brother Rhett once said, "If you don't plan for the eternity, you can't plan for a moment; if you don't plan for the overall situation, you can't plan for a region."
Wolf Town, not enough.
Winters realized he had to take a longer view.
He is thinking.
